national news, political news

Stand tall, Liz Cheney

Liz Cheney has become the living, breathing face and voice of what is wrong with today’s Republican Party, and I want to salute her for the stance she has taken in the ongoing search for a cure to the assault we have witnessed on our democratic process.

Liz Cheney is as conservative a Republican as one can find in the U.S. Congress. She represents a sparsely populated state in the Mountain West, Wyoming, and has voted consistently conservative during the years she has served in the U.S. House of Representatives.

She is no Republican In Name Only. Far from it. She is the antithesis of what I consider to be the current RINOs who populate the once-great political party. She is the real deal.

Her “crime” in the eyes of the Donald Trump cultists is that she has called out the former president for the acts of disloyalty he has displayed. He has violated the oath he took when he became president in 2017. Liz Cheney now serves on the House select committee that seeks to find the truth behind the cause and effect of the 1/6 insurrection that Trump incited with that speech on The Ellipse.

That is a non-starter for the cultists, but for demonstrating that she is loyal to the oath that Trump has betrayed she now has become persona non grata within her party. The Wyoming GOP has censured her. The Republican National Committee has scolded her publicly, along with Rep. Adam Kinzinger, the other Republican serving on the House 1/6 committee.

Liz Cheney has earned this salute only because she is doing the job she swore an oath to do faithfully. In normal times, this loyalty to her oath wouldn’t be such a big deal. These are not normal times. Liz Cheney is performing an act of political courage.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump, national news, political news

How did this guy get elected?

(AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)

As I watch the congressional probe into 1/6 trudge along — hopefully to a constructive conclusion — and then listen to the focus of that probe, the 45th POTUS, I have come to an inescapable finding.

It is that I will go to my grave wondering how in the name of political wisdom did Donald J. Trump ever get elected president of the United States in first place. And how in the name of all that is sane and rational did this guy ever avoid getting tossed out of office on his oversized backside after the House of Reps impeached him twice?

He preaches The Big Lie about the 2020 election. His cult followers cheer him on. Trump teases them with hints about possibly running again in 2024 in an astonishing bid to get elected a second time to an office he had no business at all ever occupying even one time.

I read this idiot’s comments, given that I prefer to read them than listen to the sound of his voice. I then wonder: What the hell is this guy saying?

The list of treachery, transgressions and outright treason are too numerous to check off here. You know what they are, what they entail, and you know of the damage they have done individually and collectively to our cherished system of representative democracy.

Trump’s election in 2016 is a case study of a politician benefiting from astonishing luck. The popular phrase du jour of that election cycle was that Trump managed to draw “an inside straight,” while winning the Electoral College and losing the actual vote by 3 million ballots to Hillary Rodham Clinton. I have read many accounts over the years since that fluke victory that Trump never believed he would win. When he did win, he was caught flat-footed, with no clue on how to form a government, let alone actually know how to govern.

Four years later, he got drummed out of office by a seasoned politician. He never accepted Joe Biden’s victory and skulked out of Washington the day before President Biden’s inaugural.

The 1/6 committee continues to gather information and sworn testimony from those who witnessed the disgraced ex-POTUS on the day of the traitorous riot on 1/6. We’re getting bits of info here and there about revelations on fake electors seeking to overturn the legitimate election results; about Trump sitting in the White House residence cheering on the rioting traitors; about the ex-POTUS considering blanket pardons for all the scoundrels who pooped on Capitol floors while shouting out their desire to find and “hang” VP Mike Pence.

There is much more to chronicle. I’ll leave it to you to piece together all that you have seen and heard from this moron.

I always have expected us to elect the best among us to public office. To think that one of the very worst among us managed to blunder and bumble his way into the White House simply defies my ability to explain it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Land line long gone

Iam going to send out this blog I posted in 2015 in which I declared my intention to keep the land line we had in our home, which when I wrote this piece years ago was in Amarillo, Texas.

