“It’s an institutional culture in government. We don’t want to go after our predecessors because we don’t want our successors to come after us.”
And now you know the central theme in DC decision-making, at least predominantly on the side of the Republicans.
You may apply this to every situation in which you ask the question “so why was nothing done and why is no one accountable in DC for anything at any time?”
You can thank Judge Andrew Napolitano for providing the obvious answer.
Many of us intuited this; now there is no question.
My thanks to the SHR Media Network for allowing me to broadcast in their studio and over their air twice weekly, Tuesdays and Thursdays, as well as appear on the Sack Heads Radio Show™ each Wednesday evening.
Featured in the Saloon tonight was the White Mamba, Esq., The Official Attorney of the Berserk Bobcat Saloon, otherwise known at TOABBS. Because of his lawyerliness (yes, that is an official word), I asked him to weigh in on the recent events of the US Supreme Court this week, to include the opinion on the Trump travel ban and two other important SCOTUS cases.
Tonight in the Saloon:
“I’d like to have an argument, please,” at the Argument Clinic;
“I could be arguing in my spare time.”
Jealousy: a buddy is moving to Montana; I’m not. That says it all. Harumph!
CNN is having a bad week; schadenfreude returns with a vengeance;
Shuckie-darn, 3 CNN Fake Newsies resign, axed by CNN CEO Jeff Zucker;
Three things more trusted than CNN:
—- Breast milk from Bruce Jenner;
—- Unprotected sex with Madonna;
—- Having a drink with Bill Cosby;
James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas skewers CNN; they admit they are Fake News;
CNN does NOT refute the Project Veritas video; that bespeaks volumes;
White Mamba, Esq opines on all things SCOTUS;
Demorats register the “wrong dead people” in Virginia;
Judge Napolitano: Loretta Lynch could do serious prison time;
Piers Morgan skewers Muslim London Mayor Sadiq Khan.
If you care to listen to the show in Spreaker, please click on start.
If you care to watch the show on YouTube, please likewise click on start.
New programming note: beginning this Thursday, June 29th, Dan Butcher of High Plains Pundit fame will be featured as a regular guest every Thursday night here in the Saloon. I am pleased to welcome Dan to the show because he himself is such a stellar media figure. You can find him here at High Plains Pundit, here at High Plains Talk Radio, here on Facebook, and here on Twitter. Don’t miss Dan’s intelligent and insightful commentary, live and direct from the Lone Star state of Texas, every Thursday in the Saloon.
Please join me, the Bloviating Zeppelin(on Twitter @BZep and on Gab.ai @BZep), every Tuesday and Thursday night on the SHR Media Network from 11 PM to 1 AM Eastern and 8 PM to 10 PM Pacific, at the Berserk Bobcat Saloon — where the speech is free but the drinks are not.
As ever, thank you so kindly for listening, commenting, and interacting in the chat room or listening later via podcast.
Want to listen to all the Berserk Bobcat Saloon archives in podcast? Go here. Want to watch the past shows on YouTube? Please visit the SHR Media Network YouTube channel here.
If you’d been listening to the American Media Maggots the past 24 hours, you’d think the sky had indeed fallen all across the United States of America.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has long been regarded as our nation’s premier federal investigative agency. Over the past year, however, the FBI’s reputation and credibility have suffered substantial damage, and it has affected the entire Department of Justice. That is deeply troubling to many Department employees and veterans, legislators and citizens.
The current FBI Director is an articulate and persuasive speaker about leadership and the immutable principles of the Department of Justice. He deserves our appreciation for his public service. As you and I have discussed, however, I cannot defend the Director’s handling of the conclusion of the investigation of Secretary Clinton’s emails, and I do not understand his refusal to accept the nearly universal judgment that he was mistaken. Almost everyone agrees that the Director made serious mistakes; it is one of the few issues that unites people of diverse perspectives.
