Monthly Archives: June 2022

crime news

Criminality: it’s everywhere!

One of the takeaways I am getting from the televised hearings of the 1/6 House select committee on the insurrection is one that I didn’t quite expect.

It’s the presence of criminality in the hearts and minds of many principals involved with the Donald Trump administration during that horrible time in our nation’s history.

You might recall when Trump was running for president how he said anyone who sought to proclaim Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination was certainly guilty of a crime. Then several of his key aides did that very thing when they answered summons to testify before the House select committee.

Now we hear during the televised hearings that many other Trumpkins sought presidential pardons in the immediate aftermath of the 1/6 insurrection that sought to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Trump granted some pardons. Not all of ’em got the mercy extended from the POTUS as he was preparing to exit the White House.

Still, it is worth pondering: Why would anyone ask for a full pardon from the president if he or she didn’t have a fear of being prosecuted for criminal acts? 

It looks as though there was a whole lot of criminality going on in the White House during the insurrection. I feel confident the legal eagles at the Justice Department are paying careful attention.

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

legal news

Resign, Justice Thomas!

I shall say this as many times as it takes to get my message across: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas needs to resign from the nation’s highest court.

Why? Because his wife, Ginni Thomas, has committed egregious acts that compromise the justice’s ability to adjudicate matters fairly and impartially regarding The Big Lie fomented by Donald J. Trump.

Now we hear that Mrs. Thomas was in frequent email communication with Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, expressing her disgust with the 2020 presidential election result, the one that Trump lost to Joseph Biden.

Are we now going to believe that Ginni Thomas didn’t tell her husband, the justice, of her deepest feelings about the election? And are we now going to believe that Ginni Thomas’s views have no impact on Justice Thomas’s votes favoring Trump in his losing battles to stay in power?

Good grief! Justice Thomas needs to resign from the court. Immediately!

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

DC riot

Heads up, Liz Cheney

Liz Cheney no doubt watched with keen interest what happened to her Republican U.S. House colleague Tom Rice.

Rice got thumped badly in the GOP primary in South Carolina. Why would Cheney take such a keen interest in Rice’s defeat? Because the two of them were among 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach Donald J. Trump, who along with the cultists, has been on the warpath ever since.

Rice paid the price politically when he lost the South Carolina GOP primary this week. So, now comes the question: Is the same fate awaiting Cheney out yonder in Wyoming, where she faces a Trumpkin challenger for her House seat?

I hope that’s not the case, given that Cheney has emerged as the rare Republican voice of sanity, reason and fealty to the Constitution in the ongoing probe into the 1/6 insurrection … that Donald Trump incited with that fiery speech on the Ellipse just two weeks before he would hand the presidency over to the man who defeated him, Joseph R. Biden Jr.

From my perch in North Texas, I must acknowledge that it doesn’t look good for Rep. Cheney. Then again, Wyoming Republicans aren’t necessarily clones of their colleagues in South Carolina.

That is my most fervent hope.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

education news

‘No’ on loan forgiveness, Mr. POTUS

1 Comment

I have declared that I would be critical of President Biden when the issue presented itself. It has done so.

Thus, I want to declare that I believe Joe Biden’s desire to forgive student loan debt is a mistake. Regardless of the push he is getting from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, I want the president to rethink this notion, as it serves as an incentive for future college students to borrow past their ability to repay their loans.

Then what?

The Dallas Morning News has weighed in on the subject, calling the forgiveness idea regressive, partisan and unfair. I want to focus on the fairness aspect.

The DMN editorialized today: Forgiving billions in current debt only incentivizes future students to borrow more, in hopes of their own free ride. And it sends a troubling message to former students who did not borrow. Those who worked two jobs, took night classes, or took on military service to pay for college.

Hey, I understand that these loans burden budding career-seekers. Not to mention their parents. My wife and I took out parent loans to help our sons through college. We paid those loans off, but there were times I wondered if we’d ever see the light again.

Student loans are skyrocketing. We shouldn’t cancel them (dallasnews.com)

I also am aware that higher education isn’t cheap, not even in Texas, which once used to grant in-state residents a big-time bargain if they enrolled in Texas public colleges and universities.

I don’t object to allowing these institutions to work out revised repayment plans with borrowers. I just am dubious of the idea of forgiving debts that students take on knowingly … with the expectation that they would have to pay them back — in full!

I am not concerned about the political consequences that President Biden and his fellow Democrats are facing in this year’s midterm election. As the DMN notes: Other than to curry favor with voters, there is little reason to pursue student debt forgiveness. Biden should abandon this plan and take his midterm lumps.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

Uvalde cops are stonewalling

The term “stonewalling” became known to Americans during the Watergate scandal of the 1970s.

We are seeing it play out once again in Uvalde, Texas, where a gunman walked into an elementary school and opened fire with an AR-15 rifle. Nineteen precious children and two educators died in the carnage.

Police didn’t respond as they should have to stop the madman. Meanwhile, the families of the victims are horrified because they don’t yet know what happened. Nor will they learn the truth if police and politicians have their way.

Stonewalling remains the tool of those who seek to cover up the truth, to withhold it from the public that has every right on Earth to demand it from those who know it.

However, we are not getting the truth.

Were there cops in the building? Did the Uvalde school district police chief — Pete Arredondo — know he was in charge of the response, and why did he wait so damn long before taking action?

We need the truth! We need it now!

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

legal news

Learning a little about the law

One of the many positive aspects of watching the House select committee hearings on the 1/6 insurrection has been the in-depth discussion of the law and how good lawyering and bad lawyering are in conflict over the conduct of the losing 2020 presidential candidate.

Donald Trump lost the election that year to Joe Biden. He incited the insurrection on 1/6. He got impeached for the second time by the House over that act. Trump continues to foment The Big Lie about the election, alleging widespread voter fraud that did not exist.

The networks that are covering the televised hearings — that’s about all of them — are walking viewers through the aspects of the law that are coming into play.

It fascinates me to no end. I will never pretend to learn enough about the legalities of Trump’s ill-conceived effort to undermine the electoral process to argue the legal facts.

Still, the arguments being made by the commentators are educational to me. I long have said there are many things I don’t know. The legal intricacies of a former POTUS seeking to undermine our democratic process is one of them.

They are coming into sharper focus every day.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com