Tag Archives: DC riot

national news

The logic? Where is it?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Someone will have to explain this bit of logic to me.

Donald J. Trump’s legal team is preparing to argue at their client’s impeachment trial that the trial is unconstitutional. Why is that? Because you cannot “impeach a president” who is no longer in office.

That’s what I hear them preparing to say.

Except for this little factoid. The House of Representatives voted to impeach Donald Trump on Jan. 13. He was still the president of the United States when the House impeached him.

Thus, and this is just little ol’ me, the impeachment is quite constitutional. Donald Trump had a week to go before he high-tailed it to Florida.

The Senate trial cannot remove him from office, which I guess factors into what Trump’s lawyers are thinking. However, and this is important, the Constitution does not specify that a president must still be in office during a trial.

Article I, Section 3 of the founding governing document notes that “judgment shall not extend further than to removal from office.” The founders did not say that removal was the only punishment; my reading of the constitutional text tells me that the punishment could not exceed removal. So … what’s the deal with that argument against conducting an impeachment trial of a former president?

If the Senate convicts Trump — and that is a huge mountain to scale, I know — then it could have a separate vote to bar Trump from ever seeking public office. The conviction bar is high, requiring a two-thirds vote; the ancillary vote requires only a simple majority of the Senate.

I know that I am not a lawyer or a constitutional scholar. I know what the Constitution says, though, and it tells me that a Senate trial meets the constitutional standard.

Impeachment is not the issue. The House delivered the goods while Trump was in office. The burden falls solely on the Senate to demand that Trump be held accountable for inciting the riot that damn near wrecked our democratic form of government.

national news, political news

Rep. Cheney ‘won’t bend’

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I sure hope I don’t choke on these words, so I’ll take great care when I write them.

It is that I am proud of U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., for standing on principle and not “bending” to the whims of partisan hacks.

Cheney has come under intense fire from Donald Trump’s core of lunatics who are angry at her because she voted on Jan. 13 to impeach their hero. The Wyoming Republican Party has censured her for her vote.

Rep. Cheney isn’t backing down. Not one bit!

She told “Fox News Sunday” this morning: “The oath that I took to the Constitution compelled me to vote for impeachment, and it doesn’t bend to partisanship. It doesn’t bend to political pressure,” she added. “It’s the most important oath that we take, and so I will stand by that, and I will continue to fight for all of the issues that matter so much to us all across Wyoming.”

Cheney on Trump impeachment vote: ‘The oath that I took … doesn’t bend to partisanship’ | TheHill

How about that, ladies and gentlemen? She reveres the oath she took when she joined the House of Representatives. That oath compels her to protect the Constitution and the laws of the land. She did not swear any fealty to Donald Trump. She didn’t give him a pass for inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection that well could have brought great physical harm to all 535 members of Congress … and the then-vice president, Mike Pence.

They were gathered on Capitol Hill to do their constitutional duty, which was to certify the results of an election that proclaimed President Joe Biden the winner over Donald Trump.

Cheney and the other GOP House members who voted to impeach Trump all have incurred the wrath of the Trumpkin Corps.

I mentioned “choking” on these words. It is because Liz Cheney is not my kind of politician. She is too right-wing for my taste. I would not vote for her if I lived in Wyoming.

However, I am addressing only her principled stand against the insurrection that Donald Trump incited with his angry rhetoric to the mob that stood before him.

It is amazing in the extreme that Rep. Cheney would have to defend her vote to defend the Constitution, but she did … and for that I am proud of her.

national news

Yes, Trump must be punished

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

You’ve heard it said, I am sure, that if Donald Trump didn’t commit an impeachable act on Jan. 6, then “what does constitute such an act?”

It is my considered belief that Trump’s incitement of an insurrection against a co-equal branch of government on that day, just two weeks before he was to exit the presidency, is the worst singular act that any president ever has committed.

The U.S. Senate this week is going to conduct its fourth presidential impeachment; Trump has been tried in two of them.

The first one occurred in 1868 when President Andrew Johnson stood trial for violating the Tenure of Office Act after he fired Secretary of War Edwin Stanton without notifying the Senate; he escaped conviction by a single vote.

