Comey Firing: Key Day in History?

I remember how Right Wing World used to pick on
Hillary Clinton's looks. Now they ignore Donnie's.
Funny that.

The firing by (shudder) President Donald Trump of FBI Director James Comey could be a key day in history.

Why am I, runner of a half-abandoned hobbyist blog, qualified to say such a thing? I'm not. But call it a hunch. It simply feels momentous, this day. The left sees it as the move of a desperate man, but with the horrifying possibility of actually working. The right is overjoyed, seemingly unable to see Trump in anything but the most forgiving light. I mistakenly thought this was a very temporary effect of both winning an unexpected win, and of making liberals unhappy.

But Trump is very, very good at making liberals unhappy. And, if you haven't figured it out by now, conservatives like little more than "liberal tears." It's becoming very clear, that is largely what the whole Trump thing is about. He can hire people wholly unqualified for their jobs, to the point of opposing the very agencies they're put in charge of. He can use worse English than Sarah Palin hopped up on goofers. He can embarrass us on a world stage, show the most rudimentary of knowledge on civics. Doesn't matter how oafish, cartoonish, buffoonish and asinine he displays himself to be, they love him, because he pisses off the correct people.

For everyone not under that thrall, the experience is quite different. This is a presidency off the rails. An absolute train wreck that just gets worse as the days go by. And the suspicion of corruption, and even collusion with the Russians seems far more plausible. It's feeling more and more like an unfolding Watergate-type scandal, and the Comey firing feels like a key moment.

Depending on how much focus this story holds on the news cycle, and whether it grows, or peters out, it's still key. Because if Trump survives it, and we move on to the next outrage. If nothing comes of the Russia investigations, and in two months the story is on Trump insulting another ally, then that key moment will be, he got away with it.

And that will make a lot of people wonder, what on earth would or could be his undoing, if he can skate by after probably colluding with a hostile foreign government (not to mention the many and varied conflicts of interest, nepotism and the rest).

But, if this is the moment when some of the saner conservatives (they are out there, they've gotta be. . .right?) begin to peel off, and get on board the anti-Trump train. Or at least start demanding some real answers. I guess we'll see which way it unfolds together. Maybe I'll try to poke my head in here a bit more often as we find out.

[Excerpt]

Trump's love-hate relationship with James Comey

The same day FBI Director James Comey announced he was recommending that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton not be charged in connection with her use of a private email server, then-candidate Donald Trump walked onto a stage in Raleigh, North Carolina, and proclaimed: "Our system is absolutely, totally rigged. . ."

Read more at: CNN

Jon Stewart Takes FOX "News" to Task Over Benghazi Coverage

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Wednesday night really boiled down the essence of what is wrong with the FOX "News" attempts to turn Benghazi into a -gate-style scandal. It's that they're upset with other media outlets for not covering a scandal they think might have happened. They've got a vague coverup conspiracy theory that doesn't make much sense, and not much else.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook

What I'd really like a Benghazi-gate believer to explain to me is the odd fixation they have on Susan Rice's appearances on the Sunday morning talk shows five days later. I don't care if she said something crazy like Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11 (cough), it was five days later. It is not still five days later. You'd think, by the harping you hear about this, that oh, say Lindsey Graham and John McCain haven't said dozens of misleading/untrue/flat-out wrong things on Meet the Press, Face the Nation, FOX "News" Sunday and the rest for freakin' years now. It doesn't point to conspiracy or coverup, it points to the bullshit nature of these types of shows. When Hillary Clinton said, "What difference – at this point, what difference does it make?" I was 1000% on board with her sentiment. She wasn't saying that what happened in Benghazi makes no difference, only that our assessment of what happened five days later makes no difference now. And it doesn't.

Arpaio: Conspiracy bigger than Watergate

I have an honest question. Is Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona stupid? Is he gullible, easily duped? Is he easily confused? Or is he, perhaps, an opportunistic, lying, fame whore limelight seeker?  Because, the whole "birther" conspiracy theory set. . .they're bonkers. They're nuts. Their head cheerleader is the daffy Orly Taitz, the Gabor-like combination lawyer/dentist/realtor. Every, single (and I mean every, single) claim in this ridiculous theory has been debunked. Over and over again.

Click to embiggen.

I'll give you a quick one: They say to this day that President Obama's "grandmother" admitted that Obama was born in Kenya. A) she was his step-grandmother, and B) she was being mistranslated, and corrected the record in the same interview. They just cut that part out. That's how they work in tinfoil hat land. But Arpaio's corner of the conspiracy is the birth certificate.

For years, the birthers said--seemingly every other sentence--that if Obama just released his "long form" birth certificate, "all of this would just go away." The conspiracy would go poof, and they'd go on with their lives. But they didn't. Because, you see, all a good conspiracy theory needs is more layers. And--unwittingly--the White House gave them more layers. Boy, howdy.

You see, the electronic version of the Hawaii certified certificate of live birth was scanned into Adobe Reader. If you do that on default settings, the scanner tries to break the image into sections, ostensibly for optical character recognition (OCR), but who knows what good it actually does. It's kind of random, as you might expect for a computer that can't think or reason. So, when you open the file in a graphics program, you watch it assemble itself before your eyes. I got a half step into conspiracy world for about ninety seconds. Because, hey, it has layers!

My (gay) marriage certificate.
Embiggen all you want, it's low-res!

Very quickly, I realized, a) this is not the actual document, it's a scan of it; b) if they were going to forge the document, they'd do it on the physical specimen, not in the online version; and c) the White House has resources most forgers couldn't dream of. If they were going to forge it, it would be fucking undetectable. But conspiracy theorists don't try to step out of their bubbles when presented with something new. No, they seek to incorporate whatever comes their way that feeds the conspiracy, and eject what doesn't. On the surface, the layers seem hinky. And that's really all they need.

