Tag Archives: DC riot

DC riot

‘Principle’ has been perverted

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(MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

The perversion of a concept long thought to be sacrosanct is disturbing to me in the extreme.

The concept is “principle.” The perversion occurs politically, when politicians say one thing and then act in a fashion that bears no resemblance to the principle they purport to follow.

We are watching this play out on Capitol Hill. Republicans in both the Senate and the House say they stand on certain principles. They in fact stand on a cultish loyalty to one of their own, the former president of the United States. It sickens me greatly.

Two examples come to mind; they relate to 1/6.

Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell told the world that Donald Trump “provoked” the riot that damn near overran Capitol Hill as terrorists sought to disrupt the certification of the Electoral College tally that resulted in the election of President Biden. He spoke angrily of the former president’s role in that provocation. He laid it all on the former POTUS’s lap. He was responsible solely for the riot.

Ditto for House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, who reportedly implored the then-POTUS to stop the riot. He told POTUS 45 that people’s lives were endangered. He pleaded with him to call a halt to it. POTUS’s response: “I guess they care more about the election results than you do, Kevin.”

But what in the name of sanity happened after that? The principles on which these two men stood crumbled under their feet.

They both voted against impeaching the president and then against convicting him in the Senate trial that followed the second impeachment of his term in office. How in the world does a politician excoriate another pol for an obvious breach of faith and then stand behind that individual as if nothing ever happened in the first place to draw his ire?

Where I come from, I would define that as hypocrisy in the extreme.

And yet it infects the political process to a degree that I fear the poison will become endemic to our system of government.

It needs to be purged.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Let the DOJ make the call

A non-surprising vote occurred tonight.

The U.S. House select committee examining the 1/6 insurrection on Capitol Hill voted unanimously to charge former Trump administration policy guru Steve Bannon with contempt of Congress.

The issue goes to the full House. Then it goes to the U.S. attorney’s office in the District of Columbia. And then it falls on the Justice Department, led by Attorney General Merrick Garland, to pursue a criminal prosecution of  Bannon.

Oh, how I hope DOJ follows through.

The unanimous vote by the House panel is quite satisfying, given that two Republicans — Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger — serve with seven Democrats. So, it’s a bipartisan vote to charge Bannon with a criminal act.

The panel had summoned Bannon to testify. He refused, citing executive privilege. He and the former POTUS, though, weren’t meeting on 1/6 to discuss national public policy matters. They were meeting to ascertain how Donald Trump could overturn the 2020 presidential election, which Joe Biden won … bigly.

It’s going to pass through the full House. It then will head to DOJ.

Steve Bannon needs to face the music.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Contempt of Congress: what now?

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Steve Bannon, a one-time key aide to the former president of U.S., is facing contempt of Congress charges from the panel that has summoned him to testify about what he knows regarding 1/6.

Bannon has refused to testify until the courts weigh in on Donald Trump’s contention that he is entitled to presidential executive privilege.

Here is the question I am pondering: What can Congress do to enforce the contempt charge? Answer, as near as I can tell: Not much … just yet.

The Justice Department has to determine whether to bring criminal charges against Bannon, or against any other of the former Trumpkins who are likely to resist the subpoenas that the House select committee has issued.

The panel wants to know the truth behind what occurred within the White House on 1/6. So do many millions of Americans want to know. I am one of them.

Explainer-What’s at stake for Trump allies facing ‘contempt of Congress’? (msn.com)

Bannon is the keeper of plenty of secrets, I am certain. He needs to share them with the nation and the world.

Let me be clear about one more thing. What happened on 1/6 posed a dire threat to the very government we all cherish. The riot on Capitol Hill could have ended far differently than it did had the terrorists been allowed to achieve their mission to “Hang Mike Pence!” and to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election result.

Bannon and his former boss have no right to invoke executive privilege. I hope the DOJ sees it that way, too.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

‘No’ on executive privilege

Imagine my (non)surprise at news that the Biden administration said “no way” to a request to grant executive privilege stipulations to his immediate predecessor.

