Monthly Archives: June 2022

national news

Liz Cheney: show stealer

Liz Cheney is stealing the show at the 1/6 House select committee televised hearings.

It’s a cinch that the Wyoming Republican member of Congress — one of its most conservative members — is emerging as the star of the hearing to determine whether Donald Trump should be prosecuted for inciting the 1/6 insurrection against the federal government.

I want to join a University of Texas professor in proclaiming that although Cheney is far from my favorite member of Congress, she has earned my respect and admiration for the way she has handled herself in the face of stern opposition … from those within her own party!

Richard Cherwitz writes in The Hill: Perhaps most noteworthy was Cheneyā€™s withering message to her fellow Republicans. It was rhetorically powerful and no doubt will be remembered for a long time: ā€œTonight, I say this to our Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.ā€

Iā€™m no fan of Liz Cheney, but she has earned my respect (msn.com)

Cheney is a right-winger, to be sure. I oppose her on critical issues of the day: on abortion, on gun control, on judicial appointments. You name it and I am likely to take a different view from those espoused by Rep. Cheney.

However, we do share a common interest. It is fealty to the Constitution. She has said repeatedly that she and her fellow members of Congress took the same oath, that they are faithful to the Constitution. She has parted company with most of her GOP colleagues, though, on whether they are more faithful to Donald Trump than they are to the nation’s governing document.

Compare her rhetoric to what we hear coming from many of the Trumpkins who are serving in the House. She argues that Donald Trump should be held accountable for his actions on 1/6; the Trumpkin Corps says “Pfftt! Why does that matter?”

Trump has endorsed a GOP opponent running against Cheney in the primary election this year. I don’t know whether Liz Cheney will lose that fight. I hope she survives. Why? Because we need more people in Congress who are loyal to the Constitution and who show courage when faced with political pressure from within their own partisan ranks.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

My mind is made up

I don’t want the House hearings to end just yet; I want to hear more from the witnesses summoned by the select 1/6 committee.

This much seems clear to me: My mind is made up. It is settled in my own noggin that Donald J. Trump deserves to be prosecuted for seditious conspiracy, as he plotted to block the “peaceful transition” from his administration to the Joe Biden administration after the 2020 presidential election.

Truth be told, I really don’t need to hear any more from the witnesses. However, I want to hear more.

I must have some sort of political bloodlust coming into play. Well, I don’t care. I have the luxury of passing judgment without hearing all the facts, unlike Attorney General Merrick Garland and his team of prosecutors who are listening to every word during the hearings.

Do I believe AG Garland will do as I wish? I am not going to predict what Garland will do. I know, though, that were I in charge of the Justice Department, I would be drafting criminal complaints to deliver to a grand jury. I then would be preparing my arguments to grand jurors, seeking to persuade them to issue a “true bill” that means an indictment would come forth.

Let’s await the end of this televised portion of the hearings.

I will pray for discernment and wisdom from the Attorney General Garland and hope that it leads him to do what I hope he will do: Indict and then prosecute fully the former president of the United States for seeking inciting an insurrection against the government he swore he would “protect and defend.”

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Constitution still works

Gerald R. Ford became president on Aug. 9, 1974, and told the nation weary of scandal, “Our Constitution works.”Ā 

It did then. It is working now as the House select committee assigned to get to the truth behind the 1/6 insurrection slogs on in its quest.

A president resigned in disgrace and President Ford took control just as the Constitution prescribes. A future president summoned a traitorous mob to “take back our government” on 1/6 and sought to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

The Constitution gives the speaker of the House the sole authority to appoint a committee to examine that horrible event. Speaker Nancy Pelosi followed the Constitution, and we now are watching that panel continue on its journey.

Where the committee concludes remains to be seen. I have my hope for what I want to see happen. If that hope doesn’t come true, then I am going to accept the panel’s findings, given that it is legally constituted and has done its duty as it sees fit.

Thus, we are witnessing in real time once again the durability and strength of the nation’s governing framework.

Those framers were smart men … don’t you think?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

How does town recover?

I continue to grapple emotionally with the tragedy that has cloaked Uvalde, Texas, the site of the hideous slaughter of 19 fourth-grade children and two teachers.

Twenty-one innocent victims lost their lives to a madman.

