Tag Archives: 2020 election

legal news

Judge is in charge … period!

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan today told the entire world just who is in charge of Donald J. Trump’s life.

For starters, it is not Donald J. Trump. That role now falls on a jurist who was selected randomly to preside over a trial involving charges that the former POTUS conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Chutkan reportedly doesn’t suffer fools at all, let alone lightly. She delivered a ruling today that is both fair and it tells the criminal defendant, Trump, that he needs to cease hiding behind a “free speech” argument in his defense. He is free to say the 2020 election was rigged, she said, but he is not free to issue veiled threats against the prosecutors, jurors or the judge.

Chutkan told Trump that free speech is not “absolute” and that criminal defendants — such as Trump — have limits on statements they can make.

Thus, we have just received a sterling civic lesson on how an individual who prides himself on being “in charge” of all he sees, who once boasted that “I, alone” can fix the nation’s ailments, is now beholden to a federal judge.

Therein lies the wisdom of the founders who created a federal judiciary that has the authority to keep anyone — even a former president — on a short rhetorical leash.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

‘Alternative facts’: greatest nonsense ever uttered?

Kellyanne Conway, the one-time Donald Trump political strategist and White House senior adviser, will go down in history as the author of arguably the greatest nonsensical statement ever uttered.

I mention this because her former sugar daddy is using that statement as a mantra to defend himself against 78 counts of alleged misdeeds that have been filed against him by multiple grand juries.

Conway once infamously told NBC News “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd that falsehoods muttered by her boss were “alternative facts.” Todd was astonished, answering that anything that is not factually based is a “falsehood.”

Conway stood her slippery ground.

Here we are in the present day and “alternative facts” are coming forth in Trump’s defense against allegations that he sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election by hiring fake electors to cast votes for him in states that went for Joe Biden.

Alternative facts do not exist. They are a figment of a political operative’s phony glossary of verbiage. You have facts and you have non-facts … which are lies if the teller of non-facts knows that he or she is saying is false.

In this new age that now accepts lying as normal, alternative facts have become something of an accepted version of what passes for the truth. It is an amazing thing to witness for those of us who used to deal with reporting and commenting on facts.

I did that for nearly 37 years. I knew a lie when I heard it. Never did I consider them to be an alternative to facts. I guess I’m just old school in that regard.

It’s a new day, indeed. I am going to continue to hammer away at falsehoods when I hear them. I will call them what they likely are: lies told those who know what they are saying is false.

I suppose I ought to thank Kellyanne Conway for providing us with such a graphic and descriptive model for the art form that lying has taken in this bizarre time.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, legal news

Strike three … Trump!

Now we know what we have suspected all along, which is that special counsel Jack Smith has indicted Donald Trump on four counts of conspiracy to mount a coup to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

To think that Trump has bellowed since losing to President Biden that the election was “rigged,” that it is illegitimate.

Smith made monumental political history today. Is this reason to cheer? To high-five each other? To applaud the legal team that has assembled these incredibly detailed charges against a former president?

No. It is a time for serious reflection and for hoping the criminal justice system works its will.

I am not cheering tonight. I am trying to digest what has come forth.

Smith’s indictment reportedly is detailed. It is meticulous. It is historic in a way that many of us are having difficulty measuring. Trump is the first former POTUS ever indicted by the Justice Department. The indictment handed down today by a grand jury alleges that the former POTUS sought to overturn a free and fair election.

What in the name of democracy is up with that?

Jack Smith made it clear once again today that Trump is entitled to the presumption of innocence, but said he intends to press for a “speedy trial.”

Trump continues to tell us he did nothing wrong on Jan. 6, 2021. If so, then let this individual mount his defense and seek to persuade a jury that he should be acquitted. Does an innocent man seek to delay the proceeding? No, yet Trump is almost certain to obstruct the progress of this prosecution.

What now? The nation is about to enter a historic chapter in its long and glorious story. Donald Trump stands indicted on allegations that he sought to overturn an election he lost. It was a fair and legal determination by American voters … and one of the counts of the latest indictment alleges that Trump sought to deny voters that sacred right.