Though my deductive reasoning concluded that the layered document was normal, I decided to perform an experiment, to see if Adobe Reader really behaved that way. If I could reproduce a similar effect, then I would be debunking the whole "layers" hoo-ha! So, I cobbled my ancient G4 PowerBook (since replaced) to my ancient-er HP ScanJet 3C, and scanned my City of Palm Springs Marriage Certificate. The results (and ensuing pointless argument with a birther) can be viewed here. And anybody thinking there is anything to birtherism (or Arpaio's tilting at windmills), should explore the site linked below. I'm serious: they debunk everything.

[Excerpt]

Arpaio: Conspiracy bigger than Watergate 

The Arizona Republic quotes Sheriff Joe Arpaio offering a conspiracy-based explanation why the media has universally panned the investigation by a group of birthers who used his office to publicize their ideas. . .

Read more at: Obama Conspiracy Theories

Boy Wonder Conservative "Journalist" Busted in Louisiana

Image from source, MSNBC

Excuse my schadenfreude, but it's been a crappy run of days lately in politics, and this one was needed for "our side." A young man who has been touted as the future of journalism by the right-wing has been hoisted by his own petard. This could possibly turn out to be little more than a prank. But when you pull a prank at a US government facility, with the implication of doing damage to a United States Senator? Well, that turns a prank into a criminal offense, even if he only gets a slap on the wrist for it.

[Excerpt]

Activist filmmaker arrested in senator’s office

A conservative filmmaker who posed as a pimp to target the liberal activist group ACORN was arrested with the son of a federal prosecutor and two other men and accused of plotting to tamper with the New Orleans offices of Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La.

Activist James O'Keefe, 25, recorded two of the other suspects with his cell phone as they walked into the office dressed like telephone repairmen and said they needed to fix problems with the phone system, according to an FBI affidavit. . .

Read more at: MSNBC

Lawrence O'Donnell OWNS Pat Buchanan

It is scary that occasionally I agree with Pat Buchanan these days, especially as it relates to the Iraq War. But I still remember the scathing, nasty speech he gave at the 1992 Republican National Convention--the speech that essentially changed me from a Republican to a Democrat. He may well have lost the election for George H. W. Bush with that speech.

So, I feel a sense of schadenfreude when occasionally Pat Buchanan gets put in his place. Here on MSNBC's The Verdict with Dan Abrams, Lawrence O'Donnell does just that. Good.

Democrats Start Contempt Trial, Recall Watergate

Photo from Medal of Freedom

I've had something of a crummy day, and political news hasn't improved my mood. . .until now. THIS lifts my spirits! Go get 'em guys. And if this doesn't work, I will paraphrase Dolly Parton's Doralee Rhodes from 9 to 5: "Well I say we hire a couple of wranglers to go up there and beat the shit out of 'em!" Works for me.

[Excerpt]

Dems invoke Watergate in contempt trial

President Bush's refusal to let two confidants provide information to Congress about fired federal prosecutors represents the most expansive view of executive privilege since Watergate, the House Judiciary Committee told a federal judge Thursday. [snip]

"Not since the days of Watergate have the Congress and the federal courts been confronted with such an expansive view of executive privilege as the one asserted by the current presidential administration and the individual defendants in this case," according to the House's filing. . .

Read more at: Raw Story

State of the Union: Worst Since Watergate?

Photo from source, Guardian UK

When things are not going so well in America, it is a sticky issue to say so. The Limbaughs and Hannitys of the world tend to call any criticism of America, its President, or its foreign policy as completely out of bounds. You must hold up your We're Number 1! foam finger at all times if you are a true patriot! You will stand up, sing the national pledge of allegiance anthem, hand over heart, other hand saluting, flag pin not optional. Anything less, and you are an "America Hater."

So sometimes it is illustrative to see what the foreign press--who are not cowed by such sentiments--has to say about us.

[Excerpt]

US has not felt this bad since Watergate

Collapsing house prices across the United States have made Americans more pessimistic about the year to come than at any time since the height of the Watergate scandal and the first postwar oil price shock in the early 1970s, it was revealed yesterday.

Adding to fears that the world's biggest economy is falling deeper into recession, two reports showed an acceleration in the decline in house prices and an unexpectedly sharp fall in consumer confidence. . .

Read more at: Guardian UK

Bush Rolls Back Watergate Era Spying Safeguards

Photo from source, Raw Story

I have a question. Why is a The Decider--who only has 10 months left in office--still trying to make the office of President into that of a King? I understand why he did it over the last seven years. He obviously saw History of the World, Part I, and knows it's good to be the king. But now? What good does it do him if Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton have dictatorial powers?

And I have another question. Why do Republicans in Congress; indeed right wingers on radio, FOX "News," and their audience members, defend absolutely every overreach of power Bush pulls? Conservatives used to at least claim to be for rule of law, strict Constitutional allegiance, the right to privacy, fiscal responsibility, checks and balances, all that good stars and stripes stuff. What the hell do they stand for now?

[Excerpt]

Bush dials back Watergate-era reforms on spying safeguards

Executive order weakens intelligence oversight board

A little-noticed executive order President Bush signed last month dials back checks on the Intelligence Community that have been in place since revelations that spy agencies abused their power in the 1960s and 70s. [snip]

Almost 32 years to the day after President Ford created an independent Intelligence Oversight Board made up of private citizens with top-level clearances to ferret out illegal spying activities, President Bush issued an executive order that stripped the board of much of its authority. . .

Read more at: Raw Story (and a hat-tip to Stupid Monkey Planet)