Monthly Archives: July 2021

local news, medical news, State news

Get vaccinated, Texans!

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This isn’t good news, folks.

Texans like to boast about how our state is No. 1. Well, we are far from No. 1 in the rate of inoculation against that killer virus, the COVID-19 pandemic that’s still killing too many of us.

The Texas Tribune reports that the state has inoculated about 43 percent of its population fully against the virus.

I was struck by the results coming from Amarillo and from Beaumont, two communities where I used to live. Amarillo had been vaccinating at double the state rate. Then the good folks of the Panhandle decided to stop exceeding the state standard. Amarillo’s fully vaccinated rate stands at 30 percent, a good bit below the state inoculation rate.

The Beaumont-Port Arthur metro area fares even worse, with just 28 percent of its residents claiming to be fully vaccinated.

I don’t know about you, but I believe that is disconcerting news to say the least. At worst it is frightening, given the spike in that the “delta variant” now accounts for about 25 percent of the new infections, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/07/06/coronavirus-texas-vaccination-amarillo/

President Biden keeps telling us that it is the “patriotic” thing to do to get vaccinated. The first time I heard him say it, I though the then-new president was overstating the importance. No more, man! I now am on board fully with Joe Biden’s summoning our patriotic spirit in fighting the virus.

I have been using High Plains Blogger to extol the message. And I will continue to speak out on this forum. It’s the best avenue at my disposal to say what I believe needs to be said.

I am able to speak with a clear conscience about vaccination. I am fully vaccinated, as is virtually my entire immediate family. We stand proudly as those who heeded the call to get the vaccine. To be sure, we have paid a hefty price from the pandemic. Two of our immediate family members were hospitalized with symptoms; one of those family members became, in the words of the medical staff tending to her, “seriously ill” from the virus, which means we could have lost her. I thank God Almighty each day that we didn’t.

This is all my way of urging everyone who is eligible to receive the vaccine to get the medication shot into your body. The CDC, the Food and Drug Administration and practically every medical expert on Earth say the vaccines are safe; they are effective; they will protect you and those with whom you come in contact.

As for my former neighbors in far-reaching regions of this vast state who continue to resist the vaccine, they are playing a dangerous game.

Note: A version of this blog was published initially on KETR.org.

national news

Ex-POTUS = anti-democracy

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Spoiler alert: I am about to break my vow to ban the name of the 45th president of the United States from this blog; I will mention his name once … that’s it.

Donald J. Trump’s name is going to become synonymous with nefarious and evil efforts to undermine our democratic process.

You see, the 45th president has decided to make the integrity of the 2020 presidential election, which he lost, the primary issue in the 2022 midterm election. He is going to continue fomenting The Big Lie that the election was fraught with widespread vote fraud.

The one-time Liar in Chief wants to be reinstated as POTUS. It won’t happen in a zillion years. President Joe Biden won the election fairly, squarely and legally. Despite the shenanigans being played out in places such as Arizona — where they’re conducting that fake “audit” of returns — President Biden will hold onto the office at least through January 2025.

None of that will stop the ex-Imbecile in Chief from seeking to overturn an election he lost bigly. Biden captured 7 million more votes than his predecessor; Biden’s electoral vote margin mirrored that of his predecessor in 2016.

The disgraceful and treasonous conduct of Biden’s immediate predecessor will inscribe him forever as the individual who could not accept defeat. He could not bring himself to congratulate the winner for defeating him. The ex-POTUS cannot acknowledge that he now owns an epithet he likes to hang on others: loser.

He will seek to harvest the mistrust he has helped sow into the numb noggins of those who follow him. He will use The Big Lie as grist to elect more dipsh**s just like him.

The major casualty in all of this trash-talk is the democratic process itself. The ex-POTUS won’t prevail in his effort to overturn the most secure election in U.S. history. However, I fear for the well-being of the democratic process that is being assaulted day and night incessantly by the one-time Carnival Barker in Chief.

This moron’s name will — and most certainly should — live in infamy.

national news

Waiting for next ‘greatest generation’

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The nation is about to say goodbye to yet another Fourth of July holiday and it gives me pause to reflect on a conversation I had a few days ago with a North Texas gentleman who offered an observation I felt compelled in the moment to challenge.

He told me he was unsure that today’s young people would be able to storm the beaches of Normandy the way they did on June 6, 1944 when Allied forces launched the campaign to liberate Europe from the tyranny that had gripped it tightly.

I begged to differ from my friend’s view. “Oh yes they would,” I told him. I said my only hope that be that there would be no need for them to mobilize and to act the way our parents and grandparents did.

I long have saluted the Greatest Generation, the 16 million Americans who suited up for World War II. Of that total, fewer than 400,000 are still with us. My dad was one of them. So were several of my uncles and my father-in-law. They’re all gone now and I honor their heroic acts damn near daily.

