national news

Biden lays out curious dilemma

President Biden today laid out a most fascinating aspect of The Big Lie as he marked the first year since the former Liar in Chief incited the riot that sought to overturn our democratic process.

The Big Lie as told and retold by the 45th POTUS is that the 2020 election was “stolen” from him. Why, then, did Republicans do so well down the rest of the ballot in many states? Biden asked, wondering why GOP candidates running for governor and Congress weren’t bitching about “rigged” returns.

He answered his question. It was because the only candidate for public office to question the integrity of the election system was the GOP candidate for POTUS. He lost the election. He won’t accept the result. So, he decided to cast aspersions on the election officials who conducted the most secure election in U.S. history.

Indeed, if there were serious flaws in the integrity of the election, there surely would have been questions asked about all the down-ballot races that were decided by razor-thin margins.

Just to be clear: the contest for president of the United States in 2020 did not fit the category of “narrow victory.”

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

How does POTUS reach the other side?

President Biden today — and I shall borrow a phrase — was “preaching to the choir” when my wife and I tuned in to listen to his speech commemorating the year since 1/6.

We believe what he said about the cause of the riot on Capitol Hill; we endorse the notion that his presidential predecessor is more interested in “power than in principle”; we shudder at the belief that we witnessed a year ago the first direct assault on our democracy by those loyal to the individual who lost a free and fair election.

My question as I watched the president and Vice President Harris speak to us this morning was this: How in name of all that is sacred in our democracy do these officials reach those who need to understand the truth of what they are saying?

Those would be the cultists who continue to believe The Big Lie that the former POTUS keeps alive, that the 2020 election was stolen.

I simply want to highlight briefly something to which Biden alluded during his remarks given in Statuary Hall … that Republicans actually performed well down the ballot in November 2020 and that no one has challenged the results of those returns. Oh, no. Biden reminded us that the only challenge has come from the former president and his cultists regarding the race at the very top of the ballot. How come?

Oh, it’s because the former president lost that one and that his “bruised ego” won’t let him accept that he lost the most secure, most examined election in our nation’s history.

President Biden need not convince those of us who live in this North Texas home. He needs somehow to reach those who continue to believe The Big Lie.

I wish the president all the very best as he embarks on that effort.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Town presents spectacular image

SULPHUR SPRINGS, Texas — I got a major surprise early this afternoon as I arrived in this Hopkins County community on a story assignment for KETR-FM radio.

It was the appearance of what I consider to be one of the most spectacular small-town squares I ever have seen.

Sulphur Springs is a town of about 16,000 or so residents. It is the Hopkins County seat. I visited for a time with County Judge Robert Newsom about the impact that Cooper Lake is having on the county. What we didn’t connect was how the city and the county have combined to create a gleaming downtown district that is utterly brimming with activity, with color and personality.

The highlight of what I saw involved the massive veterans memorial in the middle of the city square.

The city has erected a memorial with specific exhibits remembering and honoring those who served — and died — in battle in virtually all the conflicts of the 20th and 21st centuries. I was drawn — quite naturally — to the Vietnam War segment of the memorial.

Once I took my eyes off the veterans memorial, I scanned the surrounding businesses and was struck by the absence — at least what I could see of it — of any empty store fronts.

Newsom told me about the courthouse, which the county renovated through a historic preservation grant that is a popular method of financing that counties have used for the past two decades or so. I mentioned to him how Randall County in the Panhandle acquired a grant to fix up the exterior of its 1909 courthouse building, but then left the interior of it empty. It is unused. Newsom couldn’t believe it. It’s true, I told him. The exterior looks fantastic and it has drawn many new businesses to the square in downtown Canyon.

Newsom said with emphasis that Hopkins County intended to make full use of its courthouse — which was built in the 1890s — when it was done. “It’s expensive to maintain,” he said, adding that it is worth the expense. Indeed, the Hopkins County Courthouse is a beautiful structure … that fits right in with what Sulphur Springs has done to its downtown district.

Readers of this blog perhaps know of my love for vibrant downtown districts. I have written about it many times here and when I worked for newspapers in Beaumont and Amarillo.

Man, oh man! Sulphur Springs has hit a grand slam home run with its downtown district.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

How much can we take?

How many more lies, more deception, more hypocrisy must we endure before we — as a nation — declare that enough is enough?

The 1/6 House select committee is set to go public with its testimony on the events that led to the riot that sought to overturn our democracy. The panel that comprises seven Democrats and two Republicans has heard from scores of witnesses in private; it has received thousands of pages of documents in private. It is now going to take it all into the open for the entire world to see and hear.

The nation is going to mark the first year of that horrendous event on Thursday. Capitol Police have been alerted to the possibility of violence. Oh, and who might erupt? That would be the followers of Donald Trump, the cultists who stormed the Capitol a year ago.

