Tag Archives: Joe Biden

local news

CPAC loons stand out

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(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

If only this message could get to a former Texas congressman who retired at the beginning of the year and has been succeeded by a certifiable nut case.

I will post this rebuke anyway in the hope that Mac Thornberry sees what one of his former constituents thinks of the lunatic who took his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Ronny Jackson, a Republican (of course), attended the Conservative Political Action Conference festivities this weekend in Dallas. He then promptly made a case — from my vantage point — for why he should be stripped of his medical license.

The doc decided to offer a “diagnosis” of President Biden that, shall we say, was unflattering in the extreme. He asserted — without ever examining the president — that Joe Biden suffers from cognitive decline; that he has dementia; that he is unfit for office.

Jackson is now the 13th Congressional District representative in Congress. He tweets what he calls his brains out daily. Then he shows up at these right-wing feeding frenzies and says patently untrue things about the commander in chief.

Why mention Mac Thornberry? Well, I know Thornberry pretty well. I covered him while I worked as editorial page editor of the Amarillo Globe-News from 1995 until 2012. He took office the same week I reported for duty in the Panhandle. Not one time did I ever see or hear Thornberry use the kind of incendiary language that pours forth from Ronny Jackson’s pie hole. Did I agree with Thornberry? No. I didn’t. My point is that Thornberry conducted himself with a certain quiet dignity that clearly is missing in the loon who succeeded him.

Ronny Jackson, the former Navy rear admiral, is appealing to the same rabid fanatical base that supports the disgraced 45th POTUS. What’s more, he is offering medical diagnoses without any basis for them. For that reason alone this nut job needs to surrender his medical license.

Mac … are you out there? Speak to us! Tell us that your successor — not the current president — is unfit for his job!

media news, national news

Keep looking forward

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Your humble blogger — that would be me — feels the need to affirm a vow from an earlier post.

It is that I will not become fixated on the blathering, bellowing, bloviating and bombast coming from the mouth of the 45th president of the U.S. of A.

He is going to make a lot of noise for the rest of this year and perhaps even part of next year. He is going to repeat The Big Lie — that the 2020 election was stolen from him — in the hopes of energizing that fanatical and gullible base of dipsh**s who continue to adhere to his irrational rants.

I do not intend to comment on each rant as if he were still the POTUS. He isn’t. I don’t expect him to ascend to the nation’s highest office ever again. Hell, I don’t even expect him to be a serious candidate for the White House.

My only reason for commenting on him today is because the lunatic/imbecile/moron/con man/fraud continues to hold considerable sway among a large minority of American voters. For the life of me I don’t know why or how … but he does.

My intent is to keep looking forward.

I am acutely aware that some critics of this blog are going to suggest that I remain “fixated” on the 45th POTUS’s pronouncements. I will answer them with a plain no … I am not. 

I’ve already declared that I continue to endorse the presidency of Joe Biden. He has restored a sense of dignity and decorum to the high and exalted office he occupies. We are recovering from the pandemic. Our economy is revving up nicely. President Biden is re-establishing our nation’s role as a world leader. We are re-engaging in vital international partnerships that his predecessor stripped away because he wanted to “put America first,” whatever that meant.

This American patriot wants President Biden to succeed. I intend to keep my focus aimed toward the future.

Be advised on one point: I will not remain silent if POTUS 45 gets himself into deep legal trouble or if his machinations gin up the fanatical base to do things that mirror, say, the Jan. 6 insurrection.

My keen interest will lie in where the current U.S. president intends to lead us.

national news

Why support this POTUS?

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(Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

No one has asked for my opinion on this matter, but I feel the need to offer it anyway.

Pollsters overlook our household when asking Americans this question: Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of President Biden?

Here’s my answer in the event someone would ask: I have a highly favorable opinion of the leadership he is providing this country.

Do you want to know why? Here it is.

President Biden has restored dignity, decorum and a sense of normal behavior to the White House. He has signed a number of executive orders that have sought to reverse some bone-headed policies enacted by his predecessor. He has shown an ability to perform a sort of two-track function while working his Republican colleagues in Congress: He talks to ’em, listens to ’em and then if they don’t see things his way, he turns to his more dependable Democratic allies to move legislation forward.

Joe Biden was able to send us payments in a COVID relief package over the objections of his GOP friends in Congress. I appreciated the cash, just as I appreciated what came to us in the final year of POTUS 45’s tenure in office.

What I have learned to appreciate most of all, though, has been the restoration of the presidency as an office with dignity. President Biden vowed to restore our “national soul” when he ran for the office. I am not yet sure whether our soul has been brought back to life as we knew it just yet.

I do know, though, that the president no longer denigrates war heroes. Nor does he stiff our nation’s allies. The president no longer scolds public officials for certain policies while their cities and states are fighting nature’s wrath. The president now is able to step into his role as consoler in chief and he performs that role flawlessly.

