Keepers of the Protocols

In the wake of the Comey kerfuffle I have read a lot of analysis of the unnecessarily provocative manner in which President Trump fired him.

Un-presidential, incompetent, chaotic, and, a breach of protocol, are common descriptions unfortunately coming not only from the left but also from the right. In my opinion the President did it perfectly. As in, exactly what I hoped he would do.

We elected him because "Presidential" in the way his critics mean it is precisely not what we wanted. We wanted a particularly big bull in that incredibly corrupt and self-dealing china shop, rampaging about and breaking things. And break things he does. He so infuriated the execrable Comey that Big Jim actually became a leaker, of all things. Whiny, weepy, self-righteous, broken and humiliated. Exposed for who he is, finally. Protocol be damned. Outstanding job Mr. President.

Their precious protocols just protect them, but not us, from their incompetence and informs their corruption.

Congress inconvenienced by being subject to ObamaCare rules regarding employer subsidies? No problem. Exempted.

 "...members of Congress and their staffs are slated to get that will make them the only participants in the new Obamacare exchanges to receive generous subsidies from their employer to pay for their health insurance." (Emphasis added)

That was 2013. Fast forward to last month. Have the keepers of the protocols learned anything from the 2014 and 2016 elections? Judge for yourself.

"As Republicans rush to vote on their latest ObamaCare repeal-and-replace plan, it appears to still include an item exempting members of Congress and their staffs from losing the healthcare bill's popular provisions (ed. Of which they are the only beneficiaries. Interesting to note how the author tries to hide that fact. Popular provisions? Right, except for the part where those "popular" provisions apply only to Congress.).

House GOP leaders worked Wednesday night to fast-track consideration of an amended American Health Care Act without posting the bill text and without a Congressional Budget Office analysis detailing the effects of the latest changes to the legislation." (Emphasis added).

To be fair,

"...Rep. Tom MacArthur's (R-N.J.) office said separate legislation would close that loophole." Uh, right, I'll take your word for it. That has worked out really well for us taxpayers so far.

An illegal immigrant crime spree? No problem. Those illegals never get close to the keepers of the protocols.

A border wall? No way. Un-American. Xenophobic. Walls around the homes and communities of the keepers of the protocols. No problem.

2nd amendment. No way we should be permitted  to arm ourselves. We are too stupid and dangerous. Armed guards and gun permits for the keepers of the protocols? No problem.

There is another way to spell  President Donald J. Trump. Enough.

Apocalypse Trump

As you have no doubt noticed there is an apocalyptic story about President Trump just about every day. As you have also no doubt noticed, these stories contain very little in the way of facts.

Today Yahoo "News" (quote marks are mine) treated us to this howler:

The Comey memo was also about Trump’s request to arrest reporters. Journalists call it ‘crazy and scary.’

 

Only two small problems, again. No memo and no named source. Other than that, its totally credible. Well, no, it isn't.

Perhaps there is a memo, I guess we'll see. Seems to me that whoever leaked this could easily have made a copy of the "memo" available. After all, according to the NYT story Yahoo "News" relies on,

"The New York Times has not viewed a copy of the memo, which is unclassified, but one of Mr. Comey’s associates read parts of it to a Times reporter." If it isn't classified why not share it? As any 10 year old knows, because it either doesn't exist, doesn't say what the leaker claims it does, or the leaker is daring Trump to release the recordings of his conversations with Comey Trump referred to so they will know whether the tapes exist. Much better to know that before hand than risk being exposed for what they are if they publish the memo.

Curious indeed. If you read the NYT story you can see the methodology. An anonymous source reads from a "memo" the NYT cannot see. The NYT sees no problem here. In fact, the story extrapolates from the "memo" no one has seen.

Here is one of my favorites.

"The documentation of Mr. Trump’s request is the clearest evidence that the president has tried to directly influence the Justice Department and F.B.I. investigation into links between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia."

What "documentation"? No one has seen any such documentation but extrapolating damning conclusions from a document they don't have and have never seen is no stretch at all when President Trump is involved. And they wonder why Trump hates them and makes no secret of it.

President Trump vowed to "drain the swamp" that is Washington D.C. The swamp creatures are fighting back in unprecedented style.

Bureaucrats, prime stakeholders in the swamp, are leaking details of every meeting Trump has. Main stream media, also prime stakeholders in the swamp, continually print stories based on absolutely nothing but "unnamed sources" referring, to but never producing any "documentation".

This, from a recent Washington Post story, is, I think, a record for anonymous sourcing.

