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What about small towns?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

A headline in the Texas Tribune speaks loudly about some mayors’ response to Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision to pull back his mask-wearing mandate.

It said: Texas’ largest cities will keep requiring masks in municipal buildings even after statewide mandate ends

I have no problem with what those mayors are doing, saying and how they are reacting to what I believe is a premature decision by Gov. Abbott.

My question is this: What are small-town and smaller-city mayors doing? Are they going to have the same reaction?

I live in a small town. Princeton, Texas, is home to about 13,000 residents, give or take a few hundred. We are perched along U.S. Highway 380 between McKinney to the west (population 200,000) and Farmersville to the east (population 5,000). I am acquainted with the mayors of Princeton and Farmersville. My strongest hope is that they, too, will invoke mask mandates in municipally owned buildings.

The Texas Tribune reports: Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and El Paso’s leaders announced Wednesday and Thursday that masks will be required to enter city-owned indoor spaces like libraries, police and fire department headquarters, convention centers and transportation hubs.

“I am going to issue an order mandating masks at all city-owned buildings. We have to do what we are legally allowed to do to get people to wear masks,” Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson said on Twitter Thursday morning. “We also still need to practice social distancing. And we still need to avoid taking unnecessary risks. The pandemic is not over.”

Texas’ largest cities will require masks in municipal buildings | The Texas Tribune

No. It is not over. It is not yet close to being over. I will acknowledge, though, that the arrival of a third vaccine — from Johnson & Johnson — means that the end of this horror might be approaching.

Given that our smaller communities don’t get the kind of media attention that the big cities get, I want there to be a significant push by those city halls to get the word out immediately to their constituents. They need to let them know through any means necessary.

Of course, this strategy should apply to small cities and towns all across our vast state. Gov. Abbott can declare, I suppose, that state-owned buildings need not carry “Mask Required” signs. A state governed by politicians who adhere to the “local control is best” mantra should have no trouble allowing city halls to set their own rules regarding the best way to battle the COVID virus.

Let us not forget that President Biden has ordered masks and social distancing in all federal buildings at least for the first 100 days of his administration. My gut tells me he likely will extend that mandate well beyond that artificial deadline.

I will await word from my mayor, Brianna Chacon, on what she intends to do. I hope she stays the mask-wearing course.

medical news, State news

Abbott taking deserved hits

(Bob Daemmrich/Pool Photo via AP)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This needs to be said.

President Biden overreacted by declaring that the governors of Texas and Mississippi were engaging in “Neanderthal thinking” when they lifted mask-wearing orders while seeking to return their states’ business community to full occupancy status.

Yes, we’re fighting a pandemic. We need to maintain those orders. I agree that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision was ill-considered and, yes, he was one of the “Neanderthals” to whom the president referred.

Still, I wish that President Biden wouldn’t have used that particular description.

However, I’ll endorse the president’s view that Abbott shouldn’t have done what he did. Abbott has pulled back from previous orders, only to watch the infection, hospitalization and death rates from the COVID virus spike in Texas.

I am going to pray hard that we don’t see yet another repeat of those prior mistakes.

local news, national news

Will these allegations hold up?

(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

We likely are going to witness a fairly significant difference in the way the public and the political establishment treat two public officials accused of misbehavior while holding public office.

They aren’t parallel examples, but pretty close.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, has been accused by three women of committing acts of sexual harassment. Cuomo has apologized (more or less) for his misdeeds, declaring he “never intended” to act so boorishly. Calls among Democrats and Republicans are mounting for him to resign. Cuomo says he won’t quit.

Now, we have U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson, a Republican, who’s been accused by a government inspector general of sexual harassment of employees while he served as White House physician. The IG also says Jackson, who represents my former congressional district in the Texas Panhandle, drank on the job and took sleeping pills while tending to three presidents of the United States. Jackson calls the IG report a hit job and blames it on partisan politics.

I haven’t heard anyone up yonder in the Panhandle of Texas declare that he should quit. Could it be that the GOP-friendly Panhandle, governed by a party that used to proclaim allegiance to the notion that “character counts,” no longer holds that view?

I believe Cuomo will have difficulty riding out this storm. Jackson should have at least equal difficulty.

Indeed, the IG report was issued after interviews with about 70 eyewitnesses who testified under threat of committing a felony for lying about what they saw Dr. Jackson do. Isn’t that credible enough?

The congressman’s dodge that it is a partisan hack job just doesn’t hold up, given the nature of the inspector general’s office … which is decidedly non-political.

medical news, military news

VA deserves shout out

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

U.S. Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough has earned a shout out from one of his constituents.

That would be yours truly. Me. Myself.

He said today in the White House press briefing room that more than 1.4 million veterans have received vaccinations to protect them against the COVID-19 coronavirus. Of that total, he said, more than half of us have received both doses of the vaccine, meaning that we’re totally inoculated (or we ought to hope for the best) against a virus that has killed more than 500,000 fellow Americans.

I was able to get vaccinated through the North Texas Veterans Medical Center. The first vaccine required a bit of a wait, but I could spare an hour of my time. The second one was slick and smooth; in and out in 20 minutes.