The next one occurred in 1999 when President Bill Clinton stood trial on a charge of perjury; he lied to a grand jury about an affair he was having with a White House intern. The perjury case was the basis of three impeachment articles. The Senate acquitted him on all three.

And then we had the first Trump impeachment trial in 2020. Trump was impeached for abuse of power and for obstruction of Congress based on a phone conversation he had with Ukraine’s president in which he asked the foreign head of state for political dirt on a rival … who happened by presidential candidate Joseph Biden. The Senate acquitted him on both counts.

Here we are today. What Trump did on Jan. 6 was provoke a mob of terrorists to march on the Capitol to stop Congress from certifying the Electoral College results of a free and fair election. The riot on Capitol Hill killed five people. The terrorists were angry over the lie that Trump kept repeating that alleged “massive vote fraud” where none existed.

The rioters stormed into the very Senate chamber where 100 “jurors” are going to stand in judgment of the man who exhorted the rioters to do the damage they inflicted on our very democratic system of government.

Think for a moment about what might have occurred had the terrorists actually gotten their mitts onto Vice President Mike Pence — who they wanted to hang. Or had they found Speaker Nancy Pelosi — who they said they would execute.

This isn’t a close call, senators.

Yes, Trump is out of office, but the trial meets constitutional muster. He can be tried after being impeached one week before leaving office. Trump can be held accountable. He must be held to account for the hideous conduct he exhibited after the 2020 election.

national news

Outcome likely settled

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(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Many of us are waiting for Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial to begin.

It’s not that I am expecting an epiphany of courage to result in a conviction. I am expecting another acquittal, although there might be enough Republican senators to cross into the conviction line to make somewhat interesting.

The House impeached Trump on a single count of incitement of insurrection. Goodness, the evidence is mountainous. It’s there for the all the world to see, and which it has seen already. He exhorted a riotous mob of terrorists to march on Capitol Hill; it did and you know what happened.

My strong hunch that no amount of testimony from the House managers presenting their case in the Senate is going to persuade any Republican senators to change their minds, getting them to convict instead of acquit Trump. I sense a few GOP senators are leaning to convict Trump; I am thinking of Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse, Lisa Murkowski, Rob Portman (who announced he won’t seek another term), Susan Collins and maybe one or two others. That’s far short of the 17 GOP senators required to produce a conviction in a 50-50 Senate lineup.

Democrats likely will hold firm and convict Trump.

What might the House prosecutors aim to do if they realize that a conviction isn’t meant to occur? They’re going to speak to the rest of us watching from our living rooms. They well might decide to destroy whatever is left of Trump’s political credibility, seeking to deny him any footing on which he could launch another political campaign in 2024.

Senators are going to take an oath to be impartial. The oath, though, is a joke. To be fair, Democrats have made up their minds as well as have Republicans. As has been noted before, an impeachment trial in the Senate is a political event, not a judicial one.

That said, I would surely vote to convict Trump if I had a say in the outcome. Instead, I am left just to speculate from the peanut gallery along with the  rest of the nation.

My speculation at this moment leads me to believe that Trump won’t face any official sanction from the Senate. Still, it is clearly worth the effort that House prosecutors will exert as they lay out for the whole Earth the evidence we have seen that Donald John Trump is a scurrilous imposter who had no business masquerading as our nation’s president.

national news

Trump won’t testify … imagine that

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This likely is the biggest non-surprise of the lead-up to next week’s impeachment trial of Donald John Trump.

It is that Trump won’t testify in his own defense on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Democratic House trial managers had summoned the former president to testify in the trial that will determine whether he committed “incitement of insurrection,” as spelled out by the U.S. House of Representatives impeachment.

Why won’t Trump testify? My strong guess is that he would have to swear to tell the “whole truth” to the Senate that will act as jurors. The trial managers would have put Trump under oath to tell the truth. Failure to do so would result in perjury, which is a criminal offense.

Do you get where I am going with this? If not, here it is: This individual cannot tell the truth! He is incapable or unwilling to tell the truth, even under threat of criminal punishment.

