Tag Archives: insurrection

DC riot, national news

Mulvaney calls it correctly

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald John Trump’s delusion continues even as he tees it up at his posh South Florida resort.

The ex-president told Fox News that the Jan. 6 insurrection from the riotous mob of terrorists posed “zero threat.”

That brought a sharp rebuke from one of Trump’s chief defenders/enablers, former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who told CNN that Trump’s remarks are “manifestly false.”

“I was surprised to hear the president say that … Clearly, there were people who were behaving themselves and then there were people who absolutely were not,” Mulvaney told CNN.

Mulvaney calls Trump’s comments on Capitol riot ‘manifestly false’ | TheHill

No. They were not behaving themselves.

And yet Donald Trump continues to lie incessantly.

The riot’s aim was to stop Congress from doing its constitutional duty on Jan. 6, which was to certify the results of the presidential election. It was a violent attempted insurrection. It was an act of sedition. It was profoundly violent and dangerous!

I am no fan of Mick Mulvaney. However, I am glad to hear him speak the truth about the delusion that rumbles around in the head of his former boss.

national news

Not an ‘insurrection?’ Are they serious?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The Terrible Ten members of the U.S. House of Representatives have shamed the Capitol Police Department officers who were injured in a desperate attempt to protect them from insurrectionists on Jan. 6.

Yep, their refusal to support honoring the police officers who fought off the mob still stick in my craw. Congress eventually voted to award them the Congressional Gold Medal over the objections of the 10 nut jobs who just didn’t like the word “insurrectionists” inserted into the resolution honoring the officers.

Oh, let’s not forget that one of the Capitol cops who fought the rioting terrorists died in the melee.

What in the name of democracy do you call a mob that stormed the Capitol Building, beat officers to a pulp with flag poles carrying Donald Trump banners and Old Glory? What do you call those who shouted “Hang Mike Pence!” while they stormed the halls looking for the vice president of the United States? What in the name of decency do you call those who defecated on the floor of our democratic institutions while seeking to do physical harm to Speaker Nancy Pelosi?

That isn’t an insurrection? They sought to stop the counting of Electoral College votes that certified the election of Joe Biden as president and Kamala Harris as vice president.

By any definition I can conjure up, that is an insurrection.

Every single House member and senator who seeks to call it something else should be removed from office. They have disgraced the very government they took an oath to protect and defend.

DC riot

GOP lawmakers shame themselves

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Twelve members of the U.S. House of Representatives should be ashamed of themselves.

These individuals, all Republicans, voted “no” on a resolution granting the Congressional Gold Medal to the Capitol Police officers who fought to protect Congress from a mob of terrorists who stormed the Capitol Building on the Sixth of January.

These lawmakers reportedly objected to language contained in the resolution that referred to the “insurrection” that occurred on that horrible day.

What? That is precisely what the nation and the world witnessed. The mob was provoked by Donald Trump to do precisely what it did do. If what we saw wasn’t an insurrection,  then there is no active definition of the word.

Indeed, 12 lawmakers allowed there to be a bipartisan vote to award the gallant police officers — one of whom died in the melee — the Congressional Gold Medal. The stellar demonstration of bipartisanship is to be saluted.

However, the idiotic refusal of those dozen GOP legislators — and they include Rep. Louie Gohmert of Tyler, Texas — deserves our national scorn.

The resolution will go to the Senate for its expected approval. Let’s just wait to see who among the members of that chamber follows the moronic path being blazed by their House colleagues.

DC riot

Shades of ‘good people … on both sides’

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Ron Johnson has a screw loose in that vacuous noggin of his.

The Wisconsin Republican U.S. senator made a statement about the insurrection of The Sixth of January that truly makes me wonder about this clown’s fitness to serve in the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body.

He told a Wisconsin radio interview several things, two of which stand out in my mind.

One is that the insurrection didn’t “scare me at all” because the terrorists were Donald Trump supporters. But … had the shoe been on the proverbial other foot and Trump had won the 2020 election and had Black Lives Matters or antifa followers had rioted in that fashion, why, then he would have felt endangered.

The racist tenor of that remark stands alone. It is hideous in the extreme. Oh, but then he said something else that makes my spine shudder.

He said the terrorists were “law-abiding” citizens who “would never do anything” against the law. Look at the picture I posted with this blog. It shows terrorists storming into the Capitol Building. Hmm. Oh, and they killed a Capitol Police officer during the melee and injured several others, not to mention causing the deaths of about five other Americans.

