national news

Right wingers pervert all they touch

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This is far from a recent revelation, but I just want get it off my chest and express it with crystal clarity.

It is that the right wing of the political spectrum has become a den of perversion of all principles they claim to adore and honor.

They have perverted the term “patriot” by insisting on The Big Lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from the 45th POTUS and handed to President Biden. The Pervert in Chief, of course, is the 45th POTUS his own self. He has developed a cult following that is unmatched in U.S. political history … and that goes back a spell.

The righties have perverted Christian beliefs, suggesting that Jesus Christ himself would endorse the notion of separating children from their parents. They ignore practically every New Testament tenet I can think of that condemns such harsh treatment of human beings.

They have perverted, for crying out loud, the very concept of Republicanism and the party that formed around it. The GOP came to be after the Civil War. It was the party of inclusion, of equality, of freedom and liberty for all Americans. It fought to enfranchise African-Americans who before the Civil War were deemed as three-fifths human.

The right wing has perverted the notion that bipartisanship stops at the water’s edge. It was the great GOP Sen. Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan who coined the truism. Now it’s OK to blast a president of the opposing party even while he travels abroad.

Patriots do not seek to overturn free and fair elections. They do not storm the Capitol Building, bust through windows, defecate on the floor of the legislative branch of government, threaten to hang the vice president of the United States. Patriots believe in elections. They accept the results even if they disagree with certain outcomes.

The nation’s right wing is running amok with perverts who claim to love the country. They in fact hate our great nation and I in fact hate the principles for which they stand.

State news

Well, Ted … your take on Dems’ bolting the state?

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Texas Republican politicians are having a high time criticizing their Democratic legislative colleagues for leaving Texas intent on preventing a Republican-led effort to suppress Texas voters’ access to polling booths.

But … where is U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz? Is the Cruz Missile going to weigh in? Oh, wait! He has his own bail-on-Texas cross the bear.

This is the nitwit who sought to high-tail it to Cancun, Mexico in February while the rest of us were freezing — many of us to death — in that monster winter storm. He came back home when the fecal matter hit the fan, then tried to explain his way out of the jam into which he had inserted himself.

So, go ahead, Sen. Ted Cruz. Tell us all why you think Texas Democrats are shirking their duty.

State news

Texas AG faces tough electoral challenge

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has endured, shall we say, a rocky tenure as the state’s chief legal eagle.

The former Collin County state legislator has been indicted for securities fraud and is awaiting state court trial; he has been accused of wrong doing by seven top assistants in the Texas AG’s office of doing illegal business; he has sought to overturn free and fair results in the 2020 presidential election only to have the U.S. Supreme Court toss his lawsuits out with nary so much as a hearing.

Can it be any wonder that the Republican attorney general has been challenged in the 2022 GOP primary by two big hitters and also now might face a high-powered Democrat … if he survives the Republican primary challenge?

Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush announced his intention to run for AG. Bush’s legal credentials don’t stand up to his political standing. Indeed, the land commissioner is the grandson and nephew of two prominent Texans: the late former President George H.W. Bush and former POTUS George W. Bush, respectively; oh, and he’s the son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

He has said, basically, “enough is enough, Ken” as he seeks to restore honesty and credibility to the Texas attorney general’s office.

Now we have former Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman, whose legal credentials are stellar in the extreme. Guzman might lack George P. Bush’s political standing, but her knowledge of Texas law as well as her reputation are beyond reproach.

Guzman resigned from the state’s highest civil appellate court and then jumped right back into the fray.

Then there’s noted civil rights lawyer Lee Merritt, who just the other day announced his intention to run in the Democratic Party primary next year. Merritt has been involved in many high-profile cases involving police-related deaths of black residents. He presents a formidable challenge all by himself.

I’ll re-state my bias right here: Ken Paxton is a chump. I want him removed from office. My preference would be for him to be convicted of securities fraud by a jury, which would result in his immediate removal. My second choice would be for him to lose his primary bid either to Bush or Guzman, which — the more I think about it — looms as a distinct possibility.

Choice No. 3 — which appears to be the least likely — would be for Paxton to lose to a Democrat in the fall of 2022. My strongest hope is that the AG doesn’t get that far into this upcoming election cycle.

national news

No end to stupidity

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

There appears to be an endless supply of utter, abject and unqualified stupidity among American voters.

How else does one explain the so-called “audit” that continues in Arizona, where a group that calls itself “Cyber Ninjas” is examining the votes cast in Maricopa County for president of the United States in 2020.

