Monthly Archives: September 2021

national news

9/11 reminds me why I am glad we left

The commemorations we have witnessed today as the nation marks the 20th year since the 9/11 attacks have taken us — in my mind at least — on a dual-track remembrance.

I am reminded of how unified we were immediately after the attacks. President Bush called us to arms to fight the terrorist network that launched the attack. We stood behind the wartime president … for a time.

Then he took us into Iraq. The Iraq War was launched on false pretenses. We invaded a sovereign nation, removed a hated dictator and then got bogged down in another conflict with no clear motive for engaging the Iraqis in the first place.

We took our eyes off the key enemy: the Afghan terrorists.

President Bush infamously said at one point during his time in office he didn’t think much about Osama bin Laden. His successor, President Obama, made it the nation’s mission to bring justice to the mass murderer. Our special forces did so in May 2011.

Yet the war in Afghanistan dragged on.

And on and on …

Which brings me to the second track. President Biden ended that war. I am more glad today than ever that he acted when he did. It is true the withdrawal could have been executed more cleanly. But our troops are off the battlefield.

We have removed the world of thousands of terrorists. No, they aren’t exterminated. Others have stepped up to replace them. Indeed, the Afghan War had turned into a never-ending struggle against an enemy that cannot possibly be wiped off the face of the planet.

However, we retain — throughout unsurpassed military and intelligence capability — the ability to search out and destroy anyone who intends to do us harm the way Osama bin Laden did on 9/11.

May always remember the attacks of that horrific day. May we also always remain alert to the danger that lurks.

However, let us also avoid the kind of quagmire — and that’s what it became in Afghanistan — that always exacts too heavy a price.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Sports news

Football game = diversion

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I do enjoy the occasional welcome diversion from the issues of the day. One of them came across my sight this afternoon.

The Oregon Ducks played the Ohio State Buckeyes in a college football game in Columbus, Ohio. The Buckeyes were ranked No. 3 in the nation; the Ducks came in as the No. 12-ranked outfit.

The Ducks won the game in the stadium they call “The Shoe.” It was filled with 100,000 or so screaming fans. Dare I say they weren’t wearing masks? Oh, what the hey … I’ll save that one for another time.

I am an Oregon native. I didn’t attend the U of O, but I cheer for them when they show up on national TV. I did so today, alarming Toby the Puppy when it appeared near the end of the game the Ducks would win.

We all need to have our attention yanked away from those things that dominate the TV airwaves, or the printed pages of newspapers, or our computer screens.

My wife and I rolled out early this morning to attend a 9/11 commemoration at a fire station in Princeton, Texas, where we now live. It was a wonderful event. They played “Taps.” They hoisted the flag and then lowered it to half-staff. The deputy fire chief delivered some heartfelt remarks about the heroism we all witnessed 20 years ago today when the terrorists attacked us.

Then we went about our day.

I took some time away from scouring news sites for matters on which to comment. I just cheered for my favorite college football team.

Dang! It was great to see the Oregon Ducks win a huge football game in front of the whole nation.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, national security

Unity: Is it impossible to find?

Political unity shouldn’t be this hard to find; it shouldn’t be this elusive.

It most certainly is, however.

The nation is honoring the sacrifice we endured on 9/11. Part of the honor has been to salute the unity we felt when President Bush called on us to fight the terrorists who hit us hard, who killed all those Americans.

We answered the terrorists with one clear and forceful voice.

That was then. The unity we felt in the moment didn’t last long. Bush eventually decided to expand our war against terror by invading Iraq in March 2003. The president lied to us. He told us the Iraqis had weapons of mass destruction; they didn’t. He also sought to tell us that the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein played a role in the 9/11 attacks; he didn’t.

We’ve been divided ever since.

Two decades later we are now fighting an even more insidious enemy. It’s a pandemic that has killed more than 600,000 Americans, far more than who died in the 9/11 attacks.

President Biden is seeking to unify us against the pandemic. He can’t find the formula. Our divisions have been cast along partisan lines. Democrats push for vaccine and mask mandates; Republicans resist them both. Think of this for a moment. Our entire nation is being struck by a virus, yet the president can’t unify us.

Surely we don’t require an attack from a foreign enemy to bring us together. Or do we?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

We are changed forever

We know where we were and what we were doing when we got the word 20 years ago today … correct?

On that landmark Tuesday morning I was sitting at my desk at work in Amarillo, Texas. A young man with whom I worked on the editorial page of the Globe-News, came to work, stuck his head in the door and said, “Did you hear the news? A plan flew into the World Trade Center.”

That’s about all Dave Henry knew at the moment. I asked him about the weather. It was sunny and clear in New York, Henry said. My first thought was that a moron had flown the plane into the WTC by mistake.

