Trump 17: James Comey and the Goblin of "You're Fired"

[GreyhoundFan]

58 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

Did Insipid Sarah just make an oopsie and reveal the real reason for firing Comey?

White House: Removing Comey will help bring Russia investigation to end

Now how are they going to spin this one? 

They'll say that the "fake news" had the audacity to take their statement word-for-word. Remember Kellyanne saying that we shouldn't pay attention to the words, but what was in Agent Orange's "heart" (if there is such a thing).

[AuntK]

I can't help but wonder if Comey finally realized the magnitude of his fuck-up the week before the election and his role in the ultimate victory of Trump, and was attempting, through this investigation, to salve his guilty conscience for helping this incompetent,  corrupt traitor get elected. 

I am convinced, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that Trump, his family members, Bannon, and others, are up to their eyeballs in this Russian conspiracy; I believe they are guilty of treason, I believe they worked with the Russians to steal the election. I remember reading a story where Butthead Trump, the stupid son, bragged to a writer about how they were able to get all the financing they needed for their golf developments from Russian banks, who were too happy to lend the money. I expect that they are up to their ears in debt to the Russians.  I am putting this together from all I have read and from my gut instinct, which has never failed me yet.  I hope enough comes out that we can rid this country of the Orange Menace as well as his progeny, but I doubt we will ever know the whole story.

 There are a number of assholes in Congress who need to be investigated as well.  You know who they are. . . the ones who have gotten unbelievably wealthy from their overly long careers in Congress.

[GreyhoundFan]

Just now, AuntK said:

snip

 There are a number of assholes in Congress who need to be investigated as well.  You know who they are. . . the ones who have gotten unbelievably wealthy from their overly long careers in Congress.

The same ones who keep "supporting" Agent Orange and looking the other way.  For example: "The Daily 202: Why is Paul Ryan really defending Trump firing Comey?" (long article, lots of info):

Quote

NEW ALBANY, Ohio — Rep. Paul Ryan desperately does not want the dark cloud hanging over the White House to distract congressional Republicans from advancing their ambitious policy agenda. Yesterday showed that he may no longer have a choice.

Donald Trump called the speaker of the House to give him a heads up that he was going to fire FBI director James B. Comey, yet Ryan (R-Wis.) still waited more than 24 hours after the news broke to make any public statement.

Repeating the pattern of last year’s campaign, the president sucked up all the oxygen and put Ryan on the defensive. The 2012 GOP nominee for vice president rolled up in a long motorcade to a plant here in central Ohio as part of an effort to jump-start his push for comprehensive tax reform.

But Ryan could not escape the Comey news, and some Republicans back in Washington freely acknowledged that the growing scandal will make passing big-ticket legislation, including tax reform, much harder.

The congressman from Wisconsin sniffed a canister of walleye bait that gets packaged at the facility. “I spray my lures,” he explained to his tour guide. As cameramen pleaded with him to say anything on the Comey news, he replied: “I’m not doing questions right now.”

At a roundtable with small-business owners later, he said: “I want to tell my friends in the press I’ll be making some statements later about the questions that they all have. At another time. But, right now, we want to talk with the people here about the issues that they are facing.”

The president firing an FBI director who was overseeing an investigation into his campaign’s possible collusion with the Russians is apparently not one of those issues.

Finally, after dodging the reporters who flew here to see him, he went on Fox News last night and offered support for Trump’s decision. "It is entirely within the president’s role and authority to relieve him, and that’s what he did,” Ryan said. “The president made a presidential decision.”

The Ohio events offered a revealing window into the 47-year-old’s thinking. He explained that there is currently “a once-in-a-generation opportunity” to simplify the tax code and cut rates for corporations. The last time the system got overhauled, he noted, was the year he got his first driver’s license. This has been his dream since coming to Congress two decades ago, and unified Republican control of the government has created a window to get it done. Left unsaid was that the Russia-Comey story, if allowed to get legs, threatens to prematurely close that window and stop him from getting what he cares about most.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Ryan’s counterpart in the Senate, also chose to defend Trump, even as some of his members expressed concerns. The speaker and the Senate majority leader each reiterated opposition to an independent investigation or special prosecutor. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Ryan, saying that the congressional intelligence committees should take the lead.

