Tag Archives: DC riot

national news

What do we call that riot?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I have been grappling with how we should remember what occurred during the first week of this month, when terrorists invaded the Capitol Building.

Then I noticed a blog written by a friend of mine, a former colleague with whom I worked at the Beaumont Enterprise. Jon Talton, in his Rogue Columnist blog, called it “The Sixth of January.”

I read that and thought, “Hey, that has a bit of a ring to it.”

Rogue Columnist: Cold Civil War Turns Hot

It’s kind of like “9/11” has become a colloquial shorthand to which we refer to the attack on Sept. 11, 2001 by terrorists against the United States. When you say “9/11,” people know of what you are referring. I use that term all the time. Readers of this blog know to which I refer.

I am thinking now of using “The Sixth of January” as the new shorthand to describe the events of that hideous attack on our democratic process.

When you mention The Sixth of January, you will identify immediately with the attack that sought to prevent Congress — and Vice President Mike Pence — from ratifying the Electoral College vote that elected Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as the next POTUS and VPOTUS. It was an attack on our democratic process, on our very government … and it was incited by the lame-duck president of the United States, Donald John Trump.

Remember the Alamo. Remember Pearl Harbor. Remember 9/11. Remember the Sixth of January.

Hmm. Yeah, I might go with that.

Uncategorized

The terrorists prayed? To whom?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Now we see video of the Capitol Hill terrorist mob “praying,” I presume, to  while they are ransacking the Senate and House chambers … and while they are seeking to kill — reportedly — the speaker of the House and the vice president of the United States.

Wow, man. That is as rich as it gets.

I’ve already commented on how these perverts are every bit as heinous as the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11. Now we see video of them offering prayers.

Are these Christians? If they are, do they read the same Bible I have read since I was a little boy?

I am struggling to recall where I have read in either the Old or New Testaments where it’s OK to storm onto public property and seek to do physical harm to our elected officials.

It’s fashionable at times like this to ask: What would Jesus do?

Certainly nothing approaching what we saw unfold on Capitol Hill.

national news

When does Trump vanish for good?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Speaking metaphorically, it is clear that Donald John Trump is being dragged kicking and screaming from the presidency he liked to claim as his very own.

He isn’t leaving quietly, or peacefully, or like anything approaching a gentlemanly manner. He will jet off Wednesday morning to Florida. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will take their oaths. The nation will turn an important page.

But … here’s the deal. We’re going to keep talking about Trump. Bloggers such as me will keep writing about him, at least for as long as he is standing trial in the U.S. Senate — for the second time! After that? It’s anyone’s guess. It will depend, I suppose on whether the Senate convicts him of incitement of insurrection and then determines he shouldn’t ever seek public office.

Regardless of what the Senate decides, I feel confident in suggesting that Donald Trump’s political career is over. The Capitol Hill  riot and Trump’s exhortation of the terrorists has guaranteed Trump’s political demise.

President Biden has an ambitious agenda awaiting him. He will put his signature on a number of executive orders out of the chute. The president will seek to turn the corner quickly on that killer pandemic. He wants to jump-start an economy that has been crippled by the virus.

Many of us, though, will keep talking about Donald Trump. He will command our attention in ways that no one in their right minds desires.

One measure of success for President Biden might make itself known the moment we no longer are thinking consciously about Trump. I await that moment in time. I am anxious for a time when Donald Trump simply disappears from public view.

That day will arrive. Eventually. I want it to arrive much sooner than later. Take my word for this notion, too, which is that I take no pleasure in commenting negatively on Donald Trump. Critics of this blog believe I relish it. I do not. I want to move on and I intend to move on at the appropriate time.

When will we know when Trump drops off our screen? I cannot describe how it will be made evident. We’ll all just know it happens when it does.

I await the arrival.

national news

Patriots? No, perverts!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

How about this bit of symmetry?

The terrorists who stormed Capitol Hill on Jan. 6 at Donald Trump’s inciteful rhetoric were no more “patriots” than the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11, supposedly in the name of Islam.

The Trump terrorists were perverts to patriotism, just as the 9/11 terrorists had perverted a great religion.

The more I see the video of the Jan. 6 terrorist riot and hear them screaming their “love” of country while beating cops with Old Glory-adorned flag poles, the more I think of the monstrous terrorist attack on 9/11.

I make no apologies for connecting those events. The mob that sought to disrupt Congress from doing its constitutional duty of ratifying the Electoral College vote that elected Joe Biden as president was every bit as heinous as terrorists who do their deeds in the name of Islam.