I turned on the mini-TV I kept in my office. The “Today” show came on and a few minutes later, all hell broke loose as the second plane flew into the other WTC tower. We heard later that morning about the Pentagon and then about the crash in Shanksville, Pa.

Terrorists had hijacked four jetliners intending to do serious harm to this nation. They succeeded perhaps beyond the wildest dreams of the mastermind, Osama bin Laden, who would be delivered justice a decade later by special operations forces sent to kill him by President Obama.

I don’t know what lessons we learned from that horrifying event. I can think of only one constructive lesson, which is that terrorism is a threat that cannot be extinguished. It will lurk in the evil souls of individuals for as long as they exist among us. The lesson will be that we must maintain the highest level of alert. Always and forever.

They paid tribute this morning in our North Texas community to the lives lost and the heroism displayed by firefighters, police officers, first responders and those passengers who fought the terrorists before crashing the plan in Pennsylvania.

They lowered the flag to half-staff at the Princeton Fire Department Station No. 3, the newest such station in our city. The ceremony was brief, but poignant. We learned about a firefighter who died in NYC on 9/11, Anthony Rodriguez, whose sister lives in Princeton and that the fire station we visited this morning was built in his memory.

The ceremony was brief. Our hearts will remain broken for as long as we remember the events of that day and the war that followed for two decades after the attack.

Mostly, though, I choose to salute the brave men and women — such as Anthony Rodriguez — who ran into the flames.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Some ex-POTUSes get it; others, well …

A note came from a social media friend, a fellow who happens to be a former judge in the Texas Panhandle.

He writes: Our former presidents have different agendas tomorrow. George W. Bush is giving keynote remarks at Flight 93 National Memorial. Barack Obama will be at the remembrance ceremony at Ground Zero. Donald Trump is giving commentary for a boxing match in Florida. I guess he couldn’t find a way to make money off of it.

I haven’t heard how former President Bill Clinton will commemorate the event. I don’t expect former President Jimmy Carter to venture far, given his increasingly frail health.

But my friend does offer a fascinating critique on how POTUS 45 is spending the day tomorrow to mark the 20th year since the terrorists changed our country forever.

Yep. No doubt about it. POTUS 45 is a miserable piece of sh**.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news, medical news

Medical personnel are heroes as well

(Photo by Gerardo Vieyra/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

A phone call today produced a remarkable statement from one of my North Texas sources, a fellow I have gotten to know well while working as a freelance reporter for the Farmersville Times.

He is recovering from pneumonia induced by the COVID-19 virus.

He is grateful to be alive. Indeed, there was a lilt in his voice I hadn’t heard before today.

My source wanted to make a critical point: He said the medical personnel to tended to him are “among the very best.” They are performing heroic work under trying conditions, he said.

I did not press this fellow about precisely where he had been hospitalized. His feelings, though, about the medical personnel who cared for him could apply all across the spectrum.

My goodness, we hear stories of doctors and nurses stressing out as they care for those cannot touch their loved ones. The coronavirus isolates the sick from the healthy. Those who are hospitalized by the COVID virus become the exclusive charges of the medical professionals who care for them.

So, these folks step up. They become “surrogate loved ones” for those who depend on them to bring them back to good health or to save their lives.

As my friend noted as well, they are answering the call to do what they can under the most trying circumstances one can imagine.

“They need to know how much we care about them,” my friend said. I assured him that I would use this blog as a forum to do that very thing.

So … that is what I am doing here.

These men and women have earned our eternal gratitude for the work they are doing. They save lives every day. How much more heroic than that can it get?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

medical news

GOP resists POTUS’s effort to keep us safe? Really?

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Did anyone out there ever believe we would see politicians rise up against a presidential decree that seeks to keep all Americans safe from a killer pandemic virus?

If you did, then you are the smartest individuals in all of human history.

I never saw it. Then again, I can be a dim bulb at times … but that’s not the point.

President Biden has issued a stern executive order aimed at private businesses and all federal employees. He insists that employees and federal workers get vaccinated. No debate on it, he said. Companies that do business with the feds must ensure their employees are vaccinated, the president said.

This is a comprehensive effort by our head of state that we no longer will tolerate a pandemic that is caused by those who are unvaccinated against the COVID-19 virus. The overwhelming majority of those who are being hospitalized in this moment are those who haven’t been inoculated against the virus. President Biden said “enough is enough,” or words to that effect.

Now, though, we hear from Republican governors vowing to fight like hell against any effort from the president to do the right thing, which aims to protect all Americans against potential death.

Why are these governors resisting? Oh, I almost forgot. They adhere to the weird whims of the 45th POTUS, the moron who sold us all out by downplaying the severity of the pandemic when it first started killing Americans in late 2019.

Man, oh man. We live in the strangest political climate I ever have seen. It’s weirder than the late 1960s and the Vietnam War protests; or the mid-1970s and the Watergate scandal.

