Category Archives: DC riot

DC riot

If this isn’t ‘criminal’ …

A good friend of mine posted this little item that I feel compelled to share on this blog … with a brief comment.

I would change one word: “Impeachable” could become “criminal” as it relates to what Donald J. Trump (allegedly) did on 1/6 while the traitorous mob of insurrectionists was assaulting the Capitol Building and seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

You remember that, right? Joe Biden won. Donald Trump lost. Except that Trump declared war on our democratic system of government and sought to block the certification of the 2020 election result.

Mitch McConnell was stirred with righteous anger at Trump’s conduct on 1/6. Then he voted against convicting Trump after he had been impeached for the second time by the House of Representatives.

Those days are gone. We now are facing possible criminal referrals from the House select committee that is examining the why and wherefore regarding the 1/6 insurrection.

If I were King of the World, I would recommend that the select panel recommend a Justice Department indictment of The Donald. But … that’s for others to decide.

The aggravating aspect of McConnell’s once-righteous rage at Trump is that he continues to suck up to the former POTUS, saying that if Trump is the GOP presidential nominee in 2024 (a thought that makes me wretch) that he would “support” his bid for the presidency.

So, there you have it. The Senate GOP leader who once thought the then-president committed an impeachable offense is now fit to serve yet again as the nation’s head of state.

Some things just defy logic.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot

Why protect this guy?

Questions abound from reports that 1/6 insurrectionists sought to “protect” a U.S. congressman, a Republican who hails (now!) from the Texas Panhandle.

Recently released text messages reveal that Oath Keepers — the yahoos who helped lead the 1/6 riot on Capitol Hill — sought to shelter Rep. Ronny Jackson of Amarillo from being harmed by the rioters who stormed the Capitol at the urging of the then-POTUS.

Let us not forget that this same mob of traitorous rioters was shouting “Hang Mike Pence!” in a direct threat to the vice president, who was presiding at that moment over a congressional certification of the results that saw Joe Biden defeat Donald Trump in the 2020 election.

Gosh, do you think any of the Oath Keepers were among those seeking to kill the vice president, while at the same time were seeking to protect a member of Congress, a guy who had been in office about three days at the time of the riot?

We need some answers … as in right now!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot

Rioters sought to ‘protect’ Rep. Jackson? Well …

What in the name of insurrection do we make of this news? It turns out that the Oath Keepers, the right-wing radicals who took part in the 1/6 insurrection, sought to shield a Texas congressman from harm.

Why? Because he was on their side in the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. He voted in favor of efforts to resist certifying Joe Biden’s election as president.

The congressman in question is Ronny Jackson, an Amarillo Republican who represents the congressional district I called home for 23 years.

There’s a bit to unpack here. I’ll give it a shot.

Jackson has been adamant in contending the 2020 election was “stolen” from The Donald, who he once treated as White House physician; Jackson also served as WH doc for President Obama.

Jackson’s office said he doesn’t know anyone in the Oath Keepers group. The Texas Tribune reports:

ā€œLike many public figures, Rep. Jackson is frequently talked about by people he does not know,ā€ a Jackson spokesperson said in a statement. ā€œHe does not know nor has he ever spoken to the people in question. In fact, he stayed behind with Capitol Police to help defend the House Floor and was one of the last Members to be evacuated.ā€

ā€œThe liberal mediaā€™s attempt to drag him into a ā€˜storyā€™ and make him part of something he has nothing to do with is yet another example of why millions of Americans are exhausted by the relentless, biased coverage of January 6th and its continued use as a political tool,ā€ the spokesperson added.

C’mon! This isn’t a “liberal media” conspiracy! It presents a host of questions that need a congressman’s full disclosure about who or what he knows and when does he know who or what.

Here’s a bit more from the Tribune: The Oath Keepers claim to represent tens of thousands of present and former law enforcement officials and military veterans under the pretense of defending the U.S. Constitution. The group is, in effect, one of the largest far-right, anti-government groups that peddles in baseless conspiracy theories.

Oath Keepers involved in Jan. 6 wanted to protect U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson | The Texas Tribune

Does a member of Congress — such as Ronny Jackson — want to be affiliated with a group of radicals such as the Oath Keepers? This individual, Jackson, has said that those who rioted and “broke windows” on the Capitol Building must be “held accountable.” That’s not enough.

He needs to condemn the Oath Keepers in language everyone understands. My hunch is that such a condemnation won’t come from Ronny Jackson’s mouth.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot, Donald Trump

Cheney: We have enough

Let it never be said that Liz Cheney lacks backbone or courage, particularly in light of her service on a House of Representatives committee assigned to find the motives and the cause of the 1/6 insurrection.

The Wyoming Republican this weekend declared for all the world to hear that the select panel has more than enough evidence to issue a criminal indictment referral to the Justice Department implicating the 45th president of the United States on felony charges.

She disputed reports of friction among committee members. Cheney told media outlets over the weekend that the committee has gathered enough evidence to issue a report to Attorney General Merrick Garland that suggests Donald Trump committed at least two felonies while seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election result.