Where is the former Insurrectionist in Chief? Will he call for calm? Will he beseech his cultists to stand down? Hell no! He’ll be doing whatever he does all day in south Florida.

The lying continues to flow from the mouths of those who insist that Trump won the 2020 election. He didn’t. They say it was stolen from him. It wasn’t. They say that Joe Biden isn’t the duly elected president. He is. They insist they acted on 1/6 out of “love of country.” No, they didn’t; they acted out of hatred for the U.S. Constitution.

How much more of this trash must we endure? I am one American patriot who has heard all I can stomach from these traitors.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, State news

Cruz misfires with impeachment threat

(Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

Ted Cruz has lost his marbles. His butter has slipped off his noodles. He has gone ’round the bend. He is nuttier than a Snickers bar.

The junior U.S. senator from Texas — the guy who once described Donald Trump as a “sniveling coward” but then became Trump’s primo suck-up senator — believes President Biden can be impeached if Republicans take command of the House after the midterm election.

According to the Texas Tribune: “​​Democrats weaponized impeachment,” he said, referring to House Democrats twice voting to impeach former President Donald Trump. “They used it for partisan purposes to go after Trump because they disagreed with him. And one of the real disadvantages of doing that … is the more you weaponize it and turn it into a partisan cudgel, you know, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/01/04/ted-cruz-joe-biden-impeachment/

Wow! I am trying to catch my breath.

The Cruz Missile has misfired — again! Democrats didn’t impeach Trump for “partisan purposes.” They impeached him for trying to persuade a foreign leader to do him a political favor; then the House impeached Trump for inciting the riot on 1/6. The weaponization of the impeachment process occurred on the Republican side of the great congressional divide when all but a dignified handful of GOP House members and senators decided to give Trump a pass when he clearly committed “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

For Cruz to suggest that President Joe Biden faces potential impeachment if the GOP takes command of the House is tantamount to inviting a constitutional crisis where none should exist.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

military news

Special ops forces sworn to secrecy?

Hmm. Let me tell you briefly about a video I just watched: President Obama awarding the Medal of Honor to Navy SEAL Edward Byers for his heroics during the Afghan War.

In the intro to his presentation, Obama recited a creed followed by special operations forces — be they Navy, Army, Marine or Air Force. It declares that the special ops forces seek no recognition for the deeds they perform while defending their country.

I long have admired those individuals who adhere to the ethos that they learn while training to become special combat operators.

Navy Seal Who Rescued Hostages Awarded Medal Of Honor – YouTube

I also was drawn immediately to the nimrod who claims to have been the SEAL who shot Osama bin Laden to death on May 1, 2011, in that daring raid conducted in Abbottabad, Pakistan. I won’t mention the SEAL’s name here, but I do want to reiterate a point I made at the time when he popped off about being the guy who blew bin Laden away.

He violated a sacred code of honor among special operations warriors. He has gone on to a public speaking career, boasting about his exploits as a Navy SEAL and — in his ghastly way — dishonoring the code they all swore to follow for as long as they live. He wrote a book, too, that goes into detail about the raid and what he allegedly did to send bin Laden into the great beyond.

President Obama was absolutely correct to point out the special forces’ ethos and the creed these men all follow. The SEAL braggart, meanwhile, was grotesquely wrong to hold himself up as some sort of singular hero when he was nothing of the sort.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot, national news

Ready for grim remembrance

(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Let’s be clear: Tomorrow will be a day of grim memories; there will be no cause for celebrating an “anniversary” of an event that still roils our political system.

It was a year ago that an angry mob stormed Capitol Hill. You know what happened next, so I won’t belabor the point with this blog post.

What we are learning in the year since has been Donald Trump’s response to it. How he did nothing for 187 minutes after the insurrectionists first breached the Capitol grounds. We also have heard about the multiple takes it took for him to complete a video in which he said he “loved” those “special people” who wanted to “Hang Mike Pence!”

What’s more, we have heard how his oldest children, Ivanka and Don Jr., implored Daddy POTUS to stop the rioters, to call them off, to end the violence. Daddy Donald did nothing. He is, therefore, complicit in the damage brought to the Capitol and to the lives that were harmed — and lost! — in the melee.

This gives us reason to cheer? Hardly! The men and women who stormed the Capitol were not patriots by any measure or any way you can define the term. They were intent on destroying our democratic process. They were traitors to the nation.

So, too, was the lunatic who incited the riot.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, International news

Hey, Andrew … so long!

As a general rule I don’t normally give a rat’s rear end about Britain’s royal family, but this growing awareness of one of the royals’ involvement with a convicted sex predator has me curious and wondering whether he is ever going to redeem what is left of his shattered reputation.