We moved from Amarillo to the Dallas ‘burbs. When we moved, we made a huge decision. We decided we would not get a land line in our new digs.

https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/54671298/posts/8473

My bride and I have gone totally cellular. That was a big deal for us at the time. It still kinda is. Why? Because we both came of age when telephone technology was part of the place to where we went at night. At home. It was our connection to the rest of the world. If we wanted to talk to someone, we picked up the old rotary-dial phone and dialed ’em up.

These days, we take that phone with us. So many of us have adopted the mentality that was unheard of a generation or two ago, which is that “I just cannot miss the phone call I am expecting.” We need instant response, instant communication. Hey, what happened to the old answering machine one could plug into the phone plugged into the wall at home?

So, we changed our minds regarding the land line. I’ll be frank: I don’t miss it nearly as much as I feared.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

See ya, Prince Andrew

I always have believed that when two parties settle out of court in a legal dispute in which one party accuses the other of doing something nasty or illegal, that the accused is — in a manner of speaking — acknowledging that he or she has done wrong.

So it is that Prince Andrew, son of Queen Elizabeth II, has agreed to pay a woman a hefty sum of money after she accused him of sexual misconduct with her. According to Reuters: The settlement by the 61-year-old Duke of York includes an undisclosed payment to Virginia Giuffre, a woman who had accused him of sexually abusing her when she was a teenager. The settlement, revealed on Tuesday in a Manhattan court filing, said he had never intended to malign her character.

No way back for Prince Andrew after abuse settlement, royal watchers say (msn.com)

Well, I am going out on a limb here with this observation, but it appears to me that Prince Andrew’s time as a public member of the British royal family has come to a halt. Guiffre accused Andrew of having sex with her as part of some sex orgy orchestrated by Jeffrey Epstein, the hideous sex trafficker.

Her Majesty the Queen already has stripped her son of his military rank and his standing as a spokesman for assorted charitable causes. Why did she do that? My hunch is that QEII believed the accusation leveled against Andrew. So, she acted proactively.

Now comes the settlement. Andrew must not have wanted this matter to go to trial for reasons that seem quite clear: He didn’t want any public testimony that details what he allegedly did to/with this young woman.

He denies ever meeting her. Oh, but wait! There’s that picture of the two of them; in the background is Ghislaine Maxwell, former girlfriend of the late Jeffrey Epstein, who hanged himself in a New York City jail cell in 2019.

Goodbye, Prince Andrew. Your 15 minutes of fame have expired.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, Donald Trump

No one is above the law? We’ll see

It has become cliche to declare that “no one is above the law,” that every American citizen must face the same potential punishment for crimes committed, no matter their standing as public officials or as former public officials.

Well, I think we’ll have to see how that plays out as it involves Donald John Trump.

The ex-president of the United States is facing a boatload of allegations that could be proven true. To be fair, those allegations also could wither and die.

Trump occupies a unique place in our nation’s roster of former elected officials. He’s either revered or reviled. Count me among the latter group of Americans. That is my way of suggesting that I hope the “no one is above the law” cliche plays out properly, that not even Donald Trump could avoid time behind bars if the allegations against prove true.

He faces possible indictment in Georgia for trying to coerce a statewide elections official to “find” enough votes to allow him to win that state’s electoral votes in 2020; he lost the state to Joe Biden. A congressional select committee has summoned dozens of Trump aides to testify before the panel about what Trump did on 1/6 when he incited the traitorous mob to storm Capitol Hill. A New York City district attorney has indicted Trump’s company on allegations of fraud; we will get to see whether the Boss — Trump himself — was a party to allegations of inflating his wealth to obtain loans.

I hasten to add that if your run-of-the-mill rich guy is convicted of any combination of these crimes, he would be fitted with a prison jump suit and sent to the slammer. If Donald Trump gets convicted of any of these allegations, do you believe he will go to jail, or to prison? My heart tells me Trump should be sent to the lockup. My head suggests that Trump — if a jury declares him guilty of any of the crimes for which he could be charged — is going to skate free of any time behind bars.

