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Now … comes the 1/6 report

Americans with an interest in how the government came under attack on Jan. 6, 2021, and how we might prevent a recurrence of such a travesty have some riveting TV viewing ahead of them.

The House 1/6 select committee is going to meet one final time Monday in front of you and me. It will discuss what it has discovered after interviewing more than 1,000 witnesses and reviewed more than a million documents.

The committee then will take arguably the most monumental congressional votes in U.S. history. It will vote on whether to refer criminal charges against the former president of the United States who, in 1/6, incited the insurrection that tore through the Capitol Building with the aim of overturning a free and fair presidential election.

To be abundantly clear, Congress only can refer criminal charges to the Department of Justice. DOJ must decide whether to indict whoever the congressional committee refers in its report.

And … yes. Donald J. Trump’s name needs to be among those referred for criminal prosecution.

To suggest that the1/6 committee has been anything but meticulous, patient, diligent and courageous in its pursuit of the truth about 1/6 is to be guilty of the most partisan cynicism imaginable.

On the receiving end of those referrals, of course, is Attorney General Merrick Garland, who has insisted repeatedly that “no one is above the law.” By “no one,” he means precisely what we must infer, which is that Donald Trump is vulnerable to a criminal indictment … or two … or three.

Having watched many hours of previous testimony and commentary from committee members, I have no doubt — none, zero! — that Donald Trump committed multiple crimes before, during and after the assault on the Capitol Building.

What remains to be determined if whether the AG is going — after poring through the committee’s findings — to make history by doing something to previous attorney general has done. Will he indict Donald J. Trump?

I believe that moment is coming.

Meanwhile, I am going to listen with the most intense interest possible at committee members’ message as this drama draws to its long-awaited conclusion.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

OK, Ronny … apologize!

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Ronny Jackson shot off his big mouth — via Twitter, of course — and declared that a fellow member of Congress believes that pedophilia is not a crime.

Well, it turns out the person he accused of saying such a thing didn’t say it. Democratic Rep. Katie Porter made no mention of pedophilia in her comments, None of that stopped the Republican who represents the Texas Panhandle from popping off like the MAGA blowhard he is.

What did Porter actually say? She said gay people have been branded wrongly as “groomers” and “pedophiles.”

GOP Rep. Ronny Jackson’s false “pedophilia” attack on Katie Porter blows up in his face (msn.com)

But morons like Jackson aren’t about to reflect on the defamation they dish out on social media platforms. That is what Jackson did when he labeled Porter as someone who all but endorses sex with children.

It’s too much to expect Ronny Jackson to apologize to Rep. Porter for his incendiary comment on Twitter. Even though he won’t do so, I will take this brief moment to demand that he say three simple words:

I am sorry.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

Legislator hires lunatic

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Suffice to say that Texas has no shortage of loons sitting in public office, or a shortage of certifiable lunatics willing to work for them.

Get a load of this tidbit out of Arlington, just down the road a piece from your blogger’s home in Collin County: State Rep. Tony Tinderholt, a Republican, has hired a guy to run his district office who has called for the public execution of anyone who takes children to drag shows.

Jake Niedert is just 22 years of age. He now is going to be Tinderholt’s legislative director working out of the lawmaker’s Tarrant County office.

Niedert is a self-proclaimed “Christian nationalist” who once said this on Twitter: “You want to force kids to see drag shows, I want to ‘drag’ you to the town square to be publicly executed for grooming kids. We are not the same.”

Texas Rep. Tony Tinderholt hires Christian nationalist Jake Neidert | The Texas Tribune

Is this idiot going to say he was “joking” or he was being “sarcastic”? Wait for it.

Tinderholt is running for speaker of the Texas House against the current speaker, Dade Phelan, a Beaumont Republican. He wants the House to be even more right wing than it currently has become. God help us.

Well, Tinderholt isn’t likely to defeat Phelan, but he remains a dangerous character serving in a Legislature that is likely to quarrel and squabble beginning January over anti-LGBTQ and transgender legislation.

This dude is a freak … who hires freaks to work for him!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Biden finishes a bold move

When he served as vice president of the United States, Joe Biden got way ahead of the Barack Obama administration on the issue of same-sex marriage.