It is not the function of the Director to make such an announcement. At most, the Director should have said the FBI had completed its investigation and presented its findings to federal prosecutors. The Director now defends his decision by asserting that he believed attorney General Loretta Lynch had a conflict. But the FBI Director is never empowered to supplant federal prosecutors and assume command of the Justice Department. There is a well-established process for other officials to step in when a conflict requires the recusal of the Attorney General. On July 5, however, the Director announced his own conclusions about the nation’s most sensitive criminal investigation, without the authorization of duly appointed Justice Department leaders.
I set out my objections to now-former Director James Comey last year with his horribly flawed reasoning for failing to forward the Hillary Clinton case to the DOJ last year, and also in this post. I was heartened to see that the bulk of my objections were quite similar to those of the Deputy Attorney General.
We all know that President William Jefferson Clinton fired his FBI Director, William Sessions, back in 1993 for essentially political reasons. That was fine with Demorats.
Many Demorats themselves were calling for the severed head of William Comey quite recently.
Yes, two words: what changed?
We all know the answer, quite obviously. Judicial Watch’s CJ Farrell had this to say from last year.
Maxine Waters: I Don’t Support Trump Firing Comey, I Would Support Hillary Clinton Firing Comey
by Ian Schwartz
NBC’s Peter Alexander grills Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Cali.) for her displeasure at President Trump firing FBI Director James Comey after she had announced in January that he has lost all credibility after attending a classified briefing conducted by the now-former director.
However, in the interview Wednesday on MSNBC, asked if she would be okay with a hypothetical President Hillary Clinton dismissing Comey from his position, Waters said yes.
“If she had won the White House, I believe that given what he did to her, and what he tried to do, she should have fired him. Yes,” the California Democrat said.
“So she should have fired him but had he shouldn’t fire him. This is why I’m confused,” Alexander said to Waters.
Honesty and clarity, for once, coming from Maxine Waters in terms of her clear bias.
Neither was our favorite moonbat, Keith Olbermann.
So what really happened in the White House? What was the final straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back? I wrote back on Tuesday that Comey’s final waffling on the number of emails found in Weiner’s laptop was the kicker. Oddly enough, Dr Sebastian Gorka highlighted that same issue.
The New York Times wrote this about the White House decision.
‘Enough was Enough’: How Festering Anger at Comey Ended in His Firing
by Maggie Haberman, Glenn Thrush, Michael S Schmidt and Peter Baker
WASHINGTON — By the end, neither of them thought much of the other.
After President Trump accused his predecessor in March of wiretapping him, James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, was flabbergasted. The president, Mr. Comey told associates, was “outside the realm of normal,” even “crazy.”
For his part, Mr. Trump fumed when Mr. Comey publicly dismissed the sensational wiretapping claim. In the weeks that followed, he grew angrier and began talking about firing Mr. Comey. After stewing last weekend while watching Sunday talk shows at his New Jersey golf resort, Mr. Trump decided it was time. There was “something wrong with” Mr. Comey, he told aides.
The problem, you see, was that Donald Trump waited too long. As I believed and wrote numerous times, on January 20th at noon, President Trump should have demanded Comey’s resignation letter.
The collision between president and F.B.I. director that culminated with Mr. Comey’s stunning dismissal on Tuesday had been a long time coming. To a president obsessed with loyalty, Mr. Comey was a rogue operator who could not be trusted as the F.B.I. investigated Russian ties to Mr. Trump’s campaign. To a lawman obsessed with independence, Mr. Trump was the ultimate loose cannon, making irresponsible claims on Twitter and jeopardizing the bureau’s credibility.
The other problem was that Comey wasn’t obsessed with any independence other than his own, and not that of the bureau itself. The only person who jeopardized the FBI’s credibility was James Comey.
The White House, in a series of shifting and contradictory accounts, first said Mr. Trump decided to fire Mr. Comey because the attorney general and his deputy recommended it. By Wednesday, it had amended the timeline to say that the president had actually been thinking about getting rid of the F.B.I. director as far back as November, after he won the election, and then became “strongly inclined” after Mr. Comey testified before Congress last week.
