Kathianne
09-24-2023, 10:36 PM
Really good article, got to read closely as some of these veer off in a way not anticipated. The bit about impeachment, gives me pause:
https://johnkassnews.com/trigger-warning/
Trigger WarningBy Steve Huntley
Sept. 20, 2023
This and that. Some thoughts on politics and current events. Trigger warning: Coming up are a few views that may prompt outrage and deep hurt among those especially sensitive souls who are easily offended.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is considering having the city open and own a supermarket to, according to one news report, “promote food equity” in poor neighborhoods.
One question: Given Johnson’s affection for and forgiveness of criminals, will the checkout lanes for payment be marked “optional”?
******
These two things happened within days of each other:
Another Democrat prosecutor filed a fourth indictment against Republican former President Donald Trump, who, among other charges, is accused of falsely claiming that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
Russian President Vladimir Putin brought down by bomb or missile a plane carrying Yevgeniy Prigozhin, killing the head of a mercenary army who had staged a brief mutiny against Putin’s conduct of the Ukraine war.
Democrats will cry that there are a thousand-and-one differences between these two occurrences.
And that’s true.
But it’s also true that the people in power in Russia and the United States have gone after their chief political opponents by every means they think they can get away with.
Unprecedented doesn’t begin to describe the decision of Democrats in the Biden administration and in New York and Atlanta to try, for the first time in our nation’s history, to throw a former president in prison.
******
All of the criminal indictments against Trump came down in time for the 2024 presidential campaign season. That’s just a coincidence, right?
******
None of the accusations of stolen votes in the 2020 presidential election made by Trump and his admirers has stood up in a courtroom.
They will get another chance to fight their cause before the bar. The makers of the film “2000 Mules”, True the Vote, are being sued by Georgia officials for ignoring a subpoena to back up their claims that “they have people stuffing the ballot boxes on tapes.
The group also is being sued for defamation by a Georgia voter depicted in the film as committing “a crime” by putting ballots into a drop box.
What are the chances that this time at long last an allegation of stolen votes can survive a court challenge?
******
Here’s a question for all those only-Trumpers who insist the Republican Party must nominate the former president again in 2024:
If Trump is nominated, what happens to hopes for Republicans winning enough votes from independents to retake the White House once he is asked and answers this question: Will you respect the outcome of the 2024 election?
******
The Supreme Court decision overturning the Roe vs. Wade abortion ruling was credited with angering women and sending them to the polls in 2022, killing GOP hopes of a red wave in that off-year election. It was a big surprise, embarrassing all the pollsters and political pundits.
Is illegal immigration bubbling up as the surprise election issue for 2024? Protests against the economic burden for taxpayers and the excesses of illegal aliens are being heard — loudly — in blue states and sanctuary cities. Then there’s the fentanyl smuggled across the border, in one case ending up in a daycare center in New York, killing one toddler and sickening three others.
Watch for progressives to perform propaganda gymnastics to try to explain away their open-borders fanaticism that is pouring oil on cities already in flames from rampant crime.
******
DEMOCRAT SENATE MAJORITY LEADER, THE LATE HARRY REID OF NEVADA, ARROGANTLY PAVED THE WAY TO ELIMINATE THE JUDICIAL FILIBUSTER THUS ENDING MINORITY RIGHTS IN THE SENATE.
The abortion decision is one of several high court rulings restoring constitutional principles to American governance and education. These rulings have so outraged Democrats that they are out to undermine the independence of the judiciary by any means they can get away with. Predictably, they voice fury at Donald Trump for the appointments of three conservative justices responsible for these rulings.
As usual, Democrats have got it wrong. Their ire is misdirected. The credit, or blame, for those Trump Supreme Court justices should go to former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). He was the one who blew up the Senate’s judicial filibuster, a procedure that had given the minority party an important and at times even a determinate voice in approving high court picks.
Back then Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell warned Democrats they would come to regret Reid’s wrecking ball, and sooner than they might think. He was right.