Both GOP leaders have been around town long enough to understand the risks of empowering an outside prosecutor who cannot be reined in by the president’s appointees. They saw what Ken Starr did to Bill Clinton and Patrick Fitzgerald did to Scooter Libby — and how those investigations brought Washington to a standstill.

...

Yeah, Lyan and McTurtle smell awfully dirty.

[JMarie]

Whenever I see Pence on TV, I like to imagine a thought bubble over his head, and the words "I'm gonna be president soooooon" are in that bubble.  There's no way any other words are in that thought bubble.

[AuntK]

9 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

The same ones who keep "supporting" Agent Orange and looking the other way.  For example: "The Daily 202: Why is Paul Ryan really defending Trump firing Comey?" (long article, lots of info):

Yeah, Lyan and McTurtle smell awfully dirty.

Yep, those are my top two candidates!

[Destiny]

I was at the gym today when Kellyanne Conway showed up on the TV screens to whine about Anderson Cooper being oh so sexist for rolling his eyes at her bullshit. I yelled (I thought in my head), "Fuck the actual fuck off Conway," at the TV. Turned out I said it out loud, not in my head. I got applause from the whole treadmill area.

Seriously, calling that sexism just belittles the real struggle that women have to be taken seriously. It wasn't because she was a woman, it's because she said something FUCKING STUPID. ARGH.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Okay, I hope nobody hates me for this one, it's hard to unsee...

Spoiler

 

And one that is just great:

[GreyhoundFan]

OMFG, talk about diarrhea of the mouth: "Trump said he was thinking of Russia controversy when he decided to fire Comey"

Quote

President Trump on Thursday said he was thinking of “this Russia thing with Trump” when he decided to fire FBI Director James B. Comey, who had been leading the counterintelligence investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

Recounting his decision to dismiss Comey, Trump told NBC News, “In fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won.’”

Trump’s account flatly contradicts the White House’s initial account of how the president arrived at his decision, undercutting public denials by his aides that the move was influenced in any way by his growing fury with the ongoing Russia probe.

Later in the same interview, Trump said he had no intention of trying to stop or hinder the FBI’s Russia probe, which is examining whether any Trump associates coordinated with Russians to influence the election. Trump also said he wants the probe “to be absolutely done properly.”

“I want that to be so strong and so good,” Trump told NBC anchor Lester Holt. He added, “I want to get to the bottom. If Russia hacked, if Russia did anything having to do with our election, I want to know about it.”

...

Trump’s account of his decision to fire Comey — whom he denigrated as “a showboat” and “a grandstander” — exposes the explanations made over the previous 48 hours by White House officials, including Vice President Pence, as misleading and in some cases false.

Initially, Trump aides had said the president fired Comey simply at the recommendation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, who wrote a memorandum detailing what he considered to be Comey’s flawed handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state.

In media appearances, administration officials repeatedly highlighted Rosenstein’s reputation of integrity and bipartisan appeal, effectively using his independence as a shield against criticism that Comey’s firing was politically motivated by the president.

Officials insisted that Trump’s decision was not shaped in any way by his growing fury with the Russia controversy. Trump has publicly called the ongoing probes by the FBI, as well as the Senate and House, “a total hoax” and “a taxpayer charade.”

But Trump made clear in Thursday’s interview that Russia indeed was on his mind. And he said Sessions and Rosenstein’s recommendations did not prompt his decision.

“I was going to fire Comey,” Trump told Holt. “Oh, I was going to fire regardless of recommendation.”

...

In interview, Trump also detailed three conversations he said he had with Comey about the Russia investigation. The president said the FBI director assured him in each discussion that he was not under investigation — once at a White House dinner when Comey was seeking to remain in his post and again in two phone calls. Trump said Comey initiated one of the calls.

“I said, ‘If it’s possible, would you let me know am I under investigation?’ He said, ‘You are not under investigation,’’’ Trump said.

In offering more details about an assertion he made when firing Comey on Tuesday—that Comey had repeatedly assured him he was not under investigation—the president raised new questions about his conduct toward the ongoing FBI probe into whether any Trump associates coordinated with Russia to meddle with last year’s presidential election.

