Tag Archives: DC riot

national news

Liz Cheney: no martyr

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Frank Bruni is a superb columnist for the New York Times.

He is passionate about many issues dear to progressives, especially marriage equality; I mean, he is a gay man who writes frequently about the issue … and does so with superb rhetoric.

That all said, I believe he is mistaken when he implies in his latest column that Rep. Liz Cheney is positioning herself as a martyr of some sort. I don’t believe that’s happening.

Cheney is likely to lose her House Republican caucus chairmanship because she voted to impeach Donald Trump in January for inciting the infamous riot at the Capitol Building.

She remains what she always has been: a conservative Republican who voted overwhelmingly in favor of Trump’s agenda. That isn’t good enough to save her leadership post. The Trump cult that comprises most GOP House members want her gone.

So she’s going to keep harping against Trump. Good for her! Is she pretending to be something other than a conservative GOP lawmaker? I don’t see it.

Opinion | Is Liz Cheney a Martyr — or Just a Hack in Holy Drag? – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

DC riot

McCarthy makes it clear: He is a Trump toadie

(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Kevin “The Snake” McCarthy has thrown in with a Donald Trump sycophant in the intramural fight among Republican caucus members in the U.S. House.

The California lawmaker, the leader of the GOP caucus, said today he is backing Rep. Elise Stefanik in her bid to oust Rep. Liz Cheney from the Republican Caucus chairmanship.

McCarthy says he supports Stefanik for House GOP conference chair | TheHill

What did Cheney do to incur McCarthy’s wrath? All she did was vote to impeach Donald Trump after the ex-POTUS incited the insurrection of The Sixth of January. Cheney had the temerity to stand strongly in favor of the U.S. Constitution, which the terrorists who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 threatened directly. And, yes, Donald Trump was the instigator.

This is a disgraceful display from the House GOP leader. He makes me sick.

As for Stefanik, a New York Republican, she makes me sick, too. Her only credential is that she is a Trump toadie, a suck-up, a Kool-Aid swilling member of the Trumpkin Corps of acolytes who believes the election was “stolen” by some mysterious, nefarious cabal.

This internecine war among Republicans isn’t likely to end with Cheney’s expected ouster from the leadership of her party’s House caucus. Nor should it.

As for “leader” McCarthy, well … he makes feel like throwing up.

national news

Keep speaking, Rep. Cheney

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It occurs to me that congressional Republicans might not be doing themselves any favors if they oust Rep. Liz Cheney from her GOP caucus leadership post.

Cheney, who’s become a target of Donald Trump cultists within the GOP caucus, well might be relieved of her No. 3 position on the party leadership ladder.

She intends to keep speaking out about how the party has been hijacked, kidnapped and perverted by the cultists who adhere to the ex-POTUS’s nonsense, namely the Big Lie about the 2020 presidential election.

Think of it. Rep. Cheney might now be free to speak her mind without additional fear of retribution.

Cheney wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post. She said this: “Trump is seeking to unravel critical elements of our constitutional structure that make democracy work — confidence in the result of elections and the rule of law. No other American president has ever done this,” Cheney wrote.

Cheney hits ‘Trump cult of personality,’ says she’ll keep speaking out | TheHill

Keep talking, Rep. Cheney.

media news, national news

Fire him for keeps, Facebook

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I have an idea on how Facebook should resolve this matter with Donald J. Trump and whether he should ever return to the social medium.

Facebook just needs to ban him for keeps. Permanently. Never again should he be allowed to spew the ranting lies that fly out of his mouth and off his fingertips.

There. How’s that?

Facebook’s board of oversight has ruled that the social media giant should keep him off the platform but admonished the company for failing to set a definite timetable for his return, or declare that he is banned for keeps.

I say ban the ex-POTUS forever!

Facebook took his account down after the Jan. 6 insurrection/riot/terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol. You remember that, yes? It was a hideous display of inciting violence by the then-president who continues to this very hour to promote the Big Lie that the 2020 election was “stolen” from him through rampant vote fraud. Well, it wasn’t stolen. Joe Biden was elected president freely, fairly and legally.

Here’s my version of the threshold question: Do you trust Donald Trump to stop promoting the Big Lie and to speak responsibly on Facebook? Here is my answer: I do not!

Donald Trump is arguably the most untrustworthy U.S. politician to come along since, oh, I don’t know if anyone else ever has approached this clown’s level of deceit, dissembling and duplicity. He cannot tell the truth. He is … a liar! 

