Monthly Archives: April 2021

Donald Trump, Joe Biden, media news, medical news, national news

Polling data: What does it say?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Public opinion polling has been vilified over the course of recent election cycles, frankly for reasons that astound me.

Major public opinion polls actually had the 2016 presidential election called correctly when they had Hillary Clinton edging Donald Trump; they didn’t foresee the so-called “inside straight” that propelled Trump into the presidency on the basis of his narrow Electoral College victory.

They also called the 2020 presidential election correctly, giving Joe Biden a victory in both the ballot count and the Electoral College.

Still, the critics keep lambasting those polls.

Here we are today. President Biden pitched a massive COVID-19 relief bill that had significant public support. He got it enacted over the objection of every single Republican member of Congress … in both chambers!

Biden is back at it. He now has an even larger package on the table, a $2.25 trillion infrastructure reform package. The public response? Even greater than it was with the COVID relief package. The congressional Republican reaction? Precisely the same as the GOP resistance to lending a hand to those suffering from the economic wreckage brought by the pandemic.

Who, again, is on the right side?

It is looking to me as though the Republican congressional leadership and rank-and-file are not listening to the individuals they represent. They are ignoring the wishes of those who put them into office. The public favors rebuilding our roads, highways, bridges, ports (sea and air) and in buttressing our Internet broadband capability.

What’s going on here? Is the GOP political class listening exclusively to a narrow portion of its constituency? I am left to wonder if congressional Republicans will pay a political price when the midterm election rolls around next year.

They damn near should pay it!

Public opinion polling isn’t a perfect barometer of the national mood. However, it is far more accurate than its critics are wiling to admit. The GOP needs to pay attention.

national news, Uncategorized

‘Infrastructure’ needs redefining

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Here’s a thought or two about “infrastructure.”

If we’re going to talk about it, let us broaden its scope beyond simply roads, bridges, highways, airports, seaports and rail lines.

Let’s also talk about energy production, not to mention the development of new sources of energy and Internet research to broaden our power infrastructure.

President Biden is trying to sell a $2.2 trillion infrastructure package that he is calling a “jobs bill.” He intends for it to produce millions of jobs over the next several years. Biden calls it a “generational” approach to improving our nation’s infrastructure.

To no one’s surprise, he is getting hammered from both political extremes. Republicans dislike the bill because it raises corporate taxes to help pay for it. Progressive Democrats don’t like it because it doesn’t go far enough; they want to spend even more than what the president is proposing.

Both extremes are all wet. They are mistaken.

Joe Biden says no one who earns less than $400,000 a year will see a tax increase. That doesn’t satisfy the GOP caucus in Congress, which rammed through a huge corporate tax cut during the first year of the Trump administration. What they never tell us is that President Biden’s proposed corporate tax rate — 28 percent — is still less than what it was before the Donald Trump tax cut took effect. Fiddlesticks!

On the other side, the far lefties among the Democrat want to spend $10 trillion. That’s 10 trillion bucks, man! Where in the world are they planning to come up with the revenue to pay for that kind of price tag? If they intend to tax middle-income Americans as well as the richest of us, well, good luck with that one.

I am growing weary of hearing Republicans say that too little of the president’s plan deals with “infrastructure.” I differ with them on that complaint. If you factor in all the jobs created by developing clean energy and, oh yes, broadband Internet capability then the infrastructure package seems about right.

Republicans remain too wedded to an outdated notion of what comprises “infrastructure.” I am willing to redefine the term to fit a growing and changing 21st-century world.

local news, State news

Texas AG just can’t stop demagoguing border issue

(Photo by Erich Schlegel/Getty Images)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Texas’s twice-indicted attorney general has become a major-league demagogue regarding what is happening along our state’s border with Mexico.

Ken Paxton told Fox News today that “open borders” are costing the state billions of bucks each year.

There. It’s plain and simple, according to Paxton.

Ken Paxton: Open borders costing Texas billions of dollars (msn.com)

Except that the Texas AG is lying.

The border is not “open,” as he keeps suggesting to friendly media questioners who don’t have the nerve to question him.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has declared that our southern border is closed. I acknowledge that such a declaration hasn’t stopped the flood of immigrants coming into the country. The difference between the Biden administration and the Trump administration is that President Biden isn’t ordering the youngsters among the migrants to be turned back without their parents.

Many of them are being housed as we sit here in North Texas. Many more are expected.

I also will acknowledge that President Biden has a “crisis” on his hands, even though he refuses to call it such.

But … are the borders “open” in the manner that Ken Paxton and others on the right are suggesting? No. They are not!

As for Paxton, he is still awaiting trial on securities fraud allegations and he still is awaiting the outcome of a federal investigation into whether he took bribes while doing his duty as the state’s top law enforcement official. 

For the Texas AG to deflect attention from his own trouble is, shall we say, yet another disgrace.

State news

Hey, Beto … you gonna run?

Photo by Richard W. Rodriguez/AP/REX/Shutterstock 

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Oh, Beto, Beto, Beto!

