Tag Archives: insurrection

national news

Don’t walk away, Liz Cheney

Right-wing media commentators have been roughing up one of their own recently and it isn’t a pretty sight.

U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican and Donald Trump’s No. 1 political enemy, got thrashed in this week’s GOP primary. What has been the reaction from some in the conservative media?

They are calling on her to resign from the House now, step away from her role on the House select 1/6 committee and, in effect, keep her mouth shut.

She should do none of that. Cheney’s term in office expires at the end of this year, which means this good-government progressive wants her stay on her watch and continue to hold Trump accountable for the crimes he committed while inciting the 1/6 insurrection.

To be sure, I believe Cheney inflated the significance of her primary defeat by comparing her fate to what happened to the father of the Republican Party, America’s greatest president Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln lost two congressional contests before being elected president in 1860, Cheney reminded us, as if to suggest that her own congressional loss might signal her ascent to the White House in the future.

She is getting way ahead of herself.

However, I do not for one instant believe she should step away. Cheney is providing a valuable voice of reason where few of them exist within her GOP.  Moreover, she is performing valuable service as vice chair of the committee led by Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson.

My advice to Rep. Cheney? Stay the course. Wyoming voters elected her to serve until the end of 2022. She has more work to do on behalf of the effort to preserve, protect and defend our precious democratic process.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, legal news

Keep it secret, feds

Now comes word that Donald J. Trump and his dwindling ranks of allies want the federal government to unseal the affidavit that prompted the judge to approve a request by the FBI to search Trump’s south Florida home for criminal evidence.

I’ll join those who suggest that releasing that document would be a mistake, that it could compromise the probe and that Attorney General Merrick Garland acted in good faith when he sought permission to send in the agents.

The FBI has collected a substantial amount of paperwork that Trump took from the White House when he left office in January 2021. Some of it appears to be, um, highly classified. That’s a no-no. There could be violations of the Espionage Act and the Presidential Records Act that the Justice Department will consider as it ponders whether to indict the former POTUS.

The affidavit, though, is another matter. I am all in favor of transparency. However, if it compromises a criminal investigation, then there ought to be limits on how much we see.

As I have noted before, I trust the AG implicitly to be a man of high honor and integrity. He said he will “follow the law” wherever it leads. I believe he is doing that. He also is arguing that the affidavit need not be revealed for all the world to see.

Let the man and our Justice Department do their job.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Uncategorized

Ga. probe looms as major Trump threat

If I was a betting man — and I have to stipulate that I am nothing of the sort — I would wager that Donald J. Trump’s gravest threat to his future looms in the Fulton County, Ga., district attorney’s office.

The former president is under investigation in many venues: Congress, the Justice Department, Manhattan (N.Y.) and Fulton County.

It’s the Georgia matter that, to my way of thinking, presents Trump with his most serious threat. Why? Because the whole world has heard Trump’s own voice demand that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger “find” enough votes to swing the state from Joe Biden’s column to Trump’s.

Where I come from, I believe that amounts to a clear-cut, no-questions-need-asking, tried-and-true case of election tampering.

Oh, and there’s more to that recorded conversation. You might recall that Trump actually threatened Raffensberger with criminal prosecution if he didn’t do what the president wanted him to do.

I have been wondering ever since I heard about this: If this doesn’t constitute a crime, then what in the world qualifies?

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is pursuing this probe with all appropriate vigor. Indeed, I have thought all along that this case presented Trump with his most daunting set of allegations. What’s more — thanks to Raffensberger, who thought to record the phone conversation — we can hear the POTUS in his own voice pressuring the election official to, shall we say, “steal the 2020 presidential election.”

The House select committee that is pursuing the insurrection also is piling up a mountain of evidence that suggests criminality within the White House. The Manhattan probe, though, appears to be losing steam. The Justice Department probe? Well, Attorney General Merrick Garland has made it abundantly clear that “no one is above the law” and by “no one,” the AG means, well … no one.

If I were Donald Trump — and I am so glad that I ain’t — I would be sweatin’ bullets over what might be coming his way from Deep in the Heart of Dixie.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, political news

How do you campaign on Trump coattails?

