Trump fires FBI Director James Comey

[Napoleon the Clown]

Thanas is not saying Americans are evil so much as that the voters are just... apathetic about anything that isn't happening to them.

If Thanas is not saying that at least most Americans are evil then he's wrong. Unless you consider apathy in the face of an evil regime that unleashed unspeakable horrors upon entire regions of the world that resulted in the killing of, in some estimates, millions of people and ultimately leading to organizations like ISIS (that all of the willing armies of the "civilized west" can't seem to stop) as anything but evil.

Only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing, and all... Most voters just lack the attention span and memory for it to matter, even if they are outraged. For many, tragedy on the other side of the world just doesn't seem real so it doesn't emotionally impact them. And that wonderful human tribalism thing.

[Broomstick]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say most of the Americans on the board are not "the average voter."

^ This. Very much this. Never, ever think the Americans posting on this board are typical Americans.

[The Romulan Republic]

How would one even define a "typical American"? Its a huge country, and a very politically divided one right now.

[Flagg]

Thanas is not saying Americans are evil so much as that the voters are just... apathetic about anything that isn't happening to them.

If Thanas is not saying that at least most Americans are evil then he's wrong. Unless you consider apathy in the face of an evil regime that unleashed unspeakable horrors upon entire regions of the world that resulted in the killing of, in some estimates, millions of people and ultimately leading to organizations like ISIS (that all of the willing armies of the "civilized west" can't seem to stop) as anything but evil.

Only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing, and all... Most voters just lack the attention span and memory for it to matter, even if they are outraged. For many, tragedy on the other side of the world just doesn't seem real so it doesn't emotionally impact them. And that wonderful human tribalism thing.

Yeah. Honestly the last straw for me to damn most of the American population was the huge amount of outrage over the Abu Ghraib pictures coming out. And this was not just on TV and online, but by most of the adult kindergarteners I was supposedly providing security for.

You may ask, "If they were outraged, how can you possibly view them as outright or just apathetically evil?", and the answer is simple: They weren't outraged at the content of those pictures, they were outraged at them being published (even though they were largely censored because Americans are prudish cowards) because "It makes America look bad!" and "It will get more troops killed!" I remember responding that "It makes America look bad because America is being bad, and if you don't want more soldier to die, then vote for people who want to bring them home."

And I prefer the 'Lord of War' version: "Evil Triumphs when good men do nothing."

[Flagg]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say most of the Americans on the board are not "the average voter."

^ This. Very much this. Never, ever think the Americans posting on this board are typical Americans.

For the most part. But we aren't without our disturbed nationalists who try and catch their own cum in their mouths when climaxing after watching gun camera footage on YouTube while masturbating.

[Simon_Jester]

Thanas is, quite honestly, right on the money. The average voter just doesn't give a fuck unless it directly affects them, and it has to have happened within the past week. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say most of the Americans on the board are not "the average voter." Thanas is not saying Americans are evil so much as that the voters are just... apathetic about anything that isn't happening to them.

As a guy that likes to juggle differential equations a bit, there are two separate factors in play.

One is a very temporary "what happened last week" effect. This is caused by low-information voters and people who aren't really paying attention to anything but the story in the news that "looks bad." They'll see-saw all over the place, and you're right, they don't remember the past very well. However, this group's behavior is effectively "noise." It is random, and it can only compensate so much for the other effect.

The other is a much slower cumulative process. This results in permanent and semi-permanent shifts in public perception, ones which are low-volatility but take time (as in, years) to fully form. You cannot observe them if you look on short timescales.

Firstly, this can come from the low-information voters who hear the same kind of story over and over for years. Eventually they remember a conclusion like "uh gee, I guess the Vietnam War was a bad idea," without actually remembering how they know that or what happened. Or how they were persistently lied to and misled during the event itself, and therefore don't learn anything that would enable them to avoid getting fooled again. However, they DO learn the conclusion and tend, slowly, in a sort of amoeba-like way, to migrate towards a response to that conclusion.

Secondly and arguably more importantly, this can come from new people being semi-permanently added to the set of medium-information or high-information voters. New people reach voting age. People who are finally personally affected by a political issue tend to start taking it more seriously than people for whom it's an abstraction.