The young former West Texas Democratic congressman had to walk back something he said out loud, in public, to a TV reporter.

He said he didn’t plan to run for Texas governor in 2022. Then his office called the Texas Tribune to say … oops! “What I said today is what I’ve been saying for months: I’m not currently considering a run for office,” Beto O’Rourke said in a statement. “I’m focused on what I’m doing now (teaching and organizing.) Nothing’s changed and nothing I said would preclude me from considering a run in the future.”

Don’t you just hate it when politicians say something and then tell you what they meant to say?

According to the Texas Tribune: “I’ve got no plans to run, and I’m very focused on the things that I’m lucky enough to do right now — organizing, registering voters and teaching,” O’Rourke said on NBC DFW’s “Lone Star Politics,” which will air Sunday. “I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing now.”

Beto O’Rourke clarifies running for governor still on the table | The Texas Tribune

Sure. I get it. He is “focused” on whatever he is doing at this moment. None of that precludes him getting focused at the next moment on something else, such as running for governor.

I happen to believe Beto O’Rourke is going to run for governor. I believe he should run. I also believe a Beto win over Gov. Greg Abbott would slam-dunk any chance of Abbott seeking the presidency in 2024.

Those are my hopes. I just want Beto O’Rourke to stop telling us what he means to say.

legal news

Let’s try this type of ‘diversity’

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump was fond of reminding us that “elections have consequences.” Of course, he was right. They do and those consequences often present themselves in the form of judicial nominations.

Joseph Biden also knows that truism and he demonstrated just how consequential his election as president might become for the nation’s judicial system. President Biden rolled out his first list of court nominees and they are a truly diverse bunch.

Biden’s nominees include plenty of women, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, a Muslim, a smattering of men, as well as Anglos of both genders.

Already, one of those nominees, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, is being discussed as a possible nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court in the event a vacancy occurs. Justice Stephen Breyer, appointed to the court in 1997 by President Clinton, is thought to be considering retirement once the court’s term expires later this year.

Biden has pledged to name an African-American woman to the nation’s highest court. Given that he made a similar promise when he named a vice presidential nominee, I am going to take him at his word that he will do what he promised. Judge Jackson fits the description.

However, I want to offer this suggestion for a way to diversify the SCOTUS: Find someone who didn’t earn a law degree from either Harvard or Yale University.

All but one of the justices on the court received their legal degree at one of those schools. Hmm. It makes me wonder whether the rest of the nation’s legal institutions are worth a damn. Well, of course they are! Which is why I would hope President Biden could cast his Supreme Court nomination wide, far beyond those Ivy League enclaves. Judge Brown is a Harvard Law grad. The only non-Ivy Leaguer on the high court is its newest justice, Amy Coney Barrett, who earned her law degree at Notre Dame.

Biden releases first wave of judicial nominees – POLITICO

I once made a similar request of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who was considering an appointment to the Texas Supreme Court. It dawned on me years ago that the Texas high court comprised justices who resided strictly between Interstates 35 and 45. I implored Gov. Perry to look for someone beyond that corridor. As it turned out, a highly qualified appellate judge from Amarillo, Phil Johnson, applied for that vacancy.

What do ya know? Perry appointed Johnson to serve on the court. Either he heard my plea which I made on the editorial page of the Amarillo Globe-News, or he listened to the advice of aides who had been strong-armed by legal eagles in West Texas to select someone from our part of the state.

Whatever. I think President Biden could rethink how he wants to apply diversification to the nation’s legal network by looking for a Supreme Court justice who didn’t earn his or her law degree in the hallowed halls of the Ivy League.

national news

GOP blowhards lead the chorus

(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Gosh, who could have seen this coming? Anyone? Sure!

Three Republicans who are trying to position themselves as their party’s 2024 presidential nominee are leading the opposition chorus to President Biden’s Cabinet appointments.

They are Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Josh Hawley of Missouri. They have voted against every one of Biden’s Cabinet choices, except two. They are seeking to elbow past each other to the front rank of the next presidential primary season.

My particular interest, of course, is in Cruz, the junior senator from the state where I live. I detest his politics, his general demeanor, his loudmouth quality, his blatant self-promotion. He and Hawley stood front and center in challenging the 2020 presidential election results, declaring some unfounded fear of “widespread vote fraud.”

They disgraced themselves and  the offices to which they were elected.

And I cannot neglect to mention Cruz’s laughable attempted vacation Cancun, Mexico, while the state he represented was battling the frigid February snow and ice storm, the one that knocked electricity out for millions of Texans. He high-tailed it back to Texas when his travel plans were revealed.

So, it’s no surprise that these presidential pretenders are leading some sort of amen chorus in opposition to President Biden’s choices to run the executive branch of government.

All of ’em make me want to hurl.