To which laws were these lunatics abiding? None.

It reminds me of Donald Trump’s infamous declaration after the KKK/Nazi-inspired riot in Charlottesville when he declared there to be “good people … on both sides” of that deadly riot.

Someone needs to slap a straitjacket on Sen. Johnson.

crime news

Will they still follow ‘our president’?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Let’s see how this plays out.

Many of the rioters/terrorists on Jan. 6 looked into TV cameras and said they merely were doing what “our president” wanted them to do, which was to storm Capitol Hill, threaten to kill the vice president and commit an act of insurrection against the U.S. government.

So, will those individuals now commit to doing what “our president” asks us to do by wearing masks, practice social distancing and follow infectious disease experts’ guidelines and recommendations so we can kill the coronavirus?

Or are they interested only in destroying the nation rather than trying to protect it?

Hey, I’m just askin’ … for a friend.

national news

FBI boss: They were domestic terrorists

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

FBI Director Christopher Wray today said what many millions of Americans have thought — or known — since we saw it occur.

The mob that stormed Capitol Hill on Jan. 6 comprised “domestic terrorists,” Wray told a congressional committee.

I do not intend here to denigrate the FBI boss … but duh!

Look, I respect this man a great deal. He has the toughest job imaginable, which includes investigating the crimes committed on the day the terrorist mob stormed into the Capitol Building while committing an undeniable act of insurrection against the U.S. government.

The fact that the FBI director has made this statement aloud and in public gives the discussion the kind of impetus it needs. Wray gives the domestic terror element an element of gravitas. 

Indeed, I am not at all surprised to hear Wray hang this label on the riotous mob. He has stated already that domestic terror presents the greatest existential threat to our national security. It poses a greater threat than any foreign terrorist organization; that includes ISIS, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, the Taliban … you name it.

What happens now with the investigation of criminal suspects? My hope, and I am can speak only for myself, is that the FBI is able to ratchet up the charges against those it arrests, that they are able to prosecute the suspects on suspicion of committing terrorist acts.

They were whipped into a frenzy on Jan. 6 by a president who was two weeks from leaving office. Donald Trump told them repeatedly on the Ellipse that the election he lost was “stolen” from him and he urged the crowd to take back the government from some nefarious forces he said were committing electoral thievery.

Yes, he got impeached for it and yes he avoid conviction in the Senate. The imprint left behind by the terrorists is indelible and the scars will take years, maybe decades to heal — if they ever do heal.

The terrorists wanted to execute Vice President Mike Pence; you can hear them shouting their intent as they stormed into the Capitol Building where the VP was doing his constitutional duty, which was to preside over the counting and certification of the Electoral College votes that elected President Joe Biden.

Man, if that ain’t terrorism, then it doesn’t exist anywhere.

I am relieved to hear that the FBI director has called it what we have known all along.

It well might be time to declare a new “war on terrorism.” 

Uncategorized

Is the ‘big tent’ folding?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Republicans are proud to proclaim their party as a “big tent” organization that welcomes all ideas, all points of view.

Why, then, are state GOP leaders rebuking some of the seven Republican U.S. senators who voted to convict Donald Trump of inciting an insurrection during the Senate trial that acquitted him of the allegations?

Sens. Richard Burr, Lisa Murkowski, Pat Toomey, Bill Cassidy and Ben Sasse have been censured by their states’ Republican Party. Sens. Mitt Romney and Susan Collins so far have avoided such a rebuke. So far!

Sen. John Thune has come to the defense of his GOP colleagues, chastising the state parties for their actions against the senators. He notes that the party prides itself on welcoming diverse opinions.

According to Newsweek: “There was a strong case made. People could come to different conclusions. If we’re going to criticize the media and the left for cancel culture, we can’t be doing that ourselves,” Thune, the No. 2 Senate Republican, told the Associated Press.

Republicans Hit Back at GOP Censures of Senators Who Voted to Convict Trump (msn.com)

There you go. Is the GOP a “big tent party” or not? If it is, then the tent appears to be collapsing over them.

This matter reminds me of the kind of thing you hear on university campuses when conservative thinkers are asked to give speeches to student bodies. How many times over the years have you heard about faculty senates and student council leaders demanding that their schools rescind the invitation because they don’t want to hear what the guest has to say.

I am compelled to ask when that rejection occurs: Aren’t colleges and universities supposed to welcome diversity of thought?

This intraparty squabble only exemplifies what many of us have thought for some time, that the GOP’s big tent is open only to those who adhere to a certain kind of thought, or are loyal only to certain individuals.