President Obama had opposed it publicly. Then Biden blurted out on national TV that he thought that gay couples are entitled to the same marital rights as heterosexual couples. Indeed, the Constitution backed up Biden’s assertion, which reportedly didn’t go over well in the West Wing of the White House.

Obama left office in January 2017. Joe Biden became president in January 2021. This week, he put his signature on a law that finishes what the president started with his assertion that same-sex marriage is protected by the Constitution.

Oh, and his signature also has codified rules allowing mixed-race couples to marry, which is another huge step toward preserving our nation’s guarantee that all citizens are entitled to “equal protection under the laws.”

“Marriage is a simple proposition. Who do you love? And will you be loyal to that person you love?” the president asked from the South Lawn as he signed the Respect for Marriage Act. “It’s not more complicated than that.”

I never thought of President Biden as a trailblazer until that moment in 2012 when he stepped out in front of the administration he served. He was right then, and he was very correct this week when he signed legislation approved by congressional members of both parties. The Supreme Court would rule in 2015 that same-sex couples had a legal right to marry, setting off celebrations across the country

The signing this week also seeks to forgo a bizarre threat offered by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who — after the court struck down the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion — hinted that the court might take aim at same-sex and interracial marriages. Yep, that’s weird coming from a Black justice who happens to be married to a white woman. He need not worry now about whether the court is going to make his marriage illegal … you know?

Joe Biden’s firmness is a welcome sign of reason and resolve in a government plagued too often in recent times by chaos and confusion. Well done, Mr. President.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Boehner shows touch of grace

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Just to let us know how things used to be in Washington, D.C., where Democrats and Republicans could say nice things about each out loud and in public, up stepped a former GOP House speaker to offer high praise to the individual who succeeded him.

John Boehner got misty while saluting the career of Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Boehner said he wished for his daughter to emulate Pelosi, who is stepping down as speaker in January as the Republicans prepare to take control of the House of Representatives. Imagine any of the MAGA morons doing such a thing.

It’s not yet clear who among the GOP lawmakers will succeed Pelosi. Suffice, though, to acknowledge that whoever it is likely won’t show nearly any of the grace and class that Boehner has shown.

You see, Boehner — who battled hard against President Obama’s agenda — is able to set aside partisan differences to honor the service and love of country shown by a political adversary.

To think as well that Boehner only stepped away from the speaker’s chair in 2015. In just seven years, the atmosphere in D.C. has gone from relatively clear to damn near toxic in the partisan vitriol that fills the air.

I should point out that in today’s world, the attack on Pelosi’s husband, Paul, by a deranged moron who was looking to do physical harm to the speaker, has actually drawn snide and snarky comments from some prominent Republicans.

Thanks, therefore, belong to former Speaker Boehner for demonstrating a needed touch of class.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Cheney goes out with a roar

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Say what you might about lame-duck U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, I’ll just add this: She is going out of office with a mighty roar and not a whimper.

She reportedly said this recently about her arch enemy, fellow Republican Donald J. Trump: “No honest person can now deny that Trump is an enemy of the Constitution.”

Ouch, man!

Cheney earned a primary challenge this year for standing up for the Constitution and standing against Trump’s aim to undermine it, to gut it, to reverse a free, fair and legal election for president in 2020. Cheney got thumped hard by Wyoming Republican voters. She has been a lame duck in name only ever since.

Cheney has served with courage, determination and distinction on the U.S. House select committee examining the insurrection that Trump incited. I already have expressed my admiration for this true-blue, rock-solid Republican conservative lawmaker.

She has been punished only for defying a former president whose sole aim is to cling to power.

I am one American patriot who will hold her forever in the highest esteem possible.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

SCOTUS needs ethics rules

What in the name of judicial ethics will it take for the U.S. Supreme Court to adopt a code of ethical behavior that it insists that lower court judges must follow?

Good grief. We now are witnessing two justices on the nation’s highest court violating what would appear to be clear ethical rules governing their conduct as jurists. They both are conservatives, Justices Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh.