Now Democrats have embarked on politically motivated criminal prosecutions against a former Republican president. That’s a precedent they may regret, and maybe sooner than they think.
******
Republicans have launched an impeachment inquiry against President Biden over accusations of influence-peddling in collusion with his son while father Biden was vice president to Barack Obama.
In its long history, this country has seen five impeachment stories. The first impeachment, against Abraham Lincoln’s successor Andrew Johnson, came within one vote in the Senate of kicking him out of the White House.
The second, an impeachment inquiry against Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal, never required an actual impeachment vote or Senate trial. As the evidence against Nixon mounted, Republicans in the Senate told him that an impeachment in the House and a conviction in the Senate were sure things. Nixon resigned.
The three impeachments since then — against Presidents Clinton and Trump — were, by comparison, trivial matters, political show trials that had no hope of conviction in the Senate.
But at least those political prosecutions were based on events that occurred during the Clinton and Trump presidencies. Now Republicans are going after Biden for something he allegedly did as vice president.
Do Republicans really want to establish a precedent of starting impeachment inquiries against presidents for things they did in the past when they were not president?
If so, they may come to regret it, and maybe sooner than they think.
******
Chicago appears nowhere near to growing weary of its ugly crime wave. The city only a few months ago elected Brandon Johnson as mayor, even though every voter knew he was committed to a soft-on-crime agenda.
So far this year, crime is up 30 percent over 2022, reports the Wirepoints weekly crime tracker. And Chicago recorded 204 murders during Johnson’s first 100 days in office.
To the mayor, the juvenile delinquents who trash and loot stores and turn city streets into nightmares of unrestrained menace are mere youths with nothing better to do. In his words, “it is not constructive to demonize youth who have otherwise been starved of opportunities in their own communities.”
Cars are being stolen because a couple of auto makers produce vehicles Johnson deems easy to steal. So he sues the two automakers.
Blame the victim is Johnson’s mantra. Should sexual assault victims start worrying that the mayor may start looking at how short their skirts may have been?
******
The crime plaguing Chicago and so many other cities is overwhelming under-manned police departments. And police officers are demoralized by elected officials who scapegoated them in the wake of the Black Lives Matter riots that erupted following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Here’s a thought about that event:
George Floyd would be alive today and ingesting his favorite illegal drugs if he had not tried to rob a Minneapolis merchant by passing counterfeit money.
George Floyd would be alive today and contemplating new crimes if he had not disobeyed orders from police arresting him.
No, that’s not excusing any police abuse during his arrest.
It’s simply recognition that Floyd initiated the chain of events that led to his death. Breaking the law and resisting arrest constitute risky behavior that exposes a criminal to the possibility of unforeseen peril. That’s not saying he’s primarily responsible for his own death, just acknowledging that Floyd was not without blame for his death.
******
The last Minneapolis police officer convicted in the death of Floyd was sentenced last month to four years and nine months in prison. The crime alleged against Tou Thao: Exercising crowd control around the Floyd street arrest, which was characterized as having “stood by and allowed it (Floyd’s death) to happen” and preventing others from perhaps helping Floyd.
At his sentencing, Thao declared, “I did not commit these crimes. My conscience is clear. I will not be a Judas nor join a mob in self-preservation or betray my God.”
That took guts. And the mob remark surely does describe the atmosphere surrounding the arrests, trials and convictions of the cops held responsible for Floyd’s death.
******
Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of killing Floyd based on video of Floyd’s arrest that is damning. A jury found that Floyd died from police abuse, Chauvin kneeling on his neck, and not the fentanyl in his system that greatly exceeded what is usually a lethal dose.
That conviction is being appealed by Chauvin’s lawyer to the U.S. Supreme Court on grounds Chauvin was denied a fair trial because of the notoriety and rioting surrounding the case.