Facebook has six months to decide whether to lift the ban or impose it permanently. Its oversight board said an “indefinite” ban wasn’t in keeping with Facebooks own criteria. It needs to get specific.

So, ban him for life!

DC riot, media news

Facebook makes right call

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This won’t surprise anyone in the least, but I happen to believe Facebook’s oversight board made the right call in keeping Donald Trump away from the social medium.

The board made its decision known this morning, citing Trump’s incitement of the insurrection on The Sixth of January, the one that sought to overturn the results of a free and fair election that chose Joe Biden to be president and threw Trump out of office.

Trump used Facebook as a method of stirring up the rioters who stormed the Capitol Building, killing four individuals — including a police officer — threatened to “Hang Mike Pence!” and sought to hunt down other elected officials.

It was an insurrection against the government and it sought to destroy the democratic process.

The decision carries some stipulations, according to the New York Times, which reported: But the board also said that Facebook’s penalty of an indefinite suspension was “not appropriate,” and that the company should apply a “defined penalty.” The board gave Facebook six months to make its final decision on Mr. Trump’s account status.

“Our sole job is to hold this extremely powerful organization, Facebook, to be held accountable,” Michael McConnell, co-chair of the Oversight Board, said on a call with reporters. The decision “did not meet these standards,” he said.

Facebook’s Ban of Trump Upheld by Oversight Board (msn.com)

I can hear the outcry building now. Conservatives are going to bitch about Facebook being too friendly to liberals, that the platform seeks to punish those who hold views that differ from their own. Baloney!

As I have followed this tempest, Facebook based its decision to ban Trump because the ex-POTUS keeps telling the Big Lie about the 2020 election being “stolen” from him and that his words had a demonstrable effect on the rioters who sought to pillage and plunder the seat of our federal government.

Is that really a partisan matter? No, it is not!

The overseers of Facebook have given the platform six months to decide on Trump’s status. Take all the time you need and have been given, Facebook. Donald John Trump is a menace, a disgrace and is the true “enemy of the people.”

DC riot, Donald Trump

No, Sen. Hawley, they had no ‘right’ to do what they did

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I will just speak from my gut.

Josh Hawley is a dangerous young man. The Republican U.S. senator from Missouri already had crafted his infamy by being among those senators to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election, which chose Joe Biden as the next president of the United States.

Then he said this just today about the mob of terrorists who were gathering at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6: “They had every right to be there.” 

If their intent was to storm the Capitol, to interfere with Congress doing its constitutional duty to certify the results of the election, to injure police officers and kill one of them, to threaten bodily harm to the vice president and speaker of the House, to defecate on the floor of Congress … then they had no right to be there.

And yet the junior senator from Missouri continues to stand by that hideous raised-fist photo of him saluting the mob waiting to storm the place where our Congress writes laws to which we all must obey.

Why did the rioters do what they did? Because the man who was soon to leave the presidency, Donald J. Trump, exhorted them to “take back” the government from forces he alleged had “stolen” the election and given it to President Biden. He continues to foment The Big Lie and members of Congress — such as Sen. Hawley — cheer on the disgraced ex-president.

Josh Hawley now is widely believed to aspire to a presidential run in 2024. How does that make you feel? Warm and fuzzy? Do you want to place the nuclear codes in the hands of an insurrectionist? Do you trust this guy to “defend and protect” the very Constitution he sought to destroy by challenging the result of a free, fair and duly certified presidential election?

What’s more, he now is defending the terrorists who committed the single greatest assault on our government since, oh let’s see, the Civil War.

The danger that Sen. Josh Hawley presents to this country cannot be overstated.

DC riot, national news

Pence shows his wussiness

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I just have to say it out loud and as directly as I can.

Former Vice President Mike Pence is a wuss.

Whatever in the world keeps him from defending himself against scurrilous attacks from the imbecile with whom he was elected to lead this nation is utterly beyond me.

Pence is beginning to return to public life. He and Donald Trump lost their bid for re-election in November 2020. It is widely believed Pence wants to run for president in 2024. It also is thought that Trump might harbor the same ambition. These two men, therefore, could become Republican Party primary opponents.

As he reemerges onto the public stage, Pence sticks to the same strategy he used by Trump’s side: Total fealty (msn.com)

Will that bring any sort of criticism from Pence toward Trump. Not based on what he said this week. What is astounding to me is that Trump trashed Pence on Jan. 6 — the day of the insurrection — for failing to show “courage” because Pence wouldn’t seek to overturn the election results.

