Category Archives: crime news

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GOP awash in contradiction

An astonishing array of competing opinions has gripped the Republican Party by the throat as its presidential stable of candidates prepares to debate on an Iowa stage.

The “star of the show” is a twice-impeached, four-times-indicted candidate for POTUS, Donald Trump … who isn’t even going to be there for the opening round of Q&A.

He’s the talk of the event in absentia. Imagine had he decided to take part. He’d be the talk of the event in that context as well.

I am going to presume this is what Trump has wanted. He is a media hog, even as he proclaims the media to be “the enemy of the people.” The truth is he loves the media and the media love him despite rumors to the contrary about media bias against Trump.

His presence on the political stage has thrown the entire process into chaos, which was one of the hallmarks of the time he held the office of president. His alleged “style” of governing hardly ever contained a moment of research of actual scholarship. He thrived on his “hunch” and his “belief” in what someone had told him.

What continues to astound me, truth be told, is that all of this is OK with the gullible MAGA morons who continue to back this clown’s latest presidential candidacy.

We are left, then, with circumstances in which Trump becomes the story. He’s not at the debate? He’s the story. Would he show up? He is still the story.

This is the environment that makes Donald Trump most comfortable. It saddens me to say it, but it also demonstrates most graphically one more reason why he is patently unfit to hold the office he is seeking.

crime news, local news, State news

Wishing for a conviction

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick slapped a gag order on Texas senators preparing to try Attorney General Ken Paxton for a rash of allegations of misconduct.

Fine. The gag order doesn’t affect bloggers like me, or any Texan with an opinion on what ought to happen when the Senate convenes the trial on Sept. 5.

What should happen? Texas senators ought to be able to muster up enough courage to boot the sorry out of the office he has sullied since 2015. What will happen? That remains anyone’s guess … but it is looking as though the evidence of Paxton’s alleged abuse of office is building toward a conviction.

For instance, we hear now about cell phones and aliases used by Paxton to hide behavior for which he is being tried.

The Texas House impeached Paxton with an overwhelming bipartisan vote. The Senate has to scale a higher wall if it is to convict this embarrassment of an AG; it needs a two-thirds vote to oust Paxton.

The guy has been nothing but an embarrassment since taking office after the 2014 election. A Collin County grand jury indicted him for securities fraud early in his term … and it has downhill ever since.

How is it that the state’s top law enforcement officer cannot emerge from under the clouds of suspicious activity? This one is stained indelibly.

I dare not predict what the Senate will do. I can hope, though, that enough senators have seen and heard enough from this clown to boot his sorry backside out of office and send him back into private life.

I’ve made no bones about how Paxton has pissed me off repeatedly since becoming Texas AG. He has interfered with efforts to try to reverse the 2020 election results, only to be scolded by the U.S. Supreme Court that he had no authority to tell other states how to run their elections. He continually sues the federal government, with the lawsuits going essentially nowhere.

Twenty Texas senators need to convict this moron; that means about eight Republicans need to flip against the GOP attorney general. My hope is that the GOP senators have more courage than their federal counterparts demonstrated when they let Donald Trump wriggle free.

I am going hold out eternal hope we are going to be rid of Texas AG Ken Paxton.

 

crime news, national news, political news

Why not debate ’em … Trump?

You know, it doesn’t really matter to me whether Donald J. Trump will be on a Republican Party primary presidential debate stage with the other guys who want to knock him off.

Truth is, I don’t give a royal rat’s rear end about Trump, or today’s version of the GOP. However, his reported absence from the upcoming debate stage does pose a question or two for me, which I would like to speak to briefly. So … I will.

Some of the GOP frontrunner’s foes are taking aim at him. Mike Pence, Chris Christie, Asa Hutchinson all have spoken critically of him, his conduct, his lack of “vision” for the future.

I want someone to ask Trump this question: What in the world do you have in the way of agenda for the next four years and beyond? This individual has none. He doesn’t speak to the future. Instead, he chooses to relitigate the 2020 election … which he lost to President Biden!

Let’s not be coy, either, about the indictments. He’s got four of them stacked up, waiting for trials. The feds have indicted him twice; two states, New York and Georgia, have indicted twice as well.

Trump can spare us all the BS about “not wanting to elevate” the others’ standing. The truth is he has no solutions. He cannot speak coherently about the future. He vows to be his fans’ “retribution.”

He is the frontrunner among the MAGA morons who dominate the GOP. And why is that? Because his “base” is too damn ignorant and gullible to realize how seriously damaged he has become and how much damage he brings to a once-great political party.