I know that the death count on Capitol Hill doesn’t begin to  match the pain inflicted on 9/11. I am making no connection on that level.

Instead I merely am attaching degrees of perversion between the groups of fanatics. I see practically no difference between those who attacked us on 9/11 and those who attacked our sacred government on Jan. 6.

Yes, Dr. Dean, they’re ‘Muslim terrorists’ | High Plains Blogger

DC riot, national news

Videos keep worsening Jan. 6 tragedy

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

So help me I don’t know how much more of this I can take.

The New Yorker magazine today released a video from the Jan. 6 invasion of Capitol Hill by the horde of terrorists. It sent chills up my back; it made the hair seemingly stand up. Videos such as this provide ample and graphic evidence of what Donald Trump incited that morning while exhorting the crowd gathered in front of him.

Oh, and then we had Don Trump Jr. saying something like “coming after you” those who don’t turn from “zeroes to heroes” and Rudy Giuliani calling for “trial by combat.”

It just gets more repulsive daily, it seems, as video after video surfaces to show the world — yes, the entire planet — what kind of moron this nation saw fit to elect as its president four years ago.

The latest video shows terrorists busting through windows at the Capitol Building. They are marching under Old Glory, wearing those hideous MAGA hats, yelling “Where’s f***ing Nancy (Pelosi)!” They chant “Hang Mike Pence!” The video shows rioters pulling a police officer into the crowd and beating him within an inch of his life with flagpoles.

And  they scream “USA, USA, USA!” while attacking the very seat of our national government!

How in the name of decency does any of this make any godd*** sense?

The House impeached Trump one week later. He now will stand trial in the Senate. Trump will be out of office. Following true to form Trump said his conduct was proper. He takes no responsibility for the “incitement of insurrection” that he clearly and without any serious question is guilty of committing.

A Senate conviction won’t remove him from office. It can bar him from ever seeking public office again. That punishment would be good enough for me, even though I preferred a conviction during the first impeachment a year ago would have prevented all of this tragedy from unfolding in the first place.

Three days to go before President Biden takes the reins.

Oh, my. Let’s hold on for dear life.

Uncategorized

Where is Mike Pence?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

A cogent question surfaced in our North Texas home this evening, which goes something like this …

If Mike Pence wants to be elected president of the United States, he will face questions about his management of the White House pandemic response team that Donald Trump formed in early 2020. Given that the rollout of the vaccines has been a disaster, and given the immense increase in death and illness from the coronavirus, where in the world is the vice president?

VP Pence has vanished, other than being in the news in the wake of that hideous riot that came dangerously close to sweeping him up in the melee that erupted on Capitol Hill. The pandemic, though, remains Crisis No. 1 in this country, inasmuch as Pence and Trump will be out of office in five days. The pandemic, however, will rage on and on and on.

Pence hasn’t been forced to answer a single question about what he is doing as head of the White House pandemic response team. Sure, the team no longer gives us “briefings” on its fight against the virus. Then again, it seems plausible to believe that Trump is keeping the VP under wraps, ordering him to keep his trap shut and away from reporters’ inquisitiveness.

If he runs for president in 2024, I am quite sure that reporters and others will ask him: What did you do to combat that killer pandemic and why did you keep such a low profile while the virus was killing 3,000-plus Americans every single day?

Hello? Mr. Vice President? Are you out there?

national news

Biden facing tough prosecutorial call

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Joseph R. Biden Jr. laid down an important marker a while back when he said he had no interest in pursuing federal criminal charges against his predecessor as president of the United States.

I’ll just get this off my chest: I think that was the correct course for President Biden to take. However, Biden made that judgment prior to the events that occurred on Jan. 6, which is the insurrection that Trump incited with that hideous speech on The Ellipse.

The House of Representatives impeached Trump a second time just one week after that tragic event. Joe Biden will take his oath of office just one week after the impeachment.

Trump will stand trial in the Senate. What the senators do, of course, remains the Question For the Ages. A conviction won’t remove Trump from office; he’ll be long gone from the White House. It would deny Trump the ability to seek public office ever again.

Should the Justice Department pursue criminal sedition charges against a former president if it determines there is evidence that he committed a crime by telling the mob to walk down the street and “take back the government”? If it doesn’t pursue them, does that let Trump off the hook, letting him get away with a punishable felony?

Here’s another question. Would a federal prosecution put the soul of the nation — which President Biden vowed to restore — in even more dire peril? Would such a prosecution inflict mortal wounds on our national psyche?

