Trump, Comey, FBI, Nixon, Cox, Trump, Comey, Free Speech

  • 44 years ago, President Nixon fired Prosecutor Archibald Cox for demanding tapes incriminating Nixon. Bumper stickers appeared: “Impeach the Cox Sacker” (Sorry Aunt Tildy, but some things are simply true). Unless you are that creative, how do you add insight to the worldwide tsunami of comment about the Comey firing?
     
  • Infidel753 does it right, with his usual responsible due diligence, noting my President’s rage and panic about investigations “into his (alleged) ties with Russia” before deciding that “the obvious inference is that the firing was meant to derail the FBI investigation.” Then he describes, and links to, reactions from around the political spectrum.
     
  • John Scalzi at Whatever takes a break from book reviews to explain why it’s not hypocritical, or even contradictory, for liberals to think James Comey was horrible at his job and, simultaneously, to think he was fired as part of a coverup.
     
  • At The Swash Zone, Capt. Fogg watches Donald Trump disintegrate.
     
  • As President Trump declares himself “a very active President,” Tommy Christopher agrees, pointing to threats to the press, the FBI, and democracy itself — all before breakfast.
     
  • Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged uses all her legal training from years of watching Law & Order to speculate on what lawyers would tell Donald Trump.
     
  • At The Intersection of Madness and Reality, rippa has his own perspective on the firing of James Comey. “Donald Trump pulled the illest, most gangsta move of his presidency to date.” Turns out it’s not an endorsement of the firing.
     
  • Max’s Dad does have the vocabulary for epic rant. He uses it with great effect to express a lack of love for Paul Ryan, Donald Trump, and Republican lawmakers. Aunt Tildy urges younger readers to cover their ears as they venture into this link.
     
  • nojo at Stinque does not think the tepid Republican response to the dangers of Trump comes from political loyalty or ideological fervor, but rather from something deeper.
     
  • Steve M points out that, for a very long time, conservatism has not primarily been about policy.
     
  • North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz sees rock solid support for my President among a large percentage of American Christians who cling to a desperate version of imagined oppression as white Christian privilege slips away. President Trump is not so much their friend as the enemy of their enemies. He and they share a burning resentment of common targets: undeserving recipients of ethnic and religious tolerance, and those who support that tolerance.
     
  • In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, former pastor and current atheist Bruce considers the ethics of using high pressure salvation tactics to scare kids and teens into getting saved.
     
  • The Big Empty has discovered amazing photos that demonstrate how the stress of being in office can change a President.
     
  • Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara at Principled Perspectives argues that the Electoral College was not established to protect slavery. His argument is that those who were eventually successful in ending slavery did not also end the electoral college. No kidding, that’s his logic.
     
    Actually, the historical record is fairly explicit. According to accounts at the time of the debates carried out during the Constitutional Convention, protection of slavery was exactly the purpose. The only purpose.
     
  • It should have been a joke. Frances Langum is astonished at one bit of press criticism of Donald Trump. Has to do with not offering ice cream and a diet soda to the journalist. Come on, Francis. Chris Cillizza may be superficial – – but that’s only on the surface.
     
  • Jon Perr at PERRspectives takes a step that was beyond each Republican who voted for Trumpcare. He looks into the bill itself, along with analysis from the Congressional Budget Office, and determines the effect on health care. In fairness, the CBO study did not exist when Republicans voted the plan through Congress. They refused to wait for it even a few days.
     
  • Last Of The Millenniums has discovered the reason behind all those emails.
     
  • “It’s hard to imagine it was possible,” says James Wigderson, “but the situation on college campuses has grown so bad, Senator Bernie Sanders spoke out in defense of Ann Coulter’s right to speak at Berkeley…” James writes his endorsement for an anti-noise bill in Wisconsin, that would prohibit the drowning out of a speech or presentation. In passing, James mentions that “even even former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean” is defending free speech.
     
    Yeah I’m amazed that things have gotten to the point where even elderly hippies like me would be for freedom of speech, along with a few James did not notice: like Elizabeth Warren. Imagine that. Things are so bad, even Robert Reich supports Coulter’s right to hate speech. In fact, things have gotten even worse. Why, even Bill Maher says she has a right to speak. You know it’s bad when even folks who are not rock solid conservative support the right to express unpopular opinion. Even Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar have joined in, explicitly supporting the right of conservatives like Ann Coulter to speak. One of my favorite liberals, Kevin Drum angrily supports … well … you get the idea.
     
    As Drum puts it, before slamming the excesses against Coulter, “college campuses are teeming with smart, verbal, overconfident 19-year-olds. Of course they do stupid things. We all did stupid things at that age.” He gets angry at the kids. He has even less patience with a few others who should know better. It seems predictable some of the most fervently committed will sometimes forget the common contract that obligates all members of a free society to defend the right to freely express ideas we regard as anathema.
     
    James believes things must be really bad if even liberals are for free speech? Maybe a little history will help. We love you, James, but sometimes you need to think things through. Even.
     
  • This Week In Trumpian ‘Alternative Facts’, we have, well, this.