Tag Archives: insurrection

national news

In defense of 1/6 panel

I feel this overwhelming need to defend the work being pursued by U.S. House Select Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson and his band of truth-seekers.

The Mississippi Democrat is at the forefront of a probe into the 1/6 insurrection that sought to block the certification of the 2020 presidential election. None other than former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican, has said the panel has “run amok” and faces prosecution on criminal charges if Republicans take control of Congress after the midterm election.

Gingrich is spouting nothing less than pure horsesh**.

The panel wants to know several key things about the terrible events that occurred a little more than a year ago.

What did Donald Trump know in advance of what the insurrectionist rioters would do? Why didn’t he stop them from ransacking the Capitol Building? Why didn’t he summon troops to protect Vice President Pence, who was being targeted by chants to hang him?  What are the details of the fake elector plot that has been revealed, with electors pledged to the defeated POTUS casting their votes to support him and throw the election in his favor?

This is complicated and tricky stuff, folks! To suggest, as Newtie has done, that the 1/6 committee could be “jailed” if the GOP takes over Congress is beyond despicable. The committee is doing precisely what the duly designated speaker of the House asked it to do.

Let us remember, too, that Donald Trump brought several members of his family into his inner circle while he was pretending to be POTUS. Ivanka, Don Jr. and Eric Trump all were key players in this drama as it unfolded before our eyes on 1/6. If the committee wants them to testify to what they know, then they should be compelled to tell us all the truth behind that horrible event.

Chairman Thompson doesn’t need little ol’ me to defend him. Still, I cannot sit by while the enemies of the truth are maligning the work he and his committee are doing to protect our very government.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot

Pipe down, Newtie!

Newt Gingrich, the one-time Republican congressional bomb-thrower and former speaker of the House, needs to settle down and take a quick look back at a little Capitol Hill history.

“I think it’s clear that these are people who are literally just running over the law, pursuing innocent people, causing them to spend thousands and thousands of dollars in legal fees for no justification and it’s basically a lynch mob and unfortunately the attorney general of the United States has joined the lynch mob and is totally misusing the FBI,” Gingrich said over the weekend.

He is projecting that if the GOP takes control of Congress after the midterm election that Democrats on the 1/6 select committee could face criminal prosecution over the way they have conducted the committee’s probe into the insurrection that occurred on Capitol Hill.

What balderdash!

If we flash back to around 2016, when the GOP last controlled Congress, we can find evidence of the Republican-led House Oversight Committee badgering, tormenting and hectoring witnesses as it sought to find something for which it could blame for Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Benghazi, Libya crisis. Remember that one? Terrorists attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and four Americans — including our ambassador to Libya — died in the melee. What did the House panel do? It launched a years-long probe into, subjecting Clinton, for example, to 11 hours of testimony before the committee.

That panel ran far more amok than the 1/6 committee that is trying to get the truth behind Donald Trump’s effort to block the certification of the 2020 presidential election result.

So, with that I’ll just demand that the ex-speaker shut his trap.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot, national news

‘They’ll go after children’

Donald J. Trump has every right to defend his grown kids. However, he ought to rethink — which he won’t do — his stated belief that the 1/6 House committee will “go after children.”

Here is part of what Trump said about a request from the committee to hear from Ivanka Trump: “It’s a disgrace, what’s going on. They’re using these things to try and get people’s minds off how incompetently our country is being run. And they don’t care. They’ll go after children.”

Oh, good grief.

Ivanka Trump is a grown woman who served during Daddy Trump’s term in office as a senior adviser. She was on the federal payroll, dammit, drawn a salary to advise her father on matters relating to public policy.

She is not a child. It’s as if the House select committee asked to speak with Trump’s son Barron, a teenager who his parents have kept out of the glaring public eye. Oh, no. Ivanka is part of the Trump presidential team and well might have information that the committee needs to collect to help it assess what Daddy Donald on 1/6 when the riotous insurrectionist mob stormed Capitol Hill in an effort to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election results.

Ivanka Trump crossed the line that separates family from public figure. As such, the House committee has every right and reason to ask her to tell lawmakers what she knows and when she knew it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Uncategorized

This one is mind-blowing

Of all the revelations reported about the investigation into 1/6 and the circumstances that preceded the insurrection on that horrible day, none is more bizarre — to my way of thinking — than the report of fake electors being summoned to cast votes for the guy who lost the 2020 presidential election.

You know how it goes, right?

States that Joseph R. Biden won were being targeted by electors pledged to Donald J. Trump. They were being instructed to show up to cast their electoral votes for Trump. Yep, they would actually seek to reverse the results of a free and fair election and rig the result to suit the wishes of the guy who lost.

To think that Donald Trump is insisting that the results of the election were rigged against him. Good grief. He sought to actually rig the election in reverse!

