Polls aren’t predictors

January 19, 2024 kanelis2012

I have to remind myself of an important fact as I ponder these public opinion polls showing President Biden possibly losing his re-election bid to the leading Republican challenger.

It is that the polls are not predictors of what will happen many months from now, but merely are snapshots of the public’s mood in the moment. What does that mean? It means that circumstances can change the public mood in dramatic fashion.

And, oh Lord, there are factors a-plenty out there that could change the minds of millions of Americans preparing to cast their votes for president.

We have several trials awaiting the GOP frontrunner. They are a dizzying array of felony charges. The former POTUS could be convicted of any of the felonies, from one accusing him of seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election, to hiding classified documents in his posh digs in south Florida, to pressuring election officials in Georgia to “find” enough votes to award him that state’s electoral votes.

If a jury convicts him of any of them, he no longer can run for public office, let alone serve in the one he seeks. It’s on the books, man.

That means voters who currently favor the former POTUS in his bid to return to the office from which he was drummed out in 2020 will have to make decide whether they really want to vote for a convicted felon to become commander in chief of the world’s most powerful military and head of state of the world’s most indispensable nation.

The ex-POTUS can yelp and yammer all he wants about whatever decisions come down. The facts, though, will stand on the record forever if he is convicted of any of the serious charges that have been leveled against him.

President Biden has been a national politician for more than five decades. He knows his way around the political pea patch and no doubt will be able to exploit the obvious flaws in his opponent’s record … presuming, of course, that Republicans are foolish and stupid enough to nominate him.

Am I worried, therefore, about what these polls are telling us today? Nope. The worry will kick in on election eve if they are delivering the same message.

God help us if that occurs.

national news

Patriot? Hardly!

January 18, 2024 kanelis2012

Vivek Ramaswamy ended his 2024 Republican presidential campaign this week and then endorsed the idiot who finished ahead of the shrinking GOP field in Iowa.

What, though, did the businessman call the former Liar in Chief? He called him a “patriot.” OK, I am going to dispute that label with every fiber of my being.

The GOP frontrunner is not a patriot. Pure and simple, he chastises who he says “hates America” … but he is the hater who is leading a cult cabal of haters.

What else would you use to describe a mob that storms the Capitol Building on Jan. 6 and traipses under the Dome brandishing a Confederate flag? They did that heinous deed at the behest of the former POTUS who vowed to “take our country back,” from whom never has been clear to me. The Stars and Bars was never seen in the Capitol during the Civil War, as it symbolizes a group of states that went to war with the United States of America.

That isn’t the act of a patriot. Nor the act of someone who reveres our government or respects the work that our nation’s founders did to write a Constitution that serves as the framework for the greatest form of government ever created.

He ain’t a patriot. Not by my sense of the word, or the sense of anyone who believes we are a great nation and those who honor any oath we take to be loyal to the nation’s government document.

The man whom Ramaswamy is backing is — in my humble view — a traitor to the nation.

local news, Sports news

Try someone new … Jerry

January 17, 2024 kanelis2012

Jerry Jones, the egomaniacal owner of the Dallas Cowboys, won’t accept any advice from someone who in truth doesn’t really give a crap about the organization he calls “America’s Team.”

But I’m going to offer it anyway.

A Dallas man submitted a letter to the editor of the Dallas Morning News, which published it in this morning’s paper. The fan writes that the team has gone “28 long years” since it last played for an NFL championship; the team has burned through 1,484 players, six head coaches and one general manager. “Can you guess the common denominator for all these … failures?” he writes.

Sure. That’s Jones, who doubles as GM as well as the guy who signs the ample paychecks.

Jones’s ego compels him to pretend he knows something about pro football. He won’t give up the GM post to a real football pro. But he damn sure should.

The Cowboys choked this past weekend against a team described as “upstart.” The Green Bay Packers came to play tackle football. The Cowboys didn’t. There likely should be a coaching change in the Cowboys’ immediate future.

