Monthly Archives: August 2022

national news

Changing tune on panel timetable

Once, not long ago, I was yammering about the length of time the House select committee was taking as it examined the 1/6 insurrection on Capitol Hill.

I am changing my tune. I no longer am as concerned about the time it is taking for the committee to do its job. It has more work to complete. The immediate past president of the U.S. is in trouble — it seems to me. The panel must finish its work completely, assemble its findings and then report to the nation what it has determined.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Merrick Garland keeps reminding us that “no one is above the law” and that he will follow the evidence wherever it leads before deciding on indictments. When someone says that “no one is above the law,” I am going to presume he means, well, “no one.” That includes the former POTUS. Do I have that right? I hope you think so, too.

The finished product of this exhaustive hearing must include remedies for preventing the 1/6 insurrection from recurring.

Now, having said that I am changing my tune about the select committee’s timetable, I am not going to say it should go on forever. Time isn’t exactly in the committee’s corner. The midterm election in November could produce a change of legislative control when the next Congress convenes. The House may shift from Democratic to Republican control. I say “may shift” because that might not be the slam-dunk the GOP had hoped would occur.

With that, it still would be good for the current committee, chaired by Democrat Bennie Thompson, to finish its work prior to the midterm election and certainly before the next Congress takes its oath.

But don’t rush it, ladies and gentlemen?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Good news, sort of, surfaces

There’s a bit of good news to report from the latest round of midterm primary election results, some of which haven’t yet been declared official by various states.

It is that a number of the certifiable nut cases endorsed by Donald J. Trump have either won their Republican primary contests or are leading them with just a smattering of votes left to be counted.

Why is that good news? Why would this blogger see their seeming victories be a sign of better days?

It is because the Trumpkin wing of the GOP has clamped a stranglehold on the party. However, there exists a growing — at least I hope it is growing — pool of voters who have had it up to here with Trump’s constant yammering about The Big Lie.

The former POTUS’s cultists have glommed onto The Big Lie and are suggesting they’re going to get some payback if they manage to win the election this November against whomever they’ll face from the Democratic Party.

Democrats should — if they’re smart and have hired capable campaign staff — be able to paste the nut case label on the foreheads of their Trump cult opponents. That would be my hope.

It continues to astound me that so many Republican voters continue to insist that Trump truly was robbed of his “landslide” victory in the 2020 election by “widespread voter fraud.” The only electoral theft occurring comes from the GOP, led by its titular leader and his effort to overturn the results of the election.

But wait! Attorney General Merrick Garland well could have a whole lot to say about that effort and whether the former president has broken the law in egging on the mob of traitors who stormed the Capitol Building on 1/6.

My view? He damn sure did break the law! He needs to be prosecuted … but that’s just me.

If he is indicted and Merrick Garland can make the indictments stick, then the Trumpkins who have won their primary contests will have reached the end of their political journey.

There’s more good news!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

media news

Media relevance vanishes

3 Comments

A quick return to a community where my wife and I lived for nearly half of our married life together has produced a series of bittersweet memories.

We came back to Amarillo, Texas, for a quick visit with our son and to acquaint our new Ford pickup with our new travel trailer. We didn’t get out too much to mingle with friends, but we see did a number of them at a Rotary Club luncheon.

I must have heard a dozen references to the job I used to do in Amarillo, which was to edit the opinion pages of a once-vibrant newspaper, the Amarillo Globe-News.

That paper, or what’s left of it, has become a non-presence in the community that once relied on it to tell the Texas Panhandle story, the good and the bad, the joys and the sorrows.

“Man, we sure miss you,” came one greeting. “Why don’t you move back?” another friend said. “I once read the newspaper to know about the community, but I can’t find anything in it that tells me what I want or need to know,” yet another friend said.

Hey, I don’t say this to shore up my own ego. I want to relate to you what I sense is missing in a city of 200,000 residents that once turned to its newspaper of record to report on what is happening around the corner, or at city hall, or at the county courthouse.

I went shopping for a copy of the Globe-News. I couldn’t find one anywhere on sale. Surely, they still peddle the newspaper … somewhere! Don’t they?

