Tag Archives: Joe Biden

medical news

Paying folks to protect themselves? Really?

It has come down to this? Holy cow, man!

Texas’s most populous county has been paying residents $100 if they line up to get a shot to protect themselves — and their loved ones — against the COVID-19 virus. Yep, that’s how it’s going down yonder in Harris County.

Never would I have imagined a worldwide health pandemic would devolve into a payment plan to entice those who were reluctant to get vaccinated against a disease that could kill them.

Here is what the Texas Tribune is reporting:

A week after public health officials in Texas’ most populous county started handing out $100 cash cards to locals getting their first COVID-19 shot, the number of daily vaccinations has shot up to six times its previous rate, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said Tuesday.

“We had an inkling that something was going right when I started my announcement [about the incentive] at noon, and by the time I was done, 30 minutes later, there was a line of cars waiting to receive the vaccine,” Hidalgo said. “We haven’t seen those lines for months.”

COVID-19 vaccines increase in Harris County following cash incentive | The Texas Tribune

Wow. You know, this is a consequence of the politicization of a vaccination campaign that never — not ever! — should have devolved into this partisan political game of gotcha!

It’s good, I reckon, that Harris County has enough money to throw around at those willing to receive a life-saving vaccine. I’ll give County Judge Hidalgo credit for taking the lead on this effort.

What’s more, it has produced results, as the Tribune reported, with vaccinations skyrocketing.

It’s just part of what I hope is a trend we will see accelerate as more people realize that the vaccines are effective and, of course, safe. The Food and Drug Administration this week approved the Pfizer vaccine, giving its unqualified go-ahead to anyone who had been  reluctant to get the shot to proceed to their nearest pharmacy or doctor’s office to be inoculated.

President Biden went on TV to declare that era of excuses is over. “Get vaccinated today,” he implored us. Hey, you’re preaching to choir in our house, Mr. President; my bride and I got our shots in February … both of ’em!

Still, I am astounded that some officials are doling out money to lure reluctant folks to do what is right — and what is sane!

— johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Impeachment? Really, guys?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Congressional Republicans are looking for payback.

Given that the guy who ran for president under their party got impeached twice, they want to impeach President Biden if he doesn’t get all Americans and our allies out of Afghanistan, which has been taken over by the notorious Taliban terrorist group.

It’s looking as though the president might be able to head off any idiotic impeachment effort. American airplanes are ferrying Americans and Afghan allies out of Kabul at an accelerating rate.

At last count, more than 40,000 of them have been evacuated.

Sen. Lindsey Graham said Biden will commit a “high crime and misdemeanor” if he leaves any American behind. Rep. Pat Fallon of Sherman, Texas — speaking to a town hall crowd in Rockwall the other day — said all House members should draft impeachment articles if Biden’s evacuation order falls short.

I thought Graham and Biden were pals. Not so with Fallon, a right-wing fire-breather who just joined Congress this year.

The 45th POTUS got impeached for two valid reasons: the first time for soliciting a political favor from a foreign head of state; the second time for inciting the insurrection on 1/6.

Joe Biden does not deserve to be impeached. This is a non-call.

International news

Deadline may be extended

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Biden’s plate of critical decisions is piling up and spilling onto his lap.

Here’s another one that looks more imminent each passing day: The Aug. 31 deadline for pulling out of Afghanistan might be delayed a while longer. Why? Because the president has promised to get every American and Afghan ally who who wants out of the country safe passage to freedom.

My strong hunch is that the project won’t be completed by Aug. 31.

Does that mean our troops who have been sent back to help with the evacuation will remain permanently? Hardly. It means that Joe Biden’s pledge to end our involvement in an Afghan civil war will have be set back until we can get everyone out of there.

Congressional Republicans are threatening impeachment if Biden leaves anyone behind. Frankly, that is the rhetoric of tinhorns. Yes, our withdrawal has gone badly. President Biden is seeking to correct it and we are sending an accelerated number of evacuees out of the country each day.

But the deadline for an end is a week away. Can we finish the job in that short span of time? I doubt it. Keep the troops on call, Mr. President, until the mission is accomplished.

International news

Do we stay or do we go?

1 Comment

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Public opinion polls have had their hands full in the past few days.

They are scurrying around the country asking Americans whether the Afghan War was worth the fight. A significant majority of Americans are telling them “no,” it wasn’t worth it.

And yet …

Congressional Republicans continue to pound President Biden over his decision to bring our troops — all of them — off the battlefield. A consequence has been the Taliban takeover of a country our forces fought to protect against the terrorists’ retaking control of the country.

