Tag Archives: Donald Trump

media news

To watch or not watch GOP debate

I want to be candid: I do not yet know at this moment whether I intend to watch the Republican Party’s presidential primary debate tomorrow night.

The so-called “frontrunner,” Donald John Trump, says he won’t attend. Which brings me to this: What’s the point of watching if the main man ain’t there?

GOP operatives say Trump is scared sh**less of former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has made Trump’s unfitness for office the focal point of his campaign. Christie no doubt will push hard on that notion in Trump’s absence.

I have no clue what runs through what passes for Trump’s mind. He doesn’t have a heart, so there’s no need to wonder about that, right?

Well, I reckon I’ll probably watch it just to get a grip on how far the rest of the field will go in taking down this charlatan/fraud/pretender.

Then again, a major part of me also wants to see how Trump would defend himself against the allegations that will bombard Trump’s empty podium.

crime news, national news, political news

This doesn’t happen every day

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Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought we could conduct a presidential election in which one of the major-party candidates is under criminal indictment.

What’s more, never would I have imagined that the four-times indicted, twice-impeached former POTUS would actually — in the gullible “minds” of followers — be considered a viable candidate to return to the office he once held and disgraced.

To say we live in the craziest era imaginable is to commit a gross (and grotesque) understatement.

Yet here we are.

The Republican Party’s presumed frontrunner for the 2024 presidential nomination may actually run for the White House while awaiting a sentence after being convicted of trying to overturn the previous election. The conviction might come early in 2024 if prosecutors are able to stave off Donald Trump’s expected efforts to delay the proceeding until after the election.

The feds have indicted Trump on two matters: inciting the 1/6 assault on our government and squirreling away classified documents after leaving the White House. State grand juries have indicted Trump on making an illegal payment to a porn star to keep her quiet about a tryst she said the two of them had and for working to interfere in the Georgia presidential election returns.

He stands accused of committing 91 crimes. Ninety-one of them!

Just think of how stupid the Republican Party faithful can be if they actually nominate this individual next summer.

OK. I have said all that but now I must stand behind my initial reaction to Trump’s latest presidential candidacy. I am going to remain hopeful that the GOP will come to what’s left of its senses and turn to someone else. I say that even though it is less than my initial belief that Trump in no way would ever be nominated. I am not as confident these days in the smarts of the GOP MAGA electorate.

Still, to see this unfit liar in position to lead the party down the path of destruction in 2024 is something I never imagined seeing.

Who knew?

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

national news

Ronnie, we hardly knew ye

Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign appears to be imploding. Dude can’t get traction in a Republican Party dominated by the MAGA morons dedicated to the demagoguery fomented by Donald J. Trump.

DeSantis seeks to out-Trump Trump, but only the one-time POTUS and carnival barker is able to deliver the message … whatever the hell it is to his cult followers.

The Florida governor has dismissed his campaign adviser; he remains a distant second in all the GOP primary polls in key early voting states.

Trump, meanwhile, remains the prohibitive favorite among GOP primary voters despite being indicted thrice for felony crimes, with a fourth one on the way and despite spending campaign cash to pay off his legal bills. Think about this, too, for just a moment: A presidential candidate with his own Boeing 757 jetliner to fly him from place to place needs to dip into his contributors’ cash to pay legal fees? What in the hell is wrong with that picture?

Oh well. Let ’em stew in the GOP.

Looks like the GOP is going to nominate — yet again — an individual who simply is unfit for public office.

Isn’t this just a blast?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, legal news

Prosecutor vs. Perpetrator

Watching the drama building as the prosecutor pursues the perpetrator, I cannot help but be struck by the profound differences in  the way these men act in public.

Let’s look first at the prosecutor. His name is Jack Smith, appointed special counsel to investigate alleged crimes committed by the perp.

Smith has been studied, measured, professional, discreet, reticent. He has been faithful to his pledge to grant the perp in this case the presumption of innocence to which he is entitled. Yet he has compiled an astonishing array of evidence that the perpetrator knew he lost an election in 2020 but tried to overturn the results. He also has assembled a mountain of evidence that the perp took highly classified documents to his home in Florida and kept them in highly unsecured locations.

The perpetrator is Donald John Trump, the former president of the United States.

Trump has been, well, shrill, venal, vile, deceitful, defamatory, profane, highly vocal in his objection to the investigation that has taken place. He ignores lawyers’ advice to keep his trap shut. He continues to denigrate the prosecutor’s reputation, asserting that Smith has it in for him. He’s also chosen to hurl epithets at Smith’s wife who, as near as I can tell, has nothing at all to do with the probe underway.

Even if I didn’t already believe that the perpetrator is guilty of the crimes for which he has been indicted, I would be rooting for the prosecutor. Why? Because I believe strongly in the criminal justice system for which the prosecutor is working. I believe in the rule of law.

The prosecutor is facing a form of competition, as has been reported, from local district attorneys who are conducting their own probes into the perp’s post-2020 election behavior. They, too, might file indictments alleging criminal activity involving the search for votes that didn’t exist and for attempts to coerce and bully state election officials to overturn an election.