My view is that over time, support is going to ooze away from Trump due to members of the first group constantly hearing the facts about the man. Not all members of the first group, not even most, but some. In addition, the second group is going to experience a lot of recruiting and growth from people who react badly to Trump's actions. People who lose their health insurance in the next twelve months and suffer accordingly come to mind. They have abruptly received a rude awakening, and while some of them may go back to sleep, not ALL of them will.
__________________________________

*Clinton was a victim of this in a big way, by the way- because Republicans have been putting tremendous effort into assassinating her character since the mid-1990s. There are a lot of American bozos out there who don't really know what she does and are vague on who the Secretary of State is and so on... but have been listening to dumb jokes and rumors about Hillary Clinton for twenty years. As a result they "know" she is corrupt, malicious, and 'bitchy,' without actually knowing how they know. They don't remember any individual one of the stories that led them to believe this way, but they do remember the cumulative conclusion.

[Thanas]

I still feel that you are underestimating the public backlash to the Iraq War in the United States, however.

What public backlash? Have the people responsible for lying and getting thousands of soliers (and nearly a million Iraqi civilians) killed been put in jail yet? Or are they still able to do the talkshow rounds, are they still able to be public persons without being shunned by polite society, are they still able to influence policy and public debate?

Honestly what kind of meaningful backlash with consequences was there for those who started a criminal war of aggression?

Because I still see Bush making the rounds on TV. I still see Rice being a respected person in the american security academia. I am not seeing cheney in an orange jumpsuit.

So whatever backlash there was was not subtantial enough to have any consequences. Therefore, it was ineffectual and might have been inexistent for all I care.

[Joun_Lord]

How would one even define a "typical American"? Its a huge country, and a very politically divided one right now.

That is honestly the question of ours times, one of the reasons for so goddamn much tension from some. Some view themselves as traditionally typical Americans but feel they are being made a minority. Others feel that typical Americans these days are multi-cultural. Still others view typical Americans as the "traditional" group or some great mass off reality tv show watching idiots to jeer at typical Americans or atleast their view of them.

The thing is I don't really think there is a typical American. Saying there is a typical Americunt is like saying there is a typical Europeon.

Though one thing quite typical about Americans is their apathetic nature towards events. Most people want to keep their heads down, do their jobs, and go home.

I doubt that is just limited to Americans though nor is being numb towards events elsewhere. Not an excuse though.

[Bernkastel]

What public backlash? Have the people responsible for lying and getting thousands of soliers (and nearly a million Iraqi civilians) killed been put in jail yet? Or are they still able to do the talkshow rounds, are they still able to be public persons without being shunned by polite society, are they still able to influence policy and public debate?

Honestly what kind of meaningful backlash with consequences was there for those who started a criminal war of aggression?

Because I still see Bush making the rounds on TV. I still see Rice being a respected person in the american security academia. I am not seeing cheney in an orange jumpsuit.

So whatever backlash there was was not subtantial enough to have any consequences. Therefore, it was ineffectual and might have been inexistent for all I care.

If anything, Bush seems to have had his popularity increase this year. There seems to be, in response to Trump, an effort by some liberals to rehabilitate Bush and ignore Bush's policies and crimes for the sake of portraying him as a good person who now stands with liberals as a defender of freedom.

[Broomstick]

Though one thing quite typical about Americans is their apathetic nature towards events. Most people want to keep their heads down, do their jobs, and go home.

A lot of that has to do with so many Americans having to work harder for less. If you need to work two jobs to make ends meet, or your job requires you to work 60-80 hours every week, then you don't have a lot of energy for much more than that.

[Gandalf]

If anything, Bush seems to have had his popularity increase this year. There seems to be, in response to Trump, an effort by some liberals to rehabilitate Bush and ignore Bush's policies and crimes for the sake of portraying him as a good person who now stands with liberals as a defender of freedom.

The rehabilitation of Bush II been going on for a while now. Back in 2013 (I think) was when his favourability rating jumped back to over fifty percent.

[Flagg]

If anything, Bush seems to have had his popularity increase this year. There seems to be, in response to Trump, an effort by some liberals to rehabilitate Bush and ignore Bush's policies and crimes for the sake of portraying him as a good person who now stands with liberals as a defender of freedom.

