Category Archives: crime news

crime news, FBI, legal news, national news, political news

FBI acted properly

I am going to seek to put to rest a lie that Donald J. Trump keeps repeating as it involves the FBI search for classified/top secret documents that the ex-president squirreled away illegally in his Florida home.

All set? Here goes.

Trump keeps saying that the FBI “raided” his home. It was no “raid.” The FBI worked with a federal judge to obtain a search warrant based on what it believes is “probable cause” that a crime took place. The feds sought the documents that Trump spirited out of the White House in violation of the Presidential Records Act that stipulates that official documents need to go to the National Archives.

When the FBI found the documents, the agents — in full view of Trump’s lawyers — spread them on the floor for picture-taking purposes. The ex-POTUS’s newest lie is that the feds spread the documents out to illustrate that Trump was so damn careless he would just toss ’em on the floor for the whole world to see.

No! The FBI was following standard operating evidence-gathering procedure. Trump never says the FBI picked the documents up and put them where agents found them: in the boxes that Trump’s team took from the White House to Florida.

As is always the case with this clown, the crowd that hears these lies cheers on the liar who spreads them, filling him with even more hubris to repeat them.

Disgraceful.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, FBI, legal news, national news

Do they really mean ‘civil war’?

What in the name of certifiable insanity is happening along the rightward fringe of political discourse, with individuals and groups yammering about the prospects of “civil war” if certain events don’t go the way they want them to go?

There well could be multiple indictments coming from at least two states, and the U.S. Department of Justice over the conduct of the most recent former president of the United States. Donald Trump’s cult followers are vowing to take to the streets. They will exact revenge if their leader faces criminal prosecution.

Some of ’em have said they expect a civil war to erupt. What the … ?

Hey, we all know what happened when we had a Civil War in this country. Six hundred thousand Americans died on battlefields throughout much of the eastern United States. The war ended. President Lincoln vowed to bind the wounds that tore us apart … only to be assassinated.

Now some among us are predicting a return to that horrifying chapter in our national history. And why? Because the Justice Department is doing its job in accordance with federal law and the U.S. Constitution.

Oh, and then we have two states — Georgia and New York — looking as well into possible criminal behavior. They, too, are operating legally and ethically in the search for the truth.

Oh, my. These threats frighten the daylights out of me.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, national news, national security, political news

MAGAites churn my stomach

Reaction to President Biden’s speech in defense of the “soul of America” from the MAGA cabal of kooks has been, to say the least, more than a bit unsettling.

The treasonous cultists who adhere to the phony philosophy that seeks to Make America Great Again now are ascribing to President Biden the very characteristics we all have seen exhibited in real time by Donald J. Trump.

They are pissed off because they allege Biden has declared war on “half the country.” How do I say this clearly? No, he is not! Biden has sought to wage rhetorical warfare against a shrinking element of the MAGA base that continues to buy into The Big Lie about alleged widespread voter fraud … that does not exist.

Think for a moment about the cultists who buy into one thing their “esteemed leader” said this week: Trump said that if hell freezes over and he is returned as president that he will give “serious thought” to issuing blanket pardons for those who took part in the 1/6 attack on our government. (Actually, the “hell freezes over” reference is mine, not Trump’s … as if you didn’t know.)

My point is that nothing makes my blood boil more at this moment than the notion of the traitorous mob being pardoned for their assault on our democratic process, when they smashed through windows, threatened to “Hang Mike Pence!” and crapped on the floor of our Capitol Building.

Biden made several points with crystal clarity. The one that stands out for me was when he declared that you “cannot support our democracy only when you win.” 

The Big Lie believers cannot accept that the Big Liar in Chief lost the 2020 election. Nor can they accept the righteous and deserved scolding they received from the man who defeated their cult hero.

Yes, they pose a threat to our democracy. The rest of us must — and I use this term metaphorically — put them down.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, legal news, national news, political news

The docs ain’t yours, Donald

Donald J. Trump had this annoying habit during his time as president of referring to the Cabinet, the official White House staff, even the Joint Chiefs of Staff as his own.

Recall how he would refer to “my attorney general,” or “my generals” or “my presidency.”

Now comes word that the former POTUS has referred to the classified documents he took from the White House as “my documents.” How they “belong to me.”