It’s always good to see good friends and to catch on their lives. The good feelings are diluted by the bitter feeling that boils up when I realize that such a big part of my professional life no longer matters to the people I enjoyed serving.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Kansans send profound message

Dorothy once told Toto that “we aren’t in Kansas anymore.” Indeed, the Kansas that the little girl who sang and danced her way to the Land of Oz knew likely doesn’t exist, either.

Kansas voters this past Tuesday sent the nation a resounding message that they would not accept legislation and court rulings that made abortion illegal. Kansans voting in a statewide referendum rejected a complicated ballot measure that would have endorsed the idea that its legislature can ban abortion.

Not so fast, said the voters of Kansas.

This is the absolute heart of Middle America. For Kansans to reject — in an astoundingly wide margin — a plan to effectively criminal a medical procedure — is stunning in its scope.

It tells me that conservatives in Congress — as well as those on the nation’s highest court — have overplayed their hands.

And they have handed millions of Americans who disagree with their ham-handed approach to legislating morality — not to mention their effort to repeal “settled law — a potent weapon for the upcoming midterm election … and far beyond.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Can’t we do better?

Surely you remember the time when we expected a lot more than usual from those we elect to represent our interests in, say, Congress.

I certainly do remember.

Today, we can scan the political horizon and find any number of nimrods, dipsh**s, fruitcakes and borderline psychos serving a the highest levels of government.

Since the Republican Party supposedly is on the ascent, I feel compelled to single out just a few GOP officeholders to make my point.

Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida is being investigated for having sex with underage girls; Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia says the Constitution doesn’t really separate church and state; Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado has declared that this is a Christian nation; closer to home, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has been under felony indictment on securities fraud charges and is favored to win re-election to a third term as the state’s top law enforcement officer.

I just have to mention, if only briefly, that we elected a president of the United States who admits to sexually assaulting women, who says he’s never sought forgiveness for mistakes he has made, who has admitted to cheating on all three women he has married, who once said he “could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and never lose any voters.”

Politics is supposed to be a noble profession. These days it is being practiced by run-of-the-mill nut jobs.

Scary, man.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Greene rips ‘victory lap’?

Marjorie Taylor Greene just cannot stomach the thought of President Biden taking credit for a mission he ordered that killed the leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

She said it is “absurd” that Biden would take a “victory lap” to announce the killer’s death from a drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Oh … my.

Marjorie Taylor Greene Rips Biden’s ‘Victory Lap’ in al-Zawahiri Killing (msn.com)

What do we think about the QAnon queen of the House — a rookie legislator at that! — spouting off about the president? I don’t think much of anything, other than to spend a minute or two to suggest on this blog that Rep. Greene, a Georgia Republican, is, um, out of her fu**ing mind!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

If only we could silence this liar

My version of a perfect world suggests that a stiff prison sentence, a hefty fine and a label of “serial slanderer” could silence the likes of Alex Jones.

However, we never will reach that level of perfection. Why? Because Jones, who is on trial for defaming the loved ones of the precious children slain in the December 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, has this “free speech” guarantee that will allow him to continue spewing trash.

Judge scolds Alex Jones at Sandy Hook defamation trial: ‘This is not your show’ (msn.com)

Jones, one of the nation’s more notorious conspiracy fruitcakes, has been sued for saying that the Sandy Hook massacre was made up, that the slain victims were actors, that it was all a ploy to gin up support for legislation to ban guns.

Jones, who lives in the Dallas area, has been defending himself in the trial. He tried to apologize to the parents of some of the slain children, but the judge presiding over the trial shut him down.

To be clear, Jones already has been found liable for defamation by one of the parents he defamed. He is trying at this moment to avoid paying a lot of money that he could be ordered to pay.

Don’t misunderstand me on this point: Even though I am a staunch defender of the free-speech clause in the First Amendment, there are times and instances when I wish the courts could order nimrods like Alex Jones to just shut the hell up!

But … they cannot.

Therefore, no matter how this matter ends up, Alex Jones will continue to have his platform, his proverbial bullhorn — and an audience that is too willing, too stupid and too gullible to ignore his idiotic rhetoric.

I tend to ignore everything that flies out of this loudmouth’s pie hole. But I’m just one guy. The nimrods who listen to this guy need to find some religion.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Pelosi riles PRC needlessly

Nancy Pelosi generally has my support in her role as speaker of the House of Representatives and the person who is third in line to the presidency.

