Glibertarians.com 2017 Archive

Tag: Trump

  • James Comey: Jilted Lover or Spineless Chump?

    As far as I can tell, there is no other plausible explanation for his actions in retrospect.

    Many of you watched the hearing as I did. Hell, I think it was watched by half of America (not including John McCain apparently). And its hard for me to comprehend how there are any true winners or losers here from either a legal standpoint other than maybe Loretta Lynch losing some footing as being above partisanship when it comes to her department’s handling of the Clinton private email server investigation.

    John McCain in his natural state.

    But what should be attacked vigorously by any responsible authority tasked with oversight or any media talking head is Comey’s ability to be a man and do his job with any form of integrity whatsoever. Because he completely contradicted prior sworn testimony today by suggesting that Trump was attempting to influence him. And that he should have carried himself differently many times with interactions with the President in regards to how he reacted and how he reported (or failed to report) what he perceives months later as attempts to coerce or manipulate the FBI head into dropping investigations.

    I’m sure there is some sense of being awe-struck by someone being summoned to the White House. I would like to think I’d be immune to that, but you never know. But the head of the nation’s federal law enforcement apparatus should never be of that mindset unless he is feeling guilty about something. He has spent his life climbing into situations and relationships that are complicated and him being somehow cowed by a President he believes is acting in an unprofessional and borderline-illegal way defies common sense.

    I swear to tell the truth. Even if its different than the “truth” I told the last time I was under oath here.

    Which leads me to my personal opinion: Comey is changing his tune because he feels like he was wronged. He deliberately leaked government property to a friend so they could be sent to the media. He allowed erroneous leaks to remain in the news in order to damage a President he didn’t care for. He contradicted prior sworn testimony in an attempt to change the public narrative on meetings that he considered “notingburgers” until he was fired to “possible attempts at coercion” in the aftermath of that termination.

    Whatever your thoughts about Donald Trump are, whatever you think his relationship with the Russians was, and whatever you think the Democrats are attempting to accomplish here, one thing should be taken away by anybody with an ounce of brains: Comey is gutless or Comey is grinding his axe. I’ve made my decision. Please discuss yours in the comments.

  • Wednesday Afternoon Links

    Good Odin’s day, fair commenters. I bring you the freshest of links pulled from the sea and slapped down–still wriggling–on your monitors.

    American flights might not cost an arm and a leg, but they’d be more comfortable with fewer appendages

    As if American flights weren’t bad enough already.

    Taiwan moved up six spots on the World Press Freedom Index to #45! Oh, wait. It’s just because everyone else got worse this year, not because they actually improved. For reference the US is #43 (full list here). North Korea is unsurprisingly dead last.

    If he pulls this off I’ll eat my hat.

    Nissan outfitting its cars with tinfoil hats. Protect your phones from prying spooks, buy Nissan. TW: Autoplay video because CNN.

  • Trump’s Charming, Surprising, Patriotic Naïveté

    The Trump press conference from Thursday, February, 16, 2017, revealed a surprising truth:  Trump, for all of his instincts and obvious intelligence, is charmingly and patriotically naïve about the nature of the United States Government and the Media.  Trump’s revelation about the Media and its willingness to report anything, even if it is counter to the interests of the country , illuminated that Trump was initially ingenuous regarding the nature of the Political Press.  In that same thought, Trump realizes there are parties within the United States Government itself willing to leak information, even if it sets off diplomatic skirmishes, heightens tensions or even sparks wars, for their own personal gain or to further their own petty ends.

    I was shocked because all this equipment, all this incredible phone equipment — when I was called out on Mexico, I was — honestly, I was really, really surprised.

    But I said “you know, it doesn’t make sense. That won’t happen” but that wasn’t that important a call, it was fine, I could show it to the world and he could show it to the world, the president who’s a very fine man, by the way. Same thing with Australia. I said “that’s terrible that it was leaked” but it wasn’t that important. But then I said to myself “what happens when I’m dealing with the problem of North Korea?”

    What happens when I’m dealing with the problems in the Middle East? Are you folks going to be reporting all of that very, very confidential information, very important, very — you know, I mean at the highest level? Are you going to be reporting about that too?

    Even though it would be patently against the interests of the country for the Media to publish Trump’s detailed plans (by way of example) on handling potential North Korean belligerence, in this age of Media as shit-flinging Opposition Monkeys, is there any doubt it would be published anyway?  For Trump, however, he assumed even the Media would not be so debased.  He expected what we used to be able to expect of most Citizens:  despite our political differences, we are all still Americans who want what is best for the country and you are an American first and a journalist second.  Trump optimistically assumes even journalists have a sense of civic responsibility.  At least, he did.  I doubt he feels that way any longer.

    The second revelation is found in Trump’s open wonderment of, “you know, it doesn’t make sense.  That won’t happen.”  What the President is saying is he’s “honestly…really, really surprised” that members of the Deep State would leak private and classified phone calls to the press. Or, to put it more bluntly, the members of the Deep State would commit felonies in open insubordination of their new Executive.  I believe it genuinely shocked Trump to learn that not every member of the Deep State would blanch at acting against the interests of their (nominal) boss, the President of the United States.   Even for the most cynical among us, it is at least surprising that the Intelligence Community, bequeathed with special privileges under the guise of “national security”, used surreptitiously obtained information to put out a political hit on someone they simply did not care for.  That is why Trump is right, and the Media and the Left (but I repeat myself) are wrong:  the big story here is the leaker or leakers, who are abusing their power and taking advantage of a trusting polity to actively subvert a peaceful, lawful election.

    Trump was akin to the squishy centrist Soccer Parent one encounters on Facebook who says things like, “the government is just there to help us” and “they would never use your information to do THAT!”  I sincerely hope he has been disabused of that notion and ruthlessly removes the leakers from any levers of power and, if appropriate, sends them to prison.

    I now humbly submit myself to the Commentariat for evisceration.