Trump has repeatedly criticized that investigation, calling it a waste of taxpayer money, and denied he has any ties to Russia.

“There’s no collusion between me and my campaign and the Russians,” Trump told Holt.

He just can't help himself, can he?

[GreyhoundFan]

A few more, courtesy of George Takei:

 

 

In the "you couldn't make this shit up" bin: "Trump says he invented an 84-year-old phrase. But, why?"

Quote

Maybe it was a joke?

This is the eternal undercurrent of the Trump era: Does he actually mean what he says? Is he riffing? Is he joking? Is he serious? Is he exaggerating? Is he lying? President Trump’s conversations and statements and braggadocio all live in the same nebulous cloud encompassing all of those possibilities, a Schrodinger’s box in which the cat has no fixed state until you look inside — and even then you’re likely to be told that the very dead cat you’re holding is, in fact, alive.

So we have a transcript from an interview Trump gave to the Economist magazine.

ECONOMIST: Beyond that, it’s okay if the tax plan increases the deficit?

TRUMP: It is okay, because it won’t increase it for long. You may have two years where you’ll … you understand the expression “prime the pump”?

ECONOMIST: Yes.

TRUMP: We have to prime the pump.

ECONOMIST: It’s very Keynesian.

TRUMP: We’re the highest-taxed nation in the world. Have you heard that expression before, for this particular type of an event?

ECONOMIST: Priming the pump?

TRUMP: Yeah, have you heard it?

ECONOMIST: Yes.

TRUMP: Have you heard that expression used before? Because I haven’t heard it. I mean, I just … I came up with it a couple of days ago and I thought it was good. It’s what you have to do.

Asking an Economist writer if he or she has heard the expression “prime the pump” is like asking Sports Illustrated writers if they’ve heard of “RBIs” or asking someone at Playboy if they’re aware that you can have your body surgically enhanced. Of course they have heard the term, because Trump, contrary to what he suggests, didn’t invent the phrase, much less come up with it “a couple of days ago.”

Merriam-Webster, which has embraced insulting Trump by tweeting out the definitions of things in the news, was quick to explain the genesis of the expression. It predates not only this week, but Trump himself.

...

But we also know Trump didn’t invent the phrase because he has used it any number of times in the past.

• He said it in an interview with Fox News Channel last month: “It’ll take a period of time, and you’re going to have some deficits in the meantime, it’s, sort of, called priming the pump, you have to prime the pump, but look, the numbers just came out yesterday really, the real numbers.”

• He said it in a speech in December: “We’re going to prime the pump. We’re going to prime the pump. We got to get the jobs. We got 96 million people out there. We got to get them going, and they want to work.”

...

So we return to the initial question: Was he joking?

In normal circumstances, it seems like the natural assumption. A written transcript necessarily strips out the manner in which words were said, and Trump does have a habit of nudgingly toying with those to whom he’s speaking. “Ya ever heard of it,” Trump might say, winking to the reporters from the Economist.

But Trump also has a habit of exaggerating his own achievements to make himself seem more impressive. It’s so common by now that one might assume it’s ingrained in his personality, taking a standard observation and puffing it up with a few “great, great” modifiers or tacking on a “nobody’s ever seen this before!” Everything is the easiest and the best and the biggest and the greatest, and many things got that way because of Trump. So maybe that’s the deal: Trump simply slipped into his long-standing pattern of taking credit where it wasn’t due.

That’s the big picture of this small comment. Nearly anyone else would be given the benefit of the doubt that they weren’t seriously asking the Economist if they’d ever heard the expression “prime the pump.” Perhaps another politician saying it would have been excoriated by his political opponents, sure. But in nearly no other circumstance would people read that, stop and think, “Wait. Does he really think he made that up?”

On the campaign trail, Trump did take credit for the genesis of two other expressions. In July, he claimed to have invented the term “crooked Hillary.” The prior December, he bragged about making up “low-energy Jeb.”

Those, we can be confident he actually invented.

I'm not an economist, but I've known of the expression "prime the pump" since at least junior high school. Of course, I have actually read books, unlike the tangerine toddler.