The evidence of what Trump did on Jan. 6 has been recorded for posterity. He stood before a mob of terrorist rioters and told them to march on Capitol Hill to “take back our country.” They must not act out of weakness, the president said. The terrorists took him at his word and stormed into the Capitol Building to stop the certification of the 2020 election, which Congress was in the process of doing.

The mob killed five people, including a Capitol Police officer. They shouted “Hang Mike Pence!” while looking for the vice president. They shouted for Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

They acted on the instigation of Donald Trump.

My lingering thought is: How does Trump defend his conduct? 

Defending the indefensible is too steep a hill to climb, especially for a pathological liar who would have to swear to tell the truth.

national news

If only it was ‘peaceful’ …

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Twelve years ago, Republican President George W. Bush opened the door to his successor, a Democrat, who won a hard-fought election to succeed him. Barack Obama began the transition to president of the United States seamlessly and in an orderly fashion.

This time? Another Republican, Donald Trump, lost a re-election fight, also to a Democrat, Joe Biden. His reaction? He slammed the brakes on any semblance of peaceful, orderly and seamlessness on that transition.

President Bush reacts to Obama’s victory in 2008 election – YouTube

President Obama took office with a nation in turmoil. The economy was collapsing. Yes, the tossed a lot of blame on GOP policies and the president. However, George W. Bush set all of that aside to welcome the new president and his family to the White House.

Donald Trump has shown no such class. He claims the election was rigged. He fomented a terrorist attack on the Capitol. Five people died in the melee.

Thus, the new president has taken office with the nation reeling from economic collapse and fighting a worldwide pandemic that has killed nearly a half-million Americans.

The president he defeated is facing a second impeachment trial in the Senate. Members of Congress are expressing outright fear of serving with their colleagues. The anger and outright loathing is palpable among them.

This isn’t how it is supposed to go. Yet this is what we face today as President Biden seeks ways to rid the nation of the pandemic and right our ship of state.

There once was a time when candidates sparred, one of them would win, the loser would dust himself off, call the winner, congratulate him and promise to “work with” him to keep the country moving forward. This most recent election has jumbled that formula for success.

A return of that time-tested practice isn’t going to return soon. It well might eventually. Indeed, the peaceful transition of power — which now sounds cliche — is an essential ingredient for “making America great.” 

Uncategorized

More than QAnon Queen to worry about

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It is tempting to single out an individual who stands above a particular fray. So it has been with Marjorie Taylor Greene, the person I have dubbed the QAnon Queen of the House … of Representatives.

She deserves to be stripped of her committee assignments and sent to the back of the room. She can talk to herself and to her friends in the sedition caucus of the Republican membership in the House.

This brings me to a critical point, which is that there are more House members and senators who share this individual’s warped, distorted and disgusting world view. We need to keep our eyes peeled to their activities as well.

Who else is out there? I shudder to think that a newly elected rep from North Texas, Republican Beth Van Duyne of Irving, might be among them. She has become the target of vigorous political advertising that suggests she shares the loony bin notions being touted by Greene and others.

Oh, then we have Rep. Louie Gohmert from Tyler, who’s been faithful to his birther notions about former President Obama.

You know how I feel about Sen. Ted Cruz, the Houston Republican. Enough said about the Cruz Missile.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has warned us that the “enemy is within” the ranks of House members and senators. Boy howdy, Mme. Speaker.

I intend to remain vigilant to the nuttiness that can — and no doubt will — arise from Capitol Hill.

One more final point. Think of the irony that the very place that came  under attack on the Sixth of January from the terrorist mob — the halls of Congress — is now a potential hotbed for the type of lunacy that the rioters followed.

Astonishing.

national news

Wanting to purge Trump

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Oh, how I long for the day when I can purge my conscience of any thought of Donald J. Trump as I watch the current president of the United States carry out his myriad duties … such as what occurred last night at the service honoring a slain Capitol Police officer.

President and Mrs. Biden walked into the Capitol Rotunda to honor the memory of Officer Brian Sicknick, the young man who died in the horrendous riot of Jan. 6, when the terrorists stormed Capitol Hill in a blatant, bald-faced act of insurrection against the U.S. government.

