Category Archives: national news

national news

‘What about?’ provides no answer

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The “What about?” crowd is alive and well.

They are responding loudly to the accusations being leveled against Donald Trump during his U.S. Senate impeachment trial. They just cannot stop responding to the mountain of evidence against Trump with accusations of “What about the Black Lives Matter protests?” Or “What about all those angry things that Democrats said about Trump?” Or “What about all the violence that erupted this past summer?”

Give me a break.

The House of Representatives impeached Donald Trump on a charge of inciting an insurrection against the very government he took an oath to protect. He left office on Jan. 20. The Senate trial is proceeding.

The House managers are mounting a stout prosecution against Trump. The allegations that have been leveled against the ex-president stand alone in their infamy. He stoked the flames that erupted on Jan. 6 by egging on a crowd of rioters to “take back the country” by marching on Capitol Hill. We witnessed the carnage in real time. Do you recall that?

I want to be clear about something else. I am an American patriot who abhors violence, particularly against innocent victims. I said so on this blog this past summer, that the “protesters” who rose up against police brutality had no right to loot, to vandalize and to harm other human beings.

Spare me, though, the “What about?” retort we keep hearing from those who somehow seek to give Donald Trump a pass on what I believe was a frontal assault on our democratic form of government.

The prior anger and the violence were inexcusable, too. The here and now, though, deals with a singularly grievous crime against the nation we all love. The “What about?” nonsense does not hold up.

national news

Conviction still unlikely

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The evidence of incitement of insurrection has been searing, heartbreaking, graphic and it reveals a profound danger to our republic.

Despite what I believe we have seen in the impeachment trial of Donald John Trump, I fear it won’t move a sufficient number of Republican U.S. senators to do what they should do … which is convict the ex-president of the crime for which the House of Representatives impeached him for the second time.

Trump will get an acquittal. He likely will crow about it. The good news from my standpoint, though, is that his legacy — and I use that term with great caution — will be scarred forever by the knowledge that most senators believe he violated the sacred oath of his office.

He stood before the crowd of terrorists on the Sixth of January and implored them to march on Capitol Hill. He told them to “stop the steal” of an election he lost fair and square to President Biden. They tried to do as they were instructed to do by their hero, the disgraced president.

It won’t move enough senators to convict Trump. Which means the Senate cannot vote to ban this monster from ever seeking federal public office.

That will be to the shame of all the Republicans — and I am talking specifically to Texas’s two senators, Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, both of whom indicate no interest in doing the right thing.

They will hide behind the phony argument about the trial’s alleged unconstitutionality. They will look indifferently at the evidence, at the sight and sounds of terrorists storming the Capitol building, ignoring how many of their colleagues came to being physically harmed … or worse.

The good news, as I see it, will be that Trump will be marked forever as someone who sought to destroy the very government he took an oath to defend and protect.

DC riot, national news

Trump-Pence: Done!

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Imagine where former Vice President Mike Pence is at this moment and then ponder: What is he thinking if he is watching the U.S. Senate trial of Donald John Trump?

The House managers who are prosecuting the ex-president today told a chilling (true) tale of what happened on the Sixth of January, the day Trump incited the riotous mob to storm Capitol Hill.

Vice President Pence was at work in the Capitol Building at that time doing his constitutional duty, which was to preside over a joint congressional session that was meeting to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election — which Trump lost to Joe Biden.

Trump said Pence didn’t “have the courage” to go far beyond his constitutional responsibility and reverse the outcome of the election. The rioters went looking for Pence, declaring their intention to “hang” him.

Did Donald Trump call the VP to offer him comfort? Did he deploy security officers to rescue Pence from the murderous mob? Did he do anything to protect Pence, let alone members of Congress who were doing what the Constitution required them to do? No to all of it! Donald Trump did nothing.

So now I am left to wonder about the former vice president: What in the world is he thinking? How does he remain silent based on what I believe he has seen? How in the name of all that is decent does he maintain any kind of relationship with the man for whom he stood foursquare during their joint term in office?

I noted a while ago that Pence’s relationship with Trump likely ended when he did his job and declared that the 2020 presidential vote was legal, just and that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris would become the next president and vice president of the United States.