Do we hear the prosecutor telling the local DA’s to back off? That they should let the feds have first crack? The prosecutor is a seasoned pro with many years of experience under his belt. Granted, the perp in this instance happens to be the first of his kind ever held under investigation … given that he is a former POTUS, for crying out loud!

But my money clearly is on the prosecutor to deliver the goods in due course.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, national news

Trump Fatigue sets in

You may choose to believe or disbelieve what I am about to say, but it’s true … which is that I am getting weary of all things Donald John Trump.

Yes! I want this to end! I want to stop thinking about what this idiot might do next to call attention to himself. I want to get on with serious policy discussions about serious policy differences between serious political leaders.

Trump offers nothing serious or sober to any of this. He offers only drama, chaos, narcissism, threats against democracy.

He is in the middle of multiple legal battles, none of which is likely to end well for him. If he’s convicted, say, of violating the Espionage Act in hiding those documents at his joint in Florida, he’ll fight the prison sentence that awaits him.

People such as me will comment on it, as we must. I don’t want to do it, but I will.

Just to be crystal clear: I do not believe Donald Trump will be elected POTUS. I remain dubious as to whether he will remain in the campaign for the White House.

He will remain on center stage, though, as an ex-POTUS and rabble rouser extraordinaire.

I just want him to vanish. Forever.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

End of era: end of division

We all know this about this so-called Era of Donald Trump: It will end eventually, hopefully sooner rather than later.

When it does, it is my sincere hope to see friendships rekindled and rebuilt, even among family members who have split between two camps: the MAGA cult and the Never Trumpers.

I lo.ng ago lost count of the number of times people have told me how they avoid certain friends or family members because of their political differences. Specifically, these friends of mine tell me it has to do with their loyalty to Trump.

“I just can’t stand to be around them,” these folks say with more than a slight air of frustration and sadness. To be truthful, I don’t hang out with the MAGA cultists, so I generally only have heard from the anti-Trump side. So, forgive me for not having a more complete picture of the great divide that has split the nation.

This divide among friends and family is worse than anything I’ve ever witnessed in real time. I am 73 years of age. I came of age during the Vietnam War. I went there for a time to serve my country. There were those in families who supported the war and those who opposed it. I do not recall ever discussing with anyone whether they should talk to their family members because of policy differences relating to the war.

Not long after Vietnam came Watergate. A team of numbskull burglars got caught breaking into the Democratic Party’s office complex in DC. Then came the coverup. President Nixon abused the power of his office to obstruct justice. He was on the road to impeachment when he resigned the presidency in 1974. Again, do I recall family members becoming estranged over that? No.

You are free to correct me if you experienced such a thing. I merely am saying I did not see it first hand.

This time it’s different. A former president has been indicted twice for crimes. The House of Reps impeached him twice, only to see that effort fail to obtain a conviction because of a lack of courage in the U.S. Senate.

And there has been plenty of wreckage spread along the way, even as Trump has sought to overturn the results of a legitimate presidential election.

When the Trump Era ends is anyone’s guess. It could end with the Republican Party primary season in 2024. It could end with a conviction perhaps at the end of this year on one of those indictments. It could end with — dare I say it? — Trump’s demise.

I just know it will end eventually. I hope the damage this demagogue has inflicted on families and friendships isn’t permanent.

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

crime news

Prosecutor seeks postponement … good!

If you thought that special counsel Jack Smith was going to railroad a trial through to its conclusion by accepting a judge’s way-too-early court date, well, guess again.

Smith has asked the judge in the case involving Donald Trump and those classified documents to push the trial back to Dec. 14.

You know what it tells me? It tells me that Smith is so confident in the evidence he has gathered that he is willing to wait an extra few months to put his case before the people.

He also is exhibiting an extraordinary level of fairness to Trump and his legal team. There can be no doubt that Smith is playing his strategy out by the book. That he is leaving no room for appeal on any sort of “technicality” that Trump’s team might construe in the event Smith is able to get a conviction on any of the counts on which Donald Trump stands indicted.

As a cheap-seat witness to all of this, I am willing to wait until December to see what the federal government has in its first-ever indictment of a former POTUS.

Let’s allow the judicial process to do its work.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

Charges coming soon?

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I no longer rely on my trick knee to give me clues on what might occur, so I am going to lean heavily on the media to project what might be about to happen.

The media are reporting that criminal charges are coming soon — as in perhaps this week — involving the former president of the United States and his squirreling of classified documents away as he left the White House in January 2021.

Oh, how I do hope the media are correct.

Special counsel Jack Smith met today with Donald Trump’s lawyers. The grand jury that has been impaneled to consider whether to indict the ex-POTUS is meeting this week. Trump’s legal team sought to make a last-minute appeal to Smith to not indict Trump. The grand jury is now looking at the mountain of evidence Smith has accumulated.

Is an indictment possible? I do believe that’s the case. It’s more than possible. It appears to be a cinch.

Let the process continue.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com