Category Archives: crime news

crime news

When is it enough?

When in the name of national sanity is enough going to be enough, that the latest case of mass slaughter at the hands of a madman with an AR-15 will prompt some legislation that could prevent future carnage?

The latest spasm of violence occurred just down the highway from my North Texas home — and even closer to my precious family members who live in Allen. The Allen Outlet Mall was the scene when a lunatic got out of his vehicle and opened fire. He killed eight people, including a 5-year-old before an Allen Police Department officer arrived and shot the gunman dead.

I want to shake the cop’s hand one day and thank him for his service to the community.

Meanwhile, we hear from President Biden who — once again — ordered flags to fly at half-staff and also called for a ban on AR-15s and asked Congress to approve universal background checks and increase the minimum age of purchasing a firearm from 18 to 21.

And what do we hear from Texas pols? GOP Gov. Greg Abbott said the answer lies in mental health treatment. Yes, governor, it does … but it must not be mutually exclusive to what the president is seeking.

Texas GOP U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, meanwhile, said he and his wife are praying for the families and the community. Thanks, senator, but prayers aren’t working. Then comes newly elected U.S. Rep. Keith Self, another Republican who represents Collin County in the House, with a remark that “God is in charge” of everything. Right, Rep. Self. Explain how God continues to allow this kind of slaughter to recur.

I agree with Gov. Abbott about the need to wage war against mental illness. I also agree with President Biden about banning AR-15s and high-capacity magazines, background checks and raising the age of those who want to buy firearms. These approaches are not mutually exclusive!

I want to remind everyone that most Americans — of all political stripes — favor the approach that Biden seeks. Yet our governing institutions keep ignoring the will of the people.

All the while, lunatics keep slithering into plain view to slaughter innocent victims.

Enough is enough!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

Democracy scores big!

Democracy has taken it on the chin in recent years as elements of our society have sought to overturn legitimate presidential elections through force and intimidation.

Well … today our democratic principles scored a big victory when a criminal trial jury delivered guilty verdicts to four members of a group called the Proud Boys, convicting them of seditious conspiracy.

These dipsh**s now stand to serve many years in prison for their actions on 1/6, which included assaulting law enforcement officers while seeking to storm the Capitol Building as Congress was meeting to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election.

This attack was a direct frontal assault on the very tenet on which our democratic process was founded: the peaceful transfer of power from one presidential administration to another.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Justice Department has scored a major victory for all of us who love this nation and who adhere to the principles on which the founders created it.

What’s more, Garland dropped a bit of a hint of more to come when he declared that his “work continues.”

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

‘Representative democracy,’ yes?

When the founders created this great nation, they established a “representative democracy” in which those we elect to public office are charged with representing the majority view of those who send them to office.

Why, then, does the Texas Legislature — to cite just one example — continue to resist the will of the people who appear to support increasing the minimum age for those wishing to purchase firearms?

That’s what is going on here, according to a new poll published by the University of Texas.

The Texas Tribune reports: Released Wednesday, the survey from the University of Texas at Austin found 76% of voters support “raising the legal age to purchase any firearm from 18 years of age to 21 years of age.” Twenty percent of voters oppose the idea. Republicans back the proposal 64% to 31%.

Poll finds Texans support raising age to buy guns from 18 to 21 | The Texas Tribune

What is just as staggering as the overall support for such a measure is the significant majority of Texans who call themselves Republicans who also support increasing the minimum age.

Indeed, the GOP that controls the Legislature along with every single statewide office in Texas ought to listen to the will of the people for whom they work instead of the gun lobby that keeps funneling money to their campaigns.

I am not suggesting that increasing the age limit is the end-all to the spate of gun violence that plagues our society. It merely adds one more reasonable requirement for those wishing to purchase a firearm. While we’re at it, why not also include universal background checks to ensure that the gun purchaser isn’t a threat to those around him.