I want to reiterate a key point. President Biden ended what his immediate predecessor started, which was a negotiated settlement to end our fight. That fact has been lost on GOP critics of Joe Biden, one of them being U.S. Rep. Van Taylor, my congressman, who said this in a statement: “Reminiscent of Saigon, President Biden naively chose to conduct an ill-advised and poorly planned withdrawal from Afghanistan despite warnings from national security experts and continuous violations from the Taliban.”

Huh? Eh? Taylor said Biden should have done “nothing.” His decision to end the fight, Taylor said, leaves “America and Americans worse off for it.” He calls this one of the president’s “reckless decisions.”

Hmm. I will disagree respectfully with the congressman.

Americans didn’t want to keep fighting an unwinnable war. POTUS No. 45 sought to negotiate a deal with the Taliban, remember? Do you also recall how he invited the Taliban to Camp David — on a date commemorating the 9/11 attack on our nation?

I agree that the withdrawal should have been planned better. Then again, there should have been an end-game strategy on the day we launched the Afghan War after 9/11. There wasn’t.

By my way of thinking, “doing nothing” about Afghanistan was not an option. President Biden had two choices: staying or leaving. He made the right call.

local news

Congressman: detestable!

(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This must be said in the clearest terms possible.

I truly detest the nitwit who represents the Texas Panhandle congressional district I called home for more than 23 years.

Ronny Jackson, a Republican carpetbagger, moved into the 13th Congressional District to run for the seat vacated by fellow Republican Mac Thornberry. He won in a walk in 2020.

Since taking office, Jackson has done nothing but shame himself with idiotic, nonsensical and defamatory tweets about President Biden.

He continually accuses Biden of lacking the mental snap to do the job. Jackson keeps yapping about giving the president a cognitive test. He refers in degrading terms to the commander in chief, which is ironic … given that Jackson is a retired Navy rear admiral.

Jackson has become a right-wing fan favorite of those who watch Fox News, the One America Network and other ultra-conservative media outlets. Why? Because he spews the garbage that comes out of their mouths every hour of every single day.

I know I shouldn’t be surprised that the GOP-fervent Texas Panhandle would elect such a clown. I am not. That doesn’t, however, diminish my disappointment that the Panhandle of Texas would elect such an individual to represent their interests on Capitol Hill.

I shake my head constantly at the ramblings, rantings and fire-breathing rhetoric that come from this clown.

If only he hadn’t won by such a significant majority. Were he elected by the hair of his chinny chin, I might be willing to suggest that the Panhandle voters deserve better than what they got.

Sadly, I cannot. They got precisely what they must’ve known they were getting.

military news

What if he had stayed?

4 Comments

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Biden has his hands full trying to fend off Republican critics of his decision to end our military involvement in Afghanistan.

It begs a critical question.

What if Joe Biden had decided once he took office that we needed to stay there? Or had he decided to bring more troops onto the field of battle? And then we would have sustained casualties while the fighting raged on?

Do you suppose that would have made those sitting in the GOP peanut gallery happy? Hah! Not even, man.

They would have accused him of reneging on his predecessor’s pledge to “end the useless war” in Afghanistan.

Yes, we have a mess on our hands. I am going to give President Biden the benefit of the doubt — although it’s not an endless benefit — that he can fix this evacuation crisis.

As for the criticism he is receiving for ending our conflict, he is being damned for doing the right thing.

International news

Historical perspective in order

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

While we waste our breath, our emotional energy and valuable time bashing President Biden over the end of the Afghan War, I want to offer this bit of perspective for y’all to ponder.

Al-Qaeda terrorists attacked us on 9/11. They had safe haven in Afghanistan. The Taliban sheltered them and kept them hidden from view. President Bush then led a united country into war in Afghanistan.

It was a conflict doomed more than likely from the very beginning.

For 20 years we fought the Taliban. Our special forces killed the 9/11 mastermind, Osama bin Laden, who we found hiding in Pakistan. Yet the fight continued. It was going to go on forever had we allowed it to happen.

President Biden said, in effect, “Enough of this!” He ended the war. Just as he said he would do.

Let’s understand that Joe Biden took control of our military as it was drawing down its presence in Afghanistan. He merely finished an unwinnable task begun two decades ago by George W. Bush.

Let’s also be clear. The war did produce some victories for our side. We degraded al-Qaeda, killing many of the organization’s leaders. Our national attention was yanked away from the Afghan fight when we went to war in Iraq for reasons that stand as an example of supreme deception.

