Tag Archives: DC riot

Ready for grim remembrance

(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Let’s be clear: Tomorrow will be a day of grim memories; there will be no cause for celebrating an “anniversary” of an event that still roils our political system.

It was a year ago that an angry mob stormed Capitol Hill. You know what happened next, so I won’t belabor the point with this blog post.

What we are learning in the year since has been Donald Trump’s response to it. How he did nothing for 187 minutes after the insurrectionists first breached the Capitol grounds. We also have heard about the multiple takes it took for him to complete a video in which he said he “loved” those “special people” who wanted to “Hang Mike Pence!”

What’s more, we have heard how his oldest children, Ivanka and Don Jr., implored Daddy POTUS to stop the rioters, to call them off, to end the violence. Daddy Donald did nothing. He is, therefore, complicit in the damage brought to the Capitol and to the lives that were harmed — and lost! — in the melee.

This gives us reason to cheer? Hardly! The men and women who stormed the Capitol were not patriots by any measure or any way you can define the term. They were intent on destroying our democratic process. They were traitors to the nation.

So, too, was the lunatic who incited the riot.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Liz Cheney gives him hell

Donald Trump deserves every single hit he should be receiving from his fellow Republicans. The only issue, though, is that so damn few of them are willing to say the things that came from U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney this morning.

What in the world is happening to me in this crazy political world? I am in a state of unadulterated admiration for a conservative Republican member of Congress who is speaking the unvarnished truth about a twice-impeached carnival barker who once masqueraded as a single-term president of the United States.

Cheney, one of two GOP members of the U.S. House committee examining the events of 1/6, said this among other things this morning: “He crossed lines no American president has ever crossed before,” she said in an interview with “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos on Sunday. “When a president refuses to tell the mob to stop, when he refuses to defend any of the coordinate branches of government, he cannot be trusted.”

She also said that said Trump is “clearly unfit for future office [and] clearly can never be anywhere near the Oval Office ever again.”

The mob attacked Capitol Hill at Trump’s urging. Trump then said silently by, watching the mayhem overwhelm the Capitol building without ever telling the rioters to stand down, to go home, to cease the violence.

Holy crap, congresswoman!

As Trump weighs 2024 bid, top Republican calls him ‘clearly unfit for future office’ (msn.com)

She knows she is right. I know she is right. The crisis facing the Republican Party, though, is that most of its members believe Cheney is a loon and that Trump is a hero to some movement followers who adhere to that Deep State/QAnon/Big Lie horsepucky that keeps flowing from Trump’s overfed pie hole.

Cheney also said today that all 535 members of Congress — House members and senators — take the same oath of office, which is to “protect the Constitution” and follow the law. That oath, she said, makes no provision for following the dictates of a single individual.

If only others within her party would listen to the wisdom Liz Cheney delivers.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

1/6: no ‘anniversary’

I want to offer a word of advice to media types who are going to commemorate the year that has passed since the 1/6 insurrection.

Do not call the year an “anniversary.” Please.

Why? Because my understanding of the word usually implies a happy event. An event that makes one smile. An anniversary is something to remember with fondness.

I recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of my marriage to my wife. We had a joyous celebration that day with family members who came to share it with us.

I cannot use that word to describe the events of 1/6. I do not have a word to replace the term “anniversary.” I’ll look to come up with one.

Just don’t look for that word to appear in this blog whenever I choose to discuss the events of that hideous day in our nation’s history.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Kinzinger calls out Trump lies

Adam Kinzinger’s lame-duck status in the U.S. House of Representatives gives him a shield against the attacks that are sure to come at him from Donald Trump and his cabal of cultists.

Why would they attack the Illinois Republican lawmaker? Because he is calling Trump out for what he is: a liar.

Kinzinger is one of two GOP members of a House select committee examining the 1/6 insurrection. He said recently he wouldn’t run for re-election in 2022. So he is in his final term in the House. That means Trump cannot do him any political harm.

Trump recently blasted the 1/6 committee, declaring it is intent on “smearing him.” Kinzinger is having none of it. Nor should he.

If only other Republicans in Congress would grow the stones they shouldn’t have to grow simply to speak the truth about the former Liar in Chief, who is trying to prevent the select committee from obtaining White House documents it needs to get to the truth behind the 1/6 insurrection.

Let us keep in mind: Donald Trump fomented that riot.

Thus, the House panel needs to know the truth behind what happened on 1/6.

Adam Kinzinger is speaking the truth by calling out Trump’s lies.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Speak up, Jim Jordan

Jim Jordan is the latest target of prime opportunity in the sights of the U.S. House select committee examining the events leading to the 1/6 insurrection.

The Ohio Republican U.S. representative cannot seem to get straight whether or when or how many times he talked to Donald Trump on that day. The House committee wants him to take an oath to tell the truth and then … tell the panel the truth about what happened that day. I mean, my hunch is that is probably knows what he said to Trump that day.

Jordan is likely to stonewall the committee, just like other Donald Trump loyalists have done. One of them is facing prosecution by the Justice Department; another is likely to face the same charge of contempt of Congress; still others have hidden behind the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, protecting them from saying something that would incriminate them.

Jordan is a loudmouth lawmaker. He has shown no bashfulness in proclaiming his loyalty to Trump. So, let’s hear it from the Ohio gasbag what he said to Trump on 1/6 and what Trump said to him in return.

We need to know all the details of that terrible day.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

What will SCOTUS reveal?

Well now, my fellow Americans, it looks as though the U.S. Supreme Court might get to reveal to us whether it believes in the rule of law or whether most of its justices believe in covering the backside of a cult leader who masquerades as a former president of the United States.

