Tag Archives: insurrection

national news

Ratings don’t matter

Donald Trump and his cabal of cultists can complain all they want about the allegedly low “rating” the insurrection hearings are getting.

What matters, though, is the testimony that is being produced from these televised events. Not only that, the witnesses are talking to a limited audience. They are speaking to prosecutors and investigators working for the Department of Justice.

The most recent testimony offered by mid-level White House staffer Cassidy Hutchinson already has come under fire. Donald Trump cultists say she offered “hearsay” testimony. Oh, really?

Others around her said incriminating things about the 1/6 insurrection … and she was present to hear what they said!

Hearsay? That’s hardly a defense when someone delivers the kind of damaging goods that Hutchinson dropped onto the laps the1/6 House select committee examining the insurrection.

Cassidy Hutchinson told a compelling — and damning — tale of corruption within the White House on that horrible and horrifying day as Donald Trump’s time as president was staggering to its conclusion.

Whether the vast bulk of Americans are not yet paying attention doesn’t matter one damn bit to those who are paying attention. They are the legal professionals who are preparing to decide whether to file criminal charges against those who did the bidding of the most corrupt president in U.S. history.

And, yes, whether they will file charges against the president himself. It looks for all the world to me that the Justice Department is being left with few choices other than to take a historic leap.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Witness proves she’s credible

Cassidy Hutchinson arguably was the most credible witness to deal a potentially mortal wound to the Donald J. Trump administration.

It wasn’t what she said today that well might sink the Trump effort to hold onto power in the waning days of the presidency he lost in the 2020 election.

It was her continued devotion to Trump’s agenda. Yes, the 25-year-old former aide to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, remains a Trumpkin, no matter what she witnessed in the West Wing while the traitorous mob was attacking the Capitol Building on 1/6.

I don’t begrudge Hutchinson her continuing devotion to Trump. Indeed, as I listened to her testimony, I heard her express disgust and disappointment at the then-POTUS’s behavior. She was aghast and appalled that Trump would physically accost a Secret Service agent who told him he couldn’t venture to the Capitol to egg on the attackers.

Through all this surprise, last-minute testimony I found myself believing every assertion she made in describing Trump’s orchestration of the effort to undermine the Electoral College vote count and his effort to cling to power by using any means he deemed necessary.

Cassidy Hutchinson is no disgruntled ally of Trump who sought to exact revenge for being wronged. She instead appears to be someone who remains devoted to his agenda but who has separated his policy views from his personal conduct.

She endorses the policy. Hutchinson condemns the conduct.

U.S. House Select Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson convened today’s surprise hearing while keeping the contents of what would come forth a secret. To be candid, I wasn’t expecting to hear from someone such as Cassidy Hutchinson. She isn’t flashy or gregarious. She doesn’t have a single connection to Donald J. Trump … other than devotion to his agenda.

All of that made her an extremely credible deliverer of grim news for the disgraced — and thoroughly disgraceful — former president.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

A new ‘John Dean’ emerges

Cassidy Hutchinson has emerged as the “John Dean” of the 1/6 insurrection scandal, given what she told the House select committee today in televised testimony.

Let me start by declaring that young Hutchinson — to put it bluntly — blew the doors off the building where she offered testimony in a surprise hearing called at the last minute by Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss.

Hutchinson served on White House chief of staff Mark Meadows staff. She was, to borrow a phrase, “in the room” when all hell was breaking loose on 1/6.

She told the committee that Meadows asked for a presidential pardon; so did Trump’s lawyer Rudolph Giuliani. Don Trump Jr. begged his father to call off the treasonous attackers on 1/6, along with Ivanka Trump. Hutchinson said the POTUS heard all those concerns and worries … and didn’t do anything to end the violence. Hutchinson told the panel that Vice President Mike Pence knew of the “Hang Mike Pence!” chants, as did Trump; still, the president didn’t halt the assault.

She told committee members that Trump wanted to go to the Capitol to incite the attackers even more, but when the Secret Service told him “no!” he became so enraged that he attacked an agent assigned to his security detail.

Those of us who are old enough to remember Watergate today received a first-hand account from a ringside seat inside the West Wing of the pre-meditated chaos that erupted after Trump incited the insurrection.

John Dean gave us a similar look during the Watergate scandal when he came forward to tell the Senate Watergate Committee about the “cancer” that was growing in the presidency of Richard Nixon.

Mick Mulvaney, who served as chief of staff in the White House prior to Mark Meadows, said via Twitter after Hutchinson’s testimony that “I know Cassidy … and I don’t believe she is lying.”

I believe her, too.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Handcuffs in Trump’s future?

