Category Archives: national news

national news

Accountability is essential

There can be no doubt over what must be the outcome of the 1/6 congressional probe.

It is that people in the highest levels of our government must be held accountable for their action — or inaction — on that terrible event in our nation’s history.

Yep. That’s you, Donald John Trump!

Trump says the televised hearings have drawn “terrible ratings.” You would expect such a shallow analysis from someone who made his living as a “reality TV” celebrity before entering politics in 2015.

But the truth is — as I survey it — that the hearings have delivered a wide range of evidence that suggests that Trump’s insistence on fomenting The Big Lie about the 2020 election produced the assault on the Capitol Building that sought to overturn those results.

Trump knew what he did was illegal, that it was unconstitutional and that it was immoral. Yet he persists to this very day to suggest there was widespread vote fraud in 2020 when — in plain fact — there was none.

He must be held to account for what he sought to do.

It will fall on Attorney General Merrick Garland and his legal team to tie all the loose ends together prior to making a decision on whether to seek indictments against Trump.

I hope he sees what many of us have seen.

That the former president of the United States is a criminal who needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

This isn’t ‘normal’

Make no mistake that I will go to my grave wondering how in the name of sane thought certain congressional Republicans can compare the 1/6 insurrection to a normal “tour group” walking through the Capitol Building.

Yet … they are. They continue to insist that despite what our “lying eyes” are telling us, the attack on our nation’s Capitol was no big deal. The traitors who smashed through windows, waged hand-to-hand combat with Capitol cops and defecated on the floor bore no resemblance to a “normal” tour group.

The televised congressional hearings continue to engrave in our memories that the frontal assault was organized as such and carried out just as radical groups intended.

What continues to astound me is that the congressmen and women who barf out the nonsense about 1/6 have voters back home who actually endorse the perversion that pours out of their respective pie holes.

This is a great country. Its greatness, though, is being stained — indelibly, I fear — by the nimrods conducted the insurrection against our democratic process.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

So many ‘what ifs’

Games of “what if” at times fill my noggin with thoughts that require some analysis. My skull is filling up at this moment with a number of “what if” scenarios relating to the probe of the 1/6 insurrection.

What if Attorney General Merrick Garland decides to indict Donald J. Trump on seditious conspiracy charges? My hunch is that he would need to fast-track a trial in a hurry, to get it done prior to the start of the 2024 Republican Party presidential primary season.

What if the AG indicts Trump but doesn’t have full confidence that he can obtain a conviction? Garland would be tempting fate beyond all reasonable measure if that’s the case.

What if the AG decides, “I cannot bring an indictment forward”? He then becomes, in the words of a dear friend, “The Neville Chamberlain of the insurrection.” Chamberlain was the British prime minister who stood by and allowed Adolf Hitler in 1938 to annex the Sudetenland and then Czechoslovakia on the eve of World War II. Garland might be tarred for life if he doesn’t hold Trump accountable for what I believe he did on 1/6.

What if U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney loses her GOP primary election in Wyoming? The courageous congresswoman who voted to impeach Trump becomes a lame duck. Then she dons the brass knuckles as she fires up her rhetoric.

Finally, what if Donald John Trump gets convicted of seditious conspiracy?

He’s done as a political force … which would please me greatly.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

It was an ‘insurrection’

I do not intend to pussyfoot around politically correct terminology when I refer to the events of 1/6.

Thus, when I talk about the attack on Capitol Hill that occurred that day, I will use the term I have used regularly since it occurred. It was an insurrection against the United States government.

I have needed little persuasion to come to that conclusion, but the televised hearings we have watched over the course of three days have sealed the deal for me.

Some media outlets are careful to avoid using that term. Some right-wing media organizations have issued bans on the use of the term. The pundits who work for those organizations point out — correctly, I acknowledge — that no formal charges of “insurrection” have been filed against multiple suspects already under indictment.

While that is technically true, I should add that some individuals have been accused of “seditious conspiracy,” which by my reckoning is virtually the same thing as insurrection.

Just as I have declared that the attack on our system of government was not a spontaneous “riot” that erupted because some “protesters” got carried away with their anger, I will insist on calling the assault that day an act of insurrection.