Has the 46th president had a hiccup-free entry? Of course not. The crisis on our southern border needs to be called as such and it needs to come from President Biden.

I am willing to give this individual my support because — and this is critical — he is willing to conduct himself with the dignity that his high office demands from him.

That is why I believe we are heading in the right direction under President Biden’s leadership.

medical news

End the vaccine politics

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

My request is simple and straightforward.

Let us end the politicization of the COVID-19 vaccines … shall we?

I am sickened to the core at the yammering of right-wing talking heads/blowhards/gasbags who continue to insist that the government is trying to force us to do something we don’t want to do, such as take the vaccine that protects us against a virus that continues to kill Americans.

For starters, no one is “forcing” anyone to do anything of the sort. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is trying to tell us until they run out of breath that all the available vaccines are safe, they are effective and they will protect us from infection, sickness and death.

And yet we hear from right-wing politicians and their pals in the right-wing media continue to insist that President Biden should “fire Anthony Fauci” because the good doctor — and senior administration pandemic medical and health adviser — is trying to frighten us into taking the vaccine.

Good grief, man!

I interpret Dr. Fauci’s message differently. He seeks to speak to us using common sense. If you have a vaccine that works, and is safe, it makes sense to take it to ward off the effect of a virus that has killed 4 million human beings worldwide and more than 600,000 Americans. Why is that such a frightening concept?

Don’t answer that. I know why. Because it serves as political grist for those who adhere to the misplaced skepticism and deception about the virus expressed by President Biden’s immediate predecessor, the former Moron in Chief.

Joe Biden says the virus “is on the run.” I believe him. However, we are not out of danger. Indeed, the danger is heightened by those who continue to wage a political war in the middle of a fight for our lives against a virus.

International news, military news, national news

Biden keeps key promise

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

One of the few policy notions from the 45th president of the U.S. with which I agreed dealt with pulling out of “endless wars.”

He made the pledge while running for the presidency in 2016. He kept saying he would do so while serving in the office. He didn’t quite deliver on the pledge.

Today, his successor — President Joe Biden — announced that our involvement in the Afghan War ends on Aug. 31. Period. Full stop.

There will be no more U.S. troop presence on the battlefields there, President Biden told us.

And so, our nation’s longest war — which commenced our war against international terrorism — is coming to an end. There will be no victory declaration. Nor will there be, as Biden told us, any helicopters lifting off from rooftops as there was in Vietnam in April 1975.

Biden has pledged to help provide shelter for the Afghans who helped our military effort during the two decades we fought there, although the plan for providing that aid hasn’t yet been fully developed.

I endorse the pullout. The time has come for the Afghans to defend themselves. We have trained an army, provided an air force and are leaving them with resources to fight the Taliban terrorists who do present an existential threat to the government in Kabul.

Our longest war is about to end. It fills me with relief.

local news, medical news, State news

Get vaccinated, Texans!

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This isn’t good news, folks.

Texans like to boast about how our state is No. 1. Well, we are far from No. 1 in the rate of inoculation against that killer virus, the COVID-19 pandemic that’s still killing too many of us.

The Texas Tribune reports that the state has inoculated about 43 percent of its population fully against the virus.

I was struck by the results coming from Amarillo and from Beaumont, two communities where I used to live. Amarillo had been vaccinating at double the state rate. Then the good folks of the Panhandle decided to stop exceeding the state standard. Amarillo’s fully vaccinated rate stands at 30 percent, a good bit below the state inoculation rate.

The Beaumont-Port Arthur metro area fares even worse, with just 28 percent of its residents claiming to be fully vaccinated.

I don’t know about you, but I believe that is disconcerting news to say the least. At worst it is frightening, given the spike in that the “delta variant” now accounts for about 25 percent of the new infections, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/07/06/coronavirus-texas-vaccination-amarillo/

President Biden keeps telling us that it is the “patriotic” thing to do to get vaccinated. The first time I heard him say it, I though the then-new president was overstating the importance. No more, man! I now am on board fully with Joe Biden’s summoning our patriotic spirit in fighting the virus.

I have been using High Plains Blogger to extol the message. And I will continue to speak out on this forum. It’s the best avenue at my disposal to say what I believe needs to be said.

I am able to speak with a clear conscience about vaccination. I am fully vaccinated, as is virtually my entire immediate family. We stand proudly as those who heeded the call to get the vaccine. To be sure, we have paid a hefty price from the pandemic. Two of our immediate family members were hospitalized with symptoms; one of those family members became, in the words of the medical staff tending to her, “seriously ill” from the virus, which means we could have lost her. I thank God Almighty each day that we didn’t.

This is all my way of urging everyone who is eligible to receive the vaccine to get the medication shot into your body. The CDC, the Food and Drug Administration and practically every medical expert on Earth say the vaccines are safe; they are effective; they will protect you and those with whom you come in contact.