Uhh, no, Donald. They belong to me and all other Americans. The president with no knowledge of the Constitutional or the limits it places on the presidency has seized those documents and claimed them for his own use. That’s what the evidence so far has been revealing.

To be fair, Trump isn’t the only POTUS to take such ownership of public figures, public documents and public offices. I have lost count of the number of presidents refer to “my presidency,” or “my vice president” or “my national security team.” I seek while writing on this blog to avoid ascribing ownership of the presidency to the individual who occupies the office.

That said, Trump’s claim of ownership of top-secret and other classified papers sends chills up my back.

Listen up, Attorney General Merrick Garland: The man has to pay for such hubris.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, national news, national security, political news

‘Trump is done’

Brian Karem, a writer for Salon, is preaching to the proverbial choir when he declares the storm that’s a brewin’ might be the one that takes out Donald Trump, sends him home to … wherever.

And then he’ll be gone from our consciousness. Presumably for the rest of his time walking this good Earth.

That’s my hope. That’s the hope, apparently, of a growing number of Americans who have grown sick, tired and bored out of their skulls at Trump’s one-note samba that kicks out the lyrics to The Big Lie.

Read Karem’s latest essay here:  A storm is coming: It might sweep Trump and the GOP into history’s dustbin (msn.com)

I have been struck by the stone-cold silence from the Trumpkin cabal of cultists over the documents the FBI seized at Trump’s posh estate. Not even the likes of Jim Jordan, or Rand Paul, or Lindsey Graham, or any other of the Trump cult followers can come up with an explanation on how top-secret documents found their way from the White House to Trump’s South Florida pad.

Then we hear from Trump himself, saying in a totally insane social media rant that the FBI grabbed the documents from his desk and scattered them on the floor for the world to see.

What the hell? That is a defense of what Trump did? Good grief, he just admitted to breaking federal law!

As Karem said in his essay:

So, yes — there is a storm coming. It’s not a civil war. It’s a reckoning — and I reckon the GOP would rather not face it. All the Democrats have to do is show up and vote, and the Republicans’ beloved Supreme Court gave them an excellent reason to do so.

The FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home was merely an affirmation that those eager to flee the GOP needed, to let them know their instincts were right. When the facts are understood, Donald, it turns out that nobody likes a traitor.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, national news, State news

Age limits on guns: ‘unconstitutional’?

Greg Abbott cannot be serious … but he surely is being serious when he declares that attempts to increase the minimum age for individuals to buy high-powered rifles are “unconstitutional.”

I will have to disagree with the Texas governor, a Republican who continues to hide behind a canard that declares the Second Amendment doesn’t specify age limits for keeping and bearing arms.

The debate has arisen in the wake of the Uvalde school massacre when an 18-year-old shooter purchased two AR-15 rifles, then walked into Robb Elementary School where he killed 19 children and two educators before the cops killed him.

The Texas Tribune reported: Abbott at his Wednesday campaign event brought up court rulings against gun restrictions from the past three months, including a federal court in Fort Worth on Thursday that struck down a Texas law limiting adults under 21 from carrying handguns. U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman wrote that the Second Amendment does not specify limits on age.

Greg Abbott says raising the age to buy assault rifle is unconstitutional | The Texas Tribune

Pittman is correct. The Second Amendment makes no mention of age limits. I guess the judge presumes, therefore, that a six-year-old is able to carry a pistol in his pocket. Hey, the Constitution is silent on age limits, right?

That, of course, is nonsense. It is in my mind just as nonsensical to suggest that state legislatures or Congress, for that matter, cannot enact laws that restrict the age of those who can purchase weapons such as those the moron used in Uvalde.

Therein sits one more reason to vote Greg Abbott out of office when Election Day rolls around.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, national news, national security, political news

All eyes on DOJ, but wait …

Millions of Americans — such as me — are fixated at the moment on the U.S. Department of Justice seizure of those “highly classified” documents from Donald J. Trump’s glitzy home in Florida.

I keep hearing an endless string of legal analyses that suggest an indictment of someone — perhaps the ex-president — is inevitable.