Stand up, Prince Andrew. I am talking about you!

Andrew is a reported friend of Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend of the late predator Jeffrey Epstein. A jury found Maxwell guilty of multiple counts of sex trafficking. Jurors believed the testimony of young women who said that Maxwell conned them into sexual encounters involving Epstein when they were underage girls.

Epstein strung himself up in a New York City jail cell in 2019. Maxwell is about to pay a steep price for her involvement with him; but what about her involvement with Andrew?

Another woman has come forward to allege that she and Andrew had sex multiple times when she, too, was a girl. Andrew denies it. Sort of. He said he didn’t have a “sexual encounter.” Does that deny any form of intimacy? Hmm. Maybe not.

The royal family has pushed Queen’s second-oldest son aside. He is taking no part in any public activities involving the royals. My hunch — and that’s all I have — is that Her Majesty the Queen and those closest to her believe the worst about the heir to the throne.

I get that the world maintains a fascination with the British royal family. Andrew has been in full public view his entire life. Now, though, the world is seeing another side of Prince Andrew’s alleged former life.

It ain’t pretty.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Faith wavers, however …

My faith in this country’s democratic fabric is beginning to stumble, stagger and is wavering in light of what might lie ahead as we slog through the midterm election and then approach the 2024 presidential election.

I keep hearing dire predictions of democratic doom if Donald J. Trump gets nominated by the Republican Party in 2024 and then wins the presidency; FYI, it pains me greatly just typing those words at the front end of this sentence.

I am not going to predict that Trump will be the GOP nominee, let alone be elected POTUS in three years.

You see, I possess a gigantic reservoir of faith in the strength of our governmental system. I will continue to cling tightly to my belief that Americans are smarter than what many of our national pundits are suggesting. The fear is being expressed from the left side of the great divide. Progressives say they are concerned that the coup attempt that failed on 1/6 could be revived if Republicans gain control of Congress after the midterm election; I believe GOP emergence is far more likely than not.

Through it all, though, my sincere hope and belief is that our democracy will find a way to emerge from the smoldering wreckage.

Let’s be clear about a thing or two. We have endured tremendous crises in our history. We fought among ourselves in a Civil War that killed 600,000-plus Americans; we emerged victorious in two bloody worldwide conflicts; we watched a president resign in disgrace just ahead of an impeachment over an extreme abuse of power and constitutional authority; we endured three more presidential impeachments, in 1998, 2020 and 2021.

I agree that the final impeachment was the direct result of a POTUS inciting an insurrection and then doing nothing to call a halt to it as rioters carrying flags with the POTUS’s name stormed the Capitol Building while seeking to halt the certification of the 2020 election results.

And we are still dealing with the fallout of that riot, which has caused those progressive pundits to express fear for the future of our democracy.

I want to stipulate once more than our nation’s founders built a government designed to withstand these challenges. Those men knew what they were doing.

I am going to place my faith in our founders’ wisdom, even as my faith is showing signs of wear and tear.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

No surprise, but this news still hurts

A decent night’s sleep helped clear my head today as I ponder the loss of one my world’s most iconic figures.

Jeane Bartlett fit the role of icon perfectly. It’s not that she sought the role. It just graced her perfectly. She was the human resources director of the Amarillo Globe-News, where I worked for nearly 18 years. She died Monday at the age of 95.

OK, let’s stipulate that no one lives forever. Bartlett forged a long and memorable life in the Texas Panhandle. She was born in Clarendon and in a sense never ventured far from where she entered this world.

She married her beloved husband Harry and together they assumed leadership roles at the newspaper. Harry was production director while Jeane kept everyone in line as HR director. Harry retired not long before I arrived there in early 1995. Jeane stayed until 2001 after working at the Globe-News for 55 years.

I have heard our mutual friends and colleagues refer to Jeane Bartlett as an iconic figure in the Panhandle. She was diminutive, but her stature towered far above her physical frame.

Jeane Bartlett became as well-known to the community as many of our newspaper’s star reporters and editors. Publishers came and went during her time at the G-N, but they all had one thing in common: They depended on Jeane Bartlett for her wisdom and counsel.

I had an issue with an employee who worked in my department. I, too, depended on her wise counsel as we pondered together how to resolve the issue. She was patient with me and was always ready to answer any questions I had as we sought a resolution.

I just recently reached out to Jeane; I sent her a letter. She read it and responded with a hand-written note of her own. She expressed loneliness, given that her husband had died this past March of complications from Alzheimer’s disease. The note saddened me, but it also cheered me up as I examined her penmanship, which still resembled the notes she would leave for employees at the newspaper during all those years.

No one gets out of this world alive. The news that Jeane Bartlett had passed didn’t surprise me. It still hurts … deeply.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Commentary on politics, current events and life experience