Monthly Archives: May 2023

national news

Must we be afraid?

Republican politicians and those who follow them have become adept at scaring the bejeebers out of folks.

Yes, the GOP is campaigning on fear. They tell us they fear their political foes are up to no good.

Let’s cite an example or two, or maybe three.

The GOP has told us since time began that Democrats and liberals are going to take away our guns. They want to disarm Americans. They do not subscribe to the Second Amendment’s guarantee that all Americans are entitled to “keep and bear arms.” They want voters to fear the worst on that matter.

Republicans want you to fear Democrats pushing a “woke” agenda that does all sorts of frightening things, such as “indoctrinate” our children into changing their gender, or seeking to convert everyone to becoming gay.

The GOP fears our children being taught about our nation’s history of racism. Republicans deny the existence of racist policies. They don’t want the Civil War taught as a lesson in states seeking to preserve slavery and their willingness to go to war with the U.S. government to keep slaves in bondage.

I hope you understand my point. The GOP has become a party of fear merchants. They are afraid of losing their grip on power and they want voters to join them in fearing the worst among their foes.

It’s frightening.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

New era update

AMARILLO, Texas — The elder of my sons is a giant step closer this afternoon to making a move that is likely to cause him more angst than he might realize at this moment.

He has been a grown man for quite some time now, so I am reluctant to share unsolicited advice with him … or his slightly younger brother. I did so privately today en route back from the landfill to his soon-to-be former house. He took it like the grownup he is, so enough said about that.

I also have told him that I am proud of him and that I welcome this change in his life and in mine as well. We’ll be roommates for a time in Princeton, sharing a house I once shared with my beloved bride, Kathy Anne.

It won’t be the same, for obvious reasons, but I welcome this change for reasons I know everyone who reads this blog and who has followed my journey through the darkness understands.

We have worked hard today. My son enlisted the help of a friend to do some of the heavy lifting. Very soon, he can put this chapter in his own life in his proverbial rearview mirror.

Then all of us — and that includes my younger son’s family — can look forward to new challenges and adventures.

For now, though, I am going to take a nap.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

A new era begins

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AMARILLO, Texas — I have returned to commence the next step in a journey I didn’t expect to take.

It will be a journey tinged with happiness, but also some sadness.

Once I depart this city, I will be able to have both of my sons nearby for the first time in, oh, more than 30 years. My older son is moving from the Panhandle to the Dallas/Fort Worth area, where I now live near where my younger son lives with his wife and daughter.

The sadness comes — as many of you no doubt are aware — because my beloved bride, Kathy Anne, won’t be there to greet us. It’s just the three of us now, my sons and me.

Our older son graduated from high school in 1991 and went to college in Huntsville, about a two-hour drive from Beaumont, where we were living at the time. Our youngers son graduated from HS the following year and moved to Dallas to attend college; our younger son never looked back.

My wife and I moved from Beaumont to Amarillo in early 1995. Our older son graduated from college that year and moved to Amarillo to start his career.

But for all those years, we were separated from our younger son.

That is about to change. My older son had talked out loud for some time about moving from the High Plains to be near family. The loss of my bride to cancer in February accelerated his plans.

I am delighted to have both of my sons, along with my daughter-in-law and granddaughter, close by. I only wish our family was complete. Tragically, that cannot occur.

Meanwhile, my son and I are preparing to help his brother pack up.

A new era is about to begin. Pray for all of us.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Liz Cheney a Democrat? C’mon!

You hear it from time to time, that Liz Cheney is going to become a Democrat after spending a lifetime as a Republican.

All I can say to that is … c’mon, man. It won’t happen. Not ever.

At least that’s my belief.

Cheney is the former Wyoming congresswoman who bolted GOP orthodoxy by being a staunch, vocal and ferocious critic of Donald J. Trump because, in many millions of Americans’ view, he violated his oath of office.

She paid for her rebellion by being ousted from the party and then by losing her 2022 GOP primary election to a Trumpkin.