I doubt seriously the nation’s founders would approve of the way this political climate has shaken out 200-plus years after they created this representative democracy.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

Hunt ends … let justice do its work

The great boxing champ Joe Louis once said his foes “can run but they can’t hide.” So it is as well with criminal suspects on the run from the law.

Police yesterday took a man suspected of killing five neighbors because one of them asked him to stop shooting his AR-15 in the front yard because, according to authorities, he was disturbing her sleeping baby.

What did the moron do? He killed those victim, including a nine-year-old boy before fleeing to a nearby town.

The cops found the suspect hiding under a pile of laundry inside a home in Cut ‘N Shoot, Texas, near the city of Cleveland, where the shooting occurred.

I want to offer a word of congratulations to law enforcement for finding the man accused of the hideous crime. It took a lot of coordination among local, state and federal authorities to bring this individual into custody.

A shocking element of this story is that the suspect, an undocumented immigrant from Honduras, had been deported four times previously. But he got back into the United States anyway! Good ever-lovin’ grief!

I won’t lay any blame on anyone at this moment; maybe later. I merely want to salute the good guys for tracking down this monster and locking him up. Given Texas’s strict laws governing punishment for capital crimes, I am going to presume that the individual captured — presuming he is convicted of the multiple murders — won’t be breathing the good Earth’s air for very long.

As for the reasons for the crime and the availability of the weaponry used in this latest mass shooting, well … that’s a subject for plenty of future debate.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

Not wanting to climb aboard

You may count me as one of the few — apparently, it seems — observers of the 2024 presidential campaign who is unwilling to examine every little thing that flies out of the mouth of the 45th POTUS.

Why? Because I am not yet willing to buy into the harebrained notion that the immediate past POTUS is going to be nominated to run against President Biden next summer.

It’s not because I trust the judgment of Republican primary voters. I already have declared that I mistakenly overestimated the intelligence of the average GOP primary voter. He and she seem all too willing to give the twice-impeached and once (so far) indicted ex-POTUS a pass on his previous disastrous term in office.

They have forgiven him for denigrating a physically challenged New York Times reporter, for bragging about grabbing women by their private area, for applauding the “lock her up” chants at his campaign rallies, for admitting he never has asked for forgiveness, for disparaging the Vietnam War service of a genuine hero, the late John McCain.

Oh, and the insurrection he incited on 1/6? Pffft! Who cares, right?

I am going to place my faith on the indictments that are sure to come from Fulton County, Ga., and from the Justice Department. They are examining some mighty serious criminal behavior that Donald Trump (allegedly) committed. If he’s convicted of any of the crimes, he could spend a lot of years in prison … given the AG’s declaration that “no one is above the law.”

I just do not know how he can run for POTUS and fight to keep the hounds at bay.

Maybe I’m wrong. I hope to have this one right.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

1/6 assault makes me angrier

There can be no denying this fact about the 1/6 assault on the government, which is that the more I see video of that horrendous event, the angrier I become.

Former Vice President Mike Pence testified today before a grand jury that is examining that event and its cause. I have been watching video from that attack, listening to one traitor declaring that the mob would “drag Pence through the streets” if they were to find him.

Then I heard the chant to “Hang Mike Pence!”

Were the traitors serious about those threats? Did they really intend to lynch the vice president? You know, I am not clairvoyant, but the mob seemed pretty serious about the threat and whether they would follow through on it.

Juxtapose that with the knowledge that Pence wants to run for president in 2024, but he likely is going to seek to appeal to the very men and women who threatened to string him up.

What the hell?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

DA lays indictment groundwork

Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani Willis has given the world fair warning.

She is going to seek criminal indictments against Donald John Trump no later than September and is putting out the word to law enforcement to be ready for possible violence as a result.

Willis made the statement today in a letter posted by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper. Why is this significant? Because Willis is acutely aware that she is seeking multiple indictments against the former POTUS and possibly against many of his compatriots who colluded with him to seek to overturn the results of a legitimate, free, fair and legal presidential election.

