Category Archives: legal news

GOP senators break with Trump … woo hoo!

It’s not every day one gets to salute U.S. Senate Republicans for doing the right thing as it regards the former president of the United States, the former Liar in Chief.

Donald Trump declared on Fox News the other day that he could “declassify” documents taken from the White House and stored at his Florida home simply by “thinking” about it.

No can do … Mr. ex-POTUS. Declassification is a complicated process, Sens. John Thune, Mike Rounds and Thom Tillis told CNN.

They said:

SEN. THUNE: There’s a process for declassifying documents. And I think it ought to be adhered to and followed.

SEN. TILLIS: There’s a formal process that needs to be gone through and documented … As I understand, the executive branch requirements there is a process one must go through.

SEN. ROUNDS: I think anyone who takes the time to appropriately protect that information, and who has taken the time to see what’s in the information would have serious concerns about how items could be accessed, if they’re not stored properly.

GOP Sens. Tillis, Thune, Rounds Break With Trump: “There’s A Formal Process” For Declassifying Documents | Video | RealClearPolitics

Do you get what I mean here? Donald Trump, once again, is making things up in what passes for that brain in his thick skull.

It’s getting might cramped in that space surrounding The Donald as the walls keep closing in.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I told you so … ?

As a general rule I am not one to gloat or to say “I told you so” when it regards political predictions, given that my record on that score is so abysmal.

However, I believe I might have earned the right to say “I told you so” as it pertains to whether Donald J. Trump is going to run for president of the United States in 2024.

I have expressed profound doubt that Trump would be able to mount any sort of credible campaign for POTUS. The federal judiciary, I am delighted to affirm, seems to be giving my assertions a good bit of weight.

A three-judge panel — with two judges having been nominated by Donald Trump — has essentially tossed into the crapper a ruling by another Trump judicial appointee any thought that the ex-POTUS could derail the FBI seizure of classified documents from Trump’s glitzy mansion in Florida.

Trump now is facing the prospect of having to withstand the full weight of the Justice Department probe into whether he violated the law by taking documents from the White House and “hiding” them in desk drawers in his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Furthermore, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals panel says the documents belong “to the people of the United States.” They aren’t Trump’s. They don’t even belong to the White House. They belong to you and me, man!

And then there’s the lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James that has the potential of wiping out Donald Trump and forcing three of his adult children to file bankruptcy. AG James alleges that Trump engaged in criminal falsification of his assets in order to obtain favorable business loans.

It is the by far largest lawsuit Donald Trump has ever faced … and, brother, he’s faced a bunch of ’em in his adult professional life!

All of this leads me to conclude — with a healthy dose of caution — that I see no way on Earth that Donald Trump can possibly seek the presidency ever again.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

How ‘Christian’ is this?

Ron De Santis no doubt calls himself a devout Christian, not that I really care specifically about a politician’s religious affiliation.

It’s just “normal” for conservative Republican politicians, such as the Florida governor, to hoist a cloak of religious fervor to explain why they do certain things. In De Santis’ case, why he would take families — including babies — place them on an airplane and fly them to a mystery destination after they had entered the United States in search of a better life.

De Santis has been taking considerable joy in these actions against those entering this country while fleeing the communists in Venezuela and Nicaragua. He wants to make some sort of point about how Republicans are tougher on undocumented immigrants than Democrat.

I guess here is where I should mention that De Santis might run for president in 2024 and that his foe in two years could be Democratic President Joe Biden.

Devotion to one’s faith requires, it seems to me, that politicians adhere to all its teachings, not just cherry-pick those that suit the pols’ ambitions.

The Bible I read instructs me to show compassion and caring. Its New Testament teachings — you know, those that come from Jesus Christ — tell me to reach out in love to those in need. So help me, I cannot find a single passage that instructs me to hand those in need over to someone else.

Yet we have Ron De Santis and his GOP pal, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, shipping desperate human beings to points unknown and, in effect, telling them: Y’all are on your own. Good luck and we’ll see ya in funny papers.

Simply disgraceful.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Special master proving, well … he’s OK

Donald Trump’s insistence on the appointment of a “special master” to oversee the seizure of those classified documents at his Florida mansion was a troublesome event, to be sure.

Then a remarkable thing happened. The former president’s legal team and the U.S. Justice Department settled on a fellow with impeccable legal credentials. They both supported the appointment of senior U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie as special master.

Then another astonishing event occurred just yesterday. Judge Dearie — first appointed to the federal bench by President Reagan — began exposing glaring weakness in Trump’s assertion of “executive privilege” in spiriting those documents from the White House to Mar-a-Lago.