I have known this gentleman for 22 years. We met in Greece in 2000 at a conference of journalists from around the world. He lives in Australia. I haven’t seen him since we parted company all those years ago, but we have stayed in touch during that time.

He has told me many times over the past, oh, five years or so that Donald J. Trump would be hauled off in handcuffs and leg irons when the feds arrest him for the myriad crimes he has committed.

I kind of laughed off my friend’s belief. I am not laughing now.

It is impossible to predict what Attorney General Merrick Garland is going to do when the House select committee finishes its examination into the 1/6 insurrection. I have my hope for what I believe should happen, which is that Garland is going to obtain a grand jury indictment against Trump for knowingly inciting the assault on our Capitol that day.

Do I believe that will happen? I am thinking each day that the likelihood is increasing that Garland will do what he must to keep his pledge to us to hold “anyone and everyone accountable” for crimes he has committed against the nation.

The evidence is piling up against Trump. The televised hearings have produced some stunning revelations to the public. I understand that there are those who will read this blog post and will respond with something like “no one’s watching these hearings; they don’t register with voters.” They shouldn’t waste their time and energy. The folks who should be watching them — namely the legal eagles at Justice — will be watching.

I also am acutely aware of the enormous political consequence if a criminal indictment doesn’t produce a conviction. The AG is even more aware of that than anyone else on Earth. Will I accept a decision from Garland that tells us he will forgo a criminal prosecution? Sure. I won’t like it, but I trust him implicitly to do the right thing.

I just am feeling at this moment that the “right thing” is going to make history.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

Why seek pardons?

Let’s call ’em the Six Musketeers. What do they have in common, other than being Republican members of Congress?

They asked their one-time cult leader/guru/top-shelf liar in chief for a blanket pardon before he left office.

This begs a serious question. Why would a member of Congress seek a presidential pardon if they were damn sure they were innocent of any crimes related to the 1/6 insurrection that occurred two weeks before Donald Trump vacated the White House?

Hmm. Well, you know their names. Here they are anyway.

Louis Gohmert, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Mo Brooks, Andy Biggs, Scott Perry. 

Their names surfaced during this past week’s televised hearing of the 1/6 House select committee that is examining the issues that led to the attack on our nation’s Capitol Building … when Congress was convened to count Electoral College votes and then certify the election of President Biden.

These six clowns — two of whom, Gohmert of Texas and Brooks of Alabama, are leaving Congress at the end of the year — all allegedly engaged in some of the law-breaking committed by The Donald in his quest to remain in power. Except they deny doing anything wrong. Really?

My favorite among them is Greene, who had just been elected to her Georgia congressional seat in November 2020. My goodness, she had just taken her oath of office three days before the insurrection. So it took her no time at all to sink herself up to her armpits in the sleaze being peddled by Trump and the rest of his Corps of Cultists … allegedly.

This is the clown show that the cult followers insist we return to power in Washington, D.C. It is instead an act that needs to be run out of town.

The House select committee is going to resume its hearings soon after doing some more sleuthing around for more evidence to deliver us in a final report. Maybe it can uncover some more crooks who sought pre-emptive pardons for crimes they say they didn’t commit.

What a load of crap!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

No ‘real conservatives’?

Wow, man. Nimrods exist in every nook and cranny, even among avid readers of blogs — such as mine. One of them showed himself by making the dumbest assertion I can imagine about the House select committee examining the 1/6 insurrection.

This particular nimrod, a fellow with whom I used to work in Amarillo, said that the panel contains “no real conservatives.”

Holy partisanship!

I will respond with this brief post. What in the world would you call Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, the two Republicans chosen to serve on the panel?

Both of them are as true-blue — or ruby-red — conservative as you can get. They both have opposed traditionally, for instance, efforts to control firearm ownership, massive spending on domestic programs, abortion rights, increasing the minimum wage … shall I go on?

I won’t. Suffice to say that Reps. Cheney and Kinzinger are conservative lawmakers, a point I and others have sought to make since their appointment by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to serve on the insurrection committee.

They also happen to believe — contrary to some faux conservatives — in the rule of law and in their fealty to the Constitution.

Does that make them Republicans In Name Only? No. It does not. It makes them true to their principles.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Body language reveals much

I watched virtually every minute of Day Five of the House select committee’s televised hearing on the 1/6 insurrection, but one image from my day in front of the TV stands out.

U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., was questioning the Justice Department officials summoned to testify. The discussion turned to a Defense Department request made in early January 2021 to examine whether an Italian firm was able to change ballots cast for Donald Trump into votes for Joe Biden.

The look on Kinzinger’s face as he was grilling the witnesses was, to say the least, most edifying. It was as if he couldn’t believe (a) that he was asking such a question and (b) that the Defense Department was actually exerting any effort to uncover such nonsense.