The rehabilitation of Bush II been going on for a while now. Back in 2013 (I think) was when his favourability rating jumped back to over fifty percent.

Well, yeah. That's because the media never mention the illegal war of aggression in Iraq or the torture enhanced interrogation anymore.

[Sea Skimmer]

A lot of that has to do with so many Americans having to work harder for less. If you need to work two jobs to make ends meet, or your job requires you to work 60-80 hours every week, then you don't have a lot of energy for much more than that.

You know I wish I could think that was true and thus in theory fixable, but I've met plenty of reasonably and very well off people that couldn't give two shits about anything distant either. America is a bastion of individualism, I think it would be odd if the population in general had a high give a shit about anyone but me level of interest. Culture is a very real thing and all that.

[Flagg]

A lot of that has to do with so many Americans having to work harder for less. If you need to work two jobs to make ends meet, or your job requires you to work 60-80 hours every week, then you don't have a lot of energy for much more than that.

You know I wish I could think that was true and thus in theory fixable, but I've met plenty of reasonably and very well off people that couldn't give two shits about anything distant either. America is a bastion of individualism, I think it would be odd if the population in general had a high give a shit about anyone but me level of interest. Culture is a very real thing and all that.

Yeah, I'm getting really fucking tired of the "most people are so busy working and/or taking care of the kids" and all of the other "they're just so busy busy busy" excuses for being almost totally ignorant about international news (the same goes for voting). The truth is, most Americans don't give a shit. And it starts in elementary school.

[The Romulan Republic]

I still feel that you are underestimating the public backlash to the Iraq War in the United States, however.

What public backlash? Have the people responsible for lying and getting thousands of soliers (and nearly a million Iraqi civilians) killed been put in jail yet? Or are they still able to do the talkshow rounds, are they still able to be public persons without being shunned by polite society, are they still able to influence policy and public debate?

Honestly what kind of meaningful backlash with consequences was there for those who started a criminal war of aggression?

Because I still see Bush making the rounds on TV. I still see Rice being a respected person in the american security academia. I am not seeing cheney in an orange jumpsuit.

So whatever backlash there was was not subtantial enough to have any consequences. Therefore, it was ineffectual and might have been inexistent for all I care.

As I said, opposition to the war probably affected both the 2008 Presidential race and, to a lesser extent, the 2016 primary.

Of course, said opposition was by no means unanimous.

I'll acknowledge that their should have been more public pressure on Obama to hold the Bush regime accountable beyond simply throwing Republicans out of office in the election. I don't know if it would have changed anything though.

[The Romulan Republic]

If anything, Bush seems to have had his popularity increase this year. There seems to be, in response to Trump, an effort by some liberals to rehabilitate Bush and ignore Bush's policies and crimes for the sake of portraying him as a good person who now stands with liberals as a defender of freedom.

The rehabilitation of Bush II been going on for a while now. Back in 2013 (I think) was when his favourability rating jumped back to over fifty percent.

Yeah, its easier for people to think fondly of the days of W., wretched as they were, in comparison to Trump.

I will give W. this small bit of credit- he made it very clear after 911 that we were at war with terrorism, but not with Islam. Given the public sentiment at the time, I don't doubt that he could have turned it into an overt war against Islam had he wished to. It doesn't begin to make up for his other sins, but he's a better man than Trump in that respect at least.

[Joun_Lord]

A lot of that has to do with so many Americans having to work harder for less. If you need to work two jobs to make ends meet, or your job requires you to work 60-80 hours every week, then you don't have a lot of energy for much more than that.

For some it might be that way, especially these days. Hard to go protest and stuff when you don't have really any free time, leeway with work to take off to go join the rabble, and enough money saved to take off work. Mostly I think the only time you are going to see such desperate protesters is when they are pushed to being desperate enough to HAVE to protest and do the marches and all that. Certainly this is evident with alot of economically destitute areas, just speaking from personal experience in these here coal fields that certainly seems the case. Most people with jobs just want to work them, want to survive. But miners and others who have been squeezed so hard they have no choice but to go full political. Very little done for causes that don't effect themselves or people they know.