The Manhattan, N.Y. indictment alleging hush money payments to a porn store, thus, will be reduced to the small potatoes case it appears to be. Willis — as well as special counsel Jack Smith, hired by the Justice Department to examine document theft and inciting an insurrection — is preparing to suit up for the main event.

I long have thought that the Georgia charges against Trump had the most starch, and well might be the most provable. We have an audio recording of Trump bullying the Georgia secretary of state into seeking to “find” enough votes to hand the state’s Electoral College votes to the defeated ex-POTUS.

And there likely will be much more to learn later this year when DA Fani Willis drops the indictment bombs on Donald Trump … whose life is likely to get a whole lot worse.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

More guns = more violence

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is quoted asserting that given the vast number of guns in American society, we should be “the safest country on Earth.”

Well, we aren’t. Not by a long shot.

Yet the National Rifle Association, at its annual meeting this weekend, is singing the same, tired mantra that the explosion of gun violence isn’t a “gun problem.” It is a “mental health problem.” It’s a “societal problem.” Donald Trump, the indicted ex-POTUS, told the NRA it’s a “spiritual problem.”

I will agree that all those factors have contributed to the violence. Yet the common denominator in all the massacres that have occurred in this country continues to be guns and the ease with which nut cases are able to acquire them.

The NRA and their Republican toadies in Congress are on the wrong side of history and of public opinion with their continual resistance to any reasonable legislation that could deter loons from obtaining guns and killing people.

Universal background checks are popular among most Americans, even most Republicans. That hold no water with the GOP and the NRA. They lean on the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which references a “well-regulated militia” as “being necessary to the security of a free State.” Can someone justify that the founders’ assertion that a well-regulated militia means any knuckle-dragger who’s able to purchase a firearm?

I continue to believe that there are legislative solutions that can be implemented that do nothing to infringe on law-abiding citizens from owing firearms.

Except that the NRA adheres to the all-or-nothing approach to interpreting the Constitution. The gun lobby’s stubborn resistance is going to get more Americans killed.

More guns mean more death and mayhem.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

Complaints are outrageous!

When I hear the likes of the MAGA cult and other right-wing fanatics denigrate the criminal justice system because it delivers decisions they dislike … it fills me with rage.

The denigration is in full swing in the wake of Donald Trump’s indictment by a Manhattan grand jury, which is about to level several criminal charges against the ex-president related to his paying an adult film star hush money to keep quiet about a fling the two of them allegedly had in 2006.

The DA in that case, Alvin Bragg, is a competent lawyer. He seated a duly constituted grand jury of ordinary folks to examine the evidence. The grand jury delivered its decision to indict Trump. Yet the former POTUS and his minions are claiming the DA and the grand jury are corrupt. They are politicizing this case.

I don’t believe any of that crap, any more than I believe the rubbish that the 2020 election was stolen, or that the Justice Department is “weaponizing” evidence just to get Trump.

I am a believer in the system. It is working as it should. Trump is likely to pay the price for misdeeds and possibly for criminal activity.

Is anyone on the take? I do not believe it … for an instant!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

Biden shows needed reticence

Joe Biden is good enough of a politician and a lawyer to understand that when a political foe is being indicted for crimes that it is best to just keep his mouth shut.

It was reporters’ efforts to get the president to comment on Donald Trump’s indictment on multiple counts relating to the hush money payment he made to an adult film star that prompted Biden to declare that he won’t speak about Biden’s legal difficulty.

Why should he speak out? Indeed, no lawyer in America would ever counsel an active politician to weigh in on something such as Trump’s indictment.

You see, President Biden is both. An active pol and a man with a decent legal education.

Moreover, you might be willing to bet your last nickel that the president has instructed every member of the Cabinet, the White House staff and even the foreign service officials on duty to dummy up. Don’t talk to reporters about any of this! Got it? Good!

One of the axioms in politics is that when your adversaries are in trouble, it is best to just let ’em stew in their own sauce. Donald Trump’s difficulties are just beginning.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com