Harriet Hageman is likely to become the next Republican nominee to run for Wyoming’s sole seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

If she defeats Rep. Liz Cheney in today’s GOP primary, she’s a sure bet to win the election this November against whomever Democrats nominate.

It causes me to wonder: How has Hageman campaigned against Cheney, whose only “sin” as I see it is that she has been highly critical of Donald Trump’s criminal behavior while he masqueraded as president of the U.S.A.

In latest primary night, 2 Trump critics face voters as Palin eyes a comeback (msn.com)

So, what does a Harriet Hageman stump speech sound like?

Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Harriet Hageman and I am running as the protector of a twice-impeached U.S. president.

My opponent, Liz Cheney, has betrayed her office by standing for the rule of law. She has declared her intention to do all she can to keep the former president from getting anywhere near the Oval Office.  That is unacceptable!

Her voting record in Congress? That doesn’t matter. Nor does it matter that she voted with Donald Trump more than 92% of the time. Or that she has been adamantly pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, fervently anti-tax and equally fervently anti-Obamacare. 

Has she represented the will of our state? No. Because she won’t profess fealty to Donald Trump.

***

That, of course, is an absurd example of how Hageman has campaigned for the office. I just don’t know how she can be “more conservative” than Liz Cheney, or how she can justify running against a House member who is faithful to her party’s long-standing platform of favoring the rule of law.

If the polls are correct, and I tend to believe they are, then the rest of the country is going to see what happens to a politician who is (a) faithful to her oath and (b) critical of a president who is faithful only to his own lust for power.

These primary voters will be forever cast in shame.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

There’s no talking to them

I am going to wave a white flag of surrender. I give up. I no longer can — nor will I — seek to persuade the Donald Trump cabal of cultists that they are wrong in clinging to their man’s world view … whatever the hell it is!

Truth be told, I made that decision some time ago. I don’t think I have declared my intention publicly, out loud, for all the world to hear.

I have a few critics of this blog who weigh in when I have something critical to say about their hero. As a general rule, I don’t engage them in debate.

Which brings me to my point: which is that there is no point in arguing with someone whose mind is made up, who does not listen or comprehend what I know to be the truth about their guy.

He is, as Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah — a fellow Republican — said in 2016 a “phony” and a “fraud.” He cannot tell the truth. However, the sad reality is that truth-telling doesn’t matter to the cult cabal. They buy into his lies, they repeat them and then dare the rest of us to challenge them. I can challenge the lies, but I cannot challenge the purveyors of the falsehoods.

You’ve heard the saying — or something like it — that warns against trying to talk sense into someone who is blind to any possibility that their guy suffers a fatal flaw. That, in my view, sums up the Trump cabal.

I know what you might be thinking: If I am going to accuse the Trumpkins of being blind to the truth, am I as equally blind to the views expressed on the other side of the great divide?

Not a chance. They are wrong.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Oh, the irony of it all

The irony in the partisan reaction to the FBI decision to search Donald Trump’s luxurious pad for documents he wasn’t supposed to take from the White House is just too rich to ignore.

There once was a time when Republicans were seen as belonging to the party of law and order. Yep, the GOP once cheered the cops’ efforts to root out crime. The party once took no prisoners. It said “hang ’em high.”

So, what’s happened in the day or two since the FBI search? Republicans are now accusing the feds of planting evidence. They accuse the FBI and the Justice Department of conspiring to make up a pretext to send the former president to jail in leg irons.

What the hell … ?

The FBI obtained a search warrant using legal means. It persuaded a federal judicial magistrate that it had “probable cause” to believe a crime had been committed. The judge issued the warrant. The G-men and women went to Trump’s glitzy joint and left with about a dozen boxes of documents.

Republicans formerly cheered the feds when they performed these duties. Now they have rallied behind a cult figure and are leveling preposterous allegations against the FBI.

Astonishing, man!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Uh, Newt? They can do nothing to me!

Newt Gingrich is grasping at anything to minimize the stunning news overnight that the FBI has searched the Florida home of Donald J. Trump for evidence that he might have committed a crime — or three — while serving as president of the United States.

The Republican fire-breather/former speaker of the House said this: “I think what’s even more troubling and what every American, whether you’re a Democrat, Republican, doesn’t matter, liberal, conservative, doesn’t matter. If 30 FBI agents can take over the house of a former President of the United States and probable candidate for president, what can they do to you?”