Now comes the question: Will the committee make the referral? I believe it will. I also believe it will do so relatively soon.

The corollary question, though, is this: Will the AG act speedily to deciding whether to indict the former POTUS? I don’t know the answer to that one. Nor do I believe he should be hasty.

Garland has made it abundantly clear that he will “follow the law” wherever it leads. I believe he is an honorable man who won’t be pressured, bullied or coerced into making a partisan political decision.

However, today I want to reserve my salute to Liz Cheney, one of two Republicans on the select committee, who is standing on her own belief that no one — not even the POTUS — is above the law. Moreover, she has said repeatedly that she took an oath to be faithful to the Constitution and not to an individual.

That is the essence of public service.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot

Get off the AG’s back!

Allow me this additional demand of congressional Democrats and even some within the White House who are getting ā€” allegedly! ā€” annoyed with the pace of Attorney General Merrick Garlandā€™s examination of the 1/6 insurrection and whether he intends to file charges against the former president of the United States of America.

Let the man do his job!

Democrats in Congress are reportedly peeved that Garland isnā€™t moving quickly enough. They want to see The Donald brought before the Bar of Justice for inciting the 1/6 insurrection and for doing nothing to stop it when it was occurring on Capitol Hill. Hey, so do I want to see the former A**hole in Chief brought to account for his action and inaction.

However, I am going to stand with the AG on this one. He said he wonā€™t be pressured by Congress or by the White House to finish his task before he is ready to declare it finished.

Garland is on record many times already declaring he wonā€™t be pushed, prodded or pressured by political forces. I am OK with that.

His career as a judge prior to becoming attorney general was marked by steady-as-you-go deliberation. What is so wrong with that as he works diligently with his staff of legal eagles at the Justice Department to ensure that they have all their ducks lined up before making a public decision?

Let us not lose sight of what else is at stake. Indicting a former president on felony criminal charges would set an astonishing precedent. Donā€™t you think? The AG must get it right and getting it right makes it imperative he run every trap he can find before delivering the goods.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot

Conflict of interest?

Imagine for a moment a conversation that might have occurred in the home of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Virginia.

Justice Thomas: Hi, Ginni. How did your day go?

Ginni Thomas: Oh, fine, Clarence. I attended a Donald Trump rally today on the Ellipse. I left early before the crap hit the fan.

CT: Oh, really? What happened?

GT: The president told the crowd to “fight like hell” to “take back the government.” The crowd got excited and stormed the Capitol Building. It did all kinds of damage.

CT: Oh, yeah. I heard about that. I also heard something about the president seeking to claim he had “executive privilege,” and that it’s OK for him to do such a thing because, after all, he’s the president.

GT: You bet he does! Furthermore, I believe the privilege claim extends beyond the time he’s in office. I am sure you agree.

CT: Absolutely, I agree, honey. Anything you say is OK with me.

GT: Oh, and how would you vote if the issue were to come before the court? Would you stand with me … and with the president?

CT: Of course I would! No problem there.

***

Therein might lie a problem for Justice Thomas, who eventually did cast the lone vote upholding Donald Trump’s specious claim of executive privilege in his failed fight to prevent the National Archives from releasing his presidential papers to the 1/6 House committee that demanded them.

Do I know such a conversation took place in the Thomas home? Absolutely not! However, it doesn’t stretch anything beyond all reasonable doubt that something akin to that chat might have occurred.

And to think that Justice Thomas recently lamented that the Supreme Court is becoming “too political.” Yeah, no kiddin’.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

 

DC riot, Donald Trump, national news, political news

Trump far from in the clear

Two top prosecutors from the Manhattan (N.Y.) district attorneyā€™s office have quit, reportedly throwing a criminal investigation into Donald J. Trump into some state of disarray. The chatter suggests the new DA has choked on deciding whether to indict Donald for any sort of allegation associated with a longstanding criminal probe into his business dealings.

Does this mean Trump is home free? That he has nothing about which to worry? Oh, no. Far from it.

DA Alvin Bragg reportedly has balked on proceeding with indicting Donald. Two of his top legal eagles quit simultaneously, suggesting to many observers that thereā€™s a major disagreement within the DAā€™s office on how to proceed.

But letā€™s hold on for a minute. This is one investigation. Do I want it to end now? No! As an ardent critic of Donald Trump, my preference would be for the DA who took over from a veteran prosecutor ā€” Cyrus Vance Jr. ā€” to follow the evidence and the law all the way to the end.

However, the New York attorney general, Letitia James, is still working on our own investigation into Trumpā€™s alleged business chicanery. Let us also remember that the Trump Organization already is has been indicted on charges of tax fraud and other matters.

Oh, and then we have yet another criminal investigation down yonder in Fulton County, Ga., where DA Fani Willis is examining whether to prosecute Donald on a charge of interfering in a state election process. Donald did demand that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger ā€œfindā€ enough votes to swing the state from Joe Bidenā€™s column to Donald Trump.