I watched the first couple place their hands over their hearts. I watched President Biden cross himself as they moved away from the officer’s remains.

Then it hit me: We haven’t yet heard a single word of grief, mourning or regret from the man on whose watch the riot occurred and which cost Brian Sicknick his life. Donald Trump continues to remain silent. He continues to demonstrate fully why he was so hideously unfit to hold the office of president of the United States.

The terrorists attacked the Capitol Building at Trump’s urging. The blood that was shed that day splattered all over Donald Trump.

Brian Sicknick died because Donald Trump exhorted the terrorists to do what they did. And yet … the  former president remains stone-cold silent.

One of these days — and I hope it is soon — I won’t think of Donald Trump when I watch President Joe Biden comport himself appropriately in times of grief.

national news

Is this trial different? Yes … here’s why

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The men and women who will prosecute the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump have filed their legal brief in advance of that process.

It states, in part: “The Nation will indeed remember January 6, 2021 — and President Trump’s singular responsibility for that tragedy. It is impossible to imagine the events of January 6 occurring without President Trump creating a powder keg, striking a match, and then seeking personal advantage from the ensuing havoc.”

READ: House Impeachment Managers Outline Case Against Trump : NPR

My head and my heart are conflicting with each other as the nation prepares to witness this spectacle unfold. My heart desires a conviction, even though Donald Trump no longer is in office. He needs to be held accountable for inciting that horrifying riot.

My noggin tells me something different. It is that the House managers who will prosecute this case will be speaking to a “jury” that has made up its mind. Fifty Senate Democrats want to convict the former president; some of the 50 Republicans may join them, but not enough of them will cross that threshold to deliver a conviction.

The Constitution sets a high bar, requiring a two-thirds vote in the Senate to convict a president.

So, why is this trial different from the first trial that acquitted him on abuse of power and obstruction of justice? It is different because the crime Trump committed on Jan. 6 had a direct impact on the jurors, the senators who will be sitting in judgment.

Trump incited the rioting mob to march on Capitol Hill. The terrorists did as he stated. They stormed into the Capitol Building, where senators and House members were meeting to certify the results of the 2020 election. Senators and House members were sent scurrying; they feared for their very lives!

How in the name of sanity does someone give a pass to someone who incited that kind of violence when it could have resulted in catastrophe for those who will pass judgment? You cannot!

Trump has assembled a new defense team; the first one quit because of differences with the client over trial strategy. The new team will argue that the Senate lacks standing to try a president who isn’t in office. This layman believes that argument is so much crap!

This trial should be dramatically different from the first one. If there exist enough Republican senators with a sense of moral outrage over what happened on the very floor where they will hear this case, then there well could be a vastly different outcome.

Sadly, I fear that the cowards among the GOP caucus are going to win the day.

DC riot, national news

Dad would be enraged!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

You know already that my father wasn’t a particularly political individual.

Pete Kanelis and I did not talk much about politics, or even much about current events. Dad didn’t have an attention span that would allow him to digest the complexities and nuance of public policy.

He did, though, believe deeply in this country. He loved the U.S. of A. He was a patriot’s patriot. Dad signed up to fight in World War II on the very day that the Japanese attacked our fleet in Hawaii.

Dad spent the bulk of his combat duty fighting the Germans and the Italians in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations … which brings me to what Dad would have thought had he seen the terrorists who attacked the Capitol Building on the Sixth of January.

My father would have flown into a frothing rage at the sight of the t-shirt that bellowed “Camp Auschwitz.”

Dad knew who the enemy was when he suited up for the Navy. He endured constant bombardment from Nazi fighters and bombers while serving in the Med. He also knew that Adolf Hitler was a tyrant and a demon who needed to be crushed. Dad did his level best while he was thrust in harm’s way to crush that monster.

Auschwitz, the infamous Nazi death camp, didn’t become known to Americans until nearly the end of World War II. Dad certainly knew then the nature of the beast he enlisted to fight.

I cannot help but think of the anger that would boil up inside him had he been around to witness the insurrection we all saw unfold … and the nature of the morons who ransacked the seat of our democracy while wearing an emblem that salutes Auschwitz.