Think briefly for a moment. What kind of spontaneity would result in individuals carrying zip ties, firearms and assorted clubs and other weapons to Capitol Hill that day? They went there to overturn the Electoral College tabulation that resulted in Joe Biden being elected president of the United States.

We now are hearing mounting evidence that Donald Trump conspired with his senior aides to block Biden from becoming POTUS. I want the Justice Department to hold anyone accountable for what they did on that day … and by “anyone,” that includes the man who masqueraded as president for four years before being shown the door.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

1/6 was no ‘riot’

I have just made a command decision on how I intend to use this blog. So … here goes.

From this moment forward, I am not going to refer to the 1/6 assault on Capitol Hill as a “riot.” I am now convinced beyond any sort of reasonable doubt that the events of that terrible day were orchestrated and planned in advance.

Thus, the term “riot,” which suggests a spontaneous eruption of violence, is no longer the term of art I shall use to describe what occurred.

I’ll use other nouns to describe the attack on our democracy. Assault and attack come immediately to mind.

Long ago, I determined the Capitol Hill assault was an insurrection against the democratic process. I made that determination even though no one has been charged formally — not yet anyway — with committing an insurrection. But it was … an insurrection.

To refer to that event as a “riot” demeans it. It reduces its significance to something less than what the assailants wanted to accomplish. They threatened to kill Vice President Pence and House Speaker Pelosi. Donald Trump said a day or two before the event that it will be “wild.” He knew what was coming!

It was a planned event! Therefore, I am going to forgo terminology that — to my mind — lessens the importance of what happened that day on Capitol Hill.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Have you heard enough?

Day Three of the House select 1/6 committee hearing has been — shall we say — illuminating … yes?

Its aim was to illustrate the pressure that Donald Trump poured onto Mike Pence to commit an illegal and unconstitutional act.

To his credit, the VP didn’t budge. He did what he was allowed to do under the Constitution, was to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election. He had no legal authority to toss out those results, as Trump urged him to do. Vice President Pence acted solely within the law.

I have heard enough, therefore, to conclude that the Justice Department has enough evidence to proceed with a criminal indictment against the 45th president of the United States.

To be sure, it isn’t my call to make. That call belongs to Attorney General Merrick Garland. May the AG proceed with all deliberate discernment and reach the same conclusion that many of us out here have reached.

There will be more televised hearings to be conducted. I intend to listen to every hour I am able to consume.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Keeping faith in our system

Worriers have expressed concern about whether our “fragile democracy” can withstand the assault that has been launched against it.

I will not join the worry warts among us. I am proclaiming my implicit faith in the strength of our democratic process and my belief that it will emerge from this crisis stronger than when it all began.

Donald Trump lost a presidential election in 2020 but his frontal assault on our democratic process has persisted. He has sought to undermine Americans’ faith in our electoral system by proclaiming that he lost only because of “widespread voter fraud.”

The judicial system has withstood those challenges by rejecting them in court.

I am not naive to ignore what might be lurking on the political horizon. Election deniers are winning primary races, positioning themselves to possibly take office at the end of the year. They are thought to be in position to set future electoral policy that could benefit Donald Trump and his minions at the ballot box.

I am going to rely on my belief — and I don’t think it’s misplaced — that voters are smarter than that. It falls on the rest of us to remind them repeatedly of the folly of doing something foolish.

Therein lies the strength of our democratic process. We still have that thing we call the “marketplace of ideas.” Thus, my generally optimistic nature demands that I place my faith that wisdom will win out … and that our collective good sense will preserve our cherished democratic process.

Let me remind you that we have survived world wars, a civil war and all manner of constitutional crises. The common denominator in all of those struggles: the U.S. Constitution. It will hold the nation together again.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Barr: too late with the truth

I wanted to believe the best in William Barr, even going to back to when Donald Trump appointed him to be U.S. attorney general. Barr had served as AG during the George H.W. Bush administration and I long thought of him as a man of principle.

Silly me. He turned out to be a Trump toadie during his second stint as attorney general.