Uncategorized

2021 channels 2020?

“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

— Roger Daltrey, singing, “We Won’t Get Fooled Again

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It seems like a lifetime ago. We said goodbye and good riddance to 2020. Remember that? I do!

Then we welcomed the new year with the hope that turning a calendar page meant we could turn the page on an era of tumult, turmoil, tempest … the works.

The pandemic had killed many thousands of Americans; we endured the nastiest presidential election campaign in memory; then we watched the outgoing president foment the Big Lie about the election outcome being the product of political thievery.

The pandemic muted many traditional celebrations. Times Square was not full of revelers on New Year’s Eve.

Then the new year arrived.

To be candid, 2021 seems to have just continued the misery we felt in 2020. The nation endured the insurrection at the Capitol Building; five people died. The House impeached the outgoing president for the second time; the Senate then “acquitted” him by failing to get enough votes to meet the high threshold required to convict him of inciting the riot.

That all happened within the first month of the new year.

Then came the Storm of 2021. We in Texas are suffering from this event.

I am merely venting. I mean, what else is there to do? I cannot make the weather change, other than wish it would as I desire. Perhaps a prayer or two will help.

That all said, I won’t dwell on the misery we are experiencing in this new year. I am going to look forward. For one thing, the weather is going to improve. Spring is on its way. The grass will turn green; flowers will bloom; the temperature will warm up; the ice will melt.

The pandemic infection rate is beginning to decline. I get that too many Americans are dying and my heart continues to break over it. More of us are getting vaccinated, protected against infection.

A new president will not lie incessantly. He is going to act the part of head of state and commander in chief. The POTUS will function the way the holder of that office is supposed to function. As we turn the corner from the pandemic, my sincere hope — and belief — is that our economy will rebound.

The new year looks a whole lot like the old year … so far. It is testing my patience, but my reservoir of hope is deep.

local news, State news

Get back to work, Ted

(Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

OK, I just have to get something off my chest.

Ted Cruz is a worm, a snake, a weasel. The U.S. senator from Texas now has come clean on a report that he flew off to Mexico while the state he represents is undergoing a historic natural weather trauma.

He said today he flew with his daughters to Cancun because he wanted to “be a good dad.” He said his family in Houston has suffered, too, losing power and water right along with the rest of the state.

His children wanted to go on vacation with friends, as their school is shut down.

Ted Cruz flew to Cancún as millions of Texans endure power outages | The Texas Tribune

Look, Sen. Cruz, you get paid a six-figure salary to be on the job when your state needs you. I believe we need our senators and our members of Congress on the job imploring the federal government for help. I understand Cruz and Sen. John Cornyn have communicated with the White House on what they need and Cruz — who said he would return today to Texas — vowed to work hard.

He damn well better get back to work.

The Cruz Missile hasn’t exactly distinguished himself lately, helping lead a Senate challenge of the 2020 presidential election results and then voting to acquit a disgraced — and twice-impeached — former president after watching him incite a riotous mob to storm the Capitol Building.

Stay on the job, Sen. Cruz, and earn that salary we’re paying you.

national security

Yes, open a Jan. 6 probe

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(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi – to the surprise of no one who reads this blog regularly – is someone I admire greatly. She demonstrated it again today.

Why? She declared her intention to ramrod the creation of a blue-ribbon, bipartisan, independent commission to examine thoroughly the events that led to the insurrection that occurred on the Sixth of January.

She intends to find out who was responsible for it, why the rioters/terrorists did what they did, on whose instruction, their purpose … all of it.

Pelosi aims to have this commission follow the lead of the 9/11 commission that President Bush created after the terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001. That panel, led by former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean and former U.S. Rep. Lee Hamilton, formulated a detailed response to what went wrong. It also recommended the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. I also should add that we haven’t been hit by foreign terrorists since that dreadful day.

We have, though, been plagued by domestic terrorists, the likes of whom stormed Capitol Hill on Jan. 6 intending to disrupt the certification of the 2020 presidential election, which produced a winner not named Donald John Trump. FBI Director Christopher Wray said in 2019 that domestic terror groups posed a greater threat to our national security than monstrous outfits such as ISIS or al-Qaeda.

Must we get to the root of what happened? Must we find out whether the rioters were answering some nefarious call to arms by the then-president of the United States, who told them he would be among them as they marched on the Capitol Building, only to watch it unfold from the White House?

Yes, the speaker of the House is seeking answers to questions that are troubling many millions of Americans.