Tag Archives: insurrection

DC riot

Hey, libs: Pipe down and let AG do his job

To be sure, I have spent a lot of emotional capital chastising conservatives over a whole array of issues. Today, though, I want to take aim at the progressives among us who are growing impatient with the pace of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s potential probe into Donald Trump’s role in the 1/6 insurrection.

Summing it up, I want to say that progressives need to settle down and quit acting as if the world is going to explode if Garland doesn’t meet their deadline for a decision.

The AG is examining whether to prosecute a former president of the United States of America — for God’s sake — on charges that might include conspiracy to commit sedition. Think of the seriousness, here.

It’s never been done before.

Now, do I believe Trump committed crimes while refusing to stem the attack on the Capitol on 1/6? Yes! I do! However, I am just a chump layman out here in the peanut gallery. I use www.highplainsblogger.com to say what I believe, which is my right as a red-blooded American citizen.

I will not have to pay the price, though, were I to seek a flawed indictment of a former POTUS.

Therefore, I am willing to give the attorney general all the room he needs to roam in search of evidence he believes will result in a conviction of unnamed, unspecified charges against Donald J. Trump.

Earth will not spin off its axis if Garland doesn’t meet the progressives’ deadline … whatever it is! He is a studious, careful, meticulous, learned lawyer. Let him do his job!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Hawley = chicken hawk

Josh Hawley has crossed some sort of threshold from mere MAGA-induced right-winger to cartoon character.

He’s now considered what one could call a chicken hawk. He talks a good game but is a scaredy-cat when the feces hits the fan.

Hawley is a Republican U.S. senator from Missouri. He was photographed the morning of 1/6 offering a clenched-fist salute to the mob of traitors gathering on Capitol Hill. The mob was getting ready to attack the government in an insurrection aimed at stopping the certification of the 2020 presidential election results.

The mob got riled up. Then it attacked.

Ahh, but where was Sen. Clenched Fist? He hightailed it to an undisclosed, secure location somewhere in the bowels of the bastion of our democratic government.

Now the senator who contributed to the attack was nowhere to be seen or heard until the mob dissipated, the cops restored order and Congress was able to finish the job it is constitutionally mandated to perform.

Sen. Tough Guy now is the object of well-earned derision in many quarters. You may count me — no surprise! — as one American patriot who detests the young senator.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

 

national news

Cheney standing tall

It’s getting harder by the day for me to dislike U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, the conservative Wyoming lawmaker who is distinguishing herself by being one of the few Republicans in Congress who is willing to speak the unvarnished truth about Donald J. Trump.

She calls him — in no particular order — an existential threat to our democracy, a danger to the nation, a pathological liar, someone who has “no business being anywhere near the White House.”

There’s some other stuff, too, but you get my drift.

I once despised Liz Cheney. I didn’t like it when she declared her candidacy for Wyoming’s only House seat; I said at the time that she was a carpetbagger who spent hardly any time in the state her dad, Dick Cheney, represented during his House tour.

She’s also a bit too right wing for my taste.

Then along comes The Donald, who torches the Constitution and all but disavows the sacred oath he took to defend it. Cheney said, “That’s enough.”

She has said time and again that the sacred oath must stand over any fealty to a politician. Cheney also said that her work on the House select committee examining the 1/6 insurrection fills her with pride in the duty she is performing in seeking the truth behind the attack that Trump incited.

Win or lose in her August GOP primary in Wyoming, Cheney said she will remain committed to the task before her. “The sun will come up the next morning,” she said, and she will keep pursuing her effort for the truth behind the attack.

Normally, a politician who vows to do his or her job isn’t worthy of extraordinary praise. The context of this time, though, makes it different. That context compels me to offer the highest praise I can to a politician who is showing exemplary courage.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Who’s the ‘gutless’ one?

Steve Bannon, the newly convicted felon who once served as a policy adviser to Donald J. Trump, today offered a truly laughable epithet at a key congressional committee.

Bannon came out of the federal courthouse today after being convicted of two counts of contempt of Congress and bellowed that the House select committee examining the 1/6 insurrection is “gutless” because its members wouldn’t testify in the trial.

The committee is “gutless”? Really … Steve?

What in the world how should we view your refusal to answer a congressional summons demanding you testify before the 1/6 committee? Bannon kept insisting he had nothing to hide, yet he decided to stiff the 1/6 committee by refusing to obey a lawfully ordered subpoena.

Now, for the convicted felon to lash out at a legally constituted congressional committee with a damnation he should wear himself is laughable … except that I am not laughing.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

Breath is bated for AG

Given a lot of factors that are patently obvious — the first of which is that I am not a lawyer, let alone a constitutional lawyer — I am trying to prepare myself for a possible disappointment if Attorney General Merrick Garland decides to indict the immediate past president of the United States.

The disappointment might lie in that Garland will not indict Donald J. Trump on the most serious crime on the table: seditious conspiracy.

Instead, Garland might try to bust up whatever criminal proceeding he would seek into a group of smaller offenses.

I am absolutely sure that Garland recognizes the staggering precedent he could set if he indicts Trump for inciting the insurrection of 1/6. No need to explain what that means.

Garland appears to be a meticulous, deliberate and thorough lawyer, one who has a stellar record as a prosecutor, I should add. He won a conviction of the madman who blew up the Oklahoma City courthouse in April 1995.

It well might be that Garland cannot win a conviction on the whole array of charges that loom in front of Donald Trump. That will be his call to make exclusively. He will not need, nor should he accept, any recommendations from the peanut gallery, where many others and I occupy prime seats.