What seems to give this story an extra dose of pain is the reporting about the tightly knit nature of the city of 15,000 residents.

We heard in the immediate aftermath of the massacre at Robb Elementary School that the entire town seems to know someone involved in the school, and how the entire community is feeling a sort of visceral pain as a result of the madness.

Yes, there remain questions about the police response, the horrifying length of time it took for officers to storm the structure and engage the shooter. The Uvalde school district police chief, Pete Arredondo, is still perched on the hot seat and for the life of me I am puzzled as to why the school board hasn’t gotten rid of the chief.

But the pain still throbs as it emanates from Uvalde.

The Uvalde Independent School District is going to tear down the school that is the site of the massacre. That won’t eliminate the intense pain being felt in a community that, I fear, is going to remind everyone who hears its name will think first of senseless gun violence.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

A deal on guns … finally

Let me be clear: The deal in principle by a bipartisan group of U.S. senators doesn’t go nearly far enough to curb gun violence.

But … it is a baby-step start.

The Texas Tribune reports on the deal announced today: The tentative deal includes a mix of modest gun control proposals and funding for mental health. It would incentivize states to pass ā€œred flagā€ laws, which are designed to keep guns out of the hands of individuals who pose a threat to themselves or others; boost funding for mental health services, telehealth resources and more school security; permit juvenile records to be incorporated into background checks for purchasers under the age of 21 and crack down on the straw purchase and trafficking of guns.

Deal on post-Uvalde shooting gun legislation reached in Senate | The Texas Tribune

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, the senior Texas Republican, is part of the senatorial team that hammered out the deal.

My own preference would have been to ban assault rifles, raise the minimum age requirements for purchasing firearms from 18 to 21 years of age and launch comprehensive universal background checks for every purchase.

That won’t come forward. House of Representatives Democrats want more. They’re likely to resist what the Senate is pitching.

I am not going to dig in just yet against this plan, which is good remember is just a deal in principle.

However, it is more than we got after Sandy Hook, after Columbine, after Las Vegas, after Sutherland Hills, Aurora, El Paso or Parkland.

Uvalde and Buffalo proved to be the catalyst to provide something.

It is far from ideal. However, I am going to accept it as possibly the beginning of a march toward more meaningful reform to end the gun violence that is killing too many innocent Americans.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

media news

Fox News = propaganda arm

First, I must make an admission, which is that I do not watch Fox News to get my “news” from a supposedly legitimate media outlet.

Now, though, comes the gut punch. The idea that Fox News executives would refuse to cover the House 1/6 select committee hearing simply galls me to the max.

I suppose I should take credit for being ahead of the curve by recognizing that Fox News isn’t the credible news agency it proclaims itself to be.

Do you remember how it hailed itself as the “fair and balanced” network, how the channel said, “We report, you decide”? I have said for the past decade or longer that it never has been “fair and balanced.” I long have suspected its “reporting” is of questionable value.

Now we have these reports of commentators such as Tucker Carlson pitching The Big Lie promoted by The Donald; moreover, Carlson has reportedly been standing with Russia in its illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine.

Fellow right-wing zealot Sean Hannity is no better. He has been joined at the hip with Donald Trump since prior to the 2020 election. However, he sank to new lows by appearing as a guest promoter at Trump’s campaign rallies during the 2020 campaign.

Now we have the House select panel sending its evidence of wrongdoing into our living rooms via TV. All the other major networks are broadcasting the hearings live to those of us who want to watch them; I am one American patriot who wants to learn the truth behind what happened during the 1/6 insurrection.

Were I a Fox News devotee, I wouldn’t get that chance. As a method of deterring viewers from sneaking a peak on the hearing being shown on, say, CNN or MSNBC, Fox is airing programs without commercial interruptions.Ā Clever eh? Sure, it’s also quite costly.

Fox News’s decision to forgo covering one of the biggest stories in U.S. history in truth doesn’t affect me in the least, given that I don’t watch the network. It does, though, have an impact on our nation’s political structure.

It feeds the gullibility exhibited by the cultists who still adhere to The Big Lie.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Eyes are fixed on … Trump

There can be no doubt that Donald Trump has returned — once more! — to the forefront of our political stage.

I wish it weren’t so. My wishing, though, simply cannot deny the obvious.

