Tuesday, May 9, 2017
Trump fires FBI director Comey
UPDATE ...
- Another piece of the puzzle: Days Before Firing, Comey Asked for More Resources for Russia Inquiry
- And here's Tim Kaine on the situation ...
* * *
In another news video from CNN, it was mentioned that Trump had been wanting to fire Comey for some time, so he tasked Sessions and Rosenstein with coming up with some credible reasons for doing so and then he disingenuously averred that he was acting on their recommendations ....
But the real reason? So obviously because Comey told the House subcommitte that he was investigating the connections between Trump and the Russians hacking the election.
Shades of Nixon and the Saturday Night Massacre!
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I'm actually surprised that Comey lasted this long. Trump hasn't needed a logical reason for anything else he has done. But I suppose he felt that the FBI was closing in on the Russian connection, so the situation became urgent.
ReplyDeleteOld Democratic Conventional Wisdom: He seriously abused his authority and cost Hillary the election!
ReplyDeleteNew Democratic Conventional Wisdom: This man of integrity was our only hope against Trump!
David, both can be true.
ReplyDeleteCrystal,
ReplyDeleteYes, but it is still ironic. It's impossible to know for sure, but he really may have been the cause pf Trump winning. But he is being looked on as almost indispensable (unless they can manage to get a special prosecutor). If it weren't for him, we might not even be in this mess of having Trump as president. These are bizarre times.
One of Trump's tweets this morning made this same observation about the irony of the Dem response ... as if that is some type of justification for the move. In my view, firing Comey, whose record might have been OK overall, was a move to stall and interfere with the Russia-Trump investigation.
DeleteAs Jean says, the Democratic outraged response is not about Comey's worth. It's about Trump firing the person, whoever he might have been, who was investigating him.
DeleteYes, true - ironic. I wasn't sure what to make of Comey. I liked him when he was investigating the shootings in San Bernardino, then I was mad at him about Hillary, then liked him for standing up to Trump. At the end of the day, I think he was sincerely trying to do the right thing all the time.
ReplyDeleteReading more about this ... Sessions was told to find reasons to fire Comey: reports
ReplyDeleteRight now, I'm trying to resolve, as best I can, an intractable situation with my mother and aunt's living situation, not made easier by their stubbornness and bad choices over the last ten years. My being an only child, my aunt having no children, the buck stops here. This personal stress is not made easier by the overarching dome of gloom and doom which is the Repub apocalypse. The fist fights aboard airplanes signal for me a society under pandemic stress and infused with a nonspecific anger. I can only hope that that anger can eventually find its proper object instead of the immigrants and muslims.
ReplyDeleteBoy, do I resemble your remarks! Off to the doctor with my mother tomorrow to try to get some traction with her doctor. Dealing with personal problems against the background of political turmoil and idiocy plus social uncertainty is difficult. Many prayers to all those dealing with elders who are their own worst enemies. I think I'm due for a day trip to the lake in the lounge chair.
DeleteStanley and Jean, my hat is off to you and my prayers are with you as you minister to those who need you in the midst of so many other personal or societal problems. As a single-again person of an intuitive bent, I had to rely on the know-how, practicality and sometimes physical strength of so many Good Samaritans over the years: my brother, my sons, good-hearted folks in my communities. Couldn't have made it without them. God bless you both today with grace and strength for the fray! Your labors are precious!
DeleteThanks, Carolyn. I'll cede most of my points to Jean. Stan
DeleteThanks, Carolyn. Better not cede those points too early, Stanley. I opined to Raber last night that I didn't know if I had the strength to be that good a person.
DeleteJean, I know exactly what you mean. "Elders who are their own worst enemy" encapsulates it all. And they can auger you into the ground without trying too hard. In my situation, stubborn P-word comes to mind.
DeleteYes, but it's hard to be old and to be losing your independence. Pretty soon that will be us - imagine how it will feel to have other people deciding your most important decisions for you.
DeleteYeah, it's hard, but it seems like Step Number One would be NOT to call the one offspring left who is willing to help you a "f***ing health Nazi."
Delete:) Yeah, my mom accused me of trying to convert her to Christianity when she was sick. I did a pretty bad job of taking care of her and I was mad at her the whole time for dragging us into all that suffering because she had been a life-long smoker. I think it was easier to be mad at her then to feel something even worse.
DeleteSenior issues...lot of that going around. We went out to the other end of the state to see my dad this past weekend. Just looking at his pickup, it appears his driving skills have deteriorated. I am thankful that my brother and sister in law live just across the road from Dad, and see him every day. He doesn't get around very fast or very well anymore; a consequence of having worked in a pretty physical occupation. On the plus side, he still does the Omaha World Herald and the L.A. Times crossword puzzles every day. And always has a book he is reading. Some of them are surprising, like the one by Isabel Allende.