POTUS No. 45 asked No. 46’s administration to grant those privileges as the House select committee summons key aides to 45 to testify on what they knew about the events of 1/6.

President Biden’s team said “no way” to the request. Biden said in a statement that the nation needs to know the whole truth behind what happened on the day Donald Trump incited the riot that sought to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election … which Biden won!

There’s no argument here as to what the House panel seeks. It wants all the information it get obtain. My sense is that the best place to look is into the records of those who worked most closely with the former Insurrectionist in Chief.

Go for it, House select committee!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot

Better get the 1/6 probe done quickly

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(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

If past is prologue as it relates to the 2022 congressional election, then it’s wise to urge the U.S. House select committee to finish its investigation into the 1/6 riot sooner rather than later.

As in … before the 2022 election.

After that, again if history is going to repeat itself, Republicans are going to take control of the House of Representatives; Nancy Pelosi no longer will be speaker and the GOP will likely move rapidly to shove the results of the 1/6 probe into the crapper.

Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., has issued subpoenas of several key White House aides who are privy to what occurred the day Donald Trump incited the riotous mob to storm Capitol Hill. I will call the riot what it was: an insurrection. The terrorists sought to block the certification of the 2020 presidential election results.

The panel, chosen by Pelosi, wants answers. So do many millions of Americans. As for who might be speaker if the GOP takes command of the House, he is a 1/6 riot denier. I refer to Kevin McCarthy, also of California.

The reality is that McCarthy has talked out of both sides of his pie hole regarding that terrible event. He scolded the POTUS immediately after the crowd dispersed, but then reverted to form and voted against creation of an independent commission to study the matter.

Thus, it become imperative for the House select panel — which contains two key Republican lawmakers — to finish the job to which it has been tasked.

We cannot — must not — tolerate another cover-up.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

11 more subpoenas signal the panel is getting serious

The U.S. House Select Committee that is looking at the why, the what and the who of 1/6 is a serious panel that needs to be taken seriously.

The committee has issued 11 more subpoenas aimed at corralling key aides and advisers to Donald J. Trump. It wants to know what they knew about the events leading to the riot that exploded on Capitol Hill.

The 45th POTUS is going to try to prevent them from answering the demands from the panel. He won’t succeed, given that he no longer possesses any presidential power of the type he wielded in keeping other key aides from talking to those who examined the man’s time as president.

Too bad, Mr. Former Liar in Chief. He now is just one more corrupt private citizen who is being forced to face down those who seek the truth behind what happened on the day POTUS 45 exhorted the rioters to storm the Capitol.

I am guessing the 11 subpoenas we saw issued today will be just a fraction of the number of demands yet to come. Good hunting, select committee members.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot

An insurrection? Um … yep

A critic of this blog, a gentleman with whom I have a casual acquaintance, posited an interesting notion that I believe needs a response.

He wrote: An insurrection is an attempt to overtake a government. How are you going to overtake a government without weapons?

He refers to the riot that erupted 1/6 on Capitol Hill. I have called the riot an “insurrection.” So have others. Those on the far right have declined to use that term. That is their call. I’ll stick with my description of what happened.

My critic wonders how one can have an “overtake a government without weapons.”

Actually you can. Indeed, from what I witnessed on 1/6, the mob that stormed into the Capitol Building had plenty of “weapons,” which they used with brutal efficiency as they stormed into the halls of our federal government. Did you see ’em beat the cops with flag poles, blasting them with chemical spray, throwing fire extinguishers … that kind of thing? Oh, and what about the zip ties recovered from many of the suspects arrested on that day?

What would have occurred had they been able to storm into the rooms where members of Congress were accepting the Electoral College ballots that declared Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 election? The terrorists, as near as I could tell, weren’t joking when they hollered “Hang Mike Pence!” while looking for the vice president of the United States, who was presiding over this governmental ritual.

Could this mob of terrorists stopped the process of certifying the result? Absolutely!

The best news of all is that they were prevented from getting their grimy mitts on more victims by quick-thinking Capitol Police officers.

My blog critic referred to the “so-called insurrection.” There was nothing “so-called” about we witnessed that day.