I can answer Newtie’s question. Are you ready?

The FBI can’t do a damn thing to any American if they haven’t broken federal laws.

Gingrich: If FBI Agents Can Raid The Former President, What Can They Do To You? | Video | RealClearPolitics

What fu**ing difference does it make if the subject of a federal investigation is a former POTUS or someone who might be a candidate for the office?

Attorney General Merrick Garland has spoken with crystal clarity on the subject of his investigation into the events of 1/6, its aftermath and its causes. “No one is above the law,” Garland said. He clarified that statement by declaring, “I mean, ‘no one’ is above the law.”

The issue isn’t about “control” of our lives, or about bullying of a president who well might have broken several laws. It is about whether our democratic system of government is worth protecting against those who would seek to destroy it.

Newt Gingrich is entitled to his opinion. I am entitled to mine. They differ. I happen to believe I am correct and Newtie is wrong.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

DOJ makes history!

Donald J. Trump is correct. The search of his home in Florida is the “first time in history” that the FBI has conducted such an operation against a former U.S. president.

There. Now that we have that out of the way, I want to make sure we all understand something else.

Trump is the first president to resist the peaceful transfer of power to a new administration; he is the first president to have incited an attack on the Capitol; he is the first president to have demanded that states “find” votes to reverse the outcome of an election; he is the first president to have been accused of taking top-secret documents out of the White House illegally.

So, is the FBI search legal? Yes. It is. The Justice Department obtained approval from a federal judge to proceed with the search. The FBI needed to demonstrate “probable cause” to believe a crime has been committed, and it did in the eyes of the judge who issued the search warrant.

Trump’s assertion that he now is the first president in U.S. history to have been subjected to this kind of legal action is correct.

However, he deserves it!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

If only he hadn’t lied

This makes me so mad I could just spit. Dick Cheney came to his daughter’s defense with a stellar argument that called Donald John Trump a “coward” who “lies to his supporters.”

The former vice president of the United States said a “real man” wouldn’t lie the way Trump does.

Of course he is right! I would be leading the cheers for the former VP who served for two terms during George W. Bush’s presidency, except for this little thing. Dick Cheney also is a liar.

I don’t say this with any sort of cavalier attitude. I want the former veep’s ad to sway voters to his daughter’s corner as she battles for re-election to the U.S. House seat that her father occupied before taking on the job of White House chief of staff for President Ford.

Dick Cheney, though, spooned up a major dose of snake oil when George W. Bush became president. He persuaded the president that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, chemicals that it would use against us. He also told us that Saddam Hussein — the late Iraqi dictator — played a role in the 9/11 attacks on Washington and New York City. Neither allegation was true.

We went to war with Iraq in March 2003 and lost nearly 5,000 American lives in the process. And for what purpose? To retaliate for lies conveyed by the then-vice president and others within the Bush administration.

This is the kind of thing that sticks to people’s backsides. It’s indelible. No matter how much Dick Cheney might pretend to be a man of high honor and integrity — who tells the truth all the time — we cannot deny that he lied about WMD and the culprits behind 9/11.

I just wish Liz Cheney could have found another ally to launch this attack on Donald Trump.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Go for it, Liz!

Liz Cheney well might find out that being a lame-duck member of Congress has an advantage or two … such as freeing her from the threat of political blowback as she seeks to find the truth behind a president’s corruption.

The New York Times is reporting that Cheney will continue on her crusade to keep Donald J. Trump far away from the Oval Office even if she loses her Republican Party primary race next week.

Cheney is running for re-election to her fourth term in the House. She has signed on to the House select committee examining the 1/6 insurrection. Cheney has left no doubt as to her belief that Trump is responsible for the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and has said out loud that the Justice Department must find evidence to indict the ex-POTUS.

The Trump-backed Republican is favored to defeat Cheney next week. I am not going to take that outcome to the proverbial bank just yet, although I acknowledge that it doesn’t look good for Rep. Cheney at the moment.

Accordingly, lame-duck status would seem to fit Cheney quite well. It will free her to speak even more bluntly — if that is even possible — about the corrupt and criminal intent she and others on the panel have found.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com