The Comey Clusterfuck – A Little History

What Was the Saturday Night Massacre, and Why It’s Being Compared to Trump’s Firing of Comey
Trump’s firing of FBI director James Comey was compared by many to the infamous Saturday Night Massacre of the Nixon presidency

Shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump fired FBI director James Comey, speculation arose that the dismissal was motivated not by the ostensible reason – that the FBI director mishandled the probe into Hillary Clinton during the election – but because Comey was in charge of the investigation into alleged ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.
The dramatic turn of events took Washington by surprise, and many commentators and lawmakers compared the firing to the Nixon Presidency’s Saturday Night Massacre, one of the most sordid moments in White House history.
The events of the Saturday Night Massacre transpired on October 20, 1973, in the midst of the Watergate Scandal. Independent special prosecutor Archibald Cox, who had been appointed to investigate the events surrounding the Watergate break-in, had issued a subpoena to President Richard Nixon, demanding copies of taped conversations recorded in the Oval Office.

READ IN FULL: Trump’s letter to Comey informing him of his termination               

Nixon refused to comply, and offered instead to have Senator John C. Stennis – who was hard of hearing – summarize the tapes for Cox. Cox refused the compromise, and on the next day Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Cox.
But Richardson refused, and resigned in protest.
Nixon then turned to Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus with the same demand. But Ruckelshaus also refused and resigned.
Nixon then brought in Solicitor General Robert Bork to the White House, where he was sworn in as Acting Attorney General. Bork then proceeded to write the letter firing Cox, per Nixon’s demand.
The events of the night roiled the United States, rattling the president’s already shaky approval rating, and have been known as the Saturday Night Massacre since.
Cox was eventually replaced by a second special prosecutor, who managed to obtain the Oval Office tapes. Facing impeachment, Nixon resigned less than a year later.
Meanwhile, in the present, the Nixon Library was not too pleased with the comparisons between its namesake and Trump, tweeting:

read more at Haaretz.com

The Comey Clusterfuck – Echoes of Nixon

Echoes of Nixon in Comey firing

By The Republican Editorials      From: masslive.com

Richard Nixon is back in Washington, at least in spirit.
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump fired FBI chief James Comey, who had been directing a probe of the Trump campaign’s links to Russia and of Russian meddling in last year’s presidential election. Why? According to the White House, Comey was axed because the administration was unhappy with his handling of the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was Secretary of State.
Yeah, sure.
No rational, sentient person can believe that Comey was given the boot for any reason other than his probe of the Trump campaign’s links to Russia, and Russian efforts to tilt last year’s presidential election toward the former reality TV star.
Upon moving into the White House, Trump had a portrait of Andrew Jackson, our nation’s seventh chief executive, displayed prominently in the Oval Office. Because he believed, it was clear, that he’d be as transformative a figure as was the man called Old Hickory.
He reached too far, not only back in time, but also in character. Rather than resembling Jackson, Trump, with his sacking of Comey, was acting just like former President Richard Nixon – the most paranoid, most vindictive of modern chief executives, a frequently unstable man whose tyrannical leanings are legion.
Next time you see a photograph of Trump sitting before that painting of Jackson, imagine instead it’s the spirit of Nixon looking over the new president’s shoulder, offering, ah, moral guidance.
Questions about Russia’s interference in last year’s election and the Trump campaign’s connections with Russian operatives cannot be waved away with a magic wand. This is the real world, not some episode of “The Apprentice” where a raging Trump gets to shout: “You’re fired!”
The Russian investigation is now going to be left to Congress. Members of both parties must rise above the partisanship that has riven the land, and our federal city, to see that the probe is not swept away with Comey’s firing.
Anyone can see clearly that the next FBI director will be some Trump lackey. (You could do worse than to choose New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie or former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani in the office pool.)
What Trump did on Tuesday when he fired Comey was indefensible. It’s the kind of thing one expects to see happen in some far-flung land ruled by a despot, not in the world’s oldest continuous democracy.
The White House’s excuse for why it gave Comey the old heave-ho was laughable. Because of his handling of Clinton’s emails? No one over the age of about 6 should be expected to swallow that one.
There’s every reason to believe the evening of May 9 will be seen as a turning point in the young administration of the first president elected without having had either prior political or military experience. It’s entirely possible that it will mark the day when even many of Trump’s supporters, the folks who had continued to back their man no matter what, finally began to find his behavior beyond defending.
Why did Trump fire Comey? Because of Russia. The answer is as plain and simple and as clear as can be. It’s as clear as Nixon’s firing of special prosecutor Archibald Cox in October 1973, at the height of the Watergate investigation.
That move would lead ultimately to Nixon’s resignation. Though we’re nowhere near that territory now, the gravity of the two firings is comparable. Comey, of course, was FBI director, not a special prosecutor. But their ousters are eerily similar.
This is a watershed moment for the Trump administration.
We, the people of the United States, represented by our elected officials, are supposed to be running the show.
When a U.S. president, often referred to as the leader of the free world, begins instead to resemble a tinhorn dictator, no one should turn a blind eye to what’s going on inside the White House.