But others are well off enough but simply don't want to rock the boat, as what I was pretty much implying. They are comfortable in their lives, do not want to upset them by become rabble rousers and politically charged. They might care about causes but care more about maintaining their lives, their comfort.

Completely speaking out my ass as I've never been to a protest really but seen them on tv, most protestors seems like your college students or college age people who probably have no idea how money works, probably are still sucking on mommy and daddys teats so don't know much about hard work or personal responsibility, and aren't all that concerned with upsetting their lives through a combination of not having established their lives yet and youthful bravado (youthful stupidity). They have the time, the money (other peoples money), and lack of responsibility to go and protest. Most people with established lives and responsibility like family, social obligations, work, bills, and so forth probably are not going to get political.

[Terralthra]

Next time a paragraph you're writing begins with a phrase meaning "I don't know what I'm talking about", maybe consider stopping there instead of digging an ignorant hole into a septic tank and throwing fæces everywhere.

Back on topic, yesterday, Asst. Press Sec. Sanders insisted that Trump fired Dir. Comey because of Dep. AG Rosenstein's letter, which he was said to have written unprompted. Obviously that was complete bullshit, and lasted less than a day, as the White House as now admitted:

President Donald Trump was already inclined to dismiss FBI Director James Comey when he met on Monday with the top two officials from the Department of Justice, deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Thursday, a somewhat different timeline of events than the Trump administration first presented.

In the immediate hours following Comey’s firing, White House officials said the FBI director had been dismissed based solely on the unprompted recommendation of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, delivered in the form of a two-page memo to the president. But Thursday morning, Sanders did not dispute reports from multiple media outlets that it was Trump who first raised the issue of dismissing Comey, although she insisted that the arguments laid out by Rosenstein were his own.

Asked whether Rosenstein had been directed by the White House to examine Comey’s performance as FBI director, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Tuesday night that “it was all him” — referring to Rosenstein — and that nobody from the White House had been involved in the deputy attorney general's recommendation. Counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway said Tuesday that the firing has “everything to do” with Rosenstein’s recommendation, and Vice President Mike Pence, speaking to reporters at the Capitol on Wednesday, repeatedly said that the firing had come based on Rosenstein’s suggestion.

Sanders herself, in a Wednesday morning interview on MSNBC, told the "Morning Joe" panel of hosts that “I was asked if this was something [Rosenstein] came to on his own. That’s my understanding." On Thursday, Sanders conceded that it was Trump who had first raised questions about Comey, not Rosenstein.

“The information in the letter was something that [Rosenstein] came to on his own. On Monday they were at the White House for other meetings. The president asked them about their opinions on Comey. They told him,” Sanders said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “He asked for them to put that in writing, the conversation that they had had orally there at the White House on Monday, asked them to put it in writing. They did that on Tuesday. But it wasn't directed or those — the words that were written weren't at the direction necessarily of the president. Those were their own thoughts and ideas.”

Presented with the past comments from Conway, Spicer and Pence, Sanders complained that “Good Morning America” anchor George Stephanopoulos was focused too much on the sequence of events that led to Rosenstein offering his recommendation rather than the substance of the recommendation itself. Sanders remained consistent with an explanation she gave at Wednesday’s press briefing, telling Stephanopoulos that Trump had been considering firing Comey from the day he was elected.

“[Trump] did not direct [Rosenstein] to write the context of the memo. He asked him to put the comments that he had already made directly to the president in writing,” Sanders reiterated later in her interview with Stephanopoulos. “Again, I think that you're trying to beat up the process, but the point here is that the findings in the letter, in the recommendation, were original thoughts by Mr. Rosenstein.”

How's the Deputy AG feel about all this? Well...

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was seen arriving at the Senate Intelligence Committee's secure office spaces Thursday afternoon. Sources told POLITICO Rosenstein had requested to meet with the Intelligence Committee leaders, Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.), who both hastily left an open, televised committee hearing for what Burr said was a meeting "we can't push off."