Today’s testimony only cements my view that former Vice President Pence likely loathes the individual who asked him to join the clown car parade that ran the executive branch of the federal government.

DC riot, Donald Trump, national news

Testimony tears at our soul

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

My heart is breaking.

It breaks as I watch the video being presented by the members of Congress who are making the case to convict Donald John Trump of inciting an insurrection against the federal government.

I fear that it will shatter into a zillion pieces if Republican senators who are sitting in judgment of the ex-president decide to hang with him and vote to acquit this monstrous individual of the crimes for which the House of Representatives impeached him … for the second time!

Make no mistake about this: I have no illusion about whether the video, audio and the text that House managers have presented will sway enough of them to convict this ghastly individual of incitement.

We keep hearing throughout the day that members of the GOP Senate caucus aren’t even watching the videos that House managers present them. They reportedly are doodling on note pads, reading books, looking everywhere except at the screen. Are they not moved? Do they remain committed to the cult leader who masqueraded as a Republican president of the United States?

My goodness! The evidence today tells the world about how the riotous mob that stormed Capitol Hill intended to — and this is tough to write — assassinate Vice President Mike Pence. How in the name of all that is holy and sacred does one accept any portion of that as being normal? I fear the worst, that there will be an insufficient number of Senate Republicans who will listen to their conscience and vote to convict the ex-president of what they know he has done.

That’s in good measure why my heart is breaking while watching this Senate trial unfold.

What is left of my eternal optimism is being tested mightily by what I fear will be the result of this trial.

My broken heart might be healed partially, however, by the knowledge that more than five or six GOP senators will heed the whispers from their conscience.

And that a majority of senators will render a verdict that destroys this monster’s political future.

national news

Managers make the case

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

There’s a good bit more time to go, but I feel the need to offer a brief comment on what is unfolding on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

I am listening to the U.S. House managers make their case that Donald J. Trump incited an insurrection on the Sixth of January.

To my mind and my ears — and surely to my own admitted bias — they are making the case. They are demonstrating with videos, Twitter messages and with Trump’s own rhetoric that the then-president of the United States intended for the riotous terrorist mob to derail our democratic system of government when he exhorted them to storm Capitol Hill.

I will await Trump’s legal team’s rebuttal to this compelling presentation.

national news

Round One: House managers win on a TKO

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The first round of Donald J. Trump’s impeachment trial goes to the prosecutors who serve in the House of Representatives.

I know what you’re thinking: Sure thing, pal … you want Trump to be convicted; spare me your bias.

OK, fine. Think that if you wish.

The House managers presented compelling arguments that Donald Trump violated his oath of office, that he incited an attack on the government he took an oath to defend and protect. The attack occurred on the Sixth of January with the mob of terrorists storming the Capitol Building.

The managers provided a graphic and hard-to-watch 13-minute profanity-filled video of terrorists beating police officers, smashing windows and breaking through doorways.

Donald Trump’s legal team’s response? Incoherent, particularly the hour-long presentation delivered by Bruce Castor. I watched all of it and I cannot at this moment tell you what he was trying to say in defense of his client.

So, Round One goes to the House managers.

Will it affect an anticipated outcome, which means an acquittal on the charge of incitement of insurrection? I doubt it.

Then again, if any of the 100 senators sitting as jurors are actually keeping “an open mind,” well … one shouldn’t slam the door shut on a correct outcome.

national news

Restore ‘peaceful transition’

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This myth must be dispelled … which is that the presidential transfer from Donald Trump to Joe Biden was not the “peaceful transition of power” we all cherish about our system of government.

That transition included the infamous terrorist riot of the Sixth of January, the one that killed five people, including a Capitol Police officer who died trying to keep the mob from overpowering the Capitol Building.

So, a Senate trial is about to commence. We must never — not ever! — lose sight of what we nearly lost on that terrible day and in the weeks that preceded it. We nearly lost what arguably is the most significant positive aspect of our system of government.

We go through a presidential election every four years. They produce a winner and a loser. The winner is filled with joy and anticipation of assuming the awesome power of the office. The loser is disappointed, and understandably so. But the candidate who loses that contest usually then calls the winner, offers a word of congratulations and then pledges to “work with” the winner in continuing our national journey.

