Tag Archives: insurrection

DC riot, Donald Trump, national news

Testimony tears at our soul

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

My heart is breaking.

It breaks as I watch the video being presented by the members of Congress who are making the case to convict Donald John Trump of inciting an insurrection against the federal government.

I fear that it will shatter into a zillion pieces if Republican senators who are sitting in judgment of the ex-president decide to hang with him and vote to acquit this monstrous individual of the crimes for which the House of Representatives impeached him … for the second time!

Make no mistake about this: I have no illusion about whether the video, audio and the text that House managers have presented will sway enough of them to convict this ghastly individual of incitement.

We keep hearing throughout the day that members of the GOP Senate caucus aren’t even watching the videos that House managers present them. They reportedly are doodling on note pads, reading books, looking everywhere except at the screen. Are they not moved? Do they remain committed to the cult leader who masqueraded as a Republican president of the United States?

My goodness! The evidence today tells the world about how the riotous mob that stormed Capitol Hill intended to — and this is tough to write — assassinate Vice President Mike Pence. How in the name of all that is holy and sacred does one accept any portion of that as being normal? I fear the worst, that there will be an insufficient number of Senate Republicans who will listen to their conscience and vote to convict the ex-president of what they know he has done.

That’s in good measure why my heart is breaking while watching this Senate trial unfold.

What is left of my eternal optimism is being tested mightily by what I fear will be the result of this trial.

My broken heart might be healed partially, however, by the knowledge that more than five or six GOP senators will heed the whispers from their conscience.

And that a majority of senators will render a verdict that destroys this monster’s political future.

DC riot

Video is difficult to watch

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The more I see the video that came to light once again today at the impeachment trial of Donald John Trump, the more difficult it becomes for me to watch it.

U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, one of the House managers presenting the case against Trump, unveiled the 13-minute video today while arguing that Trump had committed an incitement of insurrection.

The video of those lunatic terrorists storming into the Capitol Building is taking its place among the annals of infamy. It ranks with the video of the jets flying into the World Trade Center on 9/11. That video chokes me up. It gets harder to watch that event unfold nearly 20 years ago.

So it is, then, that the monstrous acts of the Sixth of January have taken their place in the annals of infamy.

Whether all of this results in a conviction for Donald Trump, of course, remains an open question. My sense is that the high bar set by the Constitution for convicting an impeached president makes it damn near impossible for those presenting the case against Trump.

I just know  that when I see that video of those loons seeking to destroy our democratic system of government the angrier I get.

My anger spills over as well to the Insurrectionist in Chief who exhorted them to commit their heinous act.

national news

Round One: House managers win on a TKO

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The first round of Donald J. Trump’s impeachment trial goes to the prosecutors who serve in the House of Representatives.

I know what you’re thinking: Sure thing, pal … you want Trump to be convicted; spare me your bias.

OK, fine. Think that if you wish.

The House managers presented compelling arguments that Donald Trump violated his oath of office, that he incited an attack on the government he took an oath to defend and protect. The attack occurred on the Sixth of January with the mob of terrorists storming the Capitol Building.

The managers provided a graphic and hard-to-watch 13-minute profanity-filled video of terrorists beating police officers, smashing windows and breaking through doorways.

Donald Trump’s legal team’s response? Incoherent, particularly the hour-long presentation delivered by Bruce Castor. I watched all of it and I cannot at this moment tell you what he was trying to say in defense of his client.

So, Round One goes to the House managers.

Will it affect an anticipated outcome, which means an acquittal on the charge of incitement of insurrection? I doubt it.

Then again, if any of the 100 senators sitting as jurors are actually keeping “an open mind,” well … one shouldn’t slam the door shut on a correct outcome.

Donald Trump

45’s legacy stained forever

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(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

All is not lost for those of us who want to see Donald Trump convicted by U.S. senators for inciting an insurrection against the government he took an oath to defend and protect.

The ex-president isn’t likely to “earn” that conviction, given the cowardice that infects so many Republicans serving as jurors in the second-ever impeachment trial that begins today.

However, let us ponder something that isn’t lost on many of us: Even though the Constitution sets a high bar for conviction, there well might be enough Republican senators who no longer fear retribution from Trump and his cult of followers if they vote their conscience.

Imagine, then, a 60-40 Senate vote to convict. The Constitution requires 67 conviction votes to seal the deal. How does Trump pitch a possible political return with the stain of a potentially significant majority of senators believing he did what the House of Representatives impeached him for doing?

A number of GOP senators have announced their intention to retire from the Senate; they won’t seek re-election in 2022. The school of thought goes that Republican “jurors” fear for their political backsides if the were to cross the Trumpkins who still command the political stage in the GOP.

