High Plains Blogger

International news

Ukrainian president: real-life hero

March 4, 2022 kanelis2012

I have to join the growing chorus of supporters around the world who are singing the praises of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zellenskyy.

A young man who entered politics after a career as a comic and an actor has emerged as a towering figure of strength in leading his country’s resistance against the Russian aggressors.

Heroes often are the product of the circumstances into which they are thrust. Zellenskyy didn’t ask to become a hero; it just fell on him when the Russian dictator, Vladimir Putin, decided he wanted to take Ukraine back, return it to the fold of the former Evil Empire. Putin acted for reasons that defy reason, logic and all that is rational.

Zellenskyy could have fled his country. He could have led a government in exile. He chose instead to stay and to lead from ground zero in the conflict.

He has risen to an enormous challenge. The Ukraine’s brave leader is made of the sternest stuff imaginable. I am going to pray hard for the president and his countrymen and women.

local news, national news, political news

GOP dynamic is baffling

March 4, 2022 kanelis2012

I am likely to go straight to my grave never being able to comprehend the weird dynamic playing out within the Texas Republican Party in this age of The Donald and The Big Lie.

Let’s ponder for a moment some weird happenings that occurred during this past Tuesday’s March primary election.

The contest for Tarrant County judge featured two candidates, Betsy Price and Tim O’Hare, who fought tooth-and-nail for the party nomination. Sitting on the other side of the Metroplex, Price — the well-respected former Fort Worth mayor — seemed a good bet to prevail. Oh, no!

She got thumped by O’Hare, who accused her of being a “progressive” mayor who favored rules that don’t discriminate against transgender people. O’Hare then pledged to clamp down on all those hot-button issues that raise hackles among far-right conservatives: critical race theory, immigration reform, gay rights.

Then came the race for Congress in the Third House District — where my wife and I reside. Incumbent Republican Van Taylor was targeted by the far-righties within the GOP of being a traitor to the Republican cause. Keith Self, the former Collin County judge, finished second in the primary, but Taylor was set to engage Self in a May runoff … before he ended his re-election effort admitting to an affair with a Plano woman. So now it appears that Self, who believes in The Big Lie, is going to win the election this November and take his nut-job world view to Capitol Hill, where he’ll get join the likes of QAnon queens Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.

The party has become a cult following. It has devolved into a once-great political organization into a cabal of kooks who won’t accept the results of a free, fair and legal presidential election, who hold out the fantasy that The Donald will run again in 2024 and actually win back the White House.

So help me Almighty God in heaven, I cannot think of a more frightening prospect than that.

And yet, we have fully grown human beings believing the sh** that flies out of The Donald’s pie hole and promise to restore some perverted version of “patriotism” to our national government.

What perhaps is most astounding of all is that not every Republican officeholder in America believes this crap, but so damn few of them are willing to speak out, stand up for the truth and call these wackos out for who they are. Who are they? They are dangerous cretins who have no business making laws or collecting taxpayers’ money.

By cracky, they’re in office and seek to cement their vise grip on the American political system by any means necessary. Just think, my family and I have ringside seats from which we are able to watch this nonsense play out.

Good grief!

Righteous among us tumble

My head-shaking just won’t stop in the wake of this week’s stunning announcement regarding a North Texas congressman, a self-proclaimed conservative lawmaker who — I am going to presume — was proud of his “family values.”

Republican Van Taylor ended his re-election campaign Wednesday after disclosing he had an extramarital dalliance with a Plano woman, a so-called “ISIS bride” who once was married to an officer in the Islamic State terrorist organization. Geez, that alone is enough to make me wonder about a lot of other things.

Taylor was heading for a runoff after Tuesday’s GOP primary.

What is so damn disturbing about this — actually one of many things that ought to disturb any of us — is the way Taylor characterized himself as a staunch conservative, someone who stood for strong values. The implication of those values statements is clear, that he is a devoted to his wife and children. Well, the way I see it, one’s devotion must be complete, unequivocal and unconditional.

Taylor has apologized profusely to his family and to his constituents. I am one of the latter and I will accept the apology and I will wish him well as he tries to rebuild his life. Whether he is able to rebuild his family is a matter for them to decide.

My only concern — as a Third Congressional District constituent — is that Taylor stays away from public service. I don’t want him representing my interests at any level of government. You see, I don’t much care for public officials who profess to be of a certain stripe, but who are hiding dark secrets that reveal them to be something quite different.

local news

Idiot doc pops off

My many friends in the Texas Panhandle are represented in Congress by a man I only can describe as an idiot. Yes. His idiocy is on display multiple times daily via his Twitter account.

Here is what Rep. Ronny Jackson of Amarillo said after President Biden delivered his initial State of the Union speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday.