The Trumpkin Corps of fanatics followed Trump’s assertions. Many of them stormed the Capitol Building chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” while some of them defecated on the floor of the nation’s government. 

Someone will have to explain to me how a Pence-Trump rivalry — should it develop in the GOP primary for the White House in ’24 — is going to play out if the former VP continues to slobber all over the shoes of the former idiot in chief.

I don’t understand a lot of things, but I don’t think I’m a dunderhead. I simply am baffled beyond belief at the slavish fealty that Mike Pence shows toward the guy who doesn’t return a shred of loyalty to his most loyal suck-up.

DC riot

Liz Cheney is so correct

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Hell clearly has entered the deep freeze.

How do I know that? Because I happen to agree with U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, the Wyoming Republican who I once considered to be one of the GOP’s premier fire-breathers.

No longer do I hold that view.

Rep. Cheney was one of 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach Donald Trump over his inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection. Now she says that anyone in Congress who had a hand in voting to overturn the 2020 presidential election should be disqualified from running for president in 2024.

That means you, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.

Cheney ventured to a GOP retreat in Florida. As CNN reported: “I think we have a huge number of interesting candidates, but I think that we’re going to be in a good position to be able to take the White House,” she told the New York Post. “I do think that some of our candidates who led the charge, particularly the senators who led the unconstitutional charge, not to certify the election, you know, in my view, that’s disqualifying.”

You see why I agree with her? She makes sense. Cheney is a rock-ribbed, true-blue, dyed-in-the-wool Republican. She also understands the Constitution and values greatly the oath she took to protect and defend it. Unlike the nimrods in the House and Senate who voted to object to the results of a free and fair election that elected Joe Biden as president of the United States.

Liz Cheney thinks January 6 should be ‘disqualifying’ for some GOPers (msn.com)

I intend to stand with the likes of Liz Cheney any day over the machinations and lies being pitched by those who support the one-time Liar in Chief.

national news

Waiting on a probe

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The nation endured an insurrection on Jan. 6.

The Department of Justice has charged more than 400 people involved in the riot that sought to overturn the results from the 2020 presidential election. DOJ expects the count to reach 500.

The riot resulted in the second impeachment of a president, the death of a police officer and four others, injuries to hundreds of individuals.

It was a concerted, planned attack on our federal government.

The question: Why hasn’t there been a non-partisan, blue-ribbon commission named to root out the cause of the riot and to make recommendations on how we can possibly avoid future attacks on our democracy?

Congress is dawdling. The Justice Department needs to get more involved as well. Attorney General Merrick Garland knows how this process should work, as he has experience gained from his own probe of the 1995 domestic terrorist bombing of the federal courthouse in Oklahoma City.

You may count me as one American patriot who demands answers to what we witnessed that day as crowds stormed into the Capitol Building, yelling for VP Mike Pence and threatening to hang him; they defecated on the floor of our government; they were looking for Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Do not tell me that the word “insurrection” is incorrect or too, um, strident a term to describe what happened. That is precisely what we witnessed.

We need there to be a commission patterned after the panel formed in the wake of 9/11 to give us answers.

crime news

Beware, domestic terrorists

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has laid down the law to those who seek to terrorize Americans from within our borders.

The Department of Justice is coming after them.

Indeed, Garland has experience dealing with — and bringing justice to — domestic terrorists. It was 26 years ago today that a home-grown, corn-fed terrorist detonated a bomb in front of the Alfred Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The blast killed 168 people, including 19 children in the worst act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history.

Police arrested the bomber soon afterward. Garland was a young federal prosecutor who led the charge in bringing the madman to justice. He succeeded and the killer was executed.

The New York Times reported: “Although many years have passed, the terror perpetrated by people like Timothy McVeigh is still with us,” Mr. Garland said. “The Department of Justice is pouring its resources into stopping domestic violent extremists before they can attack, prosecuting those who do, and battling the spread of the kind of hate that leads to tragedies like the one we mark here today.”

Garland Leads Commemoration of Oklahoma City Bombing (msn.com)

Make no mistake, domestic terror is alive and festering. FBI Director Christopher Wray said in 2019 that domestic terrorism presents the single greatest threat to Americans, even more than foreign terrorists.

Indeed, we saw them storm the Capitol Building on Jan. 6 and we have heard members of Congress actually endorse the myriad phony conspiracy theories espoused by domestic terrorists. Imagine that … if you can.

It is with that backdrop that I welcome AG Garland’s renewed commitment to fighting the enemy from within.