[47of74]

Unfornicatingbelievable

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/05/trump-wants-goddamned-steam-not-digital-catapults-on-aircraft-carriers/526386/?utm_source=atlfb

Quote

Navy officials were “blindsided” on Thursday, a spokesman told me, by President Donald Trump’s suggestion that he has convinced the Navy to abandon a long-planned digital launching system in favor of steam on its newest aircraft carrier.

In a wide-ranging interview with Time magazine, Trump described his disgust with the catapult system known as Electro-Magnetic Aircraft Launch System, nicknamed EMALS, aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford. (Time has published only excerpts from the interview, not a full transcript.) The president described wanting to scrap EMALS, a key technological upgrade at the center of the multibillion-dollar carrier project, and return to steam.

What is digital? To answer the president’s question without getting into too many 0s and 1s, “digital” means using a computer to make something happen. You know, the same sort of machine that connects us all to the cyber. Are you still with me, or should we get Einstein over here? (I mean, Einstein has done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more.) EMALS isn’t just computer-based but uses a linear induction motor. That motor—which uses electric currents to activate a magnetic core—propels a carriage down a track to launch an aircraft, rather than using a steam piston drive to pull the aircraft.

The steam-powered catapult systems that are being replaced have been used to launch airplanes from U.S. carriers for some six decades now. Not only are steam systems harder to maintain than electrical ones; they have a lower upper-limit during combat—meaning electrical systems can launch more aircraft in a shorter amount of time. Electrical systems can also better handle smaller aircrafts and drones compared with steam. Steam systems also put more stress on airframes, and make them more prone to corrosion. Not only that, but carriers themselves are exceedingly vulnerable to attack—meaning outfitting them with the modern defense systems is a priority.

[GreyhoundFan]

An interesting perspective from a survivor of Nixon's "Saturday Night Massacre": "It’s impossible not to compare today to Watergate. And our officials are falling short."

Quote

Philip Allen Lacovara, a former U.S. deputy solicitor general in the Justice Department, served as counsel to Watergate special prosecutors Archibald Cox and Leon Jaworski.

As the senior surviving member of the Watergate special prosecutor’s office from the time of the “Saturday Night Massacre,” it is impossible to consider the firing of FBI Director James B. Comey without recalling that fateful night. One comparison — the behavior of senior Justice Department officials in the face of presidential pressure — is disappointing. Another — the insistent focus of the president and his allies on stopping damaging leaks rather than getting to the bottom of the underlying conduct — is chilling.

First, it is important to recognize how different were the acts of the two top officials of the Justice Department in these two gravely important events. President Richard Nixon demanded the firing of Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox for refusing to obey the president’s order to abandon his quest for the “White House tapes.” Attorney General Elliot Richardson resigned rather than dismiss Cox. When Nixon then turned to Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to do the deed, Ruckelshaus chose principle over pragmatism and resigned in turn. It was left to the next ranking official, Solicitor General Robert Bork, to carry out the president’s will.

This time, however, the senior leaders of the Justice Department — Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein — displayed no such courage or independence. Instead, as President Trump confirmed in an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt on Thursday, Sessions and Rosenstein were summoned to the White House and tasked to write memorandums supporting a decision the president had already reached: to get rid of the man leading the investigation into Russian meddling with the presidential election and possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian agents. Unlike Richardson and Ruckelshaus, they complied.

Henry II is said to have used the arguably ambiguous lament, “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” to induce four lackeys to ride off to Canterbury to assassinate the archbishop. Lacking Henry’s subtlety, Trump merely summoned his subordinates a few blocks up Pennsylvania Avenue and demanded action.

Unlike their predecessors four decades earlier, Sessions and Rosenstein failed to recognize that they have a higher public duty than merely to implement the president’s will, even if Trump’s action was technically within his constitutional power.

...

Most distressing to those of us who served in the department is that in his first significant act as deputy attorney general, Rosenstein apparently was willing to place his generally applauded credibility into a blind trust and deliver the sharpened dagger to the president in the form of a critique of Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. Reports that Rosenstein threatened to resign when the White House sought to cast him as a prime mover in the firing, with Trump acting only on the recommendation of the Justice Department, provide little reassurance. Whether those reports are accurate (he denied them on Thursday), Rosenstein owes it to himself and his colleagues at the Justice Department to explain why he was so malleable in crafting the president’s pretext for firing Comey.