I now am officially undecided on the pledge that President-elect Biden made, that he has “no interest” in prosecuting Trump.

Joe Biden might have to assess the national mood in real time as he faces whether DOJ should proceed with prosecuting Trump.

I am not suggesting that Trump should avoid all prosecution. State authorities are looking into myriad other allegations leveled against the president. They involve campaign finance violations, his personal finances, the activities of his closest advisers and even his own family and a host of other matters. Local prosecutors’ ability and willingness to prosecute Trump are beyond the federal government’s reach, which renders DOJ’s view irrelevant.

What’s more, I also believe that local authorities need to keep looking until they determine whether they have enough to level charges. And if they don’t …

President Biden’s lengthy political career, burnished by his legal background, prepared him to ponder the decision he likely must confront.

If only Donald Trump had exhibited a scintilla of decency on Jan. 6 by telling the rioters to stand down. He didn’t. He incited them to attack the bastion of the government of this great nation.

That’s why President Biden faces an agonizing decision.

national news

Why not tell ’em to ‘stand down’?

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(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This isn’t going to happen, but it’s worth raising this issue nonetheless.

Now that he is just five days from exiting the White House, this could be a time for Donald J. Trump to revive the shattered remnants of his hideous legacy. How might he do that?

By going on national TV, sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office and telling his frothing fanatics to stand down, to call off whatever mayhem they intend to commit prior to and on the day of President-elect Biden’s inauguration.

The rioters vandalized and looted the Capitol Building on Jan. 6. Five people — including a D.C. police officer — died in the melee. The rioters reportedly intended to bring physical harm to elected officials while stopping them from certifying the results of the presidential election.

Trump then issued a statement professing his “love” for the rioters while urging them to “go home.”

He then came back with another, more fulsome statement, but it wasn’t believable.

Accordingly, there might not be any way on Earth that Trump can say anything at all that we could believe. Reports of states ramping up security at their capitols troubles me terribly. It troubles millions of other Americans as well.

I don’t believe Trump will do it, but given the blind loyalty the Trumpkin Corps gives to the words that come from their guy, a call for the lunatics to end their siege against the federal government could calm the storm.

DC riot

Intended to assassinate leaders?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The hits just keep coming from the wreckage of what transpired on Capitol Hill.

The rioters stormed the nation’s seat of government. They intended to disrupt the constitutional proceedings under way, which was to certify Joe Biden’s election as president of the United States.

Oh, but that’s not the whole story … allegedly.

Federal prosecutors have issued a memo that suggests that one of the more notable rioters, a terrorist who was dressed in buffalo skins and was wearing a horned helmet and face paint, intended to “capture and assassinate elected officials” during the riot.

This moron’s lawyers want him released from jail on bail. The prosecutors are arguing against that notion.

Oh, my. This requires a deep, thorough and exhaustive probe into what the hell went on, why it occurred, who directed it.

It ain’t over, folks. Not by a country mile.

Good grief! We all issued a hearty and vocal “good riddance” to 2020. From my perch in North Texas, 2021 isn’t starting off too well.

local news, national news, national security, State news

A ‘new America’ awaits?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Take a long look at the picture contained in this brief blog post and I fear you are going to presume that this is the look of the new America.

It came to my Facebook page via Nancy Seliger, whose husband — Kel Seliger — reported for duty the other day as a state senator serving in the Texas Legislature.

The heavily armed individuals you see are on guard against potential violence at the Texas Capitol Building in Austin, where 181 members of our Legislature are meeting for the next 140 days to enact laws that govern us.

The riot that erupted Jan. 6 in D.C.? The one that killed five people and damaged the nation’s Capitol Building? The attack on our democratic system of government?

The terrorists who conducted that calamitous attack are vowing more of the same at capitols across the nation. That includes ours in Austin, ladies and gents. Thus, we have heavily armed security personnel on guard.

This is disgusting, reprehensible and is a vile statement of the nature of our political discourse in the Age of Donald Trump. Thankfully and not a moment too soon, that age is about to end. Trump will be gone from the White House.

I am saddened to presume that the anger he stoked for four years isn’t likely to subside just because Trump is no longer in power. Oh, how I hope to be wrong on this matter, but my fears continue to be fueled by FBI reports of alarm bells sounding. They could be hailing further spasms of uncontrolled violence.

Just as 9/11 spawned a new era of travel in this country and around the world, I fear that the Jan. 6 attack on our democratic system has produced a new era that requires such deterrence against those who would take political protest to these deadly extremes.

Let us pray for a return to sanity.