What do you know about that? A man thought to be a possible Trump toadie is turning into, um, someone who takes the rule of law seriously.

Mar-a-Lago: Trump Push for Special Master Appears to Be Backfiring (businessinsider.com)

Dearie is hearing evidence about whether Trump ever de-classified any of the documents. There appears to be zero evidence that Trump did anything of the sort and Dearie appears to be wise to that reality … and is acting accordingly.

This isn’t my original thought, but I’ll buy into the notion that Trump’s gamble about getting a special master to handle this case is blowing up in his overfed face.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Statement causes chills

A declaration by a member of Congress didn’t receive nearly the attention it deserves; therefore, I will try to rectify it with this brief blog post.

U.S. Rep. What’s Her Name — aka Marjorie Taylor Greene — the Republican from Georgia, recently pronounced herself to be a “Christian nationalist.” I can’t recall the context of her comment or the venue in which she uttered it. All I can recall is her saying, “If you want to call me a Christian nationalist, then that’s what I am.”

That is a frightening thing to hear from a member of Congress.

I shall remind you once again that these individuals take an oath to “defend and protect the U.S. Constitution.” Indeed, I took such an oath in August 1968 when I was inducted into the U.S. Army, so I have some exposure to its meaning. I took it to mean, and I do so to this day, that I protect what the Constitution sets forth in its governing policy.

Rep. What’s Her Name needs to understand, too, what it means … but she ignores the obvious tenet of our nation’s government framework. It is that the Constitution establishes a secular government. It says in plain English in Article VI that there shall be “no religious test” required of anyone seeking public office.

The word “Christianity” is nowhere to be found in that document.

I know I have whipped this critter bloody already, but I will keep doing so until it sinks in. Christian nationalism seeks to turn the United States into a “Christian nation.” It isn’t. We are a nation with a population that comprises a strong majority of Christians as citizens. Our government was founded on Judeo-Christian principles and I am totally fine with that.

I am not fine with the notion that our Constitution somehow contains language that mandates our laws be faithful to New Testament scripture. So, for dipsh**s like Rep. What’s Her Name to suggest that it does reveals a remarkable level of ignorance about the very oath she took to uphold.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Say it ain’t so, Ronny J!

Someone might have to pass some smelling salts to help revive me if what I read actually comes true.

It is that Rep. Ronny Jackson, the Amarillo Republican who’s curried favor with the Donald Trump cabal of kooks, might run for the U.S. Senate in 2026. Yep, the one-time White House doc might challenge U.S. Sen. John Cornyn in four years presuming Cornyn decides to seek re-election.

That means if Jackson actually wins in 2026 then the whole state will have to endure his tweets, his ongoing assault against those who disagree with his MAGA-loving demagoguery.

The guy is a carpetbagging clown show barker who moved into the 13th Congressional District specifically to run for Congress from the Texas Panhandle.

Ronny Jackson, prominent Trump ally, weighing U.S. Senate run in 2026 | The Texas Tribune

Jackson is a Trumpkin through and through. He doesn’t deserve re-election to his House seat, let alone election to a seat in what once was known as “the world’s greatest deliberative body.”

Keep the salts handy.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

If I were King of the World …

First, I need to stipulate that I never have aspired to be King of the World, but if somehow were it to happen, there are a few things I would change about the current political climate.

For starters:

  • I would limit the U.S. president to a single six-year term, kind of like what they do in Mexico. Presidents there run for a single term and then they’re gone.

What is the advantage here? The president doesn’t campaign for re-election, for starters, and he or she then gets to concentrate solely on legislative agendas.

Too often presidents take office at the start of their first term and begin making speeches aimed appealing to voting blocs that would favor them in a run for their second term. It’s a fairly bipartisan affliction, so my friends on the left can accuse me all they want of offering a “both sides do it” escape clause. Too bad. I just happen to believe it’s true.

I offer this change while reminding readers of this blog that I oppose term limits already. I subscribe to the notion that elections serve as “term limits” if voters believe the officeholder doesn’t deserve to be re-elected.

  • Furthermore, I would like to see terms of House members extended from two years to three or maybe four years. That, too, removes the need for House members to begin their re-election quest immediately upon taking office.

A congressman once told me that he had to dedicate a certain number of hours every week to campaign fundraising, which took time away from research and legislating. It was an unwritten rule, he said, but one that a congressman or woman dare not ignore if he or she wanted to serve beyond that single term.