The meeting was pre-scheduled, but Rosenstein's office reached out confirm it after President Donald Trump unceremoniously fired FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday. The president cited a three-page letter from Rosenstein questioning the director’s fitness to serve. The meeting also came amid reports that Rosenstein, a well-regarded federal prosecutor, was furious over the White House’s characterization of his apparent recommendation and even threatened to quit.

It’s unclear whether Rosenstein made the request to the committee unilaterally, or took his request through officials channels at the Department of Justice. He arrived with a security detail.

Burr said the meeting with Rosenstein was pre-scheduled. However, sources say DOJ reached back out to the committee after the Comey matter.

Rosenstein is also doing outreach with other senators. The deputy attorney general's aides reached out to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who has been highly critical of Rosenstein's handling of the Comey matter, for a private meeting, according to a source familiar with the interaction.

But Schumer declined, the source said, because he wants Rosenstein to first meet with all senators and brief them on Comey's dismissal.

[The Romulan Republic]

Completely speaking out my ass as I've never been to a protest really but seen them on tv, most protestors seems like your college students or college age people who probably have no idea how money works, probably are still sucking on mommy and daddys teats so don't know much about hard work or personal responsibility, and aren't all that concerned with upsetting their lives through a combination of not having established their lives yet and youthful bravado (youthful stupidity). They have the time, the money (other peoples money), and lack of responsibility to go and protest. Most people with established lives and responsibility like family, social obligations, work, bills, and so forth probably are not going to get political.

And with all due respect, this seems like a classic Right wing stereotype of liberal activists (and, hell, young people in general) as just a bunch of lazy slackers who want a free ride. Its insulting, and offensive.

[Joun_Lord]

And with all due respect, this seems like a classic Right wing stereotype of liberal activists (and, hell, young people in general) as just a bunch of lazy slackers who want a free ride. Its insulting, and offensive.

Its similar but not the same. I didn't actually apply it to either political side, both sides are the same with regards to that. If they were lazy slackers they wouldn't be going out to college and to protests. Might want a "free ride" but thats practically expected these days for most college students whose families can afford it.

The stereotype I'm using is off young people being kind of idiots who don't know shit about money or responsibility. Though I don't think that can be really considered a stereotype considering by and large young people with their skateboarding shoes and walkmans are arrogant knowitalls who think they know the answers to everything but haven't the wisdom or experience to even know what questions they need to be asking. Young people generally cannot manage their personal finances worth shit. Young people tend to take for more dangerous risks and participate in dangerous behaviors while shunning insurance as they believe they are invincible or nothing bad can happen to them.

I don't think its all that offensive to say that young people are morons when they seem to go out of their way to try to prove this. Not just young people today, not our "iPad baby millennials" but young people in general stretching back into the past probably since there was something that could be described as a teen. And its not just me saying "them young people on my lawn, get a job you lazy hippies", well not completely that. Young people do not have fully formed brains, their emotional control is less then that of an actual adult (most of the time, our "President" shows that adults can be just as childish and immature as any teen or young adult), and just haven't been around long enough to gain any sort of wisdom or real world knowledge.

But my no doubt telling insights into the supposed intellectual limitations of young whipper snappers aside, young people of any political affiliation going to college without having to work and with plenty of free time are going to be far more likely to be able to be political then others even leaving aside the politically charged natures of college campuses that tend to draw in people attending such places.

[Gandalf]

Completely speaking out my ass as I've never been to a protest really but seen them on tv, most protestors seems like your college students or college age people who probably have no idea how money works, probably are still sucking on mommy and daddys teats so don't know much about hard work or personal responsibility, and aren't all that concerned with upsetting their lives through a combination of not having established their lives yet and youthful bravado (youthful stupidity). They have the time, the money (other peoples money), and lack of responsibility to go and protest. Most people with established lives and responsibility like family, social obligations, work, bills, and so forth probably are not going to get political.

And with all due respect, this seems like a classic Right wing stereotype of liberal activists (and, hell, young people in general) as just a bunch of lazy slackers who want a free ride. Its insulting, and offensive.

Indeed. Apparently "people who make time in between responsibilities to be politically active" don't exist in J_L's world?

I've been to more protest marches than I plan to count. I did that by arranging time off work, changing my university schedule, and so on. Others do the same, and some bring their children along.