The “audit” isn’t done yet. The nitwits are looking for “evidence” of vote fraud that resulted — they allege — in Arizona tilting in President Biden’s favor when the ballots were counted.

There will be no shifting of the state’s electoral votes from Biden to the idiot he defeated in the 2020 election. Nor will there be any “proof” delivered that showed any sort of vote fraud.

The stupidity, though, shows itself every time those dipsh**s suggest they are closing in on proving what they have alleged. Even more stupid are the gullible goofballs who believe what the Cyber Ninjas are suggesting.

They keep alive The Big Lie that their “hero,” the aforementioned disgraced, twice-impeached Republican ex-POTUS keeps muttering.

Meanwhile, the actual president of the U.S. of A., Joe Biden, continues to work with Democrats and Republicans in Congress on actual problems. You know, things like pandemic relief, infrastructure legislation, climate change, job growth, war and peace.

It’s time we pay attention exclusively to the real issues of the day, not the phony issues that occupy the vacuous skulls of seriously stupid Americans. If only the idiots would realize that their pursuit of vote fraud that does not exist only exposes their stupidity for the whole world to see.

It gives the rest of us plenty of reason to laugh out loud.

business news

Counter-intuitive message?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

As a general rule I am disinclined to use this blog as a forum to criticize private businesses.

However, the image you see here appeared on my Facebook news feed and it prompts me to offer a brief commentary.

Wal-Mart says it is “investing in American jobs.” The other item you see circled is a self-checkout stand at a Wal-Mart store. The two things — the sign about investing in jobs and the checkout stand — appear to be counter-intuitive.

We have a Wal-Mart store in our town that has gone through a massive interior remodeling. It also is expanding its self-checkout operation.

At one level, I understand that Wal-Mart is entitled to say it is investing in American jobs if its investments include jobs related to warehousing, building maintenance, transportation, shelf-stocking.

The checkout counters, though, are the face of retail outlets … such as Wal-Mart.

I guess if I were to critique Wal-Mart’s advertising strategy, I would offer this bit of advice: Don’t position your “investment” sign within sight of a self-checkout counter. You expose yourself to ridicule.

national news

Post-presidency getting weird

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The hits associated with the post-presidency of the twice-impeached, disgraced former Idiot in Chief just keep on comin’.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley now says he feared that the ex-POTUS might try to launch a coup attempt to stay in power after the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to President Biden!

The response from the ex-Nitwit in Chief? He writes: “I never threatened, or spoke about, to anyone, a coup of our government. So ridiculous!” Trump wrote. He went on to clarify that even if heĀ wereĀ interested in organizing a coup, he’d prefer if Milley weren’t there. “Sorry to inform you, but an election is my form of ‘coup,’ and if I was going to do a coup, one of the last people I would want to do it with is General Mark Milley.”

Given the interminable trail of lies the ex-POTUS told during his term in office, are you inclined to believe his denial of ever thinking about a coup? Nah! Me neither.

legal news

No need to pack SCOTUS

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Hell hasn’t exactly frozen over, but the rare moment of my agreeing with a conservative legal scholar has arrived.

Jeremy Dys writes in The Hill that there exists no clear reason to expand the ranks of the U.S. Supreme Court, or to “pack” it to make it more palatable to us liberals.

I happen to agree with him.

Furthermore, I wish the lefties among us would just pipe down and let the judicial branch of our federal government do the job granted to it by the U.S. Constitution.

Dys and I come at this from different perspectives. He believes the court’s “center-left demise” has been exaggerated. I happen to believe that elections have consequences, as we learned to our dismay — I hasten to add — with the election in 2016 of the moron who got impeached twice by the U.S. House of Representatives.

He exited the White House in disgrace. However, he was able to nominate three individuals to the high court and much to the surprise of many of us, the judicial troika he selected hasn’t fallen in lockstep with whatever judicial philosophy POTUS 45 wanted them to follow.

No reason to pack the court | TheHill

Justice Stephen Breyer is not sending any strong signals that he is about to retire from the court. The liberal justice’s successor would not change the ideological balance on the SCOTUS. I do have a fear that if the GOP gets control of the Senate after the 2022 election that its leadership will stall any nomination process the way it did in 2016 when Justice Antonin Scalia died and the Senate denied President Obama the chance to select a successor to the conservative judicial icon.

But that’s how it goes.