I do not believe,  though, that they will be final generation of Americans to step. Indeed, the 9/11 generation is full of incidents of young men and women signing up for active military duty on the day the terrorists struck us on that horrifying day, much like my own dad did when Pearl Harbor was attacked on Dec. 7, 1941.

The annals of heroism are full of episodes of greatness among the current generation of young Americans who are fighting for their country. They, too, are facing unique obstacles as they battle face to face with enemies of our way of life.

They are the heirs of the Greatest Generation who, I am convinced, are set to forge their own path to greatness. I am proud of them.

State news

Play hardball, Democrats

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

There are times when you have to go for broke if you intend to preserve what you believe are basic democratic tenets.

Texas legislative Democrats walked off the floor of the House of Representatives near the end of the Legislature’s regular session to prevent House Republicans from forcing a vote on restrictions to the state election laws.

Gov. Greg Abbott was so angry he decided to call a special legislative session that begins in a couple of days to enact those changes. The question now for Democrats is this: Do they hang tough or do they buckle? I urge them to maintain their unity in opposing these restrictions.

There needs to be a show of strength among those who say they cherish the right to grant all Americans the ability to vote. They say they favor greater, not lesser, voter participation. The 2020 presidential election produced a significant increase in voter turnout, which brought President Biden closer to carrying the state’s electoral votes than any time since the 1976 election, which Jimmy Carter carried the state en route to his presidential election victory.

GOP lawmakers want to limit early voting opportunities, they seek to ban people from delivering bottles of water to voters waiting in long lines to cast their ballots, and they want to make it easier for judges to overturn election results. And why? Because they have fallen for The Big Lie about “rampant vote fraud” where it doesn’t exist.

Texas Democrats have learned how to play the same game of hardball that Republicans have perfected over many years in Texas.

My advice to Democrats? Stay the course.

national news

POTUS 45 won’t run!

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Allow me to venture way out on a limb that I realize could break and send me tumbling into some form of rhetorical heap … which has happened to me before.

It is that the man who preceded President Biden until January of this year isn’t going to seek the presidency again in 2024.

The one-time Numbskull in Chief is dropping hints that he has made his mind about the 2024 campaign. He told his boy, Fox News blowhard Sean Hannity, that he has made the final call. Then he proceeded to say some things about President Biden that suggest a run for the White House is in the works.

How can I say this? OK, here goes: No one with a criminal indictment hanging over his head — not even this clown — would want to expose himself to the prying eyes of every political foe out there.

The ex-Dipsh** in Chief’s company has been indicted by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office on tax charges. Fifteen of them, to be exact. The Trump Organization’s chief money guy, Allen Wiesellberg, has been accused of bilking the feds out of millions of dollars in income tax revenue.

Do ya think this probe might find its way to the top of the heap? Hmm. I’m betting yes. It will.

Either the ex-POTUS is certifiably insane to believe he won’t suffer several — and likely mortal — economic wounds from this indictment, or he’s going to skate away cleanly.

My ol’ trick knee is throbbing once again. It does this once in a while. The throb is telling me that the DA has the goods on the Old Man.

He will be left to bellow from the peanut gallery, accusing President Biden of being the Son of Satan, the most unpatriotic POTUS in history. This one is great, by the way: He also suggests that Biden wants to take down the Jefferson Memorial and replace it with something honoring civil-rights gadfly Al Sharpton.

This is the blathering of a man who twice lost the actual vote for president, squeaked by in an Electoral College victory the first time and then got smoked by even more votes the second time.

POTUS 45 is nuttier than a pound of pistachios.

State news

West seeks to drag Abbott into the right-wing ditch

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This is just dandy.

A right-wing former one-term Florida congressman is now seeking to become Texas’s next governor by suggesting that the current right-wing governor isn’t right-wing enough.

Spare me the alt-right demagoguery.

Allen West, the former head of the Texas Republican Party, has declared his intention to challenge Gov. Greg Abbott in the GOP primary next spring. What has Abbott done to incur West’s political challenge? I guess he hasn’t yet rounded up and thrown illegal immigrants into jail and tossed the keys into the Gulf of Mexico.

The former president of the U.S.A. has endorsed Abbott already, so West isn’t likely to curry much favor with the bloc of fanatics who hang on POTUS 45’s every idiotic pronouncement.

Allen West announces he’s running against Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in primary | The Texas Tribune

Abbott wants to build a wall along our southern border. He has stuck his thumb in President Biden’s eye practically every chance he gets. Abbott has anticipated this challenge from West, so he’s moving his re-election rhetoric farther to the right-wing fringe all the time. It’s not as if he isn’t adhering to the conservative mantra preached by the likes of Allen West and so many other Texas Republicans.

Allen West is a far-right ideologue. Indeed, the entire Texas GOP playing field is cluttered with others just like him.

West now wants to take his game to the next level. He wants that governor’s office. Ugh!

Don’t get me wrong. I am no fan of Abbott. I am even less of a fan of Allen West, the guy who got drummed out of the Army because he mistreated prisoners of war in Iraq … allegedly.