As for my former neighbors in far-reaching regions of this vast state who continue to resist the vaccine, they are playing a dangerous game.

Note: A version of this blog was published initially on KETR.org.

national news

POTUS 45 won’t run!

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Allow me to venture way out on a limb that I realize could break and send me tumbling into some form of rhetorical heap … which has happened to me before.

It is that the man who preceded President Biden until January of this year isn’t going to seek the presidency again in 2024.

The one-time Numbskull in Chief is dropping hints that he has made his mind about the 2024 campaign. He told his boy, Fox News blowhard Sean Hannity, that he has made the final call. Then he proceeded to say some things about President Biden that suggest a run for the White House is in the works.

How can I say this? OK, here goes: No one with a criminal indictment hanging over his head — not even this clown — would want to expose himself to the prying eyes of every political foe out there.

The ex-Dipsh** in Chief’s company has been indicted by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office on tax charges. Fifteen of them, to be exact. The Trump Organization’s chief money guy, Allen Wiesellberg, has been accused of bilking the feds out of millions of dollars in income tax revenue.

Do ya think this probe might find its way to the top of the heap? Hmm. I’m betting yes. It will.

Either the ex-POTUS is certifiably insane to believe he won’t suffer several — and likely mortal — economic wounds from this indictment, or he’s going to skate away cleanly.

My ol’ trick knee is throbbing once again. It does this once in a while. The throb is telling me that the DA has the goods on the Old Man.

He will be left to bellow from the peanut gallery, accusing President Biden of being the Son of Satan, the most unpatriotic POTUS in history. This one is great, by the way: He also suggests that Biden wants to take down the Jefferson Memorial and replace it with something honoring civil-rights gadfly Al Sharpton.

This is the blathering of a man who twice lost the actual vote for president, squeaked by in an Electoral College victory the first time and then got smoked by even more votes the second time.

POTUS 45 is nuttier than a pound of pistachios.

medical news

Goal not met; big … deal

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It’s the Fourth of July, everyone, a time for cheering, celebrating and acknowledging the accomplishments of this great nation.

Oh, but one thing we aren’t celebrating: President Biden’s prediction that we would have 70 percent of our population vaccinated fully against the COVID-19 virus.

Hey, we stand at 66-plus percent. That’s not bad. Am I worried that the president’s goal remains unmet? Only if we give up on the battle to get everyone vaccinated while eradicating the killer.

It was an ambitious goal to be sure.

I will compare it instead to where we were a year ago. The nation is faring many times better these days than we were at this time in 2020. The vaccines are being distributed. We have pledged to share much of it with needy nations. Infection rates are down, as are death rates. Yes, we have these troublesome virus variants with which to contend.

President Biden’s goal of 70 percent vaccination is far from a deal breaker. It only should remind us of work that still awaits for us to return to what we like to call “normal” activity.

Joe Biden

Tough to avoid comparison

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Try as mightily as I am trying to avoid making comparisons between presidents of the United States I must admit that the effort is taxing my ability to stave off such temptation.

President Biden has pledged full federal government support for officials digging out from the rubble left by the horrific collapse of the condo tower in south Florida.

That is what presidents do. They toss aside during these times of peril political differences — after all, Florida cast most of its votes in 2020 for Biden’s opponent — and speak with compassion and empathy. They serve an unwritten rule of the presidency, that they should serve as comforter in chief.

Compare that response to the Florida tragedy to what we heard when California erupted in flames a couple of years ago. President Biden’s predecessor castigated California officials for failing to maintain proper forest management and threatened to withhold federal money. Why? Well, to those of us watching from afar it appears that the then-POTUS was angry at California because it cast most of its votes in 2016 for Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Therein lies the difference between a president who understands that he represents the entire nation and one who holds grudges and fails to this very day the ability to demonstrate any of the compassion that his high office requires of him in times of grief.

I welcome this return to the way our presidents are supposed to behave.

national news

POTUS = Consoler in Chief

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It shouldn’t be worthy of a comment here, but given what we have seen for the past four years, well … I’m going to offer a brief observation.

President Biden and his wife, first lady Jill Biden, today performed an unwritten role of being the nation’s first couple. They flew from Washington, D.C., to south Florida. Their duty was to console the loved ones waiting for word on the fate of those still missing in that horrible building collapse in Surfside, Fla.

Biden’s immediate presidential predecessor didn’t see much good to be had in performing that role. He was bad at it. He lacks empathy and compassion. Not so with President and Mrs. Biden.

The people still listed as missing in the debris left by the collapse have loved ones waiting to know their fate. Those loved ones needed a word of warmth from the president and first lady. They got it today.

It won’t produce a tangible result. The presence of the president and first lady only will tell the bereaved loved ones that their head of state stands with them. That’s good enough.