Oh, but in the world is going to happen to these clowns if the former Imbecile in Chief, Donald Trump, decides to run? Stay tuned to see how this clown show plays out.

national news

Matt Gaetz needs a dog

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Someone once said if you want to have a “friend in Washington, get a dog.” My sense today is  that U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican, needs a pooch if he desires to find a friend.

Friends are in short supply for Gaetz as he faces allegations of improper sexual  relations with an underage girl and — this is the worst part by far — whether he engaged in sex trafficking. Then there are reports from his colleagues that Gaetz has been showing ’em nude pics of the women with whom he has taken a tumble.

It really and truly stinks to be Matt Gaetz at this time.

Don’t get me wrong. Gaetz, who has been described as a political troll who is more interested in furthering weird causes than actually legislating, is one of the more detestable individuals serving on Capitol Hill. Media are reporting a decided lack of surprise among his congressional colleagues over what has been alleged.

Yeah, he’s got a few pals. They are fellow Donald Trump acolytes who, like Gaetz, continue to suck up to the ex-president. Gaetz is hoping, it appears likely, that Trump can parlay what little political stroke he has remaining to save this clown.

It’s instructive to me that Gaetz’s congressional communications director has quit, citing “principle” as his reason for resigning. Well, who else is going to abandon this nut job?

Yep, Gaetz needs a pooch.

crime news

Trial has me hooked

1 Comment

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Someone called it the “trial of the century.” I fear it is such only because the 21st century is still in its relatively early stages.

Derek Chauvin is on trial for the death of George Floyd, who Chauvin pinned to the ground by pressing his knee into the back of Floyd’s neck until Floyd stopped breathing. Floyd likely died while lying on the ground after Chauvin and his Minneapolis police colleagues stopped him — get this — for passing a counterfeit $20 bill.

The trial has captured the nation’s attention. It has grabbed us by the throat. It won’t let go until the Hennepin County, Minn., jury delivers its verdict. Chauvin is charged with third-degree murder.

I am sitting out here in the peanut gallery. However, I believe Chauvin deserves to serve time in prison for what looks to me like unreasonable force in restraining a man who wasn’t even resisting. 

How might I react if the jury decides otherwise? Oh, my.  I cannot yet even process that outcome. I won’t go marching on the streets of my community; civil protest is not how I roll. I likely would be angry and I’ll likely have to settle on using this blog as a forum to register my outrage.

I do respect the American jury system of justice. I acknowledge that criminal defendants deserve the best defense they can get. To that extent, Derek Chauvin should not be denied that right as a U.S. citizen.

Still, I haven’t been this transfixed by a criminal trial since, oh, the time O.J. Simpson got away with killing his ex-wife and her friend.

I hope this jury delivers the correct verdict.

local news, Sports news

Baseball is back!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Baseball is back. The fans are back … in the stands where they belong.

At least for now. I am going to hold out a sliver of hope that we don’t see such a recurrence of the coronavirus pandemic that Major League Baseball and its minor league affiliate leagues and teams will be forced to shut down for the second summer in a row.

I say all this with a particular eye cast up yonder to where we once lived, Amarillo, Texas. The fans there are waiting with bated breath

for the start of their Amarillo Sod Poodles’ season opener, which occurs in a few weeks.

The fans there have been patient, as near as I can tell. Their team won the Texas League pennant in 2019 in its first season in existence as the Sod Poodles. Then the pandemic struck. The Texas League morphed into the Central League, which means that once this season gets started the Soddies won’t be defending their pennant, at least not in precise terms.

Hey, that’s OK. If you’re a fan of the Sod Poodles — and I acknowledge that since I no longer live in Amarillo that I only can cheer for ’em from a distance — then all you care about is opening day and the festivity that goes with enjoying a day and/or night at the ballpark.

I wish everyone well, from the Big Leagues on down.

Oh, and be sure to wear your masks while cheering for your favorite teams. Deal? Good!

crime news

Hope for gun reform looks dim and grim

2 Comments

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The twin massacres in Atlanta and Boulder filled me with a fleeting hope that we might be able to get some gun control legislation shoved through Congress.

Then reality set in. That was when I realized that after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School when 20 first- and second-graders along with six teachers were gunned down by the lunatic with an assault rifle wouldn’t spawn some relief, then nothing would.

The Atlanta massacre involved a hate crime against Asian-American women. The Boulder massacre involved a loon who walked into a grocery store and opened fire.

It scares me at this moment to think that even shopping for milk and eggs at a grocery store now has become a hazardous endeavor.

Would those two massacres, along with, say, the Sandy Hook carnage or the tragedy that occurred at the church in Charleston, S.C., bring some relief? One would hope so. One might even believe so.

It didn’t happen. Indeed, after the Sandy Hook shooting, President Obama stood, with tears in his eyes, and implored Congress to act. It refused to stand up to the gun lobby, forcing the president to call it the darkest moment of his time in office.

I will say it repeatedly that I believe there exists a legislative solution that does not endanger the Second Amendment to the Constitution. The task, though, is to find lawmakers with the courage to stand up against the zealots.