That didn’t happen in 2020. The loser bitched and moaned about phony “vote fraud” and said the election was “stolen” from him. He mounted legal challenges ad nauseum against the result; state and federal courts threw them all out.

Then we had the riot. We all witnessed the horror.

Have we lost our bragging point? Has it been consigned to some historical trash heap? No. It hasn’t. The only way we can lose it forever would be if it were to repeat itself in four years, or any time after that.

We must be mindful of what happened during this transition. It wasn’t peaceful. It wasn’t orderly. President Biden took office after harvesting his vast knowledge of government to ensure that when he took over the executive branch that he had as much of his team installed and ready to go as he could.

The transition from Trump to Biden should have been peaceful. It wasn’t. Let’s  not forget what we all witnessed and let us be sure we remind those who come after us about the danger that lurks when a losing presidential candidate refuses to concede that he or she has lost a free, fair and democratic election.

national news, national security

Fight the home-grown terrorists

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Domestic terrorism has entered the current political debate.

It is about damn time!

For the past four years, we have paid too little attention, or exerted too little emotional capital on the scourge of domestic, home-grown, corn-fed terrorists who hide in plain sight in our midst.

They presented themselves in full force on the Sixth of January when they marched to Capitol Hill, smashed their way into the Capitol Building, killed five human beings and threatened to stop the democratic process of certifying the results of a free and fair election.

President Biden has introduced the term “domestic terrorists” to the current lexicon, reviving it in the face of what the entire world witnessed early this past month.

FBI Director Christopher Wray told congressional committee members in 2019 that domestic terrorists posed an exponentially greater threat to Americans’ security that foreign terrorists working for, say, ISIS or al-Qaeda.

Did the Donald Trump administration act on that statement? Did it call out the proverbial cavalry to answer the call to root out the terrorists? No. It didn’t. Instead, we heard the president of the United States say in 2017 that there were good people on “both sides” of a dispute that erupted in Charlottesville, Va., between counter protesters and — get this — the Ku Klux Klan, Nazis and assorted white supremacists.

Yep. Donald Trump sought to elevate the Klansmen and Nazis to the same moral level of those who fought against them.

That cannot continue. Thank goodness we now have a president, Joe Biden, who knows better than to utter such moronic rhetoric out loud. You see, words have consequences and it is time this nation deal forthrightly with the terrorists who live among us.

The leadership required to commence that fight has just taken office in Washington, D.C. I believe the battle must be fought at least as long and hard as we are fighting the overseas enemies … and we mustn’t back away from calling what they are.

Terrorists.

national news

Dems and GOP agree: end trial soon

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Democrats and Republicans can agree on at least one thing these days.

Politicians in both parties want a quick end to the Senate trial of Donald John Trump. They want to put the matter of his incitement of insurrection to rest quickly so they can move on to take care of business that matters to you and me.

I agree with ’em.

The result likely won’t please me. Trump has been accused of inciting the mob of terrorists to storm Capitol Hill on Jan. 6. To my way of thinking, it’s a clear case of insurrection against the government. Trump egged the lunatics on. The House impeached him one week later and a week after that he left office.

The Senate, which is split 50-50, isn’t likely to convict Trump. The Senate needs 17 GOP members to see the light; some of them will, but not nearly enough to secure a constitutionally mandated conviction … which would precede another vote to bar him from seeking public office for the rest of his miserable life.

I am going to cling to the “unity” on both sides of the great divide. Let’s get this matter over with and done. We have a pandemic to fight and an economy to restore!

national news

Another GOP’er to leave

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Hey, who’s counting? OK, I guess I am.

Richard Shelby of Alabama today became the third prominent U.S. Senate Republican to announce he won’t seek re-election in 2022.

He joins Rob Portman of Ohio and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania as declaring themselves to be lame ducks.

I know what you are thinking: Where is he going with this?

Might they now muster up the courage to vote to convict Donald Trump of inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill, of exhorting the terrorists to storm into the Senate chamber where the second of Trump’s impeachment trials is about to begin?

Shelby, Portman and Toomey can join GOP Sens. Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski and perhaps Susan Collins as possible votes to convict Trump. That leaves only 11 more Republicans to persuade to do the right thing.

Trump can do nothing to those who are leaving public office. Therefore, the threat of reprisal against those politicians is a goner. Just sayin’, man.