The rioting caused the jurors in the case “to all express concerns for their safety in the event they acquitted Mr. Chauvin — safety concerns which are fully evidenced by surrounding the courthouse in barbed wire and national guard troops during the trial,” said Chauvin’s lawyer, Bill Mohrman, in a statement.
Was Derek Chauvin railroaded into prison to prevent a return of the 2020 Black Lives Matter rioting to American cities?
We’ve seen a number of disruptive demonstrations by environmentalists complaining about fossil fuels. They’ve blocked roads. They’ve tossed soup and paint onto great works of art in museums. They’ve glued their hands to trains and roads.
What’s common to these tactics is that they inconvenience folks trying to go about their lives or enjoy the world’s great cultural treasures.
How to respond to these disruptions?
Let them know how much their approach alienates you. Drive your car aimlessly for a half an hour or more. If it’s air-conditioning weather, turn down the thermostat a couple of degrees for an hour. If it’s cold, turn up the thermostat.
Let them know their demonstrations disrupting your lives will result only in more fossil fuels being burned.
Every time one of these protests makes life miserable for us, the conservative network of broadcast, cable and web sites should erupt with calls that it’s time to burn some extra fossil fuels. Let them learn disruptive protests are self defeating.
******
The accusation of misogyny gets tossed a lot around today, usually aimed at conservatives. But the biggest, most serious, most far reaching misogyny these days is the trans movement’s drive to destroy women’s and girls’ sports.
The most widely known and infamous example is Lia Thomas, the man turned trans woman who took over the University of Pennsylvania women’s swimming team to deny championship trophies to female swimmers.
If the conservative side was anywhere near as savvy in street theater as the left wing, Thomas and other trans women dominating women’s sports would not be able to appear in public without being greeted by chants of “Show us your vagina! Show us your vagina!”
Back to the Trump indictments. There’s talk of prosecutors pushing for a trial of Trump within a matter of months. Justice for American democracy demands it, say prosecutors.
It’s been more than two decades since the Sept. 11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans and brought down the Twin Towers. Yet there’s still been no trial for the jailed five jihadist terrorists responsible for that atrocity.
Where is justice for American democracy in that?
https://johnkassnews.com/trigger-warning/
Trigger WarningBy Steve Huntley
Sept. 20, 2023
This and that. Some thoughts on politics and current events. Trigger warning: Coming up are a few views that may prompt outrage and deep hurt among those especially sensitive souls who are easily offended.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is considering having the city open and own a supermarket to, according to one news report, “promote food equity” in poor neighborhoods.
One question: Given Johnson’s affection for and forgiveness of criminals, will the checkout lanes for payment be marked “optional”?
******
These two things happened within days of each other:
Another Democrat prosecutor filed a fourth indictment against Republican former President Donald Trump, who, among other charges, is accused of falsely claiming that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
Russian President Vladimir Putin brought down by bomb or missile a plane carrying Yevgeniy Prigozhin, killing the head of a mercenary army who had staged a brief mutiny against Putin’s conduct of the Ukraine war.
Democrats will cry that there are a thousand-and-one differences between these two occurrences.
And that’s true.
But it’s also true that the people in power in Russia and the United States have gone after their chief political opponents by every means they think they can get away with.
Unprecedented doesn’t begin to describe the decision of Democrats in the Biden administration and in New York and Atlanta to try, for the first time in our nation’s history, to throw a former president in prison.
******
All of the criminal indictments against Trump came down in time for the 2024 presidential campaign season. That’s just a coincidence, right?
******
None of the accusations of stolen votes in the 2020 presidential election made by Trump and his admirers has stood up in a courtroom.
They will get another chance to fight their cause before the bar. The makers of the film “2000 Mules”, True the Vote, are being sued by Georgia officials for ignoring a subpoena to back up their claims that “they have people stuffing the ballot boxes on tapes.
The group also is being sued for defamation by a Georgia voter depicted in the film as committing “a crime” by putting ballots into a drop box.
What are the chances that this time at long last an allegation of stolen votes can survive a court challenge?