As a proud Army veteran who signed up with the VA some years ago, I want to thank the Department of Veterans Affairs for the great care it has given me during my enrollment.

I get that Secretary McDonough has been on the job only a short time. He’s the man standing watch now, so he gets the shout out, as do his predecessors.

Thank you.

national news

Trump still commands attention

3 Comments

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Jack and I go back a long way, more than 50 years.

He is a friend of longstanding. He also disagrees with me politically. Jack is a supporter of Donald J. Trump; I am not. So, with that background established, he asked me over social media when I am going to look ahead and stop commenting on Donald Trump’s comings and goings. He wonders when I will start thinking critically of Joe Biden.

I will answer my friend here in this brief response. He reads this blog, so I hope he won’t object to my using this forum in that manner.

My intention is to put Trump away as soon as humanly possible. I desperately want to stop commenting on him through this blog. However, he remains something of a political player. He keeps fomenting terrible lies about the integrity of the 2020 presidential election and those lies keep the “base” of voters he commands stirred up. They have swilled the poison he is dispensing. Thus, they remain a political force with which we must reckon.

As for President Biden, I make no secret of my joy at his election. I have mentioned several times over the past year or so that he wasn’t my first choice to run against Trump, but he survived the Democratic Party primary donnybrook. He was nominated and he ran a successful campaign.

I also have been critical of one of Biden’s key Cabinet choices, the director of the Office of Management and Budget. So it is not as though I am going to give the president a pass on every single thing he does or says. Just this week he referred to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision to life the mask mandate a sample of “Neanderthal thinking,” which I believe is a bit harsh; I will have more to say on that later.

As long as Donald Trump continues to be “in the news,” I feel compelled to comment on him. I want him to vanish from the headlines. At least, though, I can declare that he isn’t occupying as much of my time as he formerly did.

That’s progress.

medical news, State news

Abbott stiffs the docs

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

So … Texas Gov. Greg Abbott pledged a year ago to let “science” dictate his decisions regarding the strategy he would employ to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

He said that, right? Yes. He did.

So, now we hear from the Texas Tribune that Gov. Abbott did not discuss a plan to lift the statewide mask mandate with three of his four chief medical advisers. The fourth one, according to the Tribune, cannot say whether the decision is safe, prudent or premature.

This reporting troubles me greatly. It suggests to me that the governor is driven by a Donald Trump-like reliance on personal hunches and not on the dispassionate medical/scientific advice he is getting from the professionals with whom he has surrounded himself.

Greg Abbott didn’t consult 3 of his 4 medical advisers on lifting mask order | The Texas Tribune

One of Abbott’s medical advisers said this, according to the Tribune: “I don’t think this is the right time,” Dr. Mark McClellan, a former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and director of the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy at Duke University, said in a statement. “Texas has been making some real progress, but it’s too soon for full reopening and to stop masking around others.”

What do you think about that? Does that sound to you that the governor is relying on science, that he is being faithful to the pledge he made when the pandemic was tightening its grip on Texas’s population? It doesn’t sound like it to me.

We have suffered more than 42,000 COVID-related deaths in Texas alone. Yes, the statewide death and hospitalization rates are declining. We all are cheering the arrival of the vaccines — from Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson. We are heartened to hear President Biden pledge that all adult Americans who want to be vaccinated will have the drugs available to them by May.

Now, though, we hear that our governor has stiffed the medical team he brought on board to give him solid, science-based advice on how he should respond to the virus.

Are you troubled by this? If not, you should be.

Take this piece of advice from a laymen: Mask up, Texas.

national news

Boorishness goes bipartisan

(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Well now, what are we to make of this item?

Just as the political world is all agog over the troubles descending on New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat who stands accused of sexual harassment by three women, we hear about a Republican member of Congress who’s been accused of the same thing … plus of drinking and taking sleeping pills on the job.

I happen to believe Andrew Cuomo ought to resign and return to private life.

What about Rep. Ronny Jackson, the newly elected House member who represents the congressional district where I once lived?

It turns out that Jackson, a former Navy doctor who once served as White House physician for three presidents, has been accused of misbehaving badly while caring for commanders in chief George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump.

Here is part of what CNN.com is reporting: The Department of Defense inspector general has issued a scathing review of Rep. Ronny Jackson during his time serving as the top White House physician, concluding that he made “sexual and denigrating” comments about a female subordinate, violated the policy for drinking alcohol while on a presidential trip and took prescription-strength sleeping medication that prompted concerns from his colleagues about his ability to provide proper care.

Well …

Rep. Ronny Jackson drank alcohol and took sleeping pills on job as top White House physician, watchdog finds – CNNPolitics

Jackson moved into the district in 2020 to run for the House seat that became vacant when GOP Rep. Mac Thornberry of Clarendon chose to retire from the House after serving for 25 years. His candidacy was fascinating from the get-go, given that he never lived in the 13th Congressional District. He was born in Levelland, Texas, but moved away to pursue a career in the Navy; he achieved the rank of rear admiral while also serving as physician to the three presidents.