Let’s be clear, though, about something that is getting buried under all the rhetoric about the DOJ probe: It is just one of several investigations underway concerning the criminal behavior many of us believe occurred during the entirety of Trump’s single term as POTUS.

What’s brewing? Let’s see:

  • A Fulton County (Ga.) grand jury is looking into whether Trump tampered with election results by demanding that the Georgia secretary of state “find” enough votes to turn the election result there from pro-Joe Biden to pro-Trump.
  • The New York attorney general is examining whether the Trump Organization falsified its assets to (a) obtain favorable loans or (b) avoid paying debts it owes.
  • The House 1/6 select committee is probing whether Trump committed an act of sedition against the U.S. government by inciting the attack on the Capitol and then was derelict in his duty as POTUS by refusing to call off the attack once it commenced, resulting in injury and death to police officers and at least one attacker.

That’s several full plates, don’t you think?

Of all those probes, the one that needs to be finished soon is the congressional investigation. The midterm election well could result in Republicans taking control of the House and we all know what’ll happen then: the GOP leadership will shut it all down and will pretend there is nothing to see.

There happens to be plenty to see and do, which makes the House panel’s work all the more urgent.

It’s almost enough to make me wonder how in the name of sanity does the former president or those closest to him avoid being charged with some criminal act. I cannot assess which of the potential charges are forthcoming, or which of them will emerge as the most serious.

I do have this nagging gut grumble that’s telling me that when the legal eagles finish their work, we’re about to see history made in a way that will make the 45th POTUS a mighty unhappy man.

Shall we all just stay tuned?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, national news

Graham says riots will ensue if Trump indicted?

The English language seems to lack terminology I determine to be strong enough to condemn the message delivered this weekend by Sen. Lindsey Graham.

The South Carolina Republican said riots will explode on our streets if Donald Trump is prosecuted for breaking the law.

Did the senator call for calm? Did he offer condemnation if that were to occur? Did he call on his cult leader, Trump, to tell the shrinking base of cultists to stand down?

Hell no!

All he did was “predict” street riots would occur.

What a disgraceful comment from a supposedly serious member of the U.S. Senate!

The more that flies out of Graham’s pie hole, the less I think of him.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, education news, State news

Police chief had to go!

Pete Arredondo had become a household name in communities throughout the nation for reasons he likely never imagined when he first strapped on a firearm and pinned a badge on his chest.

Well, now the embattled top cop for the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District no longer works for the school district. Its board of trustees today voted unanimously to fire Arredondo because of the former chief’s shameful response to the massacre that erupted at Robb Elementary School in the South Texas community.

Nineteen precious children were slain that day, along with two heroic teachers who fought to save their lives. Arredondo led the UCISD police force that responded to the shooter who had walked into the school.

Then he did nothing! Arredondo said eventually in the aftermath that he didn’t know he would be in charge of the police response.

Imagine the full-on rage the community would have expressed had the school board decided to keep Arredondo on its payroll.

Yep, he had become far more than a “distraction.”

For my money, the man should find work far away from law enforcement.

I doubt that Arredondo’s discomfort will end just because the school board canned him. He will face countless lawsuits from the loved ones of those who died in the massacre. And he should!

Uvalde now can move on. It won’t ever forget what happened on that terrible day. At least, though, the community no longer will carry the burden of paying the salary of a law enforcement officer who failed to do his job.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, national news

Defund the FBI?

The right-wing extremists — the QAnon adherents and election deniers — need to be committed, sent to the nut house and left to fester in the dark.

These are the cretins who are calling for Congress to “defund the FBI” in the wake of the agency’s search of Donald Trump’s home in Florida for classified documents that Trump took from the White House when he left office in January 2021.

This is simply an astonishing thing to hear from those who proclaim to be “patriots” who believe in “law and order” and who declare that they are friends and allies of those who enforce our laws.

My … goodness.

Patriotic Americans wouldn’t vilify government agents who were acting on lawful orders. Nor would they attack law enforcement officers — such as what occurred on 1/6. Moreover, no friend or ally of police would ever present physical threats of harm to those who occupy the thin blue line that protects American society.

One Republican congressional candidate has actually said that Attorney General Merrick Garland should be executed. Can you believe that? Oh, sure you can! Why? Because it’s becoming part of the GOP mantra.

It’s disgraceful.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com