"But the private accounts of more than 30 officials at the White House, the Justice Department, the FBI and on Capitol Hill, as well as Trump confidants and other senior Republicans, paint a conflicting narrative centered on the president’s brewing personal animus toward Comey. Many of those interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to candidly discuss internal deliberations." Emphasis added.

So, "more than 30" eh? Well, how many actually or are the reporters unable to count that high? What possible reason could the writers have for not including the actual number? Many possibilities. None of which reflect well on the reporters, their editors or The Washington Post. Chief among the possibilities is that there were not 30 sources but they admired the effect the inclusion of the number had on the story's claim to legitimacy.

Then there is this; "Many of those interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity..."

"Many"? There is not a single named "source" in the story as it relates to the leak. Why not include a quote from someone who didn't insist on anonymity?  Because none of the quoted, attributed sources, were among the leakers. They were just offering opinions. Why include such dissembling? Because they are not writing a news story. They are trying to destroy the presidency of the man who vowed to make them play by the rules.

They are protecting their turf and will not give up easily.

Do not believe anything they say about President Trump. Not a thing. Their purpose is to persuade the President's supporters to abandon him. We won't. If any of his other supporters are anything like me, the behavior of the press and the bureaucrats simply confirms that Trump is and was right. These people are much more interested in taking him down than they are in reporting the "news".

One thing I find puzzling. Do they really want a President Pence? Hillary he is not.

James Comey/Updated

Well! President Trump has finally fired FBI Director James Comey.

Is this a manifestation of Trump's well known (to the left) penchant for totalitarianism?

Has he unleashed his inner Hitler/Mussolini/Pol Pot/Stalin/Attilla the Hun?

Maybe, but in a good way.

I wrote at some length last July about Comey's non-indictment indictment of Hillary Clinton. His explanation was complete nonsense in my view and that of many others more qualified to opine on the matter than I. He should long since have been fired.

I find myself wondering how the left is going to play this. They have a conundrum to deal with.

When Comey let Clinton off the hook he was the greatest, sharpest, most honest guy in the world. When he put her back on the hook briefly, at the end of October, he was the worst miscreant ever to work in Washington. When he promptly took her off the hook, again, he resumed his pedestal. But then she lost. Oh my. Comey's pedestal was promptly blown up.

But wait, there's more! He testified to Congress that some Trump people might be in the FBI's cross hairs over contacts with Russia. The pedestal was not resurrected but he was relieved of perennial villain status.

Now he has been fired. Are they shameless enough to set their hair on fire, again over Trump's megalomania?

I don't know but it should make for enjoyable entertainment.

Update:

Hair is on fire! It is the Saturday Night Massacre all over again! A Constitutional Crisis!

Except for the part where it is neither.

The Saturday Night Massacre  occurred on October 20, 1973. Congress had appointed a Special Prosecutor to investigate the Watergate burglary. The ensuing investigation led to Richard Nixon's resignation from the presidency.

The statute creating the special prosecutor stated that he could not be fired except for cause and classified him as a justice department employee, not a political appointee. President Nixon demanded his Attorney General fire the SP without cause. The AG refused and resigned. Nixon then demanded that his assistant AG fire the SP. The AGA also resigned. The rest is well known history.

James Comey served at the pleasure of the President and could be fired for a good reason, a bad reason or no reason at all. Thus, no comparison at all to the SNM, as in, none.

Constitutional crisis? Apparently these people are not terribly well acquainted with the Constitution. The Director of the FBI is a political appointment of the executive branch. As such, as mentioned above, the President can fire him for any reason or no reason at all, at any time.

Billions of bytes are being deployed in the attempt to create the impression that the reason for the firing is that Comey's probe into Russian/Trump campaign collusion was getting too close to the President and had to be stopped.

There is a quite plausible, although less exciting, alternative explanation.

The Deputy AG, to whom the FBI Director reports, was only confirmed to office by the Senate on April 26, 2017. He then proceeded with his review of those for whose performance he is responsible. Unsurprisingly he found Comey's performance wanting, (agreeing with many Democrats' assessments, well, until they changed their minds en masse yesterday) and issued his report to the AG recommending he be fired. AG Sessions approved the report and informed the President. The President fired Comey.

The end.