West is now a Texas GOP fire-breather. This upcoming campaign season will be fun to watch, if I have the stomach for it.

medical news

Goal not met; big … deal

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It’s the Fourth of July, everyone, a time for cheering, celebrating and acknowledging the accomplishments of this great nation.

Oh, but one thing we aren’t celebrating: President Biden’s prediction that we would have 70 percent of our population vaccinated fully against the COVID-19 virus.

Hey, we stand at 66-plus percent. That’s not bad. Am I worried that the president’s goal remains unmet? Only if we give up on the battle to get everyone vaccinated while eradicating the killer.

It was an ambitious goal to be sure.

I will compare it instead to where we were a year ago. The nation is faring many times better these days than we were at this time in 2020. The vaccines are being distributed. We have pledged to share much of it with needy nations. Infection rates are down, as are death rates. Yes, we have these troublesome virus variants with which to contend.

President Biden’s goal of 70 percent vaccination is far from a deal breaker. It only should remind us of work that still awaits for us to return to what we like to call “normal” activity.

national news

Thank you, Mr. POTUS 45

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Dear Mr. POTUS 45 …

Let me stipulate right up front that I am glad you are no longer in office. I cannot even print your name in my blog and I have declared my intention to avoid doing so at all costs. Readers of this blog know to whom I refer when I mention Imbecile in Chief, or Liar in Chief, or Numbskull in Chief.

However, I want to thank you for this single thing, for exposing the fellow morons out there in public life who have sucked up to your ignorance, your naked narcissism and your utter absence of moral compass.

My wife and I had breakfast this morning with an acquaintance of ours in Dripping Springs, Texas. He is a radio personality in the Hill Country and he mentioned how Gov. Greg Abbott “isn’t a nice guy.” What prompted the critique? I suppose it is because Abbott has glommed onto your pronouncements about illegal immigrants, or your phony assertions about how liberals are trying to destroy the country and all it stands for.

It dawned on my wife and me that we owe that critique to you, Mr. POTUS 45. You have revealed Abbott to be a political jerk, just like you are! Oh, there are many others. The governors of Florida, South Dakota, Georgia, Arizona come to mind. Senators and House members scattered throughout Capitol Hill, too. They have bought into your phony vote fraud scheme. They all are adherents of The Big Lie.

Thanks for exposing them to all of us, Mr. POTUS 45.

I cannot believe I am about to say this, but … you have performed a valuable public service. 

local news

Where is the marker?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DRIPPING SPRINGS, Texas — Maybe it’s just me, but I am curious about something every time I drive into this lovely Central Texas community.

It is this: Who are individuals honored by the signs that designate sections of U.S. Highway 290 in their memory?

We see these signs honoring what I presume to be law enforcement officers. They sections of the highway are called “memorial highway,” which tells me that the individuals honored are deceased.

My curiosity, which I have in abundance — given that I spent my career as a newspaper journalist — forces me to ask: Who are these people? What did they do to merit this memorial designation?

One section is named in memory of John Allen McCarty. What did he do to merit this memorial? Did he die while performing a heroic act? I want to know these things … you know?

In North Texas, where we now live, we see a section of U.S. Highway 75 that runs through Collin County named after the late U.S. Rep. Sam Johnson. Hey, I know a little about Rep. Johnson: former congressman and a former Vietnam War prisoner held captive for more than six years in Hanoi; the man was a serious hero who earned the honor.

I am left to ponder whether it is possible to erect a marker near the sign to enable nosey-Ned motorists such as me to stop to read a bit about these individuals?

I once wrote a series of features for an Amarillo TV station about historical markers. One of the sources for that series was a gentleman who worked at the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum. He admitted to me that he stops to read all the historical markers he sees as he travels through Texas, which is saying something because the state contains hundreds of these markers.

I might be inclined to read about the fallen law enforcement officers who are honored in this fashion.

Joe Biden

Tough to avoid comparison

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Try as mightily as I am trying to avoid making comparisons between presidents of the United States I must admit that the effort is taxing my ability to stave off such temptation.

President Biden has pledged full federal government support for officials digging out from the rubble left by the horrific collapse of the condo tower in south Florida.

That is what presidents do. They toss aside during these times of peril political differences — after all, Florida cast most of its votes in 2020 for Biden’s opponent — and speak with compassion and empathy. They serve an unwritten rule of the presidency, that they should serve as comforter in chief.

Compare that response to the Florida tragedy to what we heard when California erupted in flames a couple of years ago. President Biden’s predecessor castigated California officials for failing to maintain proper forest management and threatened to withhold federal money. Why? Well, to those of us watching from afar it appears that the then-POTUS was angry at California because it cast most of its votes in 2016 for Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Therein lies the difference between a president who understands that he represents the entire nation and one who holds grudges and fails to this very day the ability to demonstrate any of the compassion that his high office requires of him in times of grief.

I welcome this return to the way our presidents are supposed to behave.