Tag Archives: 1/6

crime news, national news, national security, political news

House panel faces deadline

The select committee that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi chose to investigate the 1/6 assault on the U.S. Capitol is facing a deadline.

It needs to finish its work and present its findings prior to the start of the next Congress. Or else … the Republican leaders who might assume control of the chamber could pull the plug on the whole enterprise.

I say “might assume control” because a GOP takeover of the House isn’t as much of a lead-pipe cinch as it was, oh, six months ago.

However, Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson cannot even begin to presume that Democrats are going to maintain control of the House of Representatives. If I were the chairman, I would be making damn sure the panel’s work gets done a whole lot sooner than later.

Thompson has indicated that the committee is going to resume taking public testimony on Sept. 28. There is a damn near certainty to be more fireworks ignited in the hearing room after the chairman gavels the proceedings to order.

But looking forward it will be imperative for the committee to present its complete findings prior to the new Congress taking its seat. It then can submit those findings to the Justice Department — which already is conducting its independent probe.

What causes me great alarm is the revenge rhetoric coming from the likes of House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, who has made no secret of his desire to protect Donald Trump’s ample rear end if given the chance.

Make no mistake that McCarthy has been a profile in cowardice as it relates to the insurrection that Trump incited that day on The Ellipse. McCarthy once said the right thing in blaming Trump for causing the attack, only to take it all back and resume his role as legislative suck-up to the 45th POTUS.

I hope Chairman Thompson is on the same page cited in this blog post. He needs to get the work done and then hope Democrats can hold on to reins of power in the House.

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

‘Rule of law’ strikes

That darn “rule of law” keeps rearing its head in the 1/6 probe into the insurrection on Capitol Hill.

The latest target of the rule of law is former Donald Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro, who’s been slapped with a contempt of Congress indictment for failing to comply with a congressional subpoena demanding he talk to the 1/6 panel.

Don’t all those Trumpkins say they honor the rule of law, that no one is above it? Oh, wait! They also say the 1/6 committee examining the insurrection is not legally constituted. Of course, they are full of sh** when they say such a thing.

The House select panel chaired by Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson is charged with finding the whole truth behind the insurrection. Navarro was in the White House that day. He knows a lot of what went down as the crowd stormed Capitol Hill and threatened to kill the vice president.

Navarro is refusing to obey the rule of law. Therefore, the Department of Justice has indicted him.

I believe there will be a lot more indictments to come. They will demonstrate to everyone that the Trumpkins are just like their hero, the ex-POTUS. They’re all liars.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, Uncategorized

Rule of law faces test

My fellow Americans, we are going to witness whether the “rule of law” means anything to members of Congress who have been summoned to appear before the House select committee examining the 1/6 insurrection.

The committee has subpoenaed five Republican congressman who were key allies to Donald J. Trump. The committee had asked them to appear voluntarily; they declined.

So, here come the lawful orders. House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, along with GOP Reps. Scott Perry, Jim Jordan, Mo Brooks and Andy Biggs all have been ordered to appear before the committee.

So, which is it? Are these dedicated Trumpkins going to comply with the rule of law, which they have at one time or another during their congressional careers said they honor? Or are they going to take one for their cult leader, The Donald?

The rule of law is as straightforward as it gets. A legally constituted congressional committee has issued a lawful order for five House members to talk to its members. Failure to comply with a lawful order should result in criminal punishment. Indeed, such a consequence anyone in the military who refuses to obey a lawful order. Your commanding officer tells you to do something, and you refuse? It’s off to the stockade where you would await adjudication of your offense.

I don’t know whether any or all of them will refuse to comply with the subpoena. Whoever says “no” to the House committee should face the potential consequence. The rule of law should stand in this instance as it should stand in all cases.

Let us never forget that each of these individuals swore an oath to keep faith with the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution is on the side of the committee that has acted lawfully.

We well might learn whether these congressmen were sincere when they said they would uphold the Constitution and whether their stated fealty to almighty God was real or false.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Is there an indictment in Trump’s future?

If we are to believe the New York Times reporting on this matter — and I do, generally — then it appears that Donald J. Trump will dodge the indictment bullet in the Manhattan district attorney’s office.

The newly installed DA, Aaron Bragg, appears to be closing up shop in his investigation into the Trump Organization’s business dealings. Many of his chief assistant prosecutors have quit the office. Bragg isn’t inclined to pursue the former POTUS any further.

Now, does that forestall a probe being conducted by New York Attorney General Letitia James? Hah! Hardly.

However, it could be argued that without the NYC prosecutor’s office going full tilt on its investigation, the AG’s office might be caught with fewer evidence-gathering tools at its disposal.

Nor does this mean that the 1/6 investigation ongoing in the U.S. House of Representatives is going to flicker out and die. House intel committee chairman Bennie Thompson plans to commence public hearings in June on his panel’s probe into the insurrection. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland is standing by with possible plans to take legal action against all sorts of players from the Trump administration. Hmm, maybe even against The Donald himself?

Oh, one more thing. We have that probe going on down yonder in Fulton County, Ga., where legal eagles are investigating whether Trump broke state law by demanding election officials to “find” enough votes to turn that state’s 2020 presidential electoral result from Joe Biden to Trump.

The plot is still pretty damn thick, even if the Manhattan DA is bowing out.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Meadows is the new No. 1 culprit?

Mark Meadows may become — and pardon the reference — a marked man as the House select committee exploring the 1/6 insurrection zeroes in on those who were responsible for what transpired on that terrible day.