However, the California Democrat has stepped in some serious diplomatic dookey by visiting Taiwan during her multi-stop tour of Asia.

Why did the speaker choose to rile the People’s Republic of China by becoming the first speaker to visit Taiwan in a quarter-century? To what end? For what purpose?

Pelosi knows about the “one-China policy” this country has followed since it bestowed diplomatic relations on the PRC back in the late 1970s. When it did that, the United States cut off Taiwan, which prior to that period had been recognized as “China” by this country.

The PRC calls Taiwan a “renegade province” that it intends to return to the fold … one way or another.

I have been to Taiwan five times dating back to 1989. I am going to tell you that it is a vibrant, robust, militarily stout nation. However, it occupies arguably the most complicated diplomatic place on Earth. It has little diplomatic link with the rest of the world, which also operates under the one-China policy.

So, for Speaker Pelosi to in effect bestow some sort of blessing on Taiwan and anger the PRC in the process doesn’t make much sense.

The White House opposed her stopping in Taiwan. However, in our government system, the White House can object all it wants; there’s nothing it can do to stop the leader of a co-equal government branch from visiting the nation if she desires.

From where I sit, Pelosi could have accomplished what she intended to do — which was to affirm our nation’s economic and military support — over the telephone in a private conversation.

Instead, she chose to make a spectacle of herself and likely angered the president of the United States.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Avoid victory declaration

It is tempting to declare victory and call it all good now that the latest international terrorist leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has been blown to smithereens.

Just as it was tempting to do the same when the SEAL team shot Osama bin Laden between the eyes in May 2011, or when commandos took out Islamic State honcho Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2019.

President Biden ordered the drone strike that killed the latest al-Qaeda leader — al-Zawahiri — as he stood on the porch of his house in Kabul, Afghanistan.

But let’s be clear: Many of us warned that there would be other leaders to step forward to succeed bin Laden, al-Baghdadi and now al-Zawahiri.

The war against international terror will be on-going. We must remain alert, vigilant and ready to respond to any threats that present themselves. That is what President Joe Biden pledged we would do when he ended our troop involvement in Afghanistan in 2021.

The “over the horizon” hit on al-Zawahiri demonstrated our nation’s astonishing capability to find and dispatch international terrorists. What’s more, this hit was carried out reportedly with zero collateral casualties. 

These kinds of opportunities don’t present themselves every day. When they do, we must be prepared to take full advantage of them … which is what occurred this past weekend.

The fight must go on.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

U.S. takes out major terrorist

Ayman al-Zawahiri never obtained the same high-profile notoriety as his international terrorist predecessor, Osama bin Laden.

However, as of today, the two terrorists share an important trait. They both are dead! Al-Zawahiri is just as dead as bin Laden.

The news today marks a significant victory for U.S. intelligence officials who located al-Zawahiri in Afghanistan and then launched a drone strike to take the bad guy out.

I want to make an important point that, yes, is going to remind readers of this blog about a pledge that President Biden made a year ago when he announced the sudden withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

He told us that the United States would not relent in its hunt for international terrorists, even as we removed our troops from the battlefield in Afghanistan.

Ayman al-Zawahiri happened to be bin Laden’s successor as the leader of al-Qaeda, the monstrous terrorist organization that carried out the 9/11 attack on our nation and dragged us into a global war against those who would seek to do us harm.

President Barack Obama ordered the SEAL team strike that killed bin Laden in May 2011. It was a huge moment of victory for this nation’s war on terror. Many of us cautioned, though, in real time that someone would emerge to take bin Laden’s place.

That someone proved to be al-Zawahiri.

Now a new president, Joe Biden, gave the OK to launch a drone aircraft into Afghanistan, where it killed al-Zawahiri.

Does this mean the end of al-Qaeda? Hardly. We can expect another hideous animal to take the reins of the terror network.

All of this also illustrates what many of us have said since the immediate aftermath of 9/11, which is that we are likely entering an endless conflict against the forces of evil.

As Politico reports:

“The strike that killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri is a major success of U.S. counter-terrorism efforts. A result of countless hours of intelligence collection over many years,” said Mick Mulroy, a former Pentagon official and retired CIA paramilitary operations officer. “The message for all al-Qaeda and its affiliates should be that the U.S. will never relent in its mission to hold those accountable who would seek to harm the United States and its people.“

I’m all in.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com