The Comey Clusterfuck – The Dark Timeline Gets Darker

The Dark Timeline Gets Darker: Brief Thoughts on the Comey Firing

Let’s lay out some brief thoughts here on the fuckery that’s occurred today in the firing of FBI Director James Comey by President Donald Trump.
1. Comey should have been fired by President Obama for his interference in the 2016 election. He was a completely vindictive bastard to Hillary Clinton in his letter about…oh, fuck you know all this shit. Fuck that guy. Hard.
2. The Deputy Attorney General said that Comey’s dismissal was recommended because of his handling of the Clinton investigation, including his press conference announcing no charges and his statements close to the election about the emails on Huma Abedin’s computer. Comey has lied his ass off since about that latter action.
3. But there is no fucking way that that is the reason that Trump fired Comey. The FBI is anal-probing the connections between the Trump campaign/administration and Russia. And if Trump gave a happy monkey fuck about Comey’s handling of the Clinton email case, well, who the fuck keeps such an incompetent prick on the payroll, running a giant intelligence-gathering and law enforcement agency, for months?
4. No, fuck that. The Clinton shit is an obvious cover story. Comey was fired because he’s dangerous. He’s fired because Trump wants heads to put on the White House fence to threaten others. He can line up Comey’s next to the noggins of Sally Yates and Preet Bharara. Trump’s letter of dismissal said, in part, “I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation.” Jesus, how pathetic to shiv a man while you talk about how awesome you are. How frightening that Trump seems to be discrediting anything that comes out of the FBI against him now that Comey is gone.
4a. And Trump had been ordering Jeff Sessions to find a reason to fire Comey since at least last week. These fuckin’ fascists.
5. Not scared yet? We no longer have a functioning Justice Department. We don’t have a Congress that will check or balance the president in even the smallest ways. We have a president who doesn’t care about anything other than protecting his orange ass and centralizing all power within him and his small cadres of hellspawn and spunk monkeys. And he’s gonna appoint someone from that cadre to erase the investigations so he can gallivant on with his awful presidency.
6. Yeah, fuck Comey for what he did. But fuck anyone who thinks this is okay, that it’s all cool just because Trump can fire the people he’s fired. And fuck us, again and again, for allowing this mongrel age to happen.
6a. Fuck us even harder if an independent investigation isn’t launched on this and everything else.
7. Somewhere, the corpse of Niccolo Machiavelli is laughing its bony ass off.
8. In Hell, Richard Nixon rolled his eyes and wondered where the fuck this GOP was back in the 1970s. And then he was dipped back into the shit pit.

by the Rude Pundit

The Comey Clusterfuck – A Dark Day

Future generations may mark today as one of the truly dark days in American history, a history that may soon take an even more ominous turn.

President Trump’s …sudden firing of FBI Director James Comey is a matter that should deeply concern every American, regardless of party, partisan politics or ideological leanings.

The independence of our law enforcement is at the bedrock of our democracy. That independence, already grievously shaken under the brief tenure of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, is now shattered by uncertainty.

The firing of an FBI Director is always a very serious matter in normal times. But these times aren’t normal. Far from it. The Bureau is engaged in one of the most important and perilous investigations of this or any other presidency—the investigation of connections between the Trump election campaign and the Russian government.

The questions mount and the shadow grows darker. What were those connections? What did Mr. Trump know about them and when did he know it? How can the President explain the serious allegations against his former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn? And what is President Trump hiding in this regard? It’s imperative that the nation—We The People—get answers to those questions. It will take time, but the process must start now.

A politicized FBI is the last thing we need as we struggle through the maze of lies, concealment and ever-deepening mysteries. The last time a President fired prosecutors who were investigating him was Richard Nixon during the widespread criminal conspiracy known for short as “Watergate.” We all know how that turned out. In real ways, this potential scandal and coverup are much graver. We are talking about the very security of the United States and the sanctity of our republic.