I just dislike the notion of monkeying around the size of the Supreme Court because the politics of the moment do not suit one side of the political divide.

medical news

Why target Dr. Fauci?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

There is so much to unpack about the ongoing controversy surrounding the COVID pandemic and our nation’s effort to defeat it that I am left to separate these issues and examine them one at a time.

For instance, why has Dr. Anthony Fauci become a target of the far-right wing goofballs out there who now are applauding Americans’ refusal to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

Just to revisit Dr. Fauci’s entrance onto the national stage for a moment, I feel the need to remind everyone of a thing or two.

POTUS 45 brought him aboard ostensibly to provide medical advice on how to respond to the pandemic as it began to tighten its grip on the nation in early 2020. The ex-POTUS made an inspired choice, given that Fauci has long been renowned as the nation’s leading infectious disease expert.

Then he debunked the counsel that Fauci gave. The then-Numbskull in Chief called Fauci an “idiot,” and accused him of overstating the severity of the disease.

The president left office after being defeated by President Biden. The criticism of Dr. Fauci has continued. Members of Congress are calling for Fauci to be fired. Why? Beats the hell out of me!

Dr. Fauci has become a lightning rod for those who continue to insist that vaccines present some threat to their health. Meanwhile, the good doctor insists the vaccines are effective, they are safe, they prevent people from being infected by a disease that can kill them.

It’s fallen on deaf ears and become — if you can believe it — live ammo for the critics to fire back at the doctor and his friends and allies in the Biden administration.

Fauci spoke with uncharacteristic emotion when he referred to the conservative political action conference in Dallas this past weekend where attendees actually cheered reports of Americans declining to be vaccinated. Do these nimrods want Americans to die?

So, the criticism continues. What should be a universally unified effort to fight a killer disease has been split along partisan lines. To think, too, that an esteemed medical professional — with stellar and unimpeachable credentials built over many decades — has become a target of right-wing goofs who think they know more than he does.

Astonishing.

State news

Where’s the fraud … Dan?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

So help me, I cannot get my noggin past that idiotic offer Texas Lt. Gov.Ā  Dan Patrick made some months ago to his fellow Texans.

He offered to pay anyone a million bucks if they produced evidence of widespread vote fraud in Texas during the 2020 presidential election. The offer has become part of the Republican legislative mantra as legislators seek to make it more difficult for Texans to vote.

The link between the offer and the GOP legislative effort is clear: Republicans insist there was fraud; no one has produced a shred of proof of fraud in Texas or anywhere else for that matter.

Patrick — who came into this world with the name of Dannie Scott Goeb (and I don’t know why I mentioned that, other than perhaps to illustrate this clown’s phoniness) — has made vote fraud an issue as he pushes the Texas Senate over which he presides to enact these restrictions.

Why, though, hasn’t Patrick produced proof? Why is he relying on some unknown Texan to provide the Legislature with proof — where none exists — of vote fraud?

The reason the lieutenant governor hasn’t delivered the goods is because there are no goods to deliver. It’s also why he hasn’t been forced to shell out the dough to anyone else who has proof of vote fraud.

It is another version of The Big Lie.

Lt. Gov. Patrick’s offer remains on the table. I do not expect anyone to come forward with proof of vote fraud. Which begs the question: Has the Texas lieutenant governor committed an act of treason — along with the former Nitwit in Chief — by challenging a free and fair election?

local news

Seen: a live armadillo!

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

MARTIN DIES JR. STATE PARK, Texas — You know the saying about there being “a first time for everything.”

This particular “first time” took many decades to present itself.

My wife and I saw a live armadillo scampering along a park road in this lovely state park deep in the Pineywoods of East Texas.

You see, we moved to Texas in 1984. That was — gulp! — 37 years ago. The armadillos I had ever seen — until we got here — were those that had been, um, reduced to road kill along our many thousands of miles of highways and bi-ways.

I once wrote a column for the Beaumont Enterprise — where I worked for nearly 11 years after arriving in Texas — about my frustration in never seeing a live armadillo. The only such critters I had seen had been of the type I described a few seconds ago.

We moved to Amarillo in 1995 and I was utterly certain we would see them a-plenty along the arid Caprock. Hah! Fat chance! Indeed, I noticed far fewer armadillo carcasses than we had seen along the Gulf Coast.

Over many years we have traveled the length and breadth of this vast state. Live armadillo sighting? Not a chance.

Until we ventured to Martin Dies Jr. SP.

My hope now for the little critter is that he/she stays the heck out of the way of oncoming traffic.

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