As for the GM matter, that’s up to the owner … who must decide whether to “fire” himself and then hire someone who knows how to build and maintain a professional football team.

That won’t happen. It certainly should, if only the owner’s ego would allow it.

crime news, national news

What has happened to GOP?

January 16, 2024 kanelis2012

The Iowa caucus results are in and the 45th POTUS is the clear and convincing winner of 2024’s first contest of the presidential cycle.

I had hoped for a different outcome, but … well, it didn’t happen.

Thus I am left to wonder anew about the state of the Republican Party, whose caucus-goers would embrace a man who:

Calls a Vietnam War hero a “loser” because he was captured by the enemy.
Admits to cheating on all of his wives.
Says he might “date” his daughter were he not her father.
Mocks a reporter for a physical disability from which he suffers.
Says he can grab women by their genitals because he is “famous.”
Dismisses the intelligence findings of his spy network of experts in favor of some remarks by the murdering Russian dictator.
Boasts about a “love letter” he received from another tyrant, the guy who lets North Koreans suffer.
Tosses love at dictators around the world for the “strength” they show in subjugating their people.
Pledges to assert authoritarian power “on the first day” of a presidency were he elected at the end of this year.
Never once admits he lost the 2020 election and denies his successor the “peaceful transition of power” he deserves.
Chastises those who planned the mission to kill Osama bin Laden because they didn’t do it sooner.
Threatens to pardon the mobsters facing criminal prosecution for their participation in the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on our government.
Has been impeached twice by the House and faces four indictments on 91 felony criminal counts.

This is the guy Republicans seem to prefer for the office of president of the United States of America?

God help them. And the rest of us, too.

environmental news

Yes, climate is changing

January 16, 2024 kanelis2012

You hear it almost unfailingly whenever we get hit with a cold snap, such as what has gripped North Texas — and much of the rest of the country of late.

It comes from climate change deniers who scoff at the notion that our climate is changing, and the globe is getting warmer. I heard it the other morning while having breakfast with some gentlemen with whom I am acquainted. They dissed the notion of global warming.

I didn’t say a word, as I don’t know them well enough to challenge such nonsense.

One of our local TV meteorologists put it well recently in a public service announcement. The weather, he said, defines what is happening in the moment, while “climate” defines longer-term trends.

That was his way of telling us to disregard current weather conditions when discussing whether the climate is changing.

I believe he is correct.

I remember the time during an earlier D.C. cold snap when climate change denier U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma took a snowball to the floor of the Senate to make some kind of idiotic argument that climate change is a hoax, a product of liberals seeking to damage to the fossil fuel industry which, I should add, was a big contributor to Inhofe during his years in public life.

The term “global warming” has for all intent been replaced by “climate change,” which I believe is a more inclusive description of what is happening to our good Earth. We indeed are suffering through more climate extremes from year to year.

The data we receive from worldwide meteorological organizations is beyond dispute. It is that despite these cold snaps, Earth’s mean temperature is rising year over year, the global ice caps are melting, mountain glaciers are receding and that thousands of species of wildlife are endangered by the changing climate.

When I hear the climate change deniers dismiss the evidence because they’re bundling up to protect against frigid air temps, I am left only to shake my head in dismay at their ignorance.

political news

The race begins in earnest

January 15, 2024 kanelis2012

I am going to revisit briefly an observation I made about the presumed frontrunner for the 2024 Republican Party presidential nomination.

I said a good while ago that I wasn’t sure the 45th POTUS would be the nominee. I want to reiterate that view.

The Iowa caucus begins Monday. The weather statewide is hideous. Temps will be minus 15 degrees; wind chill is expected to drive it to 35 degrees below zero. Chris Christie has dropped out of the race. The GOP campaign is now down to just four challengers to the former Liar in Chief: They are Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Asa Hutchinson and Ron DeSantis.

Haley appears poised to pick up a good bit of late support now that Christie is on the sidelines.

What does any of this mean? Beats the bejeebers out of me.

