Tag Archives: Joe Biden

medical news

Happy pandemic ‘anniversary’

Gosh, it’s been two years since the global killer virus pandemic arrived in North Texas, which is what the TV news anchors are telling us today.

Do I wish everyone a “happy anniversary”? Nah. I’ll pass on that one.

I will take note of the date the media are marking by stating that it has taken us two full years since the virus struck its first victim in this part of the world to get it under control … at least that is everyone’s hope.

The World Health Organization (which we have since rejoined since Joe Biden became president), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United Nations and a slew of other medical experts are saying the “pandemic” has given way to an “endemic.” I think that is their way of saying that the coronavirus — aka COVID 19 — is here to stay, possibly forever, but that we’re going to have deal with it the way we deal with the flu and other common infectious diseases.

It will be my sincere hope that in the future we can wish ourselves a “happy anniversary” to mark the date that the COVID 19 virus is deemed no longer crucial to the way we conduct our lives.

I’m all for celebrating that day.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

medical news

Let’s end the ‘dementia’ crap!

I am going to take dead aim at those who continue to toss a horrible and offensive epithet at President Biden. It’s the word “dementia” or some derivative of that term.

The term sickens me. It should sicken anyone who has experienced the loss of a loved one to any sort of neurological disorder that results in the loss of cognition. My family and I have suffered such a loss and when I hear dimwits hurl the “dementia” epithet at the president, my blood comes to a full boil.

I hear it from some of my Facebook acquaintances. Those who read this post, therefore, can consider themselves put on notice. If I hear it from them from this moment forward, then I believe I will sever that “relationship” effective immediately.

I also hear it from public officials. The most notable of them happens to be a member of Congress who represents a district where I once lived, in the Texas Panhandle. Republican Ronny Jackson, a one-time physician and naval officer, keeps hurling that term at the president. I don’t know Jackson, but he makes me sick. He sickens me because as a physician, he should know better than to offer some form of “diagnosis” from afar, without any insider knowledge of someone’s health record.

Yes, the president is the oldest man to hold the office. I have noted before on this blog that the president is on top of his game.

I am just fed up to here with an epithet that is cruel beyond measure.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Putin won’t surrender, however …

Let’s not be swept away by reports of how Russian invaders are being “bogged down” in their advance toward key cities in Ukraine as this hideous ground war slogs on.

The Russian army is not about to raise the white flag of surrender, accept terms dictated by Ukraine and then skulk back across the border to the Motherland. However …

This is not to dismiss the tons of good will and support that is falling on the Ukrainians who are fighting for their lives and for the life of their sovereign country. The love is coming from throughout the world.

President Biden is tightening the economic screws on Russia, its oligarchs and certainly on the dictator, Vladimir Putin, who well might have reached a bit beyond his grasp by invading Ukraine in an effort to reel the nation back into what is left of the Russian empire.

Intelligence reports tell us of morale problems among Russian soldiers who marched into Ukraine believing it would be a cakewalk. We hear about Ukrainian forces shooting down Russian aircraft (fixed-wing and helicopters). The ghastliest reports of all tell us of Russian ordnance falling on hospitals, schools, houses of worship, inflicting grievous casualties on helpless civilians, including children.

Vladimir Putin doesn’t strike me as someone who gives a sh** about worldwide public opinion. He damn sure should care, though, about the opinion of Russians who hear the bad news from the media about what is going on in Ukraine.

Will the Russian populace rise up to protest what the strongman is doing? How inept leadership has relegated Russia to third-rate economic power status?

I don’t expect Putin to end the monstrous invasion in the next day or two. The longer this man’s military cluster-hump goes on, though, the worse he looks. As near as I can tell, Putin’s ego cannot tolerate the battering it is taking as the invasion he launched continues to fall short of the expectation he set for it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

economic news, International news

Get set to pay … a lot!

I am swallowing hard as I ponder what I want to say about this, but … here goes. I am ready to pay a lot more for motor fuel if a U.S. ban on Russian oil can bring an end to the war in Ukraine.

President Biden is set to announce a total cutoff of crude oil from Russia. The announcement will come later today, just as the president comes to Fort Worth to talk about veterans’ issues.

Gosh, do you think he’ll field any questions about the Russian oil ban? More to the point, do you think he’ll answer them?

The POTUS has been getting plenty of pressure to “do more” to make the Russians come to what’s left of their senses. The dictator Vladimir Putin has launched a full-scale, unprovoked, bloody and senseless attack on a sovereign nation at Russia’s doorstep. Oil revenue is funding this invasion. The United States happens to be a prime consumer of Russian oil.

President Biden is about to tell the world that the nation he governs is no longer going to purchase that fossil fuel. The consequence undoubtedly will be a continued spike in the price of petroleum products.

I am prepared to pay it if it helps bring an end to the bloodshed.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

War grabs media’s attention

War has this way of grabbing everyone’s attention, even yanking other compelling stories off the front page, pushing them off the air, relegating them to “old news.”