Finally, thereā€™s the House select committee examining Trumpā€™s role in inciting the insurrection on 1/6. We now hear of possible cooperation with the committee from key Donald Trump acolytes, such as Rudolph Giuliani and ā€” get a load of this! ā€” Ivanka Trump, the elder daughter of Donald. The Justice Department already has indicted one key Trump aide, Steve Bannon, on a charge of contempt of Congress for his refusal to comply with a congressional subpoena.

This is all my way of suggesting that the resignations of the DAā€™s office prosecutor might not be as big a deal as many are making of it. The quitters might have stalled the progress of that probe by virtue of their resignation. It isnā€™t the end of Donald Trumpā€™s troubles. Not by a very long shot!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot, legal news, national news, political news

A lockup in Trump’s future?

I am trying to imagine what I thought not so long ago was an impossible ending to a former presidentā€™s legal difficulty, but which is be. ginning to look entirely possible ā€¦ although not yet probable.

It is that Donald Trump might face a criminal indictment on multiple fronts. For tax fraud. For interfering in a state election. For violating a federal law designed to protect national security. Hmm. I might have missed something, but you get the picture ā€¦ yes?

Trumpā€™s business already is under indictment for multiple allegations, including tax fraud; the Manhattan (N.Y.) district attorneyā€™s office alleges that his business inflated the cost of real estate to get sweeter loan deals. No can do, folks.

The Fulton County (Ga.) district attorney is examining whether Trump broke the law by pressuring the Georgia secretary of state to ā€œfindā€ enough votes to swing Georgia from the Joe Biden win column to Trump; hey, we have that act on recording.

The latest might be the most serious of all, in that the National Archives has alleged that Trump spirited classified documents from the White House and stashed them in Mar-a-Lago, Fla., where Donald and Melania Trump live; the Presidential Records Act expressly forbids such thievery of national security documents.

All told, if Trump is indicted and convicted of these crimes, he faces a lengthy prison term.

Isnā€™t that just rich?

And I havenā€™t mentioned ā€” until this very moment ā€” the House select panel looking into the 1/6 insurrection incited by Trump on that terrible day just two weeks before he left office.

Moreover, weā€™re beginning to find out that Donald Trump ā€” who boasted of his fantastic business acumen ā€” isnā€™t nearly as rich as he bragged about being. That, folks, doesnā€™t surprise me in the least. I always have said ā€” and I have said so here ā€” that people who are rich and smart donā€™t boast about it. That the ex-POTUS would keep yapping about his wealth and his smarts only tells me he is neither as rich or as smart as he wants to believe.

The most maddening aspect of this moronā€™s trail of idiocy is that he continues to have this weird hold on Republican Party votersā€™ skulls.

But ā€¦ letā€™s allow the legal process to play out. I can wait.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot, national news

Wanting end to probe

I understand fully that many millions of Americans are fixated at this moment on the Super Bowl; indeed, I am watching it myself.

Allow me this momentary diversion back into what is transpiring in Washington, D.C. That would be the congressional probe into 1/6, the riot that sought to disrupt the counting of electoral votes from the 2020 presidential election.

You know what happened on 1/6. The mob of traitors stormed the Capitol Building and pooped on the center of our democracy. They sought to murder the vice president of the U.S., Mike Pence, and the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.

I am ready for the probe to end. I know the House committee chaired by Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., has more work to complete. I hope it can continue at the pace it has been working so far. It needs to finish this probe well before the midterm election. I believe it will.

I also believe the committee is going to produce some constructive recommendations on how to prevent such an insurrection from occurring ever again. I will wait with bated breath to see what the panel suggests.

Moreover, I also want Donald Trump to be held accountable for inciting the riot. I know he did; you know he did; Trump knows he did.

One final thought: I don’t give a damn about whatever political implications this probe will have on the midterm election or on the 2024 presidential election.

I want the probe to conclude, and I am waiting to see who pays for the damage done to our democratic process.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot, Donald Trump, national news

‘Worse than Watergate’

Carl Bernstein knows an existential threat to American democracy when he sees it, given that he had a front-row seat at one of the worst threats ever imagined, the Watergate scandal of the 1970s.

However, he said that the Donald Trump unraveling is worse than Watergate because this crisis lacks something that Watergate contained: heroes among Republicans who told the president, Richard Nixon, that he couldn’t survive an impeachment and a Senate trial. Thus, Nixon quit the office and headed off into the sunset of oblivion.

Donald Trump isn’t facing that kind of threat from within his party, the same party of Richard Nixon.

Carl Bernstein Says Trump Investigation is “Far Worse Than Watergate” | The View – YouTube

Bernstein and his Washington Post colleague Robert Woodward covered the Watergate scandal as it unfolded in late 1972, into 1973 and ended with President Nixon’s resignation in August 1974. Bernstein and Woodward became journalism legends and their work stands forever as the definition of investigative reporting.

I have to agree with Bernstein, that Donald Trump’s assault on the rule of law, on our democratic process, on the nation’s cherished electoral system presents a greater threat to the nation than a “third-rate burglary” that devolved into a coverup and an abuse of presidential power that drove a president from the pinnacle of power.

We need answers to the 1/6 insurrection and we need to take measures to prevent a tragic recurrence.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com