This is no time to cheer and slap the backs of our friends and political allies. It is a time to take seriously what a duly constituted grand jury has determined, that a one-time president of the United States committed a criminal act against the very government he took an oath to “defend and protect.”

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

media news, national news, political news

Time limit on campaigns?

Does it seem like an hour or so ago that the 2020 presidential election came to a conclusion … and already we are in the midst of the next campaign for the U.S. presidency?

It does to me. It also makes me wonder whether the Europeans have the right idea on how to manage these campaigns.

It varies from country to country, but many nations — and I am looking at Europe at the moment — place a time limit on when candidates can campaign actively for high office.

I cannot recall the specifics, but I have heard anecdotally about campaigns for head of government or head of state lasting no more than six weeks or so.

Given the nature of our presidential campaigns, including the incessant and relentless fundraising that must occur to pay for them, I am willing at least to consider implementing such restrictions here.

The 2020 campaign began almost immediately at the end of the 2016 campaign and on and on it has gone through the past many presidential election cycles.

It never ends!

The news media feel compelled to report on the comings and goings of candidates in and out of, say, the early primary states. They speculate on who’s in and who’s just out for a weekend eating bad fair food and kissing children.

I lose interest in the early reporting of these campaigns. I get it back closer to the stretch drive. In the meantime, though, I have to suffer through endless news reports of what this potential candidate is saying about himself or herself and about the other candidates.

Hey, I consider myself a political junkie. Maybe I should change that to “recovering political junkie.” My recovery, though, is made more difficult by the non-stop campaigning that just won’t cease.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, Donald Trump

I told you so …

As a general rule I am not one to say “I told you so” when matters turn out as I have predicted they would. For one thing, I am so rarely correct, which kind of makes me gun-shy about making such predictions in the first place.

However, when it comes to the presidency of one Donald J. Trump, not only was I correct about what would happen to the office and to democracy, I believe he has done even more damage than I expected.

This individual’s refusal to surrender power peacefully to the man who defeated him in the 2020 election provides all the proof I need to stand on the existential danger this guy presents to the nation.

He is running for the office once again. Trump is the prohibitive favorite to be the Republican nominee in 2024. How that can be is one of the great political mysteries of this age. He was impeached twice, indicted twice for felony crimes and might be facing a prison sentence by the time of the next election.

He is running on a platform of revenge and retribution. Indeed, he has declared to his moronic cultists that “I am your retribution.” This idiot wants to strike back at those who have concluded that he might have committed crimes while taking up space in the Oval Office.

What in the world has become of the rule of law, of putting personal bias and hatred aside, of assuming office (which I pray each day never will happen) without anger?

I stated repeatedly while this guy ran for POTUS in 2016 that his entire professional life was geared toward fluffing up his own brand. He has concept of public service, what it means and how one conducts oneself in the pursuit of the public interest.

To think now that he wants back simply makes me jittery beyond measure. As bad as his term in office was, I only can conjecture that a second Trump term would be worse in ways we cannot calculate.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Must stay on top of ex-POTUS

If only I could rid myself of having to say another word about the machinations of the 45th president of the United States.

Except that I cannot. Not while he remains at or near the top of the Republican Party presidential nomination hunt in 2024.

If only he’d go the hell away. He won’t. He lusts for attention and, boy howdy, he’s getting it now as the twice-indicted (for now!), twice-impeached ex-POTUS.

I am confident in predicting that there appear to be at least two more indictments coming his way. Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani Willis is sending up signals that an indictment is imminent. All the ex-POTUS did there was demand that the Georgia secretary of state “find” enough votes to give the loser the state’s Electoral College tally.

The other indictment also appears set to come from the feds — again! — as special counsel Jack Smith continues his work on the ex-POTUS’s role in inciting the 1/6 assault on the government as Congress was preparing to ratify the Electoral College victory rolled up by Joe Biden in 2020.

All of this, I am saddened to say, puts bloggers and assorted commentators such as yours truly in an awkward place. We have to keep commenting on these goings-on. To be sure, I am not going to weigh in — per an earlier pledge — on every single campaign utterance that flies out of the crook’s pie hole.