Reports about why the president was so set on ousting Comey are equally resonant of those long-ago Watergate days. Trump, according to The Post, grew increasingly infuriated with Comey for not pursuing leaks about the probe. In Capitol Hill hearings, the president’s defense team among Republicans in Congress has adopted a similar diversionary strategy, focusing on the leaks rather than the far more serious underlying abuses.

Like Trump and his allies, Nixon and his compatriots were furious about leaks emerging during the early stages of the Watergate investigation. Then, key information that put The Post’s Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein on the trail of the coverup and kept up the pressure for thorough official investigations came from a source they referred to as Deep Throat, later identified as FBI Assistant Director Mark Felt. Felt chose the difficult course of leaking important information because he feared that the Nixon administration might be successful in suppressing the FBI investigation and maintaining the coverup.

The highest duty of those in public service is to make sure that the truth about serious misconduct emerges. It would be a tragedy if threats to lock up leakers were to cow honorable FBI agents and career prosecutors into silence, even if they smell a coverup at the top. Leaks may be manipulative or mischievous, but — as in Watergate — they may be essential to the transparency and accountability that the American public has the right to expect.

...

Hopefully we can get some people who are in the know and also in possession of a conscience to leak info like Mark Felt did.

[47of74]

Jesus what a fucking man baby;

talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-tivos-senate-hearings-so-he-can-make-fun-of-them-later

Quote

President Donald Trump replayed clips of Senate hearings for reporters in order to mock the testimony of former top administration officials, according to an interview published Thursday.

Trump on Monday during an interview with Time reacted to testimony earlier the same day by former acting Attorney General Sally Yates and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper in a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing.

“Watch them start to choke like dogs,” Trump said, as quoted by Time. “Watch what happens. They are desperate for breath.”

When Clapper hesitated, according to the report, Trump said: “Ah, he’s choking. Ah, look.”

How long until he starts demanding executions be filmed so he can sit there and laugh at them like his hero did seven decades ago?

http://knowledgenuts.com/2013/10/02/hitlers-late-night-television/

[GreyhoundFan]

3 minutes ago, 47of74 said:

Jesus what a fucking man baby;

talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-tivos-senate-hearings-so-he-can-make-fun-of-them-later

How long until he starts demanding executions be filmed so he can sit there and laugh at them like his hero did seven decades ago?

http://knowledgenuts.com/2013/10/02/hitlers-late-night-television/

What a freaking troll. Every time I think he can't get more childish or stupid, he sinks to a new depth.

[Audrey2]

@47of74, Great! So Trump now wants a steampunk military!

 

From your article

Quote

Navy officials were “blindsided” on Thursday, a spokesman told me, by President Donald Trump’s suggestion that he has convinced the Navy to abandon a long-planned digital launching system in favor of steam on its newest aircraft carrier.

So what's next? How about this new airship for the Air Force:

 

[RoseWilder]

5 hours ago, nvmbr02 said:

I am trying to find the link again (it was a VA area news station), since I closed the window on accident but there is at least one article that is saying the raid is linked to the 2013 VA Governor race.  A little disappointing BUT who knows what other evidence will turn up.

http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2017/05/11/fbi-investigation-annapolis/

 

There's a thread on twitter that links the company that was raided to a company owned by the Mercer's (who connect to both Trump and Russia) so I think there's something there. 

 

[JMarie]

Well, this is interesting!

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/11/politics/trump-comey-white-house-contradictions/index.html

 

The White House can't get its story straight on why President Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey.

Trump told NBC News on Thursday that he was going to fire Comey with or without Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's memo criticizing the director.

That statement contradicts at least 10 times Trump's top aides and advisers, including Vice President Mike Pence, tried to explain the how and the why the President decided to sack Comey. Tuesday's unceremonious move came amid the FBI's probe into Russia's role in the 2016 election and any connections the Trump campaign had to the hackers.

"I was going to fire regardless of recommendation," Trump told NBC. He added: "(Rosenstein) made a recommendation ... He made a recommendation, but regardless of recommendation, I was going to fire Comey."

That was not the story Pence told reporters on Capitol Hill Wednesday.

