Tag Archives: Secret Service

crime news

Accountability at the top!

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You want accountability at the top of our personal security chain of command?

Well, we got it this week when the head of the Secret Service, Kimberley Cheatle, resigned after a gunman tried to kill Donald Trump. Calls for her resignation or firing came from both sides of the great congressional chasm.

Let’s say, though, that such demand for immediate action hasn’t always been the case.

In 1901, a gunman shot President William McKinley to death; in 1963, a shooter murdered President Johin F. Kennedy; in 1975, two women — on separate occasions — shot at President Gerald Ford; in 1981, President Ronald Reagan was wounded in an assassination attempt.

What do those instances have in common? The Secret Service directors all kept their jobs, despite the obvious failures to protect our commander in chief.

I am old enough to remember the JFK, Ford and Reagan incidents. I do not recall anyone in authority raising a stink about failures in the security system designed to protect our president from madmen.

Frankly, I am glad we have ratcheted up calls for accountability when these events occur.

national news

Where is boorishness written?

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I am quite sure that there is no written rule that requires members of Congress to conduct themselves like a**holes when questioning witnesses on sensitive topics.

Therefore, I must ask: Where does Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, get off treating the head of the Secret Service as crassly as he did this morning?

Kimberly Cheatle testified today about her department’s failure to protect a former president of the United States against someone who fired off several rifle shots at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa.

Cheatle admitted the Secret Service committed many grievous efforts while seeking to secure the rally site for Donald J. Trump. She said her department is in the midst of an investigation into what went wrong. She told Jordan she intends to repair the damage.

Jordan, though, wouldn’t let up, He wouldn’t let answer questions before launching another barrage of belittling Cheatle. He said Cheatle didn’t answer “a single question.” Well, no sh**, Sherlock. He wouldn’t let her answer them!

Don’t misunderstand me. I, too, am angry over the Secret Service’s failure to protect Trump from the gunman. However, if you’re going to summon a principal in that near-tragedy to testify … then give her the chance to explain!

national news

Another whopper from The Donald

So … Donald Trump said that Kanye West brought the moronic anti-Semite, Holocaust denying, white supremacist with him to dinner at Mar-a-Lago.

And that he didn’t even know who Nick Fuentes is.

POTUS No. 45 expects us to believe that.

Quick reminder. Donald Trump has a Secret Service detail with him in Florida; it’s a perk provided former presidents. Does anyone on God’s Good Earth believe the Secret Service didn’t know who was traipsing through the door and that the agents on duty would not have told The Donald that one of ’em happened to be this moron?

As I have said many times, I do not believe a single word that flies out of Trump’s pie hole.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

Where is protection for speaker?

The moron who broke into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home and assaulted her husband, Paul, should have been stopped before he ever set foot in the place.

He wasn’t. Why? Because the individual who is third in line for the presidency of the United States doesn’t get the level of security afforded to the president and vice president.

That ought to change.

The speaker of the House arguably is the most powerful person in Congress. He or she calls the tune for legislation that flows from the chamber. Plus, the speaker is just two heartbeats away from assuming the powerful office in the land … if not the world!

Paul Pelosi was injured critically with a skull fracture. We all should wish him a complete recovery from his grievous injury.

As for the whether the speaker of the House deserves Secret Service protection, I am all in on calling for that upgrade in security protocol. The speaker’s power and influence in our government is too important to ignore.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Trump plans to leave White House? Wow!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Jeepers, that is awfully big of Donald Trump to acknowledge the obvious.

Which is that when the Electoral College certifies what the whole world knows already, that President-elect Biden defeated Trump in the election earlier this month, that he’ll leave the White House.

Earth to Donald: You ain’t got a choice, dude!

I would actually hate seeing the Secret Service escorting the president out of the people’s house were he to dig in his heels.

Really! I would hate that!

national news

Trump rattling his fellow Republicans with DHS purge

Donald Trump is on a tear through the agency formed to protect Americans against enemies of our nation.

He has fired (essentially) the secretary of homeland security, gotten rid of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, canned the Secret Service director. There are threats of more dismissals/resignations to come.

Republican senators are shaking their heads, according to Politico. Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa said she thought DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was doing a “fantastic” job.

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said “It’s a mess,” referring to the border situation and the confusion and chaos at DHS.

Yep, it’s a mess, all right.

I believe that is exactly how Donald Trump prefers it.

Cohesion and smooth operation? Forget about it! Yet he calls his administration a “fine-tuned machine.” The president is not hearing the clanks and misfires from the political “engine” he has built.

I guess I’m allowed to wonder how all this tumult at Homeland Security is going to affect the agency’s ability to, um, secure the homeland.

Donald Trump

It’s so believable that Trump would say such a thing

If only Donald Trump hadn’t built such a huge public record of personal insults.

Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent for The New York Times, says he had heard from sources inside the White House that the president had mocked the appearance of Secret Service Director Randolph “Tex” Alles.

What makes it so believable? The things Trump has said out loud. Such as . . .

The time he mocked Sen. Rand Paul’s appearance during a Republican primary presidential debate in 2016; or he hung the nickname of “Little Marco” on Sen. Rubio of Florida, another GOP primary opponent; or when he mocked the appearance of yet another GOP opponent, Carly Fiorina; or the “best” one of all, when he mocked the physical disability of a NY Times reporter, Serge Kovaleski.

Three areas always should be off limits when political foes argue public policy: their respective families, their given names and their appearance.

Trump has violated two of those three axioms. Do you recall how he posted that hideous picture of Heidi Cruz, the wife of Sen. Ted Cruz, still another GOP presidential opponent?

The man lacks class. He lacks dignity. He lacks empathy. He lacks humanity.

I also should add that he lacks self-awareness.

See what I mean?

national news

Trump mocks his appearance, then fires him . . . coincidence?

The president had soured on Alles a while ago, even making fun of his looks, calling him Dumbo because of his ears, two officials said.

That would be Randolph Alles, the soon-to-be former head of the U.S. Secret Service. The observation of Donald Trump’s view of Alles comes via Twitter from Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent for the New York Times.

OK, I happen to believe what Baker is reporting. I completely believe that the president of the United States is fully capable of exhibiting untold cruelty toward individuals. Example? Recall the time he mocked NY Times reporter Serge Kovaleski’s severe physical disability.

So now we hear that Trump (allegedly) mocked Randolph Alles, the man in charge of the agency whose most high-profile job is to protect the president and his family.

Must I remind readers of this blog who think the sun rises and sets on Donald Trump’s vacuous head that he ain’t exactly GQ material.

Would it surprise anyone that this man, the president, is systematically alienating himself from the public service professionals who put everything on the line in service to their country? To think the denigration and the disgrace comes from someone who has no clue about what it means to serve the public.

It wouldn’t surprise me.

Not in the least.

national news

Great job, fella . . . but hit the road

This kind of thing drives me nuts when I hear about matters such as this. A public servant is fired from his or her job and the guy to whom the person reports tells us all what a “great” job he or she did.

If the person getting canned is doing a great job, wouldn’t that person keep his or her job?

They’re cleaning house

U.S. Secret Service Director Randolph “Tex” Alles is heading for the exits. Donald Trump instructed White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney to fire Alles. So, he did.

Then press secretary Sarah Hucakabee Sanders said on behalf of the president that Alles had done a great job running the agency that used to be part of the Treasury Department, but has moved to the Department of Homeland Security.

DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen “resigned” effective immediately over differences with Trump on immigration policy. The president thanked her for her service. That’s it. Message received: Nielsen wasn’t cutting it at DHS, in Trump’s view.

But the Secret Service ouster appears to be part a wholesale housecleaning at DHS.

I’ve read the reports that the man/child behind the shakeup is that 30-something whiz kid/maniac Stephen Miller, who seems to believe that the president needs to get even more harsh on immigrants, legal and illegal alike.

This isn’t fun to watch, no matter the president, the party or the policy involved.

entertainment news, national news, political news

Celebrities’ comments have this way of reverberating

Johnny Depp has joined a list of celebrities with big mouths.

Depp, the movie actor, mused out loud the other day about the last time an actor assassinated a president. He seemed to suggest that’s what he wants to do, follow in the footsteps of another actor, John Wilkes Booth, who shot President Lincoln to death in April 1865.

Bad call, Johnny.

I guess what these folks need to grasp is the notion that their celebrity status not only acquires loyal followings for them, it also magnifies their idiotic statements or actions. For the record, I am not a fan of Johnny Depp.

The “comedian” Kathy Griffin? She was video recorded holding up the image of a severed head depicting that of Donald J. Trump.

The over-the-hill rocker/guitarist Ted Nugent has said a multitude of hideous things about Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Now we have Depp popping off, trying to be clever. Instead he sounds stupid.

Donald Trump’s son, Don Jr., has slammed Depp. You’d expect a son to come to the defense of his father.

Depp has apologized for his idiocy. It doesn’t erase it, sad to say.

These folks are entitled to their political opinions, just as you are entitled to yours and I am to mine. I don’t know about you, but I express my opinions freely on this blog.

The difference, though, between us and those who have some kind of celebrity status is that — in my case, at least — I can sound like a dumba** and relatively few people are going to pay attention. When someone such as Johnny Depp says something stupid, then many others’ ears perk up.

That includes the Secret Service.

A word to wise ought to go to Johnny Depp and other celebs with strongly held political opinions: be circumspect.