The request reportedly came from Donald J. Trump. Yep, the POTUS himself wanted to know whether DOD could determine whether there were any Internet spooks monkeying around with the returns.

I mention this for an important reason.

It is that at no time during the frontal attack on the Capitol on 1/6 did Donald Trump bother to call the Defense Department to deploy troops to quell the violence that killed several police officers and injured dozens of others.

Oh, no! He was fixated on an election he lost to Joe Biden … which lends some authenticity to Rep. Kinzinger’s apparent disbelief in the testimony he received from the DOJ officials sitting before the committee.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

What if these folks had remained?

The U.S. House select committee that Speaker Nancy Pelosi impaneled to examine the 1/6 insurrection is performing a stellar public service in delivering evidence to Americans who want to know the truth behind what happened on that horrifying day.

But … you know what? It could’ve gone sideways in a major hurry had the House GOP leader’s selections to the committee been allowed to stay on the panel.

Kevin McCarthy selected several Republican House members to serve on the panel, but Pelosi — acting within her authority as the House’s presiding officer — nixed those picks.

One of them, I hasten to add, was none other than Jim Jordan, the Ohio GOP lawmaker who has made quite a (nasty) name for himself with his bloviating bluster while seeking to deflect any blame for the insurrection from his guy, the 45th POTUS.

I was thinking of Jordan today as I watched Day Five of the televised hearings and wondering: How would these hearings go if wild men such as Jordan been kept on the panel?

I have been trying to wrap my noggin around that thought. I say that, though, wondering if there isn’t a way for the panel to summon more Trump-friendly witnesses to justify the events of 1/6 and how the insurrection wasn’t what it damn sure looked like to me and millions of others who saw it unfold in real time. It looked like a frontal assault on our democratic process with one aim: to overturn the free, fair and legal results of the 2020 presidential election.

You can bet your first-born child that a dedicated Trumpkin serving on the committee would spin the insurrection into something that none of us would recognize.

The committee that emerged from the mess left at its creation, though, is a bipartisan panel, comprising two Republicans along with seven Democrats. It has performed beautifully in collecting and presenting evidence to the public.

I also want to offer a high-five to Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., who has conducted the hearings with decorum, grace and class as it has slogged through the mountain of evidence that keeps getting higher after every session.

There’s more to come? Yes. I am waiting with bated breath.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

How do they stand behind The Big Lie?

How in the name of all that is holy and sacred, all that is just and truthful, all that is rational and reasonable does anyone continue to subscribe to The Big Lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen?

That is my takeaway after watching Day Five of the 1/6 House select committee’s hearing on the insurrection instigated by the 45th POTUS.

Indeed, Donald Trump keeps insisting the election is being victimized to this day by electoral thieves. You know what? He’s telling the truth! Because it is Donald Trump who is committing the attempted theft!

Just as he blasted the media for putting forth “fake news” while at the same instant questioning whether Barack Obama was qualified to run for and serve as president, Trump is doing the same verbal shuffle with The Big Lie.

The televised hearing today highlighted the testimony of three former Department of Justice officials — including Jeffrey Rosen, the former acting AG at the end of the Trump administration — who told House committee members of Trump’s efforts to subvert the Constitution. These men worked for Trump!

I will admit readily that these hearings have riveted me. They have me transfixed by the testimony. They have demonstrated beyond a shadow of doubt in my own mind of the existential threat Donald Trump poses to our democratic process.

But as committee vice chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., pointed out succinctly in her closing remarks, there remain those who will refuse to accept what the rest of the world knows is the truth about Donald Trump.

That he is a dangerous, evil man.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Stop the tease, Democrats

I am going to make this plea once more to U.S. House Democrats serving on the 1/6 select committee.

Stop teasing us with declarations that you have provided proof “beyond a reasonable doubt” that Donald J. Trump should be prosecuted for his role in instigating the 1/6 insurrection against the government.

You see, I don’t need convincing. However, I do not want to get my expectations elevated to an unreasonable level that Attorney General Merrick Garland is going to indict Trump for inciting the assault on our government as members of Congress — and the vice president — were tallying the Electoral College totals from the 2020 presidential election.

That was the one Trump lost to Joseph R. Biden.

The televised hearings have been compelling. I have been riveted by the testimony. The witnesses who have told of Trump’s active participation in the conspiracy to overturn the election have painted a grim and frightening picture of an individual who was derelict in his duty to protect the Constitution and to quell the violence that erupted on Capitol Hill.

Let’s allow the AG to do his work without hearing the same things I am hearing from committee Democrats … that he’s got enough to prosecute.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com