Justice Thomas — the court’s longest-serving member — has been ruling routinely on matters related to the 1/6 insurrection even though his wife, Ginni, took part briefly in the rally that day preceding the frontal assault that Donald J. Trump incited. Thomas has been a lonely voice in standing up for Trump while his colleagues — liberal and conservative — have ruled against the ex-POTUS.

I have said many times that Justice Thomas should quit the court, not just recuse himself. His behavior has been nothing short of disgraceful.

Now we hear that Justice Kavanaugh has been keeping company with far-right-wing activists who belong to organizations that have brought matters before the Supreme Court. Huh? What? Are you kidding me?

How in the world does Kavanaugh rule impartially and without bias when he pals around with MAGA types? He cannot do it.

Back to my original point. The Supreme Court has punished jurists for unethical conduct over many decades. And yet the justices are not held to any sort of code of conduct that requires them to follow ethical rules of behavior.

How in the world does the nation’s top judicial bench justify that? How does Chief Justice John Roberts explain that lack of ethical standard? He doesn’t because he can’t.

This lack of ethical code is beyond absurd. It is reprehensible.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, national news

Ah, yes, the ‘sarcasm’ defense

Congress’s reigning QAnon queen, Marjorie Taylor Greene, has tossed out the old “it was sarcasm” canard in response to criticism she has received for making what sounds for all the world like a statement of a traitor.

Greene told a roomful of MAGA sycophants that had she been running the show on 1/6, the assault on the Capitol that day would have succeeded and that Donald Trump would have been able to overturn the 2020 presidential election result and returned to the White House.

They cheered her for those treasonous remarks. Did she say in the moment that it was all for fun? Did she walk any of it back? Ohhh, no. She responded only when others began reporting on the remarks and calling them what they are: the moronic muttering of an individual who has no business making laws that affect you and me.

The Georgia Republican, feeling emboldened I am sure by her re-election this past month, is getting ready to return for just her second term in the House of Representatives. To think that this certifiable idiot has been able to win election in the first place, win re-election to a new term and then possibly take the reins of congressional leadership is utterly astounding.

God help us!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Mayor does the impossible

Brianna Chacon has done the seemingly impossible by replicating what I used to witness in another mayor serving another Texas city.

She has defied the laws of physics by seeming to be everywhere at once. I don’t know how the Princeton (Texas) mayor does it.

I used to joke with a former mayor of Amarillo, a considerably larger city up yonder from Princeton, about her ability to be everywhere all at one time. Debra McCartt is her name. She’s now a private citizen, but so help me as surely as I am writing these words, she was able to show up at various public functions anywhere within shouting distance of Amarillo.

So it seems with Brianna Chacon. She’s been on the job for a couple of years and has made amazing use of social media to appear to be able to clone herself on demand.

Totally amazing!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

education news, local news

Learning the details of school finance

Working as I did for nearly 37 years as a newspaper reporter and editor, I learned long ago never to presume I knew all there is to know about anything.

I am learning that truism in real time covering a school district’s effort to wrap its arms around the stupendous growth it is experiencing.

These days I am a freelance reporter for the Princeton Herald. My bosses at the paper have assigned me the task of covering the Princeton (Texas) Independent School District’s long-term planning committee’s work in crafting a growth-management strategy for the district.

The committee has its hands full trying to grasp the myriad complexities surrounding the issue. It met again tonight to start to unravel it. The group is making progress.

So do I as a reporter assigned to tell the committee’s story to the public that needs to know what is going on. It met again tonight to start to unravel it. The group is making progress.

Therefore, this old man who spent a lot of years learning about communities where he worked — in Oregon, the Golden Triangle of Texas and the Texas Panhandle — is now learning a truckload of new things about this Collin County community.

It’s a challenge I accept gladly.

I just need now to wrap my noggin around the complexities of school finance, the implications of a possible pending bond issue and how the district intends to prioritize a very long wish list of needs it has identified.

It makes me dizzy just thinking about it now. Don’t fear for me, though. A good night’s sleep will enable me to clear my head in the morning. Then I’ll be able to make sense of it.

The learning curve awaits.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Commentary on politics, current events and life experience