DeleteStanley, I hope things improve with your family.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Crystal. I think I have a path forward and have figured out the logistics, I think, and my mother seems agreeable. It isn't optimal for their health and safety but you have to look at the whole picture.
ReplyDeleteI recall when my mother had lung cancer. I was living here with her. I was so lucky my sister was in town too - she did most of the hard stuff of helping.
DeleteLet's see. The pudgy guy with the cheap Chinese-made neckties called Comey "gutsy" for staying on Hillary's case. And now he is firing Comey for what he did about Hillary's case, even though Comey is investigating the pudgy guy's buddies, which has nothing to do with the firing. And he is firing him on the advice of, among others, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, who has recused himself from the investigation of the pudgy guy's buddies, being one of those being investigated. So obviously, ole Jeff's advice had everything to do with Hillary and nothing to do with the investigation from which ole Jeff had to recuse himself. Plainly.
ReplyDeleteEven when they have time to plan them, their lies are incredible. To all but the 40 percent who are as firm as the insane asylum mattresses, where they all belong.
Yeah, they do seem really inept at obfuscating the truth :)
ReplyDeleteI'm sure whoever Trump appoints to the position, he'll make Comey look like an archangel. He has the knack.
ReplyDeleteI am old enough to remember Watergate and the "Saturday Night Massacre," and there is a surreal quality to the Trump-Comey business (and the Trump administration in general) that I don't remember from Watergate. Bad as Nixon was, the sense we (or at least I) had about Watergate was, "This really shouldn't be happening." Whereas my feeling about much of what has happened beginning with the Trump election is, "This can't be happening!" It's like we have found ourselves in an alternative reality. I remember having somewhat the same feeling on an otherwise absolutely beautiful September day in Manhattan standing on the roof of my building and watching the clouds of smoke and dust pouring out of what had been the site of the twin towers of the Word Trade Center.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me like this administration has already passed the Nixon one in levels of corruption. And the bad part is that I have developed kind of a jaded attitude about it; almost expecting some new revelation every time I open up a news site.
DeleteSomeone--Tom Blackburn?--opined that Trump is basically running the presidency like a reality TV show, and I think that's about right. He creates a lot of subplots and drama, keeping things in turmoil. And I'm not sure that his "hey, look over there!" tactics aren't designed to make everybody dizzy and unbalanced.
DeleteMy sense is that this is all pretty calculated and makes a smokescreen foe his primary endeavor, which is to use the presidency to leverage influence with foreign and domestic agentd to further his business interests.
Despite his inability to articulate anything coherent in an interview (read the transcript of John Dickerson's exclusive, OMG), he is able to stay in character, projecting bravado and contempt, the characteristics his supporters seem to be drawn to over any kind of substance.
And I am in a more surreal world where too many folks I know are just fine with what's happening. (Stop whining, snowflake)
DeleteI'm old enough to remember Watergate too. I had my first part time job at a tv repair place then and watched the Watergate hearings on the sets at the store. This does seem somehow actually worse.
ReplyDeleteAh, I remember when they repaired TVs. In the early 70s, our lab had a tube tester. We maintained good relations with the other divisions by repairing their TVs. The technician Dominic pulled the tubes out hot so many times, the feeling in his fingertips was gone. He also had holes drilled in his fingerbones from accidental giant capacitor discharges. Oh, the days of discrete electronic components. They were such fun. Then everything became small and irreparable.
DeleteI think I remember my Dad liking Nixon until the end. Happy to report that said Dad did NOT vote for Trump- he left President's line blank on ballot in November and just voted the down ticket.
DeleteJohn Farrell was on PBS recently talking about his book, "Nixon: The Life," in which he discussed Nixon's exploitation of the "politics of grievance." He puts Trump in the "grievance" boat, but made Nixon sound like a prince by comparison: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/new-biography-humanizes-nixon-revealing-reprehensible-act/
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the fact that Nixon sabotaged the Paris Peace Talks has even entered the American consciousness. Do the millenials even know who Nixon was? I've heard the recording of LBJ talking to Everett Dirksen about the affair. Remarkable.
DeleteI hadn't heard about that incident, Stanley. Wonder how many lives that cost!
DeleteI might be the only liberal in America who thinks Nixon might have had some good qualities. Some very good federal housing programs came out of his administration.
DeleteIrene, way back then, Republicans were more like Democrats. Today, Democrats are more like Republicans. Reagan and the 0.001% successfully shifted the spectrum. Nixon was undoubtedly to the left of the Clintons and Obama. But then, the legislature was democratic, too.
DeleteKatherine, 20,000 troops killed, 100,000 wounded and one million Vietnamese. Then there's Reagan's Casey disrupting hostage negotiations with the iranians. They were magically released when Raygun was inaugurated.
ReplyDeleteNow Trump is saying he planned to fire Comey all along; he was just looking for an excuse. Even if that's true the motive and timing is still suspect, and contradicts what he said before. But consistency isn't one of Trump's hallmarks.
ReplyDelete