"President Trump made the right decision at the right time to accept the recommendation of the Deputy Attorney General and the Attorney General," Pence said.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said her answers "went off that information that I had when I answered your question."

At the time, she said, she "hadn't had a chance" to ask the President directly, despite having numerous conversations with him. Sanders also claimed the White House story had been "consistent," despite the clear inconsistencies.

Here is a list of comments by White House staff and the vice president that were contradicted by Trump's Thursday interview:

May 9: 8:39 p.m. ET

Kellyanne Conway in CNN interview with Anderson Cooper: "I think you're looking at the wrong set of facts here. In other words, you're going back to the campaign. This man is the President of the United States. He acted decisively today. He took the recommendation of his deputy attorney general who oversees the FBI director."

May 9: 8:40 p.m. ET

Kellyanne Conway in CNN interview with Anderson Cooper: "It makes complete sense because he has lost confidence in the FBI director and he took the recommendation of Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, to whom the FBI director reports to. The deputy attorney general has been on the job two short weeks. He went in there. He assessed the situation -- and I would quote for you. He says it almost everyone agrees that the director, meaning Mr. Comey, made serious mistakes. It's one of the few issues that unites people of diverse perspective."

May 10: 11:01 a.m. ET

Vice President Mike Pence to reporters on Capitol Hill: "President Trump made the right decision at the right time to accept the recommendation of the Deputy Attorney General and the Attorney General, to ask for the termination, to support the termination of the director of the FBI. It was simply the right decision. Now we go forward. We go forward with confidence."

May 10: 11:03 a.m. ET

Vice President Mike Pence to reporters on Capitol Hill: "The President took strong and decisive leadership here to put the safety and the security of the American people first by accepting the recommendation of the deputy attorney general to remove Director Comey as the head of the FBI."

May 10: 11:05 a.m. ET

Vice President Mike Pence to reporters on Capitol Hill: "Let me be clear that the President's decision to accept the recommendation of the deputy attorney general and the attorney general to remove Director Comey as the head of the FBI was based solely and exclusively on his commitment to the best interest of the American people and to ensuring that the FBI has the trust and confidence of the people of of this nation ... The deputy attorney general was confirmed just a few short weeks ago by the United States Senate when he brought the recommendation to the President that the director of the FBI should be removed."

May 10: 11:07 a.m. ET

Vice President Mike Pence to reporters on Capitol Hill: "He provided strong leadership ... to act on the recommendation of the deputy attorney general, and I think the American people welcome that and they know that as President Trump has done so many times before, the President is going to take the time necessary to find an individual of great experience and great integrity to lead the nation's law enforcement agency at the FBI, and I look forward to being a part of that process."

May 10: 11:09 a.m. ET

Vice President Mike Pence to reporters on Capitol Hill: "He brought that recommendation to the President, and the attorney general concurred with that recommendation, and I personally am grateful that we have a President who is willing to provide the kind of decisive and strong leadership to take the recommendation of the deputy attorney general and the attorney general to remove an FBI director who had lost the confidence of the American people."

May 10: 1:52 p.m. ET

Sarah Huckabee Sanders to White House reporters: "The President, over the last several months, lost confidence in Director Comey. The DOJ lost confidence in Director Comey. Bipartisan members of Congress made it clear that they had lost confidence in Director Comey. And most importantly, the rank-and-file of the FBI had lost confidence in their director. Accordingly, the President accepted the recommendation of his deputy attorney general to remove James Comey from his position."

May 10: 1:53 p.m. ET

Sarah Huckabee Sanders to White House reporters: "He'd lost confidence in Director Comey. And, frankly, he'd been considering letting Director Comey go since the day he was elected. But he did have a conversation with the deputy attorney general on Monday where they had come to him to express their concerns. The President asked that they put those concerns and their recommendation in writing, which is the letter that you guys have received."

May 10: 1:58 p.m. ET

Sarah Huckabee Sanders to White House reporters:

Question: Sarah, isn't it true that the President had already decided to fire James Comey and he asked the Justice Department to put together the rationale for that firing?

Sanders: No.

Question: Is it -- when did he make the decision?

Sanders: The final decision to move forward with it was yesterday. But I know that he's been contemplating it for a while.