Not only has the former POTUS fomented the Big (damn) Lie about phony vote fraud in the 2020 presidential election. He has persuaded GOP governors that it’s all right to issue orders that result in the sickening and the death of Americans.

Now these nitwits are challenging President Biden’s effort to rid us of this pandemic.

Astonishing.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

No truer words, Gov. Christie

“No man, no woman, no matter what office they’ve held or wealth they’ve acquired, are worthy of blind faith or obedience.”

Do you know who said that? If not, I’ll tell you.

Those words come from former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a one-time foe of the 45th president of the United States, who became an ally of his during  his term in office, and who now seems to be reverting to his former truth-telling self.

Christie spoke Thursday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, site of a symposium on the future of the Republican Party.

Of course he is right about blind fealty to an individual. No political organization can survive if it attaches itself to the whims and wishes of one person, which the GOP has done as it gloms onto the dictates of the twice-impeached former POTUS.

Sadly, given the climate in which we now are living, the Kool-Aid swilling cabal of loyalists are winning the argument within the once-great Republican Party.

Christie also said this at the Reagan Library: “Pretending we won when we lost is a waste of time, and energy and credibility.” Ah, yes. Credibility. That’s the biggest and most important “waste” cited by the former New Jersey governor.

Christie Decries Focus on Lying, Conspiracies in Stinging Rebuke of GOP (msn.com)

Then again, the former Liar in Chief, the chief purveyor of the Big Lie, has zero credibility anyway … at least among us who saw him for what he was when he entered presidential politics in the summer of 2015. We saw him as a phony and a fraud, but someone quite capable of hijacking a political party — which he continues to do.

I fear Gov. Christie is piddling into the wind while trying to persuade the GOP of the dire need to change course. My bigger fear is that the truth he is telling will be translated into another lie that the cultists who adhere to POTUS 45 will use to their perverted advantage.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

political news

Choose wisely, Californians

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The simple truth is that by all rights I shouldn’t give a rat’s rear end about the outcome of an upcoming recall election out yonder in California.

Except that I do care.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is trying to stave off a recall effort that was launched by far-right-wing nut jobs angry over how he conducted himself during the first height of the COVID-19 pandemic; Newsom had the bad form to attend a dinner party where there were few masks covering the mugs of those who were attending.

Public opinion polling has indicated that Newsom well might survive this effort to remove him. The mood is pretty volatile out west, though, from what I have been able to gather.

What might save Newsom’s backside is the emergence of a nut job/fruitcake/wacko as the Republican favorite to succeed Newsom if somehow the governor fails to get a majority to agree to keep him in office.

I refer to talk-show gasbag Larry Elder, a guy I once considered to be a mainstream conservative. Not any longer. This clown — one of 45 individuals seeking to succeed Newsom — has swallowed the Big Lie about the 2020 election being pilfered from the 45th POTUS. He also is a COVID vaccine denier and has demonstrated a clear and unmistakable misunderstanding of how government is supposed to work in the nation’s most populous state.

California is about as progressive a state as there is in this great country of ours. Yet the governor there got himself into a bit of a jam. The emergence of a right-winger who’s nuttier than a Snickers bar, just might stir Gov. Newsom’s base of supporters to actually vote to keep him office.

A state that were it an independent nation would possess the world’s fifth-largest economy needs to be governed by someone who knows what the hell he is doing.

Choose wisely, Californians. The country is watching you.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Honor the first responders

As the nation enters this weekend to commemorate an anniversary many of us would rather forget, I feel the need to implore us all to recall a specific element of that event we are remembering.

It’s known these days simply as “9/11.” It broke wide open in front of us 20 years ago. Terrorists hijacked four jetliners and flew them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and into a field in Pennsylvania. More than 3,000 people died that day.

Many of them happened to be men and women who rushed into the inferno in New York. They were firefighters, police officers and medical personnel. They sought to save lives imperiled by the flames, particularly those that consumed the towers. They were the embodiment of untold courage. They taught us all the meaning of service to the community, to the country and to the world.

I want to remember these people. I want to honor them and to use these words to suggest that we owe them eternal gratitude for the service they perform every day.

These men and women take oaths to protect us and to serve us. On 9/11, not a single one of them went to work that morning believing they would run into the inferno ignited by madmen. Many of them died in that rush into harm’s way; many others lived to tell their own stories.

I also want to offer a word of tribute to the passengers who rose up to right the terrorists who hijacked the jetliner that ended up crashing into the field in Shanksville, Pa. All of them performed heroic acts that defy my level of understanding.

Many of our brave first responders suffered medical calamities as a result of what they endured. Still more of them have battled emotional trauma now known as PTSD.

We toss the term “hero” around far too loosely to suit my taste. I don’t use the word often in this forum or even when I speak about it. The folks who answered the call when the jets crashed into our lives on 9/11 all were heroes in the very finest sense of the word.

We must honor them always … and forever.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com