******
Here’s a question for all those only-Trumpers who insist the Republican Party must nominate the former president again in 2024:
If Trump is nominated, what happens to hopes for Republicans winning enough votes from independents to retake the White House once he is asked and answers this question: Will you respect the outcome of the 2024 election?
******
The Supreme Court decision overturning the Roe vs. Wade abortion ruling was credited with angering women and sending them to the polls in 2022, killing GOP hopes of a red wave in that off-year election. It was a big surprise, embarrassing all the pollsters and political pundits.
Is illegal immigration bubbling up as the surprise election issue for 2024? Protests against the economic burden for taxpayers and the excesses of illegal aliens are being heard — loudly — in blue states and sanctuary cities. Then there’s the fentanyl smuggled across the border, in one case ending up in a daycare center in New York, killing one toddler and sickening three others.
Watch for progressives to perform propaganda gymnastics to try to explain away their open-borders fanaticism that is pouring oil on cities already in flames from rampant crime.
******
DEMOCRAT SENATE MAJORITY LEADER, THE LATE HARRY REID OF NEVADA, ARROGANTLY PAVED THE WAY TO ELIMINATE THE JUDICIAL FILIBUSTER THUS ENDING MINORITY RIGHTS IN THE SENATE.
The abortion decision is one of several high court rulings restoring constitutional principles to American governance and education. These rulings have so outraged Democrats that they are out to undermine the independence of the judiciary by any means they can get away with. Predictably, they voice fury at Donald Trump for the appointments of three conservative justices responsible for these rulings.
As usual, Democrats have got it wrong. Their ire is misdirected. The credit, or blame, for those Trump Supreme Court justices should go to former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). He was the one who blew up the Senate’s judicial filibuster, a procedure that had given the minority party an important and at times even a determinate voice in approving high court picks.
Back then Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell warned Democrats they would come to regret Reid’s wrecking ball, and sooner than they might think. He was right.
Now Democrats have embarked on politically motivated criminal prosecutions against a former Republican president. That’s a precedent they may regret, and maybe sooner than they think.
******
Republicans have launched an impeachment inquiry against President Biden over accusations of influence-peddling in collusion with his son while father Biden was vice president to Barack Obama.
In its long history, this country has seen five impeachment stories. The first impeachment, against Abraham Lincoln’s successor Andrew Johnson, came within one vote in the Senate of kicking him out of the White House.
The second, an impeachment inquiry against Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal, never required an actual impeachment vote or Senate trial. As the evidence against Nixon mounted, Republicans in the Senate told him that an impeachment in the House and a conviction in the Senate were sure things. Nixon resigned.
The three impeachments since then — against Presidents Clinton and Trump — were, by comparison, trivial matters, political show trials that had no hope of conviction in the Senate.
But at least those political prosecutions were based on events that occurred during the Clinton and Trump presidencies. Now Republicans are going after Biden for something he allegedly did as vice president.
Do Republicans really want to establish a precedent of starting impeachment inquiries against presidents for things they did in the past when they were not president?
If so, they may come to regret it, and maybe sooner than they think.
******
Chicago appears nowhere near to growing weary of its ugly crime wave. The city only a few months ago elected Brandon Johnson as mayor, even though every voter knew he was committed to a soft-on-crime agenda.
So far this year, crime is up 30 percent over 2022, reports the Wirepoints weekly crime tracker. And Chicago recorded 204 murders during Johnson’s first 100 days in office.
To the mayor, the juvenile delinquents who trash and loot stores and turn city streets into nightmares of unrestrained menace are mere youths with nothing better to do. In his words, “it is not constructive to demonize youth who have otherwise been starved of opportunities in their own communities.”
Cars are being stolen because a couple of auto makers produce vehicles Johnson deems easy to steal. So he sues the two automakers.
Blame the victim is Johnson’s mantra. Should sexual assault victims start worrying that the mayor may start looking at how short their skirts may have been?