But … is all of this reason for her to become a Democrat? No. It isn’t.

Cheney has said all along that she remains a pro-gun, pro-life, low-tax, fiscal conservative who believes strongly in the traditional Republican principles that led her to join the party of her father, former U.S. Rep. and ex-Vice President Dick Cheney.

Her only variation from what passes now for Republicanism is that she believes Donald Trump is a menace to the nation and should never, ever return to the White House … especially as president of the United States.

As for the talk about her joining the Democratic Party, it ain’t gonna happen … again, that’s my belief. Still, there is much to admire about a politician who is willing to pay the political price Liz Cheney paid while standing tall for democracy.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Not a ‘liberal’ vendetta

As I listen to congressional Republicans launch their counterattack in defense of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, I am struck by what I am not hearing from them.

I am not hearing GOP lawmakers actually defending Justice Thomas’s receiving of lavish gifts from a Texas billionaire. They aren’t justifying the fact that Thomas has refused to report those gifts to the court.

No. Instead they are questioning the motives of those who are reporting these hideous ethical lapses on the part of Justice Thomas. Sen. Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican, said liberals “hate” Justice Thomas and “will do anything” to undermine him.

Others have echoed the Cruz Missile. The likes of Sen. Josh “Clenched Fist” Hawley, Sen. Lindsey Graham and Sen. Mike Lee all have singled out the so-called “liberal media” for launching what they call a vendetta against the conservative justice.

Thomas has taken vacations aboard Harlan Crow’s luxurious yacht; he has allowed Crow to purchase his mother’s house and let her live in it rent free; he has paid for a grandnephew’s tuition at a high-end private school.

Think about this: What we have is a Supreme Court justice who is on the take.

C’mon, guys! This isn’t a “liberal media” campaign. It is the result of gumshoe reporting that has revealed the sad and maddening lack of ethical standards for the nine men and women who sit on the nation’s highest judicial panel.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Thomas’s ethics getting stickier

Is there no end in sight for the ways that Clarence Thomas can disgrace himself, the high office he occupies and the judicial system over which he presides?

The U.S. Supreme Court associate justice — the longest-tenured member of the nation’s highest court — is now reportedly the recipient of yet another lavish gift from a Texas billionaire who, that’s right, has business before the court.

Dallas financier Harlan Crow has been paying the tuition to a high-priced private school for Justice Thomas’s grandnephew, who he has raised as his son.

Oh, my. The hits just keep coming. Crow has treated Justice and Mrs. Thomas to trips on his private aircraft and yacht in exotic locations around the world. He has purchased a home for Thomas’s mother and allowed her to live in it rent free. Now we hear about the tuition payments for Thomas’s grandnephew.

I want to offer a bouquet of sorts to Justice Thomas, who has helped raise the young man. That’s a noble act and I don’t want to let that go unnoticed. However, such nobility should not be the stuff of potential graft from a rich pal … who befriended the justice only after he joined the Supreme Court in 1991.

What a coincidence, yes?

As we have noted here already, the nation’s highest court demands the courts lower on the judicial pecking order follow strict ethical guidelines. Yet it has none for its own nine members.

Are we left, then, to believe the Supreme Court is self-policing, that its justices are adhering to the letter and the spirit of ethical standards? I guess so … except that they aren’t doing anything of the sort.

What we have instead is a Supreme Court once held in high esteem by the public denigrating itself because some of its members — not just Justice Thomas — are flouting the standards they demand of others within the federal judiciary.

It is hypocritical in the extreme.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

Democracy scores big!

Democracy has taken it on the chin in recent years as elements of our society have sought to overturn legitimate presidential elections through force and intimidation.

Well … today our democratic principles scored a big victory when a criminal trial jury delivered guilty verdicts to four members of a group called the Proud Boys, convicting them of seditious conspiracy.

These dipsh**s now stand to serve many years in prison for their actions on 1/6, which included assaulting law enforcement officers while seeking to storm the Capitol Building as Congress was meeting to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election.