Thomas Paine famously wrote in 1776: “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. ”

I see this as having the potential for a similar reflection point in our American story. If there is a cover up, if our nation is at the risk that has certainly been more than suggested, it is incumbent upon everyone who claims to love this nation to demand answers.

We need a special prosecutor. We need an independent investigation. There is, obviously, much we don’t know about what has just happened, why it happened and why now. Just as obviously there is much more, so much more that we need know. We need to damn the lies and expose the truth.

Dan Rather, from News and Guts

misstate of the union

as state of the union speeches go it was okay …
short, to the point, and full of good ideas …
NONE of which the rethugs are going to allow to be passed into law …
NONE! …
now, a few words from the rude one …

The Rude Pundit: Random Observations on the State of the Union Speech

1. President Obama mentioned “Republicans” only three times in the State of the Union speech last night. Each time it was in a grouping with Democrats and, twice, others, like “business leaders,” as in “Democrats, Republicans, business leaders, and economists have already said that these cuts, known here in Washington as the sequester, are a really bad idea.” At no time, not a single time, did he lay the blame for obstructionism at the feet of those responsible, you know, Republicans. Indeed, if you had no idea who was responsible for the sequester (Republicans who took the debt ceiling hostage), the failure to pass jobs programs (Republicans), and the death of the Dream Act (you know who), you’d think that the problem was everyone, which, of course, it isn’t.
On a bill about refinancing mortgages for homeowners, Obama said, “Democrats and Republicans have supported it before, so what are we waiting for? Take a vote, and send me that bill. Why would we be against that? Why would that be a partisan issue, helping folks refinance? Right now, overlapping regulations keep responsible young families from buying their first home. What’s holding us back?” Again, notice: he didn’t say, “Okay, everyone, look at those motherfuckers on the right side of the House. They’re what’s holding us back, on everything.”
So when Republicans went forth after the State of the Union and said that President Obama was blaming the GOP, it was a goddamn lie. On CBS This Morning, Paul Ryan said of Obama, “He seems to always be in campaign mode, where he treats people in the other party as enemies rather than partners.” That’s only true if you accept that Obama meant “Republicans” when he asked, “Why would we be against that?” (which he totally meant).
In other words, you could be pissed that Obama didn’t go more forcefully and specifically at Republicans. Or you could marvel at how Obama essentially got Republicans to say, “Yeah, we are those motherfuckers he was talking about. That’s us.”
2. Mostly, though, it was a boring, middle-of-the-road, uncontroversial speech, filled with solid ideas that most Americans support, ideas on infrastructure, immigration, jobs, and climate change that, as is tediously pointed out by everyone who follows politics, the GOP supported not so long ago. The fact that anything Obama said would be considered even the least bit radical or out-of-the-mainstream is simply the depressing circumstance of the post-Tea Party context in which the speech is given because enough of those lunatic assholes vote in the primaries to scare the shit out of GOP candidates.
3. The foreign policy section was ridiculous and depressing. Al-Qaeda “is a shadow of its former self,” he said before justifying the drone missile program by saying that “we don’t need to send tens of thousands of our sons and daughters abroad or occupy other nations.” Then he made a vague promise related to the complete lack of oversight of the president’s ability to blow the fuck out of anyone he chooses (and anyone nearby). “I will continue to engage Congress to ensure not only that our targeting, detention and prosecution of terrorists remains consistent with our laws and system of checks and balances, but that our efforts are even more transparent to the American people and to the world,” he offered. That means, essentially, “I’ll decide what you need to know and when you need to know it.” If you have to say you’re going to be “more transparent,” it means you’re going to remain opaque. There was no talk about an end to this kind of hostility, only a promise that this is the way things will be from now on (unless a brave Congress is willing to make him stop).
4. But the final section, calling for votes on “proposals” on gun control, invoking the names of those injured and killed by unending gun violence, was passionate and engaging, to such an extent that you had to wonder where that kind of emotion was in the rest of the speech. However, when the Rude Pundit realized that the President of the United States was essentially begging Congress to allow votes on the simplest, most minimal new gun laws, he just felt sad, for the man, for the body, for a nation that no longer can reach for anything more than the mundane and then call it “grand.”
5. Goodbye, Marco Rubio. When you bent over to get that bottle of water, you may as well have been going to suck your own dick, which, to think of it, was pretty much all your response was.
reposted from  the rude pundit … now go read some more of his stuff …  that’s an order …

marco rubio toasting the end of his career …