Monthly Archives: August 2022

national news, national security

Domestic terrorist gets 7 years in prison … yes!

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Guy Reffitt can now join an infamous — and likely growing — list of Americans who have been sent to the Big House for working to overturn the results of a free, fair and legal presidential election.

Reffitt lives just across Lake Lavon from your friendly blogger in Wylie, Texas. Today, he got slightly more than seven years in a federal prison for his role in whipping up the 1/6 insurrection attackers.

Reffitt didn’t actually enter the Capitol Building during the attack. He just whipped the crowd into a frenzy from outside the halls of power.

Texan Guy Reffitt sentenced to 7 1/4 years in prison for Jan. 6 riot | The Texas Tribune

His sentence, by the way, is the longest prison term handed out, so far, by a trial jury. So, this terrorist has set a record I am sure he would rather not possess. That is just too damn bad.

The Texas Tribune reported: “Reffitt sought not just to stop Congress, but also to physically attack, remove, and replace the legislators who were serving in Congress. This is a quintessential example of an intent to both influence and retaliate against government conduct through intimidation or coercion,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo.

It is good to see the wheels of justice continuing to grind along.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump

Cheney appears doomed

Liz Cheney is facing the mother of all conundrums as she seeks re-election to another term in the U.S. House of Representatives from Wyoming.

You see, Cheney serves on that select House committee searching for the truth behind the 1/6 insurrection. She has been highly critical of Donald J. Trump and his role in revving up the crowd to assault the nation’s Capitol Building on the day Congress was certifying the Electoral College results from the 2020 presidential election.

Cheney has managed, therefore, to anger many of her constituents for simply speaking truth to power.

I fear we are going to witness in a few days a political bloodletting that will occur for all the wrong reasons.

Cheney appears headed for defeat in the GOP primary in Wyoming. Trump has endorsed a fellow cultist to defeat Cheney. Never mind that Cheney voted with the Trump administration more than 90% of the time during Trump’s term in office. Or never mind that she remains as fervently conservative in her views as ever.

Her “sin” is that she believes Trump was wrong to rile up the crowd, sending them into battle to take down our government on 1/6.

“She’s done us dirty,” said Sharon Tuggle, who identified to CNN as a Trump supporter. “Look at how she’s done Trump.” Tuggle added that Cheney lost her vote because of the congresswoman’s work on the Jan. 6 committee.

“She’s supposed to be supporting him,” said Tuggle. “She’s a Republican for crying out loud.”

“I find her work on the Jan. 6 committee just repulsive,” said another female voter.

OK. Let me spell this out one more time. Cheney’s oath didn’t mention Trump. She took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, not Trump. That is what she is doing. She isn’t loyal to Trump. It’s the Constitution that deserves the undivided attention of all 535 members of Congress.

Be strong, Rep. Cheney. You have plenty of allies — such as yours truly — out here beyond your state’s borders.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

economic news

Don’t redefine recession

Here’s a bit of unsolicited advice for President Biden’s team of advisers and economic gurus.

Do not seek to redefine what constitutes an economic recession.

The feds this past week reported that the nation’s Gross Domestic Product fell for the second consecutive quarter. Isn’t that metric usually what economists call a recession?

We now hear Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen say that it’s not necessarily preordained that we’re in a recession. President Biden won’t acknowledge the inevitable, either.

In truth, any declaration on the health of the economy is supposed to come from an independent, bipartisan group of economists. That group will meet very soon to issue its proclamation.

I realize that Joe Biden wants the economy to keep humming along. We’re going to get a Labor Department jobs report at the end of the week. Those numbers will tell us a good bit more about whether we’re in a recession … which I believe is the case.

And that will be the case no matter how the administration might seek to spin it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

MAGA takes new form

So … you think you know what MAGA means, yes?

It has become sort of a term of art, an acronym for Make America Great Again. But when you use the acronym form it becomes an adjective, as in “MAGA voter,” or “MAGA policy.”

Ah, yes. Now comes the newest MAGA, which is one that I would be inclined heavily to support. The new form stands for Mothers Against Greg Abbott.

This MAGA’s unofficial godmother is Austin resident Nancy Thompson, who told Sharon Grigsby of the Dallas Morning News that she has grown tired of Gov. Abbott’s miserable performance on gun violence, on COVID protocols, on abortion rights and the Republican Party’s “general assault on public education and kids.”

She wants to form a movement. Thompson says her Facebook page has more than 50,000 members. Local chapters are forming across Texas.

Grigsby reports that Thompson “describes the group as ordinary Texans fighting for their children’s future. ‘This isn’t about Republican or Democratic families,’ she said. ‘It’s about fighting for what’s right to keep all families safe and healthy.'”

Grigsby said she isn’t willing to wager on MAGA’s effort moving the political needle in Texas, particularly as it regards Abbott’s campaign against Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke. I believe she is right to hold back on any thought that this MAGA group is going to make any sort of dent in Abbott’s standing.

Whatever, this potential movement appears to be one more chink in the armor that has shielded Abbott and Texas Republicans quite well for the past 30 years.

Read Grisby’s essay here: How one Texas woman’s protest led to Mothers Against Greg Abbott and its viral abortion ad (dallasnews.com)

Grigsby asks: “Does Mothers Against Greg Abbott create a huge shift? Don’t count on it. But does it make a consequential dent? As one mother in its video campaign says, ‘They say nothing changes in Texas politics — until it does.'”

I am hoping for a change.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com