I won’t apologize for believing I must comment on the issues surrounding this horribly unfit, immoral and disgraceful politician. I simply must explain myself and recognize three facts that are beyond dispute.

First, he is a former president of the United States. Second, he is the first POTUS ever indicted by the very government he once led. Third, those two facts make it impossible for me to ignore what’s happening — or what is about to happen — to a guy who ought to spend the rest of his miserable life in prison.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

Democracy scores big!

Democracy has taken it on the chin in recent years as elements of our society have sought to overturn legitimate presidential elections through force and intimidation.

Well … today our democratic principles scored a big victory when a criminal trial jury delivered guilty verdicts to four members of a group called the Proud Boys, convicting them of seditious conspiracy.

These dipsh**s now stand to serve many years in prison for their actions on 1/6, which included assaulting law enforcement officers while seeking to storm the Capitol Building as Congress was meeting to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election.

This attack was a direct frontal assault on the very tenet on which our democratic process was founded: the peaceful transfer of power from one presidential administration to another.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Justice Department has scored a major victory for all of us who love this nation and who adhere to the principles on which the founders created it.

What’s more, Garland dropped a bit of a hint of more to come when he declared that his “work continues.”

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Tarrant County may hire an election denier? Seriously?

Our neighbors over yonder in Tarrant County are facing a serious dilemma. County Judge Tim O’Hare has to hire a new elections director in the wake of the resignation of a guy hailed and lauded by his peers as being one of the best in the state.

Heider Garcia is leaving his post soon as county elections director. O’Hare, though, says he might hire someone to replace Garcia who questions the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election.

So … there you have it. The county judge might hire an election denier — a promoter of The Big Lie — to run the elections department of the state’s largest swing county.

Good grief!

Garcia resigned precisely because of pressure he was getting from O’Hare, who he said is following a policy that differs from the non-political course the office has followed.

O’Hare said that finding a successor to Garcia could include hiring an election denier, saying it is “not an automatic disqualifier.” Well, you know what? It damn sure should be!

Tarrant County likely will struggle to find new elections administrator | The Texas Tribune

The 2020 election wasn’t stolen from anyone. No one in the U.S. of A. has produced a shred of proof of any electoral theft in 2020. For the chief executive of Tarrant County to suggest that there might have been such an event is a disgrace to his office and a slap in the face to the fine men and women who work diligently to protect the integrity of our election system.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

1/6 assault makes me angrier

There can be no denying this fact about the 1/6 assault on the government, which is that the more I see video of that horrendous event, the angrier I become.

Former Vice President Mike Pence testified today before a grand jury that is examining that event and its cause. I have been watching video from that attack, listening to one traitor declaring that the mob would “drag Pence through the streets” if they were to find him.

Then I heard the chant to “Hang Mike Pence!”

Were the traitors serious about those threats? Did they really intend to lynch the vice president? You know, I am not clairvoyant, but the mob seemed pretty serious about the threat and whether they would follow through on it.

Juxtapose that with the knowledge that Pence wants to run for president in 2024, but he likely is going to seek to appeal to the very men and women who threatened to string him up.

What the hell?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Biden: ‘Watch me’

OK, Mr. President. I’m going to keep an eye on you … in fact, I’ll keep both eyes on you as you navigate your way to what I hope is a second term as president of the United States.

I am glad you announced your intention to seek re-election. I am profoundly disappointed and astonished that I have overstated the intelligence of rank-and-file Republicans, who reportedly still want to nominate a twice-impeached and indicted former POTUS.

Go … figure.

In some perverse way, I would welcome a rematch between you and the moron you defeated in 2020. I am not going to spend much time worrying about him. I am going to spend the bulk of my political attention on you, sir, and hope that you continue to maintain good health as you continue to lead the nation while campaigning for another term in the White House.

And, yes, I am glad as well that your re-election announcement ad featured Vice President Kamala Harris, who I believe has served you — and the country — well in her history-making role as second-in-command of the executive branch of government.

Your age isn’t a plus. That’s a given. What also should be a given is the record of accomplishment you have piled up in your first term as president.

With that, I will wish you Godspeed, Mr. President, as you launch the final political campaign of your career.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com