Sens. Pat Toomey, Richard Shelby and Rob Portman are lame ducks. Then we have Sens. Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Mitch McConnell and possibly Mike Enzi who could jump from the GOP ship and vote to convict Trump of inciting the riotous mob of terrorists to storm Capitol Hill on the Sixth of January.

The aim no longer is to remove Trump from office. A free and fair election took care of that already. The idea now would be to keep him from running for federal office ever again.

So … I will await a likely pre-ordained outcome. Trump will be “acquitted” — or so it appears — because most of the GOP Senate caucus will stand with him. I do not expect to hear a single senator defend the conduct of the ex-president. They’ll argue that a trial is unconstitutional; I do not believe the argument will hold up.

One final point: I want a quick end to this saga. I am weary of commenting on Donald Trump. Really! I am! I want to move on. However, I want us all to remember what occurred on the Sixth of January 2021. That memory should compel us to remember who was singularly responsible for that hideous event.

May that individual, Donald John Trump, cope with the indelible stain it will leave on what is left of his legacy.

national news

Dems and GOP agree: end trial soon

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Democrats and Republicans can agree on at least one thing these days.

Politicians in both parties want a quick end to the Senate trial of Donald John Trump. They want to put the matter of his incitement of insurrection to rest quickly so they can move on to take care of business that matters to you and me.

I agree with ’em.

The result likely won’t please me. Trump has been accused of inciting the mob of terrorists to storm Capitol Hill on Jan. 6. To my way of thinking, it’s a clear case of insurrection against the government. Trump egged the lunatics on. The House impeached him one week later and a week after that he left office.

The Senate, which is split 50-50, isn’t likely to convict Trump. The Senate needs 17 GOP members to see the light; some of them will, but not nearly enough to secure a constitutionally mandated conviction … which would precede another vote to bar him from seeking public office for the rest of his miserable life.

I am going to cling to the “unity” on both sides of the great divide. Let’s get this matter over with and done. We have a pandemic to fight and an economy to restore!

national news

Another GOP’er to leave

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Hey, who’s counting? OK, I guess I am.

Richard Shelby of Alabama today became the third prominent U.S. Senate Republican to announce he won’t seek re-election in 2022.

He joins Rob Portman of Ohio and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania as declaring themselves to be lame ducks.

I know what you are thinking: Where is he going with this?

Might they now muster up the courage to vote to convict Donald Trump of inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill, of exhorting the terrorists to storm into the Senate chamber where the second of Trump’s impeachment trials is about to begin?

Shelby, Portman and Toomey can join GOP Sens. Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski and perhaps Susan Collins as possible votes to convict Trump. That leaves only 11 more Republicans to persuade to do the right thing.

Trump can do nothing to those who are leaving public office. Therefore, the threat of reprisal against those politicians is a goner. Just sayin’, man.

Uncategorized

Free speech has limits

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It is widely known that freedom of speech has its limitations, even though they aren’t spelled out directly in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The most commonly used example is how “One cannot yell ‘fire!’ in a crowded theater.”

With that is this brief rebuke of Donald Trump’s legal team defense of his action on the Sixth of January. The Trump team suggests that the ex-president was merely exercising his constitutional guarantee of free speech when he told the riotous mob of terrorists to march on Capitol Hill and “take back our country.”

They heard Trump. They acted on what they heard. They stormed the Capitol Building looking for Vice President Mike Pence and congressional leaders who were gathered to continue the transfer of power from Trump to Joe Biden, who beat Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

Several of the rioters told media folks covering the event that they were acting specifically on the demand that Trump made of them! It is recorded! For posterity!

Five people died in the melee! Five lives were sacrificed because, in minds of the lawyers defending Trump in his second impeachment trial, he was speaking freely.

What a crock of fecal matter!

Donald Trump incited the riot. He is guilty as hell of “incitement of insurrection.” The free speech clause in the First Amendment does not apply to what he did on that terrible day.

I am acutely aware that none of this argument is going to change any senators’ minds if they are inclined to acquit Trump on charges that he sought to destroy our democratic form of government. It’s just that the free speech argument is laughable on its face.

national news

The logic? Where is it?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Someone will have to explain this bit of logic to me.

Donald J. Trump’s legal team is preparing to argue at their client’s impeachment trial that the trial is unconstitutional. Why is that? Because you cannot “impeach a president” who is no longer in office.

That’s what I hear them preparing to say.

Except for this little factoid. The House of Representatives voted to impeach Donald Trump on Jan. 13. He was still the president of the United States when the House impeached him.

Thus, and this is just little ol’ me, the impeachment is quite constitutional. Donald Trump had a week to go before he high-tailed it to Florida.

The Senate trial cannot remove him from office, which I guess factors into what Trump’s lawyers are thinking. However, and this is important, the Constitution does not specify that a president must still be in office during a trial.