No one is above the law? We might get to see whether that’s true … or just a tired cliche.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Sports news

Double standard? Looks like it

Sha’Carri Richardson asks a fascinating question about the standards being used by the International Olympic Committee regarding athletes’ use of certain drugs.

Richardson is a world-class sprinter from the Dallas area who prior to the Tokyo Summer Olympics this past year tested positive for marijuana; the IOC banned her from the Games. Richardson was heavily favored to win a medal in Tokyo but was denied the chance.

Kamila Valieva is a Russian skater who the other day tested positive for trimetazidine, a drug that — like THC — is a banned substance. Trimetazidine helps improve heart function and, thus, is considered a “performance enhancing drug.”

Valieva’s punishment? She’ll get to compete for a gold medal at the Beijing Winter Games. The IOC said it will delay a ceremony if Valieva captures a medal until after the matter is examined and investigated thoroughly.

Still, Richardson asked, according to National Public Radio:

“Can we get a solid answer on the difference” between their situations? Richardson asked on Twitter, after mediators ruled that Valieva should be allowed to skate in the women’s individual competition in Beijing.

“The only difference I see is I’m a black young lady,” Richardson said.

“It’s all in the skin,” she added.

Sha’Carri Richardson sees double standard in allowing Kamila Valieva to compete : NPR

Well. It kind of looks that way to me, as well.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

media news

Time of My Life, Part 62: Community knowledge

A primary election is about to occur in Texas and newspapers around the state have concluded interviewing candidates for federal, state and local political offices.

I can recall a time when I did that, too. It was a full-immersion learning experience for me.

We would summon candidates into our editorial board rooms and grill them on issues pertinent to the offices they sought. We would pepper them with questions about their political history, on statements they made out loud and in public. We would inquire about their previous public service experience. We also would ask how that experience came to bear on the office they sought.

Through it all, though, I managed always — without fail! — to learn a little more about the community I served as editor of opinion pages, whether it was in Beaumont at the Enterprise or up yonder in the Texas Panhandle when I worked at the Amarillo Globe-News. Indeed, my learning experience began earlier than that, at the Oregon City Enterprise-Courier, where my journalism career got its start.

Through it all, I always learned something about the community where I worked and which I sought to serve as editor of the newspaper’s opinion pages. Back then, people would turn to the editorial page for a little bit of guidance, for some advice from the newspaper on how to handle pressing community issues. Or they would turn to our pages just to find one more reason to disagree with whatever opinion we sought to foist on our readers.

It was a learning experience to be sure, one that I always anticipated at the front end of the interview process. I always appreciated what I learned at the end of it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

 

International news

Stand-down possible?

The more I think about a notion I floated the other day about the Russia-Ukraine crisis, the less goofy it is sounding to me as I roll it around my noggin.

I tossed the idea out there that President Biden might be inflating the imminent danger of a Russian invasion of Ukraine as a way to boost his sagging public opinion poll numbers. In other words, the door to a diplomatic solution might be closer than we are being led to believe it is.

Now we’re getting reports from Paris, Moscow, Kyiv and Washington that diplomatic pressure is mounting against Russian strongman/goon Vladimir Putin. The pressure is reiterating a message President Biden delivered to him during their hour-long phone conversation over this past weekend, that any attack by Russian armed forces against Ukraine would bring swift and destructive economic actions against the Russians.

Putin just might be listening to what he’s being told and — this is still a stretch, I know — might be willing to flinch at the thought of subjecting his people to untold economic suffering.

Putin is a former spy. He also is now a politician. Putin must know that a politician cannot subject his constituents to avoidable misery.

We have plenty of diplomatic leverage we can use against the Russian thug.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news, political news

Van Taylor a RINO? Wow!