I wouldn’t trifle with the length of U.S. Senate terms. No need to extend them beyond the six years to which we elect them. Besides, doing so might fill a senator with a notion that since he or she is elected to serve longer than the president that he or she is more important than the commander in chief. We’ve got too many senatorial grandstanders already.

None of this is likely to happen. I am just venting over what I see is serious damage to the political fabric.

Of course, none of this answers the need to stop elected certifiable dumbasses to high public office. We’ll have to deal seriously with that matter later.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Conflict of interest?

Ellen Skinner wants to be elected justice of the peace in Collin County, Texas. If the Republican nominee for JP wins, she will join her husband as an elected official in this fast-growing county northeast of Dallas.

Now, what do we make of these two folks holding elected office?

Well, Mr. Skinner happens to be Collin County Sheriff Jim Skinner, which makes me scratch my head just a bit. You see, Ellen Skinner would be adjudicating cases brought into her court — as often as not — by Collin County sheriff’s deputies. Both of these individuals are Republicans.

I am not going to level any accusations here, because I don’t know either of them … although I did shake Ellen Skinner’s hand several months ago at a meeting in Farmersville.

I reached out to a friend of mine, a former Democratic JP in Potter County. I asked my friend if she perceived a conflict of interest if the judge is making a judicial decision on a matter brought to her by the sheriff’s office. My friend believes a conflict could exist.

Hmm. I need to pursue this matter a bit further. I don’t want any conflict of interest. The JP candidate is a lawyer. The sheriff is an experienced law enforcement officer. Surely, they have discussed this matter at home.

From my seat, though, I have difficulty imagining how the JP avoids a complaint from someone who comes up on the short end of a judgment brought to the judge by the sheriff’s department.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Talk to us, Mr. VPOTUS

(AP Photo/Chase Stevens)

Mike Pence has some things he needs to explain to Americans. The former vice president of the United States tried like the dickens to squash the insurrection that damn near succeeded in overturning the 2020 election.

Except that the orders he issued to the military brass violated the U.S. Constitution. But … did they?

Pence reportedly issued the order for the active-duty military to put down the assault on Capitol Hill; he issued one for the National Guard, too. He did so in the presence of Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley. But only the president has the authority to issue that order. Then again, the president was doing nothing to end the violence. It well could have fallen, then, to the VPOTUS to take command in that extraordinary circumstance.

Pence was being threatened explicitly by those who were carrying signs and yelling “Hang Mike Pence!” Donald Trump did nothing to quell that hideous act. It well could have fallen to the VP to do what the head man refused to do.

Pence well might be called to testify before the House 1/6 select committee. I do hope the panel members are able to pull some answers from Mike Pence on what happened on that horrifying day.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Believing now that indictment is coming

From virtually the moment that he skulked out of town prior to the ceremony celebrating the guy who defeated in the 2020 presidential election, I have resisted the notion that Donald J. Trump would be indicted on charges of criminal behavior.

Today, though, my thoughts have changed … dramatically, I must add.

I believe that Attorney General Merrick Garland is going to indict the former president of the United States, making a huge bit of history in the process. The charges that Garland might level against Trump, though, remain an open question.

They include the most serious, say, obstruction of justice or conspiracy to commit sedition. Those are felonies that carry enormous prison terms if someone is convicted of the allegation.

There might be misdemeanor charges leveled, dealing with the handling of those classified documents that Trump squirreled away in his glitzy Florida estate.

Friends of mine who live in faraway lands have speculated that Trump would be hauled off in leg irons and handcuffs. Other friends of mine — those who are loyal to Trump — have said quite the opposite. They don’t defend the individual’s character, saying he “never would do” the things that have been alleged already. Instead, they challenge the motives of the federal investigation.

I believe Merrick Garland is as fine a public servant as we can find. His career as a federal judge was marked by universal praise — from the left and the right — for his judicial scholarship and the meticulous nature of his court rulings. Even when the Senate GOP leadership blocked his nomination to the Supreme Court in early 2016, they didn’t question his qualifications or the quality of the man; they were motivated by pure politics.

I am unaware of the particulars of the AG’s investigation. All I have to assess it is my belief in the character of the man leading it.

He has said that “no one is above the law.” By “no one,” he means, well … no one!

Therefore, I believe he has compiled enough evidence to cobble together a prosecutorial complaint against Donald John Trump.

Then we shall watch the full-scale implosion of a man deluded with notions of grandeur. It cannot happen to a more deserving individual.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com