Now we hear from Barr during those taped depositions he gave to the House 1/6 committee that he believed Trump’s claim of vote fraud in the 2020 presidential election were “bullsh**.” Oh my goodness! He’s telling the truth! Finally!

I wanted to give him kudos for telling the House panel what it needed to hear. Then I thought: Not so fast; this guy shoulda said as much long ago, when Trump first threw out the vote fraud canard.

Instead, Barr remained quiet. He even seemed on at least two occasions to endorse the notion that the 2020 presidential election had been infected by fraudulent ballot-casting.

Yes, there is probative value in what Barr has declared. I’ll give him that much. However, I will not hold this man up as a paragon of judicial virtue for telling the House panel what he should have revealed to the public long ago.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news, national news

‘Patriots’? Not even close!

I long ago developed a deep, visceral hatred for those groups that pervert the word “patriot.”

Why bring that up now? It appears that a Fort Worth-based hate group has been fingered in a bust of haters who were rounded up in northern Idaho this week.

The group calls itself the “Patriot Front,” which is a white supremacist outfit with a mission to spread lies and hate-soaked messages about anyone who doesn’t believe as they do.

The FBI rounded up the suspects from several states, eight or nine of whom are front North Texas.

I hate this perversion of the word “patriot” because I consider myself a patriot. I served my country in time of war; I went to war when my country ordered me to do so. I served and came home. I pay my taxes regularly and without a hint of resentment. I play by the rules the government lays down for me to obey.

I am a square when it comes to this stuff.

What’s more, I get chills when I hear the National Anthem. I fly Old Glory in front of my home and display a red-white-and-blue banner in the living room window.

I am a patriotic sap.

Furthermore, I resent terribly anyone or any organization that proclaims their patriotism while espousing any principle that flies in the face of what the founders intended when they created this nation in the late 18th century.

I want to make one more point. We’re celebrating Flag Day today. We fly the flag not because we cherish the cloth that contains its colors. We fly it because of what it symbolizes, which is the liberty to protest the government and, yes, to burn the flag if you believe your protest is worthy of such an act.

Make no mistake, though, in believing that burning a flag in my presence will persuade me to follow your political lead. Oh, no. Not even. I just honor the liberty that we all have in this country to protest peacefully.

As for the Patriot Front … well, it’s a hate group that has earned my eternal hatred.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Liz Cheney: show stealer

Liz Cheney is stealing the show at the 1/6 House select committee televised hearings.

It’s a cinch that the Wyoming Republican member of Congress — one of its most conservative members — is emerging as the star of the hearing to determine whether Donald Trump should be prosecuted for inciting the 1/6 insurrection against the federal government.

I want to join a University of Texas professor in proclaiming that although Cheney is far from my favorite member of Congress, she has earned my respect and admiration for the way she has handled herself in the face of stern opposition … from those within her own party!

Richard Cherwitz writes in The Hill: Perhaps most noteworthy was Cheney’s withering message to her fellow Republicans. It was rhetorically powerful and no doubt will be remembered for a long time: “Tonight, I say this to our Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”

I’m no fan of Liz Cheney, but she has earned my respect (msn.com)

Cheney is a right-winger, to be sure. I oppose her on critical issues of the day: on abortion, on gun control, on judicial appointments. You name it and I am likely to take a different view from those espoused by Rep. Cheney.

However, we do share a common interest. It is fealty to the Constitution. She has said repeatedly that she and her fellow members of Congress took the same oath, that they are faithful to the Constitution. She has parted company with most of her GOP colleagues, though, on whether they are more faithful to Donald Trump than they are to the nation’s governing document.

Compare her rhetoric to what we hear coming from many of the Trumpkins who are serving in the House. She argues that Donald Trump should be held accountable for his actions on 1/6; the Trumpkin Corps says “Pfftt! Why does that matter?”

Trump has endorsed a GOP opponent running against Cheney in the primary election this year. I don’t know whether Liz Cheney will lose that fight. I hope she survives. Why? Because we need more people in Congress who are loyal to the Constitution and who show courage when faced with political pressure from within their own partisan ranks.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com