Believe it or not, I am going to come to the defense of U.S. Rep. Van Taylor, a Plano Republican who is running for a third term as my congressman from the Third Congressional District of North Texas.

You see, a far-right wing outfit based in Dublin, Ohio, has targeted Taylor, calling him a RINO, the acronym that stands for Republican In Name Only. This nut job outfit, which calls itself RINOreckoning,org, says Taylor voted with Democrats too many times in his second term.

So, this group of wackos wants Taylor tossed out. RINOreckoning doesn’t recommend a successor; it just calls Taylor a bunch of names and suggests that his bipartisan outreach betrays “real Republicanism.” What utter bullsh**!

I’ll be straight with you: I am not a big Van Taylor fan. I likely will vote for the Democratic challenger this fall. However, one of the few bright spots in Taylor’s still-brief congressional career has been his willingness to reach for Democrats in Congress to work on bipartisan solutions. It has earned him a bit of a positive reputation among many of his colleagues.

There’s one half-truth I want to mention specifically in this anti-RINO screed I saw online. It chastises Taylor for voting in favor of an independent commission proposed by Democratic U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to look into the 1/6 insurrection. The measure never got out of the Senate; it died a quiet death in the other chamber.

What these right-wing fruitcakes don’t dare mention is that Taylor voted against creation of the select committee that Pelosi formed as an alternative to the independent commission. The RINO hunters don’t say a word about that, which of course is understandable as it argues the liars’ half-baked narrative.

Oh, and then there’s this one: It says that Taylor sided with “Liberal Liz Cheney.” Rep. Cheney a liberal? Are they fu**ing serious?

Take a look at the website:

Rino Reckoning

This outfit clearly is aligned with the QAnon wing of the GOP. Its message is as dangerous as, say, the kind of crap that flows from Donald Trump’s pie hole about the “rigged 2020 election” and the “widespread voter fraud” that elected Joe Biden. Spoiler alert: There was no widespread voter fraud, and the 2020 election was the most secure in U.S. political history.

The Dallas Morning News noted this about Taylor in its summary of editorial board recommendations for the upcoming midterm election: Taylor, 49, a businessman and Marine veteran in his second term in Congress, has demonstrated deeply conservative values dating back to his years as a member of the Texas House and Senate. He has a reputation as one of Congress’ most engaged and responsive members to his constituents.

There really is much to admire about Rep. Taylor. He served as a Marine officer in Afghanistan, fighting to protect the free-speech rights of fruitcakes who populate RINOreckoning.org. I likely won’t cast my vote for Congressman Taylor. However, he deserves better than to be mischaracterized in this manner by a dangerous group of right-wing outliers.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

The streak continues

I don’t write often these days about my blog, which I named High Plains Blogger when I set it up more than a decade ago. I’ll take a brief leap into self-congratulations.

My blog is in the midst of another pretty healthy streak. I have gone 141 consecutive days posting items about this and that. It’s mostly political, but I have branched out to talk about sports on occasion, about my retired (or shall I say semi-retired) life and also about my beloved family.

Oh, and then there’s Toby the Puppy, the pooch who makes my wife and me laugh every single day.

A few of my friends have said they “marvel” at the prolific nature of this blog. A couple of them are bloggers themselves. I admire their work, as it is generally a lot more thoughtful than my own submissions. I haven’t told them as much; I will make sure I do so in short order.

But my blog is part of who I am. I have been writing on High Plains Blogger since before I left my daily print journalism career in August 2012.

I will acknowledge that the current streak isn’t as long as a previous streak that got curtailed after more than 350 straight days by a technical glitch. I missed a day — or maybe it was two of them. I’m back at it now.

I intend to keep doing this for as long as I can string sentences together. It is a lead-pipe cinch I won’t run out of topics on which to comment.

Let the topics keep offering themselves to me. I am standing by.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Commentary on politics, current events and life experience