******
The crime plaguing Chicago and so many other cities is overwhelming under-manned police departments. And police officers are demoralized by elected officials who scapegoated them in the wake of the Black Lives Matter riots that erupted following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Here’s a thought about that event:
George Floyd would be alive today and ingesting his favorite illegal drugs if he had not tried to rob a Minneapolis merchant by passing counterfeit money.
George Floyd would be alive today and contemplating new crimes if he had not disobeyed orders from police arresting him.
No, that’s not excusing any police abuse during his arrest.
It’s simply recognition that Floyd initiated the chain of events that led to his death. Breaking the law and resisting arrest constitute risky behavior that exposes a criminal to the possibility of unforeseen peril. That’s not saying he’s primarily responsible for his own death, just acknowledging that Floyd was not without blame for his death.
******
The last Minneapolis police officer convicted in the death of Floyd was sentenced last month to four years and nine months in prison. The crime alleged against Tou Thao: Exercising crowd control around the Floyd street arrest, which was characterized as having “stood by and allowed it (Floyd’s death) to happen” and preventing others from perhaps helping Floyd.
At his sentencing, Thao declared, “I did not commit these crimes. My conscience is clear. I will not be a Judas nor join a mob in self-preservation or betray my God.”
That took guts. And the mob remark surely does describe the atmosphere surrounding the arrests, trials and convictions of the cops held responsible for Floyd’s death.
******
Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of killing Floyd based on video of Floyd’s arrest that is damning. A jury found that Floyd died from police abuse, Chauvin kneeling on his neck, and not the fentanyl in his system that greatly exceeded what is usually a lethal dose.
That conviction is being appealed by Chauvin’s lawyer to the U.S. Supreme Court on grounds Chauvin was denied a fair trial because of the notoriety and rioting surrounding the case.
The rioting caused the jurors in the case “to all express concerns for their safety in the event they acquitted Mr. Chauvin — safety concerns which are fully evidenced by surrounding the courthouse in barbed wire and national guard troops during the trial,” said Chauvin’s lawyer, Bill Mohrman, in a statement.
Was Derek Chauvin railroaded into prison to prevent a return of the 2020 Black Lives Matter rioting to American cities?
We’ve seen a number of disruptive demonstrations by environmentalists complaining about fossil fuels. They’ve blocked roads. They’ve tossed soup and paint onto great works of art in museums. They’ve glued their hands to trains and roads.
What’s common to these tactics is that they inconvenience folks trying to go about their lives or enjoy the world’s great cultural treasures.
How to respond to these disruptions?
Let them know how much their approach alienates you. Drive your car aimlessly for a half an hour or more. If it’s air-conditioning weather, turn down the thermostat a couple of degrees for an hour. If it’s cold, turn up the thermostat.
Let them know their demonstrations disrupting your lives will result only in more fossil fuels being burned.
Every time one of these protests makes life miserable for us, the conservative network of broadcast, cable and web sites should erupt with calls that it’s time to burn some extra fossil fuels. Let them learn disruptive protests are self defeating.
******
The accusation of misogyny gets tossed a lot around today, usually aimed at conservatives. But the biggest, most serious, most far reaching misogyny these days is the trans movement’s drive to destroy women’s and girls’ sports.
The most widely known and infamous example is Lia Thomas, the man turned trans woman who took over the University of Pennsylvania women’s swimming team to deny championship trophies to female swimmers.
If the conservative side was anywhere near as savvy in street theater as the left wing, Thomas and other trans women dominating women’s sports would not be able to appear in public without being greeted by chants of “Show us your vagina! Show us your vagina!”
Back to the Trump indictments. There’s talk of prosecutors pushing for a trial of Trump within a matter of months. Justice for American democracy demands it, say prosecutors.
It’s been more than two decades since the Sept. 11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans and brought down the Twin Towers. Yet there’s still been no trial for the jailed five jihadist terrorists responsible for that atrocity.
Where is justice for American democracy in that?