So, the investigation into 1/6 proceeds.

The House select committee that is charged with finding the truth behind what happened is zeroing in on the principals involved in this elaborate plot to in effect stage a coup against the federal government.

They are issuing summons and making requests of people close to Trump to talk to committee members.

As I look at all these revelations, I sense a mountain of evidence building against former president of the United States. He clearly is an individual who would flout whatever law he could to keep a grip on power. Donald Trump’s lawlessness is unprecedented in an individual who took a sacred oath to uphold the law and defend the Constitution.

And still …

There are the cultists who insist the most recent presidential election is fraudulent; that their guy will be reinstated before the sun goes down; that they are the true “patriots”; that all the evidence we can see developing in real time is the result of “fake news.”

They conduct phony “audits” of statewide election returns and learn that Biden won by a handful more votes than originally reported.

They promote The Big Lie and their cultists believe it.

As for the phony electoral vote strategy that has been rooted out by the sleuths, I have to say it’s a doozy.

It also frightens the sh** out of me.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Uncategorized

Conflict of interest … anyone?

What am I missing here? Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was the lone dissenting vote on the high court that decided the National Archives must release hundreds of pages from Donald Trump’s files to the House select committee investigating the 1/6 insurrection.

Hmm. I thought about that dissent. I wasn’t surprised, given Justice Thomas’s rigid right-wing credentials.

Oh, but wait! Then came this bit of news. Ginni Thomas, the wife of the justice, is an ardent political activist who rails constantly against the 2020 presidential election. She is known to be a fervent supporter of the disgraced, twice-impeached former president. She just recently launched into a scathing attack on the 1/6 committee, challenging its legitimacy and its authority to look where it is looking.

So, then comes the decision from the highest court in the land. All the other justices, conservatives and liberals — including the three people nominated by Donald Trump — voted to require the documents to end up in the committee’s files.

Justice Thomas was the lone dissent. Is there a conflict of interest that the justice is ignoring?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Uncategorized

SCOTUS deals blow to ex-POTUS

Part of me wishes I could have been in whatever room Donald Trump was in when he got word that the Supreme Court had delivered a potentially fatal blow to his cover-up efforts relating to the 1/6 insurrection.

More to the point, that same part of me wishes I could have heard his response when he learned that all three justices he nominated for the court voted with the majority in squashing the effort.

You see, Donald Trump expects the judges he nominates to be loyal to him, not to the law or to the Constitution.

The court ruled 8 to 1 to require the National Archives to turn over records to the House committee examining the insurrection. The only dissent came from Justice Clarence Thomas. As for Trump’s nominees — Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch — well, they stuck with the law.

That’s how it should be.

According to NPR.org: The court’s order paves the way for the release of records from the National Archives. The records could shed light on the events that led to the riot by Trump supporters protesting the results of the 2020 presidential election, which was won by Democrat Joe Biden.

The high court said lower courts had determined that Trump could not claim “executive privilege” in hiding those records.

“Because the Court of Appeals concluded that President Trump’s claims would have failed even if he were the incumbent, his status as a former President necessarily made no difference to the court’s decision,” the court said in its order.

Lifetime appointments to federal courts do have this way of freeing judges from a good bit of political pressure. That, too, is in keeping with what the founders had in mind when they wrote the Constitution. They were wise men.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Uncategorized

Legal team gets the summons

The subpoenas are rolling out with increasing frequency from the House of Representatives select committee charged with getting at the cause of the 1/6 insurrection.

The panel has issued summons for Rudy Giuliani and three other lawyers who are close to Donald Trump. The truth about them — in my view, at least — is that they are lousy lawyers, but they do have some information, apparently, that is germane to the investigation that is under way.

I don’t expect them to comply. They are likely to face contempt of Congress charges along with other Trumpkins who’ve been subpoenaed.

Here, though, is my fundamental question: If they have nothing to hide, why in the name of juris prudence would they resist talking to the panel?

The Hill reports: The subpoena to Giuliani, a former New York City mayor and close Trump adviser throughout his presidency, focuses both on his ability to offer insight into the former president state of mind in the days surrounding Jan. 6 as well as his work pushing claims of election fraud in appearances on television and in court rooms across the country.

https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/590275-jan-6-panel-subpoenas-rudy-giuliani-sidney-powell

The House committee, chaired by Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., is facing what could be called a “target-rich environment.” Giuliani has been at the forefront of efforts to promote The Big Lie alleging voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election — and which was the root cause of the insurrection that stormed Capitol Hill in an effort to block the certification of the election’s result.

For his part, Trump continues to insist that The Big Lie is true. It isn’t. It is a lie that comes from the Liar in Chief. Trump cannot — or will not — tell the truth on anything at any level. His legal team led by the former New York City mayor, Giuliani, does his bidding, which by itself is the way that lawyer-client relationships are supposed to function.