None of this should surprise anyone, if you think about it. Donald Trump nominated Jackson to become secretary of veterans affairs, but then the fecal matter hit the fan when allegations surfaced of alcohol abuse on the job as well as his alleged habit of writing prescriptions for drugs that, um, weren’t necessarily for medicinal purposes.

Now the DOD inspector general is examining fresh allegations against this guy.

Nice …

national news

Biden paying for lack of ‘smooth transition’

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Biden deserved to have his executive team fully signed on and ready to get to work the moment he pulled his hand off the Bible at his inauguration.

That hasn’t happened. The culprit, from what I have witnessed, was the refusal by his predecessor, Donald Trump, to guarantee a “smooth and seamless transition” after Biden won the 2020 presidential election.

Oh, no. What we got was obstruction, incessant lying about electoral theft, threats of litigation and, finally, a bloody insurrection on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.

The result is that President Biden has part of the Cabinet in office. Many other key offices, including some Cabinet posts and high-level advisory jobs that have Cabinet-level authority, are still vacant.

To be sure, there have been a hiccup or two among the selections Biden has made. Neera Tanden withdrew her name from consideration as director of the Office of Management and Budget; too many U.S. senators said they couldn’t support her because of some of the mean tweets she published that were critical of Republicans. So, rather than continue the fight, Tanden backed away.

That’s one pick that Biden needs to do over.

As for the others, the Senate has been dragging its feet on some of them. Attorney General-designate Merrick Garland only this week received an endorsement from the Senate Judiciary Committee. He is arguably the key individual who should have been on the job already, but has been held up by partisan politicking. Then we have the Health and Human Services secretary-designate, Xavier Becerra, who needs to take charge of an agency charged with managing the fight against that pandemic.

The Senate has confirmed 10 of 15 Cabinet appointments.

Donald Trump could have greased the proverbial skids for his successor simply by accepting the election results when it became clear to the rest of the world that he had lost to Joe Biden. He didn’t do that. He chose instead to fight. The transition was not “peaceful.” It was violent and it was utterly beyond the pale.

I am heartened to know, though, that President Biden’s years of legislative experience have held him in good stead even as he plods forward trying to fill his executive branch ranks. Imagine the chaos had he entered the presidency with Donald Trump’s blank sheet of government experience or knowledge of how government works.

State news

Consensus? Abbott is wrong about the masks!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

There seems to be a consensus building across Texas about the pronouncement made by Gov. Greg Abbott on how the state should handle the coronavirus pandemic.

It is that he has made a mistake in rescinding the mask mandate order he issued this past summer to fight the virus.

Most of us seem to understand his desire to open the state’s businesses back up. The mask mandate, though, needs to remain … if I am reading the state’s collective pulse correctly. Maybe I am correct, or maybe I am all wet.

I’ll presume that I am right, or at least in presuming  that the most vocal folks out there are those who oppose lifting the mask mandate.

It well might be that those who support lifting the mask order are too embarrassed to say so publicly. If that’s the case, well, I’d be embarrassed too. You know already that my wife and I intend to keep wearing our masks when we enter restaurants, the grocery store or stop for a cappuccino at the neighborhood Allsup’s.

I reckon million of other Texans will do the same.

This presumption I am drawing would seem to put the lie to the caricature so many Americans have of those who live in Texas. That we’re a state full of swaggering know-it-alls who distrust government telling us to do anything, let alone take measures to protect ourselves and our loved ones.

From what I am hearing, seeing and sensing among those of us who call Texas home, we aren’t too crazy about Gov. Abbott’s decision to lift an order he issued to protect the folks he governs.

I am totally fine with what he ordered. In fact, I intend to keep following it.

medical news, State news

What did Abbott’s medical advisers say?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Texas media are abuzz with comment and reaction to Gov. Greg Abbott’s big announcement Tuesday that he was declaring the state open “100 percent” for business and is rescinding the mask-wearing order in light of the pandemic.

I am dubious of the governor’s action. I am not going to change a single thing in my house; my wife and I intend to do precisely what we have been doing to avoid getting infected by the COVID virus. It has worked so far.

This inquiring mind, though, wants to know something that hasn’t been reported: What did Gov. Abbott’s medical advisers tell him prior to making the announcement?

I ask the question because I have read comments from all over the state from educators, doctors and other scientists who have expressed concern that Abbott’s decision, at the very least, is premature. Too many Texans are getting sick and too many of us are still dying from the coronavirus.

I want to know what Abbott’s medical team told him. How do they justify this reopening notion from the governor? There might be a plausible rationale. If there is, then let’s hear it!

Oh, but then again there might be another notion, which is that Abbott didn’t listen to his medical team’s advice and decided it was more, um, “politically expedient” to open the state’s business community for everyone. Or, perhaps the governor sought to change the subject and yank our attention away from the clusterfu** response to the terrible winter storm that paralyzed the state and damn near caused a total collapse of our electrical grid.

Is any of that possible? Hmmm?

I’m all ears, Gov. Abbott.

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