OK, I fibbed about not giving a “rat’s rear end” about Trump. Of course, I do, which is evident in the frequency of my writing about him. I care about Trump’s future only because I love my country and I do not want it sucked down the toilet drain of Donald Trump’s so-called “ideology.”

As to whether he belongs on the stage with the other GOP presidential candidates … sure he does, but only because he needs to be held accountable politically for the nonsense he continues to barf onto the public stage.

crime news, legal news, national news

Televise the trials!

Donald John Trump is not your every-day criminal defendant, given that for four years he occupied the presidency of the United States.

Therefore, it is imperative that the federal judiciary do something far out of the ordinary. It needs to televise the federal trials that will determine whether Donald Trump is guilty of the crimes for which he is being charged.

Trump has four trials pending. Two of them are in state courts. New York and Georgia grand juries have indicted him for committing crimes against the nation he once took an oath to protect.

I want to focus on the two federal indictments. One of them came from a grand jury in Florida; that’s the classified documents case in which Trump pilfered documents from the White House and stashed ’em in his glitzy estate. The other came from a D.C. grand jury; that is the matter involving the 1/6 assault on our government.

You see, this is critical inasmuch as Trump was once elected to the presidency. He took an oath to protect the government against all enemies. Then he shunned that oath when the 2020 election didn’t turn out the way he wanted; he lost that contest to Joe Biden.

Americans who were governed by this fraud have a right to witness how these trials play out. Will they produce sideshows, melodrama and game-playing? Yes, they might … but that isn’t necessarily pre-ordained.

I recall meeting with Tom Phillips, who in the 1990s was chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court. The OJ Simpson trial was underway and Phillips said that the judge in that trial, California Superior Court Judge Lance Ito, had plenty of authority to rein in the lawyers. He could have set time limits on the presentations. He could have demanded decorum and dignity in the courtroom.

Phillips said trial judges have immense power to run these trials in orderly and concise fashions.

It’s that knowledge that gives me hope that if the federal judiciary turns on the TV cameras in the courtroom that they will expose the public to a ringside view of how one of our three branches of government does the job prescribed in the US Constitution.

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?

crime news, national news, political news

Irony runs through indictments

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The ironic aspect of the indictments handed down against Donald J. Trump is so rich one almost can choke on it.

Let’s consider what is happening in real time.

Two grand juries — one in D.C. and one in Fulton County, Ga. — have concluded that Donald Trump conspired to “rig” or “steal” an election he lost to Joe Biden in November 2020. The grand juries, I must point out, comprised just plain folks summoned to do their civic duty under federal law and laws of the state of Georgia.

The grand juries have accused Trump of doing precisely the kind of thing he has said occurred on Election Day 2020. He says Democrats conspired to rig elections in several states that Biden won. Yes, he made that assertion, but without offering any evidence of it occurring.

Indeed, “forensic audits” of election returns in several key states have determined there was no voter fraud. Trump ignores those findings.

Instead, he launched his own election-rigging effort, complete with rounding up individuals posing as Electoral College members who would cast their votes for Trump instead of for Biden, which is required under the Constitution.

Trump has accused the system of being “rigged” against him. But now two duly constituted grand juries — both legally assembled and following the rule of law — say the former POTUS did precisely what he accuses others of doing to him!

Remind you of anything? How about the “fake news” mantra that has become so popular in Trump world. How in the name of truth-telling can this clown say any of this “fake news” crap with a straight face, given that he birthed the “fake news” baby with his lies about Barack Obama’s place of birth?

More irony, indeed!

This individual is a liar … and a bad one to boot!

crime news, legal news

Four for four for Trump

Well … it looks like the Donald J. Trump indictment parade has reached its end, or maybe there’s more to see down the road.

Fulton County (Ga.) District Attorney Fani Willis has delivered yet another gut punch to the ex-POTUS, indicting him and 19 co-conspirators on 10 counts of conspiring to defraud the government and overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

This fourth criminal indictment against the 45th POTUS presents a most interesting turn of events, don’t you think?

Those who are indicted and then convicted in a state-run criminal trial cannot be pardoned by a future POTUS; Georgia law prohibits it. Willis’s announcement is thorough and comprehensive and it includes several individuals who worked with Trump (allegedly) to overturn the results of the election; special counsel Jack Smith chose to limit his indictments to just Trump, seeking to ensure a speedy trial.

What just blows my noggin to bits is Trump’s announcement that on Monday he is going to provide proof that the 2020 election was rigged. Really! That’s what he said. Why wait, dude? Give us the goods now, man!