Meadows served as White House chief of staff at the end of Donald Trump’s term as POTUS. We are beginning to learn that Meadows well might have been involved up to his eyebrows in the planning of the riot that turned terribly violent.

There is one big problem, though, in trying to learn the whole truth about what happened. Meadows isn’t complying with House demands to testify. The select committee still needs to determine whether to levy a contempt of Congress charge against Meadows.

It needs to get real busy. Real fast.

We’re hearing now about text messages that Meadows sent and received involving some of Trump’s closest allies in Congress: the likes of Reps. Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Louie Gohmert.

Mark Meadows appears to the common denominator among all those GOP nut jobs.

We hear also that he expected violence to erupt on Capitol Hill before the riot actually occurred. What did he do about it? Not a damn thing! Apparently … 

The White House chief of staff is a high-powered job, even when the POTUS at the time is a certifiable control freak. It will be fascinating for me — and millions of others — to see whether this No. 1 Trumpkin is held to account for what many of us believe he did or didn’t do when the mob of traitors sought to subvert our democratic process.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Trump woulda marched?

So … Donald J. Trump says he would have marched with his fellow insurrectionists on 1/6 but the Secret Service detail told him he couldn’t go, that it posed too great a security risk.

Hmm. Let me think about that. Nah. I don’t believe him.

Trump’s latest proclamation about that horrible day reminds me of the time he said in the wake of a school shooting that he would have stormed the building with guns blazing had he been given the chance to end the massacre.

Armchair heroes, of course, can say all kinds of things. The Donald is known to say, umm, all kinds of things in all kinds of contexts.

Let’s remember that when he had the chance to fight for his country during the Vietnam War, he found a doctor who would diagnose that he had “bone spurs” that, as luck would have it, kept him from serving.

He keeps insisting that he told the so-called “massive” crowd to mark “peacefully” and “patriotically.” Yes, he spoke those words. What is most bizarre, though, is trying to understand why The Donald didn’t call off the rioters when they became violent as they stormed Capitol Hill. He remained stone-cold silent during the riot that sought to subvert Congress’s constitutional duty to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Sigh …

The man cannot tell the truth. Not ever!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot, national news

Wanting end to probe

I understand fully that many millions of Americans are fixated at this moment on the Super Bowl; indeed, I am watching it myself.

Allow me this momentary diversion back into what is transpiring in Washington, D.C. That would be the congressional probe into 1/6, the riot that sought to disrupt the counting of electoral votes from the 2020 presidential election.

You know what happened on 1/6. The mob of traitors stormed the Capitol Building and pooped on the center of our democracy. They sought to murder the vice president of the U.S., Mike Pence, and the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.

I am ready for the probe to end. I know the House committee chaired by Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., has more work to complete. I hope it can continue at the pace it has been working so far. It needs to finish this probe well before the midterm election. I believe it will.

I also believe the committee is going to produce some constructive recommendations on how to prevent such an insurrection from occurring ever again. I will wait with bated breath to see what the panel suggests.

Moreover, I also want Donald Trump to be held accountable for inciting the riot. I know he did; you know he did; Trump knows he did.

One final thought: I don’t give a damn about whatever political implications this probe will have on the midterm election or on the 2024 presidential election.

I want the probe to conclude, and I am waiting to see who pays for the damage done to our democratic process.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot, national news

Trump channels Hillary?

Donald Trump probably never realized this when he sat in the Oval Office, but everything the president does is open to public scrutiny … and that includes phone calls, especially those he makes during crises.

Such as, oh, the 1/6 insurrection … the one GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnel termed a “violent” event.

It turns out that some of the calls that Donald Trump made during that hideous episode a little more than a year ago are not logged in the White House phone records.

It brings to mind the chiding of Hillary Rodham Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign in which candidate Trump insisted that Clinton had deleted those emails to hide them from public view during the time she served as secretary of state.

Do you get it? Trump now might have done the very thing he accused Hillary Clinton of doing while he sought the presidency more than five years ago. He said famously during one his debates with Clinton that were he in office when she ditched the emails that she would be “in jail.”

Don’t make me say out loud what I am thinking at this very moment about whether the ex-POTUS deserves to spend some time behind iron bars.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot, national news, political news

Mitch uses the ‘I-word’

How about that Mitch McConnell, invoking what I will call the “I-word” in describing what took place on 1/6? He has called it a “violent insurrection” that Donald Trump incited with his fiery “take-back-the-government” rhetoric.

Well … the Senate Republican leader has found his long-lost voice.

He has rebuked the Republican National Committee for censuring two GOP House members — Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois — for serving on the select committee examining the 1/6 riot.

McConnell rebukes RNC, calls Jan. 6 ‘violent insurrection’ (msn.com)

“It was a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election from one administration to the next,” McConnell said Tuesday.  Yes, i damn sure was all of that, Sen. McConnell.

You said so in an eloquent Senate floor speech a few weeks after the riot. Then you back away from all of that. You continued to support Donald Trump’s position as the leader of the GOP. Now, though, Trump has insulted McConnell perhaps once or twice too often.

I want McConnell to stand firm in his description of what took place and why it occurred. A mob of traitors stormed the Capitol Building seeking to overturn a fair election; they did so at the urging of Donald Trump.

The ex-Liar in Chief needs to be held accountable. The men and women charged with acting violently need to be prosecuted.

What’s more, Mitch McConnell and other Republican politicians need to stand for the rule of law.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com