The Afghan War had to end. President Biden ended a conflict that President Bush launched.

medical news

Get vaccinated … dammit!

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I am going to implore everyone within shouting distance of this blog to do something that some of you might have been resisting.

You need to get vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus, and against the damn variants that are cropping up.

The Food and Drug Administration has declared that anyone who has been vaccinated fully can get a booster shot eight months after they have received their second vaccine dose. So … my wife and I checked our vaccine cards. We become eligible for the booster in late October; we both got our vaccinations in late February.

We are just two of the 161 million or so Americans who have been vaccinated fully against the virus. Our sons have been vaccinated, as has our daughter-in-law. Our siblings — my sisters and her brothers and their spouses have been vaccinated. Our granddaughter isn’t yet old enough to receive her vaccine; she’ll get one when the FDA gives the go-ahead. Her brothers have been vaccinated, too.

To be sure, we have some knuckleheads in our extended family who have refused to get vaccinated. Most of them are refusing for ridiculous political reasons. A couple of them reportedly have bought into the goofy notions espoused by the QAnon crowd, the stuff about serious body changes if you get a shot … that kind of crap.

I have been a longtime proponent of vaccines. When our sons were young, they got all the vaccines that helped ward off infectious disease. I have little tolerance or patience for those who refuse to get vaccinated. Religious reasons? Sure, I get that. Serious medical concerns and fear of adverse reaction? I understand.

The booster shot is going into this old man’s arm as soon as the calendar allows it. Oh, and I also am going to wear a mask when I am among people I don’t know.

President Biden said several months ago that getting vaccinated is the “patriotic thing to do.” We must do so to protect ourselves and those we love — and even total strangers — against a disease that still is killing too many of us.

International news

Exit strategy anyone?

4 Comments

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The chaos and confusion surrounding our exit from the battlefield in Afghanistan prompts a question or two.

One of them is this: When we decide to go to war, would it serve everyone well if we crafted an exit strategy going in knowing that the end would arrive one day?

I ask the question because of the pounding that President Biden is receiving over his withdrawal of troops and the shoddy lack of preparation for the end game.

I say this trying to spread the responsibility around through three previous presidential administrations, namely the George W. Bush administration, which took us to war in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.

The question keeps rolling around. Why didn’t President Bush’s team come up with an exit strategy from the get-go? Did he not have some wished-for notion that our war against terrorists would find a conclusion? The same thing can be said of Barack Obama and Donald Trump, the two men who followed Bush into the Oval Office. Did either of them foresee an end? If so, why didn’t they develop an exit strategy that our troops could follow?

Now the whole thing has fallen on President Biden’s lap. He did what he had to do, what he pledged to, which was to bring our troops home from the longest war in our nation’s history. Yes, he should have had an evacuation plan on which to draw when he issued the order. He didn’t. Neither did any of the men who preceded him.

So, who deserves the blame? Does it fall entirely on President Biden? No. It’s a shared consequence.

International news

A little more perspective, OK?

1 Comment

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Biden is taking a lot of unjustified heat over his decision to end our military involvement in Afghanistan.

It is coming in the form of criticism over the lack of preparation for evacuating allies and those Afghans who helped us during the 20-year war. The Taliban stormed into Kabul this week and have seized control of a government they once ran with ruthless depravity.

I want to share this brief notion.

Joe Biden was the fourth president of the United States to deal with the Taliban and with a potential end game of the Afghan War. Did he present a coherent, comprehensive exit strategy that included caring for the translators and others who assisted us during the conflict? No.

However, Presidents Bush, Obama and Trump all had their opportunities to craft an end strategy as well. What they did any of them do to care for the men and women who aided us? Did any of those former presidents seek to develop a strategy to use once we declared an end to this war? No! They didn’t.

So as their successor, Joe Biden, struggles with seeking to manage this end game, he is taking heat that isn’t entirely justified. He inherited a mess — one of many — from his immediate predecessor, who let us remember actually sought to negotiate an end to the war with the Taliban. That didn’t go well, either.

Joe Biden declared that the “buck stops” with him. He is now the president and he takes full responsibility for his actions and for all the consequences they bring. He’s a grownup and is more than able to withstand the pounding he is taking.

However, I want to cut the POTUS just a bit of slack. He didn’t create the problem. Indeed, none of the three men who preceded him developed any strategy to deal with the chaos that is unfolding.