The Curious Case of James Comey and Donald Trump/Updated

 On Tuesday July 5, 2016, FBI Chief James Comey gave a speech. As many others have mentioned, there seemed actually to have been two, unconnected, Comey speeches.

https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/statement-by-fbi-director-james-b.-comey-on-the-investigation-of-secretary-hillary-clintons-use-of-a-personal-e-mail-system

 The first speech gave us a detailed description of lawless activity clearly in violation of  18 U.S. Code § 793 - Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information. 
(f) Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense, (1) through gross negligence* permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or (2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both. (Emphasis added) https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793

Comey, in the first speech, characterized Clinton and her associates as having been "extremely careless" in their handling of her emails in general and classified ones in particular. As far as I know "extremely careless" is not a legal term, although "carelessness" is defined in Black's Law Dictionary in part as,

"...The careless person is the person who does not take the care he ought to take: never mind whether he felt careful. He can be held to be negligent in making a perfectly honest mistake". Black's Law Dictionary, 7th Edition, P. 205. (Emphasis in the original).

When used by an experienced lawyer like Mr. Comey, it may or may not be a euphemism for gross negligence. From all I have read and from my own viewing experience I had the impression that he intended it to convey the depths of his contempt for Clinton and company's disregard for the norms of behavior in the handling of state secrets.

The reason for his use of the expression in lieu of gross negligence became clear to me in the second speech, the one that said, essentially, nothing to see here. Had he used "gross negligence" in the first speech he would have materially reduced the already limited coherence of drawing the no prosecution conclusion in the second. An already incoherent conclusion would have been rendered more incoherent.

As you can see from the statute above, the intentions of the subjects being investigated have no relationship to the breaking of the law in subsection (f). This contrasts (f) with (a) and (b) which require intent as part of the crime.

In his second speech Comey said:

 In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts. All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice. We do not see those things here.

Far more authoritative voices than mine have called foul on this. It just doesn't ring true. Andrew McCarthy at NRO http://www.nationalreview.com/article/437643/fbi-director-james-comey-testimony-clinton-defense-crumbles-under-scrutiny
demolishes Comey's assertions in detail.

We are left to wonder why Mr. Comey, of apparently spotless reputation, chose to humiliate himself in this manner.

None of the wondering leads anywhere we want to go.

 The presidential election of 2008 ushered in, in my opinion, our Emperor's New Clothes era (ENC). Mr. Comey continued it, in grand style, with his speech.

We elected a black President, have had two black Attorneys General, a black man sits on the Supreme Court, a black man heads Homeland Security, we have dozens of black mayors, congresspersons, thousands of black state legislators, city council members and judges (I found no firm figures but extrapolated from this http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/3/29/1372225/-Just-how-many-elected-officials-are-there-in-the-United-States-The-answer-is-mind-blowing )and descend into racial chaos because we are racists.

We know we are not racists and the evidence is everywhere and overwhelming, but, we must admire the ENC. Among the most overwhelming evidence we have of this is that at 13.125% of the population, black people cannot elect anyone without a great deal of help from us racists. source

We  are told of a great new deal with Iran that will stop them from building a nuke, but we aren't allowed to see the whole deal...because it is so good. But, we must admire the ENC.
UPDATE: Now we know that the part we weren't supposed to see will allow Iran to halve, to six months, the time it will take them to build a bomb when the deal expires . Who could have guessed?

We are told how brilliant our President is but we cannot see his college transcripts...because they are so great. ENC.

Unemployment is at pre-2008 levels Hooray! Not! ENC source  

Everybody knows that right-thinking Americans have always supported gay marriage, and not agreeing makes you a neanderthal.
Right. source  Note the relationship between Obama's change of heart and the 2012 election. ENC.

The list goes on forever. Black is white, white is black. ISIS is not an Islamic organization. We are not sure what motivated Mateen. Hillary didn't do anything she should be prosecuted for and, according to Mr. Comey, a statute that says gross negligence is the required level of responsibility to complete the crime doesn't really mean that.

Which brings us to Donald Trump. I am, at the moment, an extremely reluctant supporter. Among the reasons for my reluctant support is that I can't take being told black is white and white is black anymore.

As I have written before, good luck to all of us.

*Gross Negligence is defined in part as ...A conscious, voluntary act or omission in reckless disregard of a legal duty and of the consequences to another party. Black's Law Dictionary, 7th edition, P. 1057

A lot has been written about conservatives' discomfort with the threshold of gross negligence as sufficient for a criminal conviction. The reason for the discomfort is the exploding number of new crimes being minted by government agencies. Using gross negligence as the replacement for criminal intent places ordinary citizens in jeopardy.

Hillary Clinton is not an ordinary citizen. She signed several documents confirming that she understood the rules. She was grossly negligent in carrying out her duties and should be prosecuted for that malfeasance.