Tag Archives: Gretchen Whitmer

Terrorism comes home

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Thirteen men have been charged with assorted crimes associated with a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and possibly do some serious harm to her.

These individuals are terrorists. They fit the description. They aren’t religious zealots. They do not march under some foreign flag.

They are home-grown, corn-fed terrorists and for the life of me I do not understand why Donald Trump won’t condemn them for what they are accused of doing.

The FBI busted them this week as Whitmer sought to manage the coronavirus pandemic that continues to ravage the state she governs. You’ll remember that other armed “militia” members stormed the Michigan capitol in Lansing, taking over the public’s grounds in a hideous display of armed defiance of the government.

These lunatics are members of something called the Boogaloo Boys.

The FBI has uncovered a plot described as an attempt to kidnap Whitmer, put her on “trial,” and punish her for whatever conviction they concoct.

Donald Trump’s response to all of this has been to criticize Whitmer’s handling of the pandemic. Whitmer told an interviewer on Friday that a “decent man” would have asked how she’s doing and inquired about the health and well-being of her family. Donald Trump is, shall we say, not a decent man.

Here we are. The FBI is now pursuing an investigation into a serious terrorist threat that resides in the nation’s heartland. Of course, this isn’t a new phenomenon. Recall what Timothy McVeigh did in April 1995 when he detonated a bomb in front of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 Americans … including several children. Back then, though, we had a president — Bill Clinton — who had the heart to call it then what we knew it to be: an act of terror.

These terrorists well could portend a wave that should frighten us all we move past this most consequential election.

It surely still adds up

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I keep adding 2 plus 2 and I still come up with 4.

So, I therefore cannot stop thinking that the arrest of individuals in Michigan on charges of attempted kidnapping of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer had something to do with the ultra-angry rhetoric of Donald J. Trump.

These 13 individuals reportedly are associated with far-right-wing groups. They were arrested and charged with plotting a bizarre kidnapping of Whitmer, a Democrat who has been the target of nasty tweets and other remarks from Trump over the state response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Do you remember the right-wing protesters who marched on the state capitol in Lansing earlier this year? Some of them were packing firearms openly; I mean we’re talking assault rifles, the kind used on battlefields to kill enemy soldiers.

Indeed, the suspects arrested today reportedly were among those who stormed the capitol.

The FBI reports that the suspects were allegedly planning to storm the capitol again, using Molotov cocktails on the police and grabbing the governor while intending to whisk her away.

Has it come down to this? Individuals have been accused of plotting terrorist acts against American politicians. Where is the president on all of this? He has said nothing to support Gov. Whitmer.

It makes me believe that 2 plus 2 really does equal 4.

Governor has learned the hard way how to deal with Trump

I have to give Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer high marks for knowing how to work with a president of the United States who doesn’t understand the partnership aspect of governing.

Donald Trump keeps threatening states that don’t follow policies he favors. Whitmer, meanwhile, has told Axios that she “censors” her public comments about Trump believing that if she pulls her punches that Trump won’t cut her state off from federal aid she insists it deserves.

At issue of course is the coronavirus pandemic and Trump’s game-playing with governors who are fighting the medical crisis the best way they can. Trump keeps sending conflicting messages. He doesn’t want states to enact all-mail voting available for the presidential election, spewing lies about “rampant voter fraud.” Whitmer, meanwhile, seeks to wage the fight against the virus with virtually no emotional support from a president whose sole focus is riveted on his attempt to win re-election.

I need to mention that Whitmer reportedly is among the candidates being considered for a vice-presidential spot on the Democratic ticket led by former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the party’s presumptive presidential nominee.

I suspect strongly that if she gets the nod, she won’t “censor” her remarks as she hits the campaign trail.

Still, for now she’s trying to do her job. If it means softening her comments about Donald Trump, I’m OK with that.

Trump channels Charlottesville terrorists?

Some folks in Michigan got so angry this week that they stormed into the State Capitol building in Lansing, packing AR-15s, M-4s and AK-47s — assault weapons — and demanded that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer reopen the state’s business community.

Yep, they assaulted one of our bastions of representative democracy!

And what was the response from the president of the United States? Donald Trump wants Gov. Whitmer to negotiate with them.

According to The Guardian: “These are very good people, but they are angry. They want their lives back again, safely! See them, talk t them, make a deal.”

That statement came from Trump. I couldn’t help but think of what he said about the neo-Nazis, KKK members and white supremacists who confronted officials in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017; they instigated a riot over the taking down of Confederate statues, and a young woman was killed. Trump told us then that there were “very fine people, on both sides.”

Whitmer along with governors in many other states had shut down businesses and government offices in reaction to the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed 65,000 Americans and sickened more than 1 million of us. Whitmer is frightened of what the illness could do to the people she was elected to serve, so she acted.

Now we have demonstrators threatening the halls of power, brandishing weaponry into the State Capitol.

The president’s response was, quite naturally, disgraceful. He didn’t condemn the demonstrators for their show of intimidation. He didn’t counsel them to resist that kind of obnoxiousness. Trump didn’t pitch a more restrained response. Oh, no. He endorsed the mob scene; he gave them strength to continue their protests to lift the stay at home orders, the shelter in place restrictions, the social distancing that has proven to be effective in stemming the spread of the viral infection.

This isn’t leadership. Donald Trump is fomenting anger among a minority of Americans who are able to lift their voices above the majority of us who are concerned that governors in many states — such as Texas — might be moving too rapidly to “return to normal.”