This might be my way of preparing for a possible disappointment. I have declared my intention to accept whatever the AG decides. I just hope I don’t hurt my jaw when I am finished gnashing my teeth.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Run, Josh, run!

You know, it’s almost not worth any time to comment on one of the pieces of evidence revealed Thursday night during the televised House 1/6 select committee hearing.

Aww, but what the heck …

There was that hilarious snippet of video showing U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., scurrying to a safe place to get away from the traitors who were attacking the U.S. Capitol. Why mention it?

Because this was the same Josh Hawley who egged the mob on with that hideous clenched-fist salute earlier that day.

What do we surmise from the young man’s display of bravado.

Was it all for show? Did he realize what the mob intended to do? Was he ordered to the safe place by the Capitol cops on duty and who were fighting for their own lives while protecting senators and House members?

Whatever. It all makes for a curious juxtaposition of a young hothead senator being revealed — quite possibly — as a cowardly hypocrite.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

Trump did not ‘do nothing’ on 1/6

If you’ll pardon the double negative in the headline, I want to make a brief statement on the major takeaway I gleaned from last night’s televised public hearing on the 1/6 insurrection.

It is that the narrative on what happened while the attack on the U.S. Capitol was underway has changed in a small, but significant, manner.

We had been told that Trump “did nothing” for more than three hours to stop the traitors from attacking the government. Now we have heard that Trump made a conscious decision to do nothing. Therein lies the change in narrative.

Now we have come to understand that Trump’s inaction was planned prior to the event, which means that the POTUS was engaged actively in ensuring that he wouldn’t call out the National Guard, that he wouldn’t tell the attackers to cease their assault on our government and that he wanted them to capture Vice President Mike Pence and, well, do serious bodily harm to him.

There’s even better news — from my standpoint, at least. House select committee chairman Bennie Thompson announced that the televised hearings will resume in September.

That is all right with me.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

Buckle up and wait for these results

There likely will be no clearer referendum on the health and status of today’s Republican Party than a primary vote set to take place next month in Wyoming.

U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, the state’s lone representative in the House, is running for re-election. She has been as staunch a conservative lawmaker as any in the House. She is fervently pro-life and pro-gun; she is anti-tax and has voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

But she’s being called a “dead woman walking” in the upcoming GOP primary because she is being challenged by a Trump cultist who has earned the endorsement of the twice-impeached former president.

Why worry about this election? Because Cheney has committed an unpardonable sin in the eyes of the cult cabal that follows Donald Trump. She has joined a select House committee seeking to know the truth behind the 1/6 insurrection and attack on the Capitol. She has said Trump is criminally liable for what occurred that day. She has been faithful to her oath, which she took to defend the Constitution.

That has earned her a spot on the Donald Trump sh** list of politicians who would dare to challenge him for, oh, breaking the law and doing something no other president in history has ever done … which is launch a coordinated attack on the peaceful transition of power after an election that he lost.

If the Wyoming primary voters oust Cheney, then I am certain it will signal the death of the Republican Party as we have known it. If Cheney fends off the challenger, which appears unlikely, then there might be hope that the GOP can cleanse itself of the soiling that Trump has brought to it.

I am pulling for Rep. Cheney. Not because I like her politics, but because the Republican Party needs someone in its ranks who will stand for the rule of law. It is fundamental to the success of this democratic experiment the nation’s founders left us.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Garland intrigue is building

Hey, what’s going on with U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, who’s signed a memo declaring that any indictment of a president or former president running for the same office must be signed off by the AG himself?

Garland has revived a Donald Trump administration policy, which brings me to why this is significant now.

Donald Trump — the twice-impeached and defeated former POTUS — is dropping hints of running again in 2024. Think of the campaign slogan he could use.

Vote for me, ’cause it’ll keep me out of prison.

Trump well might be indicted for various felonies against the government connected to the 1/6 insurrection and attack on the Capitol as officials were counting 2020 election Electoral College ballots certifying Joe Biden the winner over … yep, Donald Trump.

Garland’s memo seems to suggest to some observers to signal a reluctance to indict Trump for anything prior to the midterm election this fall.

Trump might decide to run for POTUS prior to the midterm election.

Yeah, it’s going to muddy up a lot of things.

Personally, I do not believe he’ll be nominated. Also, I do believe that Garland will have enough to prosecute Trump for something, although I dare not predict what that would be.

This disgraceful excuse for a politician — Trump — is trying to work every angle he can to keep his sorry backside out of the slammer.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot, national news

Hearings have changed my mind

No one has asked me my opinion on whether the 1/6 insurrection hearings conducted by the House select committee has changed my mind about what happened on that horrible day.

I am going to offer an opinion anyway.

Hell yes, I have changed my mind on the insurrection. After listening to several days’ worth of testimony, I am even more convinced than before that Donald J. Trump needs to be charged with any variety of federal crimes.

I thought he was guilty long ago. I still believe in Trump’s guilt. What has changed, though, has been the passion with which I believe this stuff about the former POTUS.

Does that count as a “changed mind?” If not, then it should. Therefore, I will conclude that my mind has changed about who is responsible for the insurrection.

I believed in Trump’s guilt when the hearings started. I believe in them even more as they grind on toward a conclusion.

What never will change in my mind is a demand for accountability and a prison sentence if the ex-president ever gets convicted.

http://johnkanellis_92@hotmail.com