Mr. Comey’s fate was sealed by his latest testimony about the bureau’s investigation into Russia’s efforts to sway the 2016 election and the Clinton email inquiry. Mr. Trump burned as he watched, convinced that Mr. Comey was grandstanding. He was particularly irked when Mr. Comey said he was “mildly nauseous” to think that his handling of the email case had influenced the election, which Mr. Trump took to demean his own role in history.
Director Comey was grandstanding.
At that point, Mr. Trump began talking about firing him. He and his aides thought they had an opening because Mr. Comey gave an incorrect account of how Huma Abedin, a top adviser to Mrs. Clinton, transferred emails to her husband’s laptop, an account the F.B.I. later corrected.
As I wrote on Tuesday, that element was the final straw. And yes, it did provide an opening.
At first, Mr. Trump, who is fond of vetting his decisions with a wide circle of staff members, advisers and friends, kept his thinking to a small circle, venting his anger to Vice President Mike Pence; the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II; and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who all told him they generally backed dismissing Mr. Comey.
Then President Trump finally did the right thing.
But wait; hold up on that car wash. Isn’t this the same New York Times that wrote in 1993:
DEFIANT F.B.I. CHIEF REMOVED FROM JOB BY THE PRESIDENT
By DAVID JOHNSTON Published: July 20, 1993
WASHINGTON, July 19— President Clinton today dismissed William S. Sessions, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who had stubbornly rejected an Administration ultimatum to resign six months after a harsh internal ethics report on his conduct.
Mr. Clinton said he would announce his nominee to replace Mr. Sessions on Tuesday. He was expected to pick Judge Louis J. Freeh of Federal District Court in Manhattan; officials said Judge Freeh had impressed Mr. Clinton favorably on Friday at their first meeting.
Mr. Clinton, explaining his reasons for removing Mr. Sessions, effective immediately, said, “We cannot have a leadership vacuum at an agency as important to the United States as the F.B.I. It is time that this difficult chapter in the agency’s history is brought to a close.”
But in a parting news conference at F.B.I. headquarters after Mr. Clinton’s announcement, a defiant Mr. Sessions — his right arm in a sling as a result of a weekend fall — railed at what he called the unfairness of his removal, which comes nearly six years into his 10-year term.
“Because of the scurrilous attacks on me and my wife of 42 years, it has been decided by others that I can no longer be as forceful as I need to be in leading the F.B.I. and carrying out my responsibilities to the bureau and the nation,” he said. “It is because I believe in the principle of an independent F.B.I. that I have refused to voluntarily resign.”
It appears, according to the New York Times, that President William Clinton, a Demorat, was perfectly well within his rights and abilities to fire Director Sessions who insisted that the FBI be independent. That same newspaper now states that President Donald Trump, a Republican, is not perfectly well within his rights and abilities to fire Director Comey who insisted that the FBI be independent.
The difference? Political parties. Simply that.
James Comey, in a letter to his office the day after his firing, said the president was within his authority to fire a sitting FBI director. From TheHill.com:
Comey farewell: ‘A president can fire an FBI director for any reason’
Former FBI Director James Comey on Wednesday sent a letter to agents and friends following President Trump firing him the previous day.
“I have long believed that a President can fire an FBI director for any reason, or for no reason at all,” he wrote, according to CNN. “I’m not going to spend time on the decision or the way it was executed.”
Leftist attorney and professor Alan Dershowitz came in on the side of President Trump. From Breitbart.com:
Dershowitz: Comey Firing ‘Appropriate,’ No Special Prosecutor
by Joel B Pollak
Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz told CNN’s Don Lemon on Tuesday night that President Donald Trump was well within his rights to fire former FBI director James Comey, and that there was no need for a special prosecutor in the investigation into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.
Dershowitz