[47of74]

Yeah fuck head really pissed off some people in the FBI;

independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/fbi-agents-james-comey-change-profile-photos-a7730496.html

Quote

The firing of FBI Director James Comey has reportedly sent morale plunging at an agency already enduring one of its most tumultuous periods in history.

Andrew McCabe, who was the FBI’s deputy director, has now become its acting head after Donald Trump ousted Mr Comey earlier this week. Mr McCabe is due to testify before senators.

Not everyone inside the FBI was a supporter of Mr Comey. But several reports said the way he was treated had left many feeling angry and frustrated. The Daily Beast said at least a dozen agents posted images on their private Facebook pages of themselves with Mr Comey, or else of Mr Comey alone.

The gesture is apparently usually reserved for a colleague who dies in the line of duty,

 

[RoseWilder]

Major media outlets are falsely reporting reporting that today's FBI raid was about Ken Cuccinelli: 

http://www.palmerreport.com/opinion/cuccinelli-fbi-annapolis/2765/

Quote

When the FBI raided the office of a Republican fundraising firm called Strategic Campaign Group in Annapolis today, it immediately raised questions as to whether this was related to the FBI’s investigation of the Donald Trump campaign and Russia, and whether it was in response to Trump having fired FBI Director James Comey. Then newspapers began reporting that the raid was instead about Ken Cuccinelli. But we’ve since discovered that this claim was mischaracterized.

The trouble began when the Baltimore Sun reported that Kelley Rogers, the president of Strategic Campaign Group, had “said the FBI investigation concerns work the firm performed during the 2013 Virginia gubernatorial campaign of former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli”. The trouble here is two fold. First, when someone runs a firm that’s just been raided by the FBI, you can’t take him at his word as to why he was raided. Second, this wasn’t an actual quote from Rogers.

The national online version of the Washington Post parroted the same thing, that Kelley had said it was about Cuccinelli, as if Kelley should be taken at his word on it (link). But the local Maryland version of the Washington Post posted an entirely different iteration of the story online, which reveals that Kelley merely said he had his “suspicion” that today’s FBI raid is a carryover from a lawsuit which Cuccinelli had filed against the firm in 2013.

In other words, multiple major newspapers reported that today’s FBI raid was about Cuccinelli, based on nothing more than the head of the raided firm happening to name-check a lawsuit from four years ago.

 

[candygirl200413]

Just wanting to say how now I'm alternating between not thinking this is normal to not thinking this is real life.

[nvmbr02]

1 hour ago, RoseWilder said:

There's a thread on twitter that links the company that was raided to a company owned by the Mercer's (who connect to both Trump and Russia) so I think there's something there. 

 

I sincerely hope so. 

[JMarie]

28 minutes ago, RoseWilder said:

Major media outlets are falsely reporting reporting that today's FBI raid was about Ken Cuccinelli: 

http://www.palmerreport.com/opinion/cuccinelli-fbi-annapolis/2765/

 

Cuccinelli's been showing up on CNN. I guess Santorum was busy.

[turquoise]

5 hours ago, 47of74 said:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/05/trump-wants-goddamned-steam-not-digital-catapults-on-aircraft-carriers/526386/?utm_source=atlfb

Quote

Navy officials were “blindsided” on Thursday, a spokesman told me, by President Donald Trump’s suggestion that he has convinced the Navy to abandon a long-planned digital launching system in favor of steam on its newest aircraft carrier.

 

Maybe he's planning to power them with coal?

Follow the money. I'll bet he's got some money in companies that make the older system. Or else his Russian handlers are trying to persuade him not to upgrade our military capability.

[fraurosena]

I so hope that the firing of Comey is the toddler's ultimate undoing!

 

[fraurosena]

Good grief.

Commentator who amplified Macron hacks given White House press access

Quote

A U.S. far-right online activist credited with initially sharing on Twitter hacked emails from the French presidential campaign of centrist Emmanuel Macron is the latest conservative media figure to receive White House access from the Trump administration.

Jack Posobiec, a Washington-based writer at the Rebel Media, a Canadian online political and social news commentary platform, attended the daily press briefing on Tuesday and later broadcast video from the White House grounds with positive commentary on President Donald Trump's abrupt firing of FBI Director James Comey.