The U..S. House of Representatives select committee that is ramping up its probe of that horrific event vows to get to the truth. May the panel find all of it.

One more point: I checked my American Heritage Dictionary and looked up “insurrection.” It describes the word as “an act of open revolt against civil authority or a constituted government.”

Yep. That’s what we witnessed on 1/6.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

No to ‘executive privilege’

Earth to Donald John Trump.

There is no “executive privilege” available to the former POTUS as he fights to prevent a House select committee from issuing subpoenas for key aides in its hunt for the truth behind the 1/6 insurrection.

The former POTUS said this, according to The Hill: “We will fight the Subpoenas on Executive Privilege and other grounds, for the good of our Country, while we wait to find out whether or not Subpoenas will be sent out to Antifa and BLM for the death and destruction they have caused in tearing apart our Democrat-run cities throughout America,” the former president said in a statement.

It’s not gonna work, Mr. Former Liar in Chief.

Executive privilege fight poses hurdles for Trump | TheHill

You see, there is no executive privilege for former POTUSes.

The House of Representatives formed a select committee to root out the cause and effect of the insurrection that erupted on 1/6. It also intends to seek recommendations on how to prevent attacks from recurring. I wish the panel well in that search.

As for the former Insurrectionist in Chief, he is whistling in the wind if he thinks he can find a way to prevent the likes of former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former chief strategist Steve Bannon from testifying before the House committee.

President Biden said as well that he won’t allow such executive privilege requests to be processed through the White House.

The former president incited the riotous mob to storm Capitol Hill on 1/6. Its intent was to disrupt the certification of the Electoral College result of the 2020 election that chose Biden over his predecessor. It failed, but the riot managed to inflict grievous damage to our democratic process.

So the House select committee’s work will require members of the former POTUS’s administration to stand before it, take an oath to tell the truth and then to divulge what they knew and when they knew it. The former president’s effort to prevent that from occurring is doomed to fail … as it should.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot

That’s only part of it, Rep. McCarthy

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(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

U.S. House of Representatives Republican leader Kevin McCarthy is only partly right about the mission awaiting the House select committee’s probe into the 1/6 insurrection.

McCarthy today said the panel should concern itself only with why the Capitol security was so lacking and “how to prevent” such a riot from recurring.

Wrong, leader McCarthy!

There’s also this thing about what the 45th president knew at the time of the riot, what he didn’t do to call a halt to it and did he really have that conversation with McCarthy in which he told him that the rioters cared more about the Constitution than McCarthy did.

The terrorists who marched onto Capitol Hill on 1/6 to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election committed an insurrection against the government. House members and senators were doing their constitutional duty in certifying the election.

The House select panel is tasked with finding out all there is to learn about what happened, why it happened and, yes, how to prevent it from recurring.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy needs to stop obstructing the panel from doing its job and adhere to the oath he took to “defend and protect the Constitution,” which the insurrectionists sought on 1/6 to destroy.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot

‘Justice for J6’ rally fizzles

I don’t know what kind of crowd they were expecting today at that “Justice for J6” rally in Washington, D.C.

My good ol’ trick knee tells me they didn’t get nearly the response that the Donald Trump cultists had envisioned.

“Less than a half-hour before the start of this ‘Justice For J6 (Jan. 6)’ rally, there are not a ton of people at the protest site. There are just as many journalists here, and probably more police,” David Jackson, a correspondent with USA Today tweeted.

Justice for the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol? Justice for the individuals who sought to “Hang Mike Pence!”? Justice for the terrorists who thought they could — at the urging of the 45th POTUS — overturn the results of a free, fair and legal presidential election?

Far-right rally draws small crowd at Capitol | TheHill

Are you serious? Are any of these clowns serious?

The Hill reported: “Still seems like more press than protesters. Less than one demonstrator per member of Congress as the scheduled event begins,” Jonathan Allen, an NBC News reporter, tweeted.

The criminals who have been charged should spend a long time behind bars if the courts convict them of what I happen to believe was an act of insurrection against the U.S. government.

Right there would be “justice” delivered to the rioters of J6.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com