So it is these days with a ground war erupting in Ukraine. Russian armed forces have invaded a neighboring, sovereign nation on the orders of dictator Vladimir Putin. Media around the world are reporting on it to us who want to know how this war will play out.

I am unsure how I feel about our limited attention span. I remain deeply interested in the congressional inquiry into the cause of the 1/6 insurrection. Moreover, I want to know how the House committee is progressing in its search for the truth. It will get there in due course and I plan to be waiting with bated breath when the panel reaches its finish line.

President Biden has an aggressive agenda to help boost our already-recovering economy. It is stalled in the Senate. I want to know whether the president can parlay his extensive legislative experience into working out a compromise that can push the Build Better Back bill — or some facsimile of it — to a fruitful conclusion.

There remains a boatload of issues to be resolved, if only congressional Republicans can find a way to work the Democratic president instead of obstructing him at every turn.

OK, so all of that will still be there once our attention looks elsewhere, once we remove our gaze from Ukraine. I want that moment to arrive sooner rather than later. Not because I lust for a chance to see all those matters resolve … but because I want an end to the bloodshed.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Second gent? Really?

Forgive my nitpicking. I can’t help myself at times, so cut me some slack.

Never before has the spouse of a president or vice president been a man. Until now. Doug Emhoff is married to Vice President Kamala Harris. OK, so why do the media keep referring to Emhoff as the “second gentleman”?

We have a first lady in the person of Jill Biden. Emhoff’s marriage to the vice president, therefore, makes him the “first gentleman.” Isn’t that right?

If women occupied both the presidency and vice presidency and were married to men, then the husband of the VPOTUS would be the second gentleman. Not now. Doug Emhoff, so far, is the only male American to have been thrust into the political limelight by virtue of his marriage to the vice president.

Let’s be more accurate, eh? Or perhaps I just am not understanding something.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news, military news

Warmongers beware!

Our world is full of too many warmongers who either have no appreciation of the brutality of war’s insanity or who — to put it bluntly — just don’t a crap about any of it.

Count me as one who (a) does appreciate the brutality of war and (b) gives a serious crap about its consequences.

Russian troops and tanks are battling with Ukrainian troops and tanks over who should run Ukraine, an independent nation that borders Russia and much of the rest of eastern Europe. I am baffled to the max over criticism from the far right over President Biden’s response to the unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine.

For my money — and this is just me speaking — I believe the president has reacted appropriately. And yet there are those who say we should “do more” to defend Ukraine. That would be what, precisely? Send in the jet fighters? Join in defending a no-fly zone over much of Ukraine, which I should add is an act of war all by itself? Send in the thousands of troops we have deployed to Poland to fight the Russians hand to hand?

The array of economic sanctions this country has imposed on Russia will deliver serious pain to the strongman Vladimir Putin and his oligarch pals and allies. We have essentially choked off Russia from the rest of the Free World’s banking system. Joe Biden has declared there will be no Russian aircraft allowed in U.S. airspace. Our allies in western Europe have shut off the fossil fuel pipeline from Russia; yes, we already are paying the price for that with increasing energy prices.

The Russians have a lot of very deadly weapons in stock. We do, too. We aren’t going to use them on the Russians, nor will they use them on us. The “mutually assured destruction” policy has been dredged up and returned to the top shelf, as it would be pure MADness to start hurling nukes at each other.

The warmongers out there need to take a breather and let these economic sanctions play out. They’re already bringing plenty of pain to Putin and his cabal of thugs.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

military news, national news

GOP loon disgraces herself

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.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Biden nails the SOTU

I will not apologize to anyone about my partisan leaning; I merely will acknowledge what should be clear to anyone who reads this blog, which is that I support President Joe Biden’s agenda as he seeks to bring the nation back from the mess he inherited when he took office in January 2021.

Tonight, Joe Biden declared after ticking off a number of bipartisan agenda items that should receive universal support from Congress, that the “state of our Union is strong” because of Americans who stood against the ravages of deadly illness and are standing tall against the desires of a desperate foreign despot.

President Biden isn’t known as a sparkling orator, but tonight — in my view — he might have reset the office he occupies.

He appealed to Republicans sitting in front of him when he hailed the Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invaders; when he spoke to assuring better help from our government to American veterans; when he declared that our lives will no longer be dictated by our response to a pandemic.

He laid all of this out in an hour-long State of the Union speech and then delivered what I expected would be the punch line, that our Union is “strong.” It remains strong despite our challenges, despite the crises we are battling.

I was delighted that he spoke to our better angels and chose to steer clear of the political divisions of which we all are familiar. No mention of the 1/6 insurrection, no mention of The Big Lie. If I were a GOP congressional leader, I would congratulate and thank the president for staying on the high road. But … that’s just me.

To be clear, it needs to be said that GOP politicians sat on their hands when the president spoke about tax policy, about infrastructure improvement. I guess you can’t win ’em over on everything.

Still, my support for President Biden is stronger than ever tonight after watching him take command of the world stage and deliver in the most forceful language possible a clear warning to the Russian aggressors that they will pay dearly for their act of violence in Europe.

Accordingly, I concur with the president that the “State of our Union is strong.”

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com