This attack was a direct frontal assault on the very tenet on which our democratic process was founded: the peaceful transfer of power from one presidential administration to another.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Justice Department has scored a major victory for all of us who love this nation and who adhere to the principles on which the founders created it.

What’s more, Garland dropped a bit of a hint of more to come when he declared that his “work continues.”

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

economic news

Word of warning: Don’t default, GOP

The men and women serving in Congress as Republicans seem to have lost their collective minds.

They are threatening to allow the United States — for the first time in its history — to default on its debt obligations. They want to negotiate big spending cuts to, um, reduce the national debt before allowing the debt ceiling to be lifted.

If Congress and the president fail to reach an agreement, well, catastrophe looms. President Biden says he won’t negotiate over the debt ceiling, because it’s an action the government has taken since the founding of the republic.

If we default on our debts, all hell is going to bust loose. All hell, I’m telling ya!

I don’t know about you, but I do not want to see my retirement portfolio flushed away. Yet that is what well could happen if we default on our debts.

I hasten to add that when Republicans served as president, the GOP was OK with raising the ceiling. No problem, man. They locked arms with their Democratic colleagues.

I also want to point out that the latest GOP pol to occupy the White House ran the debt up at a greater pace than any other administration in history. Where was the Republican outrage over that? I know the answer: There was none!

Congressional Republicans need to quit playing games and threatening to bring calamity to hundreds of millions of Americans’ financial well-being.

Time is running out. Raise the damn debt ceiling!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

military news

Ex-SEAL back in the news … good grief!

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Robert J. O’Neill isn’t a household name, although the former Navy SEAL would like to become one … to his everlasting shame.

O’Neill has slammed a fellow sailor who has performed in drag shows for other sailors, drawing criticism from O’Neill.

Now, why is this worth discussing? Because O’Neill is the special operator who took credit for killing Osama bin Laden on the May 1, 2011 raid that took out the al-Qaeda leader and mastermind of the 9/11 terror attack.

What offends me to the core is that O’Neill violated a sacred creed followed by all special operations forces, be they SEALs, Army Green Berets, Army Rangers, Air Force commandos … which is that they take no individual credit for the missions they accomplish.

The SEALs operated as a team while conducting the mission to take out bin Laden. They returned home safely and went about their work preparing for the next mission, whenever they got their orders. O’Neill, though, decided to pop off and say that he alone put a bullet into bin Laden’s skull.

Thus, the oath was broken! The guy disgusts me. As a veteran myself — even one with no special forces experience — I find his self-aggrandizement offensive in the extreme.

My message to the former SEAL: Shut the hell up!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Blogging = journaling

You might already understand — those who have read this blog over time — that I am addicted to posting items on it.

I am in the midst of a lengthy string of consecutive days posting items on High Plains Blogger. It’s up to 585 days in a row. I am not even close to slowing down.

This is my way of suggesting that blog posts are my version of writing in a journal. It’s simple for me to sit down at my laptop sitting on my desk inside my North Texas man cave and pound out thoughts on issues of the day or just hammer out a commentary on this or that matter that interests me.

This is my version of “journaling.” Friends have encouraged me to write a journal while commenting, for example, on my mourning the passing of my dear bride, Kathy Anne. I have declined respectfully, telling them the blog takes the place of a journal. It accomplishes the same thing.

I actually have tried to write a journal. My wife purchased for me a set of notebooks on which I would write a journal during a November 1989 trip I took to Southeast Asia. I lasted only a few days. I couldn’t keep my concentration riveted enough to write down the thoughts in the notebook. I couldn’t even take the time to pen my thoughts as I returned to Marble Mountain, just south of Da Nang, Vietnam … where I served during the Vietnam War.

Had I been able to carry a laptop during that marvelous journey I would have been able to write something akin to a blog as I ventured from Thailand, to Cambodia, to Vietnam.

The blog has served me well at many levels. I want to keep writing it for as long as I am able to string sentences together.

So far … so good.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com