Donald Trump has asked the court to block the release of White House documents related to the 1/6 riot/insurrection. It seems that the ex-POTUS believes he has an actual legal leg on which to stand by declaring some form of executive privilege.

Lower courts have ruled already he doesn’t have such standing. They point out that only current POTUSes can exert executive privilege, not those who longer are in office.

That won’t dissuade the former POTUS from trying a sort of legal mumbo-jumbo to persuade the high court that he actually can block Congress from doing its due diligence in seeking the truth behind the 1/6 insurrection. The House select committee is legally constituted and is acting within its jurisdiction and legal authority to seek White House records. It is charged with finding the whole truth behind the riot, learning who caused it and coming to some solutions on how to prevent such a dastardly thing from recurring.

Trump, though, bellows out of both sides of his pie hole. He says he did nothing wrong; yet he wants to block anyone from the records that — if we are to believe the former Liar in Chief — would prove what he alleges, that he is free and clear of wrongdoing. Am I missing something? I think not.

If the court, even with its solid conservative majority, has a shred of legal integrity, it will rule that Trump must turn the records over and must allow Congress to do the job it is entitled to do.

Many of us are waiting.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Go after the man in charge, too!

Let’s not pussyfoot around this matter for a moment longer: It is time for the House committee looking at the 1/6 riot/insurrection to determine whether to seek criminal charges against the man who incited all of it.

That would be Donald J. Trump, who at that moment was still occupying the office of president of the United States. For the record, I won’t use the term “serving as president,” because he never had “service” in mind from the moment he took the oath of office.

Lame-duck U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, one of two Republicans serving on the House select panel, has broached the notion of Trump facing criminal charges. He said over the weekend that the committee would do well to ponder that possibility as it plods along in search of witnesses, documents and testimony into what transpired on 1/6.

There have been stunning and shocking emails released in recent days that reveal what Trump knew as the riot was unfolding and what he failed to do to stop it. The president had the singular authority to call off the rioters. He heard from a variety of individuals — starting with his own son, Don Jr. — who implored him, begged him in fact, to order the riotous mob to cease and desist.

Trump did nothing. Not a damn thing! And so, what was the result of his refusal to end the siege? Five people died in the melee. Dozens more were hurt. Millions of dollars of damage was inflicted on the Capitol Building.

Who was responsible for it? The guy who stood on the Ellipse earlier in the day and exhorted the already-angry mobsters to “take back the government.” They did what they were told to do by their cult leader. They are heard on audio recordings telling the Capitol cops they were acting on Trump’s orders.

Is there criminal culpability from the man at the top of the chain of command? Looks like it to me.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

No more denials, please, about 1/6

It is becoming abundantly clear that what happened on 1/6 was a direct, full- frontal assault on our cherished democracy.

It was not, as more than a few GOP members of Congress have suggested, “a peaceful protest” over the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Thus, the sooner that the House select committee examining the 1/6 insurrection can complete its work, the sooner that opponents of those members of Congress can assemble their campaign strategies to attack them for their foolish trash-talk.

Before you attack me for reminding of the obvious — that no one has been charged formally with an “insurrection” — I want to stipulate that I know what the criminal defendants have been accused of committing. It runs the range of criminal charges: aggravated assault, disorderly conduct, vandalism.

There well might be insurrection charges forthcoming. I would most assuredly support such an allegation being leveled.

What needs to happen foremost, though, is for the individuals at the top of the government in that moment to face criminal prosecution, too. That includes the man who was the POTUS on 1/6, Donald J. Trump.

I cannot predict what the House panel will decide. However, I can offer a request, or call it a suggestion.

Which is that Donald Trump’s rhetoric, spewed on the Ellipse on the morning of 1/6, incited the mob to attack Capitol Hill and the men and women inside who were doing their job, which was to certify the 2020 presidential election results.

There must be some accountability for that action.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Rep. Jordan turns too quiet

Jim Jordan owns arguably the loudest mouth in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The Ohio Republican usually is unafraid to spout whatever lies pops into his vacuous noggin. The lies he spews usually involve Donald J. Trump and the so-called “phony” investigations into the myriad allegations often attached to the former POTUS.

Suddenly, though, the blowhard/liar/alleged traitor has fallen quiet. He won’t admit to sending Trump a message imploring him to call off the 1/6 rioters. But he did! He sent the POTUS a message that sought to get him to put a stop to the riot.

Why won’t Jordan tell us what he did? I think I know. Because it flies directly counter to the defense he has mounted on Trump’s behalf as evidence mounted in the waning days of his administration about the violence he provoked on the day of the Capitol Hill riot.

I have written already about the Republican cowards who populate the GOP caucus in Congress.

I have concluded that Jim Jordan is the king of the cowards.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

GOP: party of cowards

Republicans who implored Donald Trump to stop the rioters who sought to block the certification of the 2020 presidential election on 1/6 are now silent.

Their silence betrays their cowardice. Yes, they are cowards. They are afraid of offending the man for whom they profess blind fealty.

Yet we know now that many of them sent emails to the White House; they called the White House on the phone; they pleaded with Trump to employ his clout to end the riot. Trump didn’t do as other Republicans had asked, implored, demanded he do.

Why aren’t the Republicans now speaking up? Why won’t they put their names on those messages?

They won’t because cowards won’t take ownership of what they know is right.

They were right to implore Donald Trump to end the riot. They now fear that the disgraced former POTUS will strike back at them and harm their re-election chances.

They are cowards.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com