However, by doing what his client orders him to do, Giuliani becomes a critical witness in an investigation that aims to find the truth behind a full, frontal assault on our democratic form of government.

That cannot be allowed to stand.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, national news

Will we actually ‘lock him up’?

A gentleman I have known for more than two decades — a retired journalist who lives in South Australia — has mentioned a particular scenario he would like to see play out regarding the 45th president of the United States.

My friend wants to see Donald Trump arrested, dressed in an orange jump suit and tried for treason against the United States of America. Indeed, my far-away friend believes it’s still possible even as Trump wiggles and writhes in the face of growing pressure from federal and state authorities looking into his myriad business dealings.

Oh, and then we have the 1/6 riot, the insurrection that Trump incited that horrendous day in the final two weeks of the presidency he was about to vacate.

My friend and I exchange messages from time to time and he regales me with his view that Trump presents an existential threat to this great nation. He and I are on the same page as it regards the former Insurrectionist in Chief.

I am still clinging to the notion that an indictment might be coming — perhaps soon — from the Department of Justice. It might involve a charge of sedition against the individual who once swore to protect the Constitution. Sedition, of course, is the act of undermining the government, which Trump — to my mind, at least — did on 1/6 when he exhorted the rioters to “take back” the government.

I am going to wish the best for the investigation into Trump’s knowledge of the 1/6 riot. The “best,” in this instance, would be for congressional and DOJ investigators to cross enough t’s and dot enough i’s to bring a criminal indictment against a man I consider to be a rotten criminal.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Profiles in cowardice

(Photo by Michael Kovac/WireImage)

Watching the congressional Republican leadership tie itself into knots over how to handle its relationship with the immediate past POTUS makes me wonder how on this good Earth these individuals can live with themselves.

I want to single out two of them: one from the Senate and one from the House.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina once declared that he was done with Donald Trump. “Enough is enough,” he said immediately after the 1/6 riot. “Count me out,” he added. He couldn’t stand the thought — allegedly — of associating himself with a president who had incited the riot that stormed onto Capitol Hill.

House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy of California once stood on the House floor and declared that Trump was singularly responsible for the attack on our democracy and demanded he be held accountable. He pleaded with Donald Trump during the riot to get the mob to stop inflicting damage on the Capitol, receiving the hideous response from the POTUS that “I guess, Kevin, they care more about the election than you do.”

Both men have turned tail from those remarks.

Graham has all but threatened other GOP senators with retribution if they don’t climb aboard the Trump clown car and back the former Liar in Chief. McCarthy has declared that he won’t submit to questions from the 1/6 House committee seeking answers to the riot and has said he intends to boot Democrats off key committees if he becomes speaker after this year’s midterm election.

Gutlessness, anyone? There it is in full view.

They aren’t the only exhibits of profiles in cowardice. They’re just two of the more notable examples of how members of Congress who swear to protect the Constitution now are pledging craven fealty to a twice-impeached individual.

Cowards. Every damn one of them!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot

DOJ files landmark sedition charge … wow!

So, just how serious is the U.S. Department of Justice in its pursuit of who did what and when during the 1/6 insurrection against the federal government?

It has filed sedition charges against the leader and founder of the ultra-right wing group Oath Keepers in an unprecedented allegation that the group sought to topple the government in an effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

The main target is a North Texas resident, Stewart Rhodes, founder of Oath Keepers who faces a potential 20-year sentence in a federal prison if he is convicted of the charges leveled against him.

This is a big deal, man!

According to CNN.com: Attorney General Merrick Garland had balked at the earlier efforts to bring the seditious conspiracy charge. But in the months since, people briefed on the matter say FBI investigators and DC federal prosecutors have spent much time building the case, at least in part with the help of cooperators and the benefit of internal communications among the Oath Keepers.

Takeaways from the landmark sedition indictment against the Oath Keepers – CNNPolitics

I have heard from critics of this blog who have suggested that there have been no “insurrection” charges filed against any of the defendants accused of participating in the riot on Capitol Hill. Attorney General Merrick Garland has rendered that point moot with the charge against Rhodes and others.

The DOJ probe took a year to complete, which suggests to me that the AG made damn sure to cover every possible detail before announcing the indictments.

The investigation into this hideous event is sure to pick up a head of steam. It certainly should. The House select committee is moving forward with its own probe into what transpired on that terrible day. It is issuing summons to members of Congress and is getting push back from the Trump cult members of Congress who are resisting requests to talk to the panel.

Are the walls closing in on the former president, the guy who incited the riot with his call on the Ellipse on 1/6 to “take back our government”? I certainly hope so.

I applaud AG Merrick Garland for demonstrating an astonishing level of courage in following the law, as he said he would, “wherever it takes us.”

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com