Posobiec told Reuters he first obtained temporary White House credentials in early April, but he has submitted a request for a permanent pass. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Cyber security experts, minority party Democrats and some U.S. intelligence officials have grown more concerned since the leak of Macron's emails about potential connections between Russian organizations, including its spy agencies, and far-right media figures in the United States who they suspect played a role in Russian efforts to influence elections.

Two U.S. intelligence officials told Reuters this week that they are increasingly confident that hackers with connections to the Russian government played a role in the French election.

Macron won in a landslide on Sunday against far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, who wanted to take France out of the European Union and supports Russian policy in Ukraine.

U.S. intelligence agencies have also concluded that hacking attacks on the Democratic Party and 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's campaign were part of a Russian-backed effort to help Republican Trump win the presidency.

Russia has denied hacking or meddling in the elections in the United States or in France.

Posobiec told Reuters he used his Twitter account to share information on the Macron leaks that he spotted on the social media site 4chan. In a private Twitter message, he rejected characterizations that he is part of the far-right media and said he had no connections to the Russian government.

Security researchers said Posobiec was the first on Twitter to use the hashtag #MacronLeaks, shortly after nearly 10 gigabytes of documents were posted on Pastebin, a site that allows anonymous document sharing.

Posobiec is also close on social media to William Craddick, founder and editor-in-chief of Disobedient Media. The two appeared to preview the Macron leaks, said Chris Doman, a British researcher with cyber security firm AlienVault.

On Friday, first Prosobiec and then Craddick began to dribble out hints on Twitter that a big stash of leaked Macron documents could be coming soon, Doman said. Disobedient Media tweeted 22 minutes before the upload to Pastebin instructing followers to "Fully Prepare for a major leak on Emmanuel Macron and his close associates. This is very big, folks."

"Craddick says things about the documents before they appear anywhere else, whereas Jack posts about them right after they come out," Doman said.

Craddick denied any advance knowledge of the leaks in an email to Reuters. "We were simply repeating chatter we had been noticing online and word from various sources saying that further content releases were coming," Craddick said. "Disobedient Media did not set up the Pastebin file or organize the leak."

Posobiec's press access is the most recent granted to a figure prominent within the alt-right, a loosely organized group that embraces right-wing ideologies including white nationalism.

Mike Cernovich, who ran a website with pro-Trump and anti-Clinton content and had a large following online, has also been given credentials.

Roger Stone, a longtime Trump ally, has promoted Posobiec's tweets since at least last September. Stone has also frequently promoted Cernovich.

Stone has come under scrutiny for tweeting that WikiLeaks had damaging Clinton campaign emails before the anti-secrecy group released them. CNN on Tuesday reported that Stone influenced Trump's decision to fire Comey. Trump tweeted the report was false.

Rebel Media, a subscription-based service, is the brainchild of Ezra Levant, a lawyer and media personality who founded the Canadian conservative site in February 2015.

All these interconnections between WH, alt-right and Russia are just astounding. 

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Oh really? Russia laughing up their sleeve?  Ya think?

 

He doesn't even realize what he's inadvertantly admitting here... 

[formergothardite]

9 hours ago, JMarie said:

Whenever I see Pence on TV, I like to imagine a thought bubble over his head, and the words "I'm gonna be president soooooon" are in that bubble.  There's no way any other words are in that thought bubble.

My husband said something similar last time he saw Pence. He said that he bet Pence and his wife have already started planning on how they will redecorate the White House. You can tell that there is no love between Trump and Pence and he is just counting down the days until he gets to be president. 

10 hours ago, AuntK said:

I expect that they are up to their ears in debt to the Russians.  I am putting this together from all I have read and from my gut instinct, which has never failed me yet.  

This is exactly what I think is going on. I think he owes MASSIVE amounts of money to the Russians and the little visit this week included a reminder to him on who he is there to serve. I could see Trump thinking he could outsmart Putin once he became president, but he is just too dumb. If he doesn't do what Russia wants they will destroy him. 

What I really, really, really want to see is Trump called before the Senate and forced to answer questions. I don't think he could do it. I don't think he could sit there for hours being bombarded with tough questions without completely losing it and having a tantrum.