The U.S. House 1/6 select committee has convened public hearings on national TV. We’ll get Episode Two tomorrow morning. Who’s at the top of our attention span? The Donald! Of course he is!Ā 

The House panel appears to be building a case for indicting Trump for inciting the insurrection of 1/6. Members of the committee have yapped about the panel having enough evidence to recommend an indictment; I hope that speculation will cease. It’s not productive.

I guess Trump must like being the focus of our attention. It’s his modus operandi, or so I’ve been led to believe. He is, after all, a supreme narcissist, which by definition means he relishes this attention.

Whatever.

For as long as the winds keep drafting over Trump, I’ll be forced to comment on occasion on issues that develop regarding this carnival barker. I pledge to look the other way when he blathers some nonsense. As it relates to the committee and its findings, I intend to offer my views — for whatever they’re worth — on what they mean to the future of our democratic process.

Still, if only Trump would just disappear.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves

I am beginning to wish that members of the House 1/6 select committee would stop speculating out loud about the “evidence” they say all but guarantees that Donald Trump will be indicted for seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

You see, these folks are getting my hopes fired up.

Reps. Liz Cheney, a Republican, and Adam Schiff, a Democrat, are saying the same thing: the panel has enough evidence to recommend that the Justice Department indict Trump for inciting the insurrection on 1/6.

Then we hear from a former White House lawyer suggesting that Fulton County (Ga.) prosecutors are close to getting an indictment against Trump charging him with coercing Georgia election officials into “finding” enough votes to swing the state’s electoral result from Joe Biden to Trump.

Again … my heart gets to fluttering when I hear such things.

Oh, how I do not want to be let down.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Keep our eyes open

We all need to be clear-eyed about what we are going to see and hear in the weeks ahead as the House 1/6 select committee conducts its hearings on national TV.

It is seeking to expose to the nation what it has learned through hours of testimony and thousands of pages of documents it has obtained bout the insurrection that sought to subvert our democracy and overturn the 2020 election result.

We will hear from Donald J. Trump’s defenders that the committee is on a witch hunt, that it is a partisan gathering of Democrats intent on destroying the ex-POTUS, that what happened on that day wasn’t so bad.

It’s not a witch hunt; the panel does contain two Republicans along with seven Democrats; Trump is engaging in a form of self-destruction by continuing to foment The Big Lie about “widespread voter fraud” that he knew did not exist; and what we saw was an unprecedented attack on our democratic process that included verbal threats against the lives of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Mike Pence.

The committee is a duly constituted congressional body that has been charged with determining the cause of the insurrection, seeking solutions to prevent it from recurring and (hopefully) determine who should be held accountable for the ghastly event that unfolded.

Do not be fooled by those who say they “can’t defend Trump” but refuse to condemn his inaction on that day. Nor should we be fooled by those who point fingers at others for refusing to provide “adequate security” on Capitol Hill.

As we heard during testimony this past week from the brave Capitol Police officer, Caroline Edwards, she was trained to detain a limited number of subjects; she was not trained to engage in “hours of hand-to-hand combat.”

Let’s keep our eyes and ears open to what will be laid out before us.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

What about Dick Cheney?

Liz Cheney is getting some ridiculous pushback from those on the far right of her Republican Party over her condemnation of Donald Trump’s inciting of the 1/6 insurrection.

I cannot allow that resistance to go unchallenged.

The Wyoming GOP congresswoman is now being held responsible in some circles for the lies her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, told the nation about weapons of mass destruction that allegedly were possessed by the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Let me be crystal clear on this.

Liz Cheney was a grown woman when her father pitched the notion that Saddam Hussein possessed WMD, which he and the George W. Bush administration used to justify the invasion of Iraq. She did not serve in the administration. Her father did. Therefore, she bears no responsibility for the lies that Dick Cheney fomented about WMD.

For those who now challenge Liz Cheney’s credibility in voting to impeach Donald Trump and for serving on the 1/6 House select committee is a classic case of “what about-ism” run amok.

Indeed, does it occur to anyone that perhaps Liz Cheney learned something from the deception that her father perpetrated on the nation in the lead-up to the Iraq War? Might that have served as a “teachable moment” to the VP’s daughter to tell the truth were she ever to seek and hold public office?

This nonsense that Rep. Cheney should be held to account for the actions of a family member is utter rubbish.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com