Biden’s “State of Confusion” is EMBARRASSING! He’s SLURRING his words! RT if you miss the days when the White House wasn’t an assisted living facility

This is the moron who offers diagnosis of Joe Biden’s mental acuity from afar.

I now want to remind this doofus — aka Ronny Jackson — of something about President Biden.

Joe Biden suffered from a debilitating stutter when he was a boy. He worked hard to cure himself of the condition. I can tell Jackson — who once served as a presidential physician to Barack Obama and Donald Trump — that one never really exterminates the condition. I speak from experience. I stuttered badly (at times) when I was a boy. I have powered through most of it.

For Ronny Jackson to offer this moronic observation about the president reveals several things about him. One is his ignorance. Another is his lack of compassion. Yet another is his crassness.

Any physician with a hint of ethical understanding never would say such a thing about a fellow human being.

International news, military news

Tragedy playing out in real time

I am sitting in my comfortable North Texas home while consuming the news pouring out of Ukraine and I am astonished at the sight of Russian bombs and rockets blowing civilian structures to smithereens.

Casualty counts? How many civilians are dying? How many of those civilians, moreover, are children?

Does this remind you of World War II? The conflict that leveled cities in Europe and Asia is now being re-played in real time in Ukraine.

Then we have Russian goon/strongman Vladmir Putin orchestrating a frontal assault on a sovereign nation and we learn that the early stages of the invasion are going badly for the Russians. Putin reportedly wanted to storm across the countryside and into the Ukrainian capital city of Kyiv. The convoy of trucks, tanks and assorted big guns is stuck. Meanwhile, Ukrainians are preparing to fight the Russian invaders to the death when they reach Kyiv.

This is a nightmare playing out 24/7 in front of the whole world.

I thought the kind of assault we are witnessing on our TV screens was a relic of the past. Silly me. It’s happening right now and it is a development that is fraught with extreme danger.

Rep. Taylor issues stunning admission … then quits

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/03/02/van-taylor-reelection/

Well … I’ll be deep fried and rolled in oats. I had just urged U.S. Rep. Van Taylor, a Plano Republican, to “get busy” and start working to get his supporters to the polls for a May runoff with former Collin County Judge Keith Self. Then the word came out.

It seems that Taylor had been busier than I ever imagined. He admitted to having an affair with a Plano woman — and then he dropped out of his re-election bid. The withdrawal hands the GOP nomination to Self, who now is slated to be the prohibitive favorite to be elected from Texas’s Third Congressional District.

Oh … boy! What a revelation!

Taylor and a woman called an “ISIS bride,” as she was married to an Islamic State fighter, reportedly had a months-long fling. News of the affair reportedly got into the hands of Suzanne Harp, another GOP candidate for Congress who, I guess, was about to spill the beans.

Taylor issued a statement via e-mail to his supporters, which stated, in part: “About a year ago, I made a horrible mistake that has caused deep hurt and pain among those I love most in this world. I had an affair, it was wrong, and it was the greatest failure of my life. I want to apologize for the pain I have caused with my indiscretion, most of all to my wife Anne and our three daughters.”

Taylor said he has spoken with Self and wished him well as he seeks to win the election to Congress.

I hate to be the predictor of terrible news, but it appears to me — and to anyone with half a brain — that Self is going to be elected in a rejiggered congressional district that is even more GOP-friendly than it was before reapportionment. Self is a member of The Big Lie cabal of cultists who insist that the 2020 election was stolen from The Donald. Self managed to parlay his view into forcing Taylor into a runoff, denying the incumbent the 50% vote he needed to win the nomination outright.

Self now is going to run against Democratic nominee Sandeep Srivistava, who doesn’t have a prayer of defeating Self. Not in this climate. Not in this district.

I don’t know what in the world to say about Van Taylor’s mistake. It likely will doom any thought he might have had about further public service.

There are so many astonishing factors about this development. One of them happens to be this fact: Taylor enjoyed strong endorsements from fervent conservative organizations, such as the National Rifle Association and the Heritage Foundation. Yet he drew the wrath of The Donald’s cultists simply because he voted (a) to certify President Biden’s election in 2020 and (b) to establish a bipartisan independent commission to examine the 1/6 insurrection. Never mind that Taylor then opposed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to appoint a select committee to look at 1/6. He committed — in the eyes of the Trump cultists — a mortal sin by voting to accept Joe Biden’s election and seeking an independent panel to examine the insurrection.

I am stunned to the max.

Get busy, Rep. Taylor

March 2, 2022 kanelis2012

Let’s examine a few numbers from the Third Congressional District race that is heading for a May runoff between incumbent Van Taylor and former Collin County Judge Keith Self.

With 99% percent of the vote tabulated from Tuesday’s Republican primary, Taylor has collected 31,168 votes.