Article I, Section 3 of the founding governing document notes that “judgment shall not extend further than to removal from office.” The founders did not say that removal was the only punishment; my reading of the constitutional text tells me that the punishment could not exceed removal. So … what’s the deal with that argument against conducting an impeachment trial of a former president?

If the Senate convicts Trump — and that is a huge mountain to scale, I know — then it could have a separate vote to bar Trump from ever seeking public office. The conviction bar is high, requiring a two-thirds vote; the ancillary vote requires only a simple majority of the Senate.

I know that I am not a lawyer or a constitutional scholar. I know what the Constitution says, though, and it tells me that a Senate trial meets the constitutional standard.

Impeachment is not the issue. The House delivered the goods while Trump was in office. The burden falls solely on the Senate to demand that Trump be held accountable for inciting the riot that damn near wrecked our democratic form of government.

national news

Yes, Trump must be punished

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

You’ve heard it said, I am sure, that if Donald Trump didn’t commit an impeachable act on Jan. 6, then “what does constitute such an act?”

It is my considered belief that Trump’s incitement of an insurrection against a co-equal branch of government on that day, just two weeks before he was to exit the presidency, is the worst singular act that any president ever has committed.

The U.S. Senate this week is going to conduct its fourth presidential impeachment; Trump has been tried in two of them.

The first one occurred in 1868 when President Andrew Johnson stood trial for violating the Tenure of Office Act after he fired Secretary of War Edwin Stanton without notifying the Senate; he escaped conviction by a single vote.

The next one occurred in 1999 when President Bill Clinton stood trial on a charge of perjury; he lied to a grand jury about an affair he was having with a White House intern. The perjury case was the basis of three impeachment articles. The Senate acquitted him on all three.

And then we had the first Trump impeachment trial in 2020. Trump was impeached for abuse of power and for obstruction of Congress based on a phone conversation he had with Ukraine’s president in which he asked the foreign head of state for political dirt on a rival … who happened by presidential candidate Joseph Biden. The Senate acquitted him on both counts.

Here we are today. What Trump did on Jan. 6 was provoke a mob of terrorists to march on the Capitol to stop Congress from certifying the Electoral College results of a free and fair election. The riot on Capitol Hill killed five people. The terrorists were angry over the lie that Trump kept repeating that alleged “massive vote fraud” where none existed.

The rioters stormed into the very Senate chamber where 100 “jurors” are going to stand in judgment of the man who exhorted the rioters to do the damage they inflicted on our very democratic system of government.

Think for a moment about what might have occurred had the terrorists actually gotten their mitts onto Vice President Mike Pence — who they wanted to hang. Or had they found Speaker Nancy Pelosi — who they said they would execute.

This isn’t a close call, senators.

Yes, Trump is out of office, but the trial meets constitutional muster. He can be tried after being impeached one week before leaving office. Trump can be held accountable. He must be held to account for the hideous conduct he exhibited after the 2020 election.

national news

Outcome likely settled

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(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Many of us are waiting for Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial to begin.

It’s not that I am expecting an epiphany of courage to result in a conviction. I am expecting another acquittal, although there might be enough Republican senators to cross into the conviction line to make somewhat interesting.

The House impeached Trump on a single count of incitement of insurrection. Goodness, the evidence is mountainous. It’s there for the all the world to see, and which it has seen already. He exhorted a riotous mob of terrorists to march on Capitol Hill; it did and you know what happened.

My strong hunch that no amount of testimony from the House managers presenting their case in the Senate is going to persuade any Republican senators to change their minds, getting them to convict instead of acquit Trump. I sense a few GOP senators are leaning to convict Trump; I am thinking of Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse, Lisa Murkowski, Rob Portman (who announced he won’t seek another term), Susan Collins and maybe one or two others. That’s far short of the 17 GOP senators required to produce a conviction in a 50-50 Senate lineup.

Democrats likely will hold firm and convict Trump.

What might the House prosecutors aim to do if they realize that a conviction isn’t meant to occur? They’re going to speak to the rest of us watching from our living rooms. They well might decide to destroy whatever is left of Trump’s political credibility, seeking to deny him any footing on which he could launch another political campaign in 2024.

Senators are going to take an oath to be impartial. The oath, though, is a joke. To be fair, Democrats have made up their minds as well as have Republicans. As has been noted before, an impeachment trial in the Senate is a political event, not a judicial one.

That said, I would surely vote to convict Trump if I had a say in the outcome. Instead, I am left just to speculate from the peanut gallery along with the  rest of the nation.

My speculation at this moment leads me to believe that Trump won’t face any official sanction from the Senate. Still, it is clearly worth the effort that House prosecutors will exert as they lay out for the whole Earth the evidence we have seen that Donald John Trump is a scurrilous imposter who had no business masquerading as our nation’s president.