The one-time POTUS is miles ahead in the latest polling. Big f***ing deal, as the current president once said to Barack Obama as the then-POTUS was set to sign the Affordable Care Act into law.

I keep hearing grumbling that even some of the ex-POTUS’s cultists are growing weary of his incoherent rants. Does it mean an upset is in the making? What about New Hampshire, which is having its primary. Remember what happened there in 1968.

President Johnson was seeking re-election. The Democratic primary took place and lo and behold, Eugene McCarthy, the anti-Vietnam War candidate, finished a close second to LBJ. On March 31, Johnson announced in a televised speech to the nation a suspension of the bombing of North Vietnam and then, in a stunner, announced: “I will not seek, and will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”

Thus, there is ample room for more surprises this time out.

I would be amazed if the 45th POTUS suffers a proverbial near-mortal wound as he seeks to shed the weight of upcoming criminal trials … but not terribly surprised.

If only …

local news, media news

The joy of putting politics aside

January 14, 2024 kanelis2012

DRIPPING SPRINGS, Texas — One of the many joys of traveling — even for the briefest of periods — always is the distance I keep from the world of politics.

I spent a modestly successful career immersed in the comings and goings of politicians, their handlers and those who follow them. Even when I traveled with my wife, Kathy Anne, I scarfed up newspapers to (a) read how they were covering the issues of the day and (b) collect page design ideas I could apply to whatever newspaper where I was working.

Well, I no longer collect newspapers and I now am able to follow the news digitally.

So, my son and I ventured to the Hill Country to visit Kathy Anne’s brother and his two daughters, son-in-law and their daughters.

Politics, policy discussion, who’s up and down in the Republican presidential campaign? Pffttt! I couldn’t possibly care less about any of that!

But … our visit is about to end. We’ll be heading back to North Texas in short order. Then I’ll concern myself with issues and news of the day.

But, man, I do look forward to these getaways. They help cleanse my soul. That said, I am looking forward to the next one.

crime news, national news

Whether to nominate a felon

January 12, 2024 kanelis2012

So help me I keep tilting in all directions ruminating over whether a once-great political party should nominate an indicted former POTUS for the job he wants to reclaim.

At the moment, I am inclined to just shrug and say: go ahead and nominate this clown, who well might be a convicted felon by the time the GOP nominating convention sends the ex-POTUS off to be defeated — once again — by President Joe Biden.

The former Liar in Chief keeps insulting judges who are presiding over his pending trials. He keeps hurling epithets at Jack Smith, the special counsel hired by Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate allegations of criminal activity.

The one-time BS Artist in Chief will not be elected. All that is left is for President Biden to send him packing once again and have the two-time election loser ponder how he intends his time while fending off the hounds of justice.

These quandaries are difficult to shake. I might wake up in the morning feeling differently … but I doubt it.

local news

Recall the mayor … for this?

January 11, 2024 kanelis2012

Dallas Democrats need to get over themselves and end his idiotic notion of seeking to recall Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson for one of the most ridiculous reasons I’ve ever seen.

What has Johnson done to earn this misplaced scorn? Has he been caught taking money from the public till? Did he make a horrible hiring decision? Has he created a “toxic work environment”? Did he suspend essential public services unilaterally?

Oh, no. None of that. His “crime” is that he changed parties, becoming a Republican after being re-elected recently as a Democrat.

Officially, the mayor is elected as a non-partisan politician. Johnson, though, has made no secret of his partisan leanings, having been a Democrat reportedly for a very long time.

He recently switched to the GOP, making some sort of statement about how he is more comfortable being a member of the other party. Has it affected the decisions he has made as mayor? No.

Dallas Democrats feel a sense of betrayal apparently because of Johnson’s switcheroo. Give me a break.

Recall efforts should be saved for serious transgressions that affect a politician’s performance. This effort is full of nonsense and idiocy.

Petitioners are seeking signatures to put the recall effort on the ballot. They have gathered something north of 1,000 names so far; they need more than 100,000 signatures.

They are wasting their time.

High Plains Blogger