Self has collected 16,959 ballots; third place went to Suzanne Harp, who collected 13,319 votes; fourth place went to Rickey Williams, who has 1,721 ballots; the fifth-place candidate is Jeremy Ivanovskis, with 814 votes. All told, the anti-Taylor vote count totals 32,133 ballots.

OK, they’re still counting ballots at the Collin County Courthouse. I don’t expect the percentages to change dramatically but consider the following.

Taylor needs to gin up a lot of return voters for the runoff, given that taken altogether, the challengers finished with nearly 1,000 more votes combined than Taylor reeled in. I don’t know anything about Williams or Ivanovskis, but I do know that Self and Harp are cut from the same kooky cloth; they are The Donald Cultists. Indeed, Harp calls herself an “America First Republican,” which is code for “I am a Trumpkin.” Moreover, Self has swilled The Big Lie potion about the 2020 election being “stolen” from The Donald.

Do you get my drift here? Self’s voters are highly motivated to turn out in the runoff. Harp’s supporters, I am going to presume, are far more comfortable with Self than with Taylor. They, too, might need little persuading to vote in the runoff.

As for Van Taylor’s bloc of supporters, they well might be a touch more apathetic than those who favor the surviving challenger or at least one of the also-rans in the Tuesday GOP primary.

Thus, the result of the runoff will depend on just two words: voter turnout. My advice to Rep. Taylor? You’d better get busy, young man … and start working the phone lines to those who voted for you in the primary.

Congressman faces runoff … holy crap!

March 2, 2022 kanelis2012

Can it be even remotely possible that the North Texas Republican Party is actually going to fall for the trash being spewed by the far-right wing cabal of kooks who say a staunch GOP member of Congress has “betrayed” the party simply because he favored creation of an independent commission to examine the 1/6 insurrection on the nation’s Capitol?

Oh, and that he believes Joe Biden is the duly elected president of the United States and voted to certify the Electoral College result affirming that fact?

Well, the young man who represents my family and me in Congress is headed to a runoff in May. Van Taylor of Plano will face off against a former three-term Collin County judge, Keith Self. By all rights and whatever is left of political reason, Taylor should have breezed to his party’s nomination in Tuesday’s Republican Party primary. He didn’t make the 50%-plus one vote majority he needed to avoid the runoff. Self, a fellow who contends there was widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election and implies the presidency was stolen from The Donald, now gets a chance to defeat Taylor head to head.

What a freakin’ joke!

Now, I want to be clear. I do not support Van Taylor’s re-election. However, given the choice between Taylor and the wingnut who is challenging him, I would prefer the GOP nominate Taylor for a third term in the House. What frightens me about Self is that he appeals to that fanatic cult that still adheres to The Big Lie about the 2020 election. The cultists are more likely to vote in a runoff than some of the more, um, lackadaisical members of the GOP.

Then there’s the prospect of a loon such as Self being nominated by the GOP and carrying that whack-job message with him into the general election … and winning that race, too!

I will be unable to vote in the runoff, as I voted Tuesday in the Democratic Party primary.

This all puts me in an awkward position. To be crystal clear, my preference would be for Democratic nominee Sandeep Srivastava to be elected to Congress. I just shutter at the prospect of the Democratic nominee having less of a chance against The Donald Cultist than the incumbent, who at times has shown a willingness to reach across the aisle and work with Democrats … which his GOP primary foes have used as a strike against him.

This is a dangerous political moment, my friends.

military news, national news

GOP loon disgraces herself

March 2, 2022 kanelis2012

As much as I had hoped there wouldn’t be a display of disrespect of the president during his State of the Union speech, my hope was dashed about two-thirds of the way through President Biden’s speech to a joint congressional session Tuesday night.

Rep. Lauren Boebert demonstrated the lowest of the low points of where the modern GOP has sunk in recent years.

The president was speaking about his late son’s exposure to dangerous chemicals while serving in the Army during the Iraq War and was about to speculate as to whether Major Beau Biden’s exposure brought on the cancer that killed him; then Boebert — along with her QAnon colleague Marjorie Taylor Greene — decided to yell an epithet from the chamber. Boebert said something about Joe Biden being responsible for the deaths of 13 service personnel during the U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.

That moment surely will go down in infamy. Boebert’s outburst drew boos even from her fellow Republican lawmakers.

She disgraced the office she occupies, disrespected the president and the commander in chief and showed the entire world that she lacks the class, grace and decorum to vote on laws that affect every single American.

I always have believed we are better than to send morons to Congress such as Lauren Boebert. I was wrong. I am not a constituent of hers, given that I do not live in the congressional district she was elected to represent. I am, however, a proud American patriot who obeys the laws on which she votes, which gives me standing to declare that I despise Lauren Boebert and everything she believes.