Well, he won’t prove anything. Why? Because experts on these matters have concluded already there was no fraud in the election, which means Trump is blowing this all out of his overfed a**.

Meanwhile, the criminal defendant who once served as POTUS continues to defy U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan’s warning against popping off. She said Trump’s continuing challenge could force her to schedule the trial on the D.C. indictment handed down even earlier.

Donald Trump’s in a heap of trouble. He knows it. He is acting like the desperate criminal I believe he always has been.

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DA about to drop hammer?

For as long as Donald J. Trump has been out of office — and subject to criminal investigations — my thought during that time has been that the Georgia case was the most provable and possibly the most damaging.

Well, it now appears that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is about to deliver the goods to a grand jury that is going to consider whether to indict the 45th POTUS on allegations that he sought to rig the Georgia results of the 2020 presidential election.

Joe Biden won the state’s Electoral College votes. Trump, though, called Georgia Secretary of State Doug Raffensberger and demanded that he “find” enough votes to swing the state into the Trump column. Raffensberger said, in effect, “No can do, Mr. President. The Constitution doesn’t allow it.”

What did Trump do then? He threatened Raffensberger with criminal prosecution.

Here’s the best part: It’s all been recorded for posterity. 

There could be a huge surprise waiting for us, though, once the grand jury hears from the DA. The panel might decide against indicting Trump. I say “might” because, well … you just never know what they’ll hear and what they’ll decide.

But I don’t believe that will happen.

Trump already has accused Willis, a Black prosecutor, of conducting a “racist witch hunt.” It’s the same language he used to condemn the indictment issued in New York by a grand jury after it heard from another Black prosecutor, Alvin Bragg. Do you believe any of that goes down smoothly with either of these two officers of the court?

Obviously not!

If an indictment comes forward this week, it will be the fourth such pending criminal proceeding filed against Trump. Two come from state courts, the other two from the Department of Justice, the agency Trump once pledged under oath to “defend and protect.”

The man is in a world of pain. Am I going to worry about him? Not for a nano-second!

crime news

Waiting for FBI to say: POTUS has broken the law

Donald Trump hired his share of clunkers during his term in office, but Christopher Wray, the head of the FBI, is not one of them.

Indeed, Wray has served the nation honorably and with as much dispassion as possible, given the immense pressure he must endure from the right-wing MAGA goon squad that occupies so much of the congressional Republican caucus.

I offer that as my declaration that if FBI director Wray says that the president of the United States has done something wrong, that he has broken the law, that he has done any of the misdeeds associated with the right-wing slime machine … then I’ll believe the crap being tossed around about President Biden.

Does it occur to anyone out there that Wray is a Trump guy, that he is known to be a lifelong Republican, that he harbors no particular favor toward Democrats, let alone to the current president?

None of that seems to matter to the right wingers who insist that Wray is part of the “deep state” who has “weaponized the FBI,” turning it into a cudgel to whip Donald Trump.

He is nothing of the sort. His agency has acted responsibly and within the parameters of the law in seeking evidence involving the former POTUS.

So, until Christopher Wray determines that Joe Biden has committed a crime, I am going to give the phony allegations against him all the attention they deserve.

Which is nothing!

crime news, legal news

Conviction = condemnation

One almost can predict with metaphysical certitude what will happen if a federal jury convicts Donald J. Trump on any of the charges being brought before them.

The MAGA mob of morons will condemn the jury. It will blast the presiding judge to smithereens. It will cast doubt on the integrity of the federal judiciary. It will demonize the Justice Department, starting with the attorney general and the special counsel.

None of will — or at least it shouldn’t — have any material effect on the outcome. We still would have a former POTUS standing as a convicted felon facing years in prison.

I won’t wager which of the charges holds the most potential for conviction. My opinion on all of that changes with the direction of the wind.

Oh … and then we have the two state trials that Trump is likely to face. He’s got the one in New York City and quite likely one in Fulton County, Ga. Both of those prosecutions are being led by Black district attorneys, which of course feeds into Trump’s racist wheelhouse. We damn sure can look forward to hearing Trump bloviate on the racial component of those actions.

Now, of course none of this will matter if he’s acquitted, if he walks away cleanly, if the feds and the states cannot persuade juries to convict beyond a reasonable doubt of Trump’s guilt in his effort to steal the 2020 presidential election and of his hiding of classified documents taken from the White House. Then we have the hush money payment he made illegally to the adult film star to keep her quiet about a tryst the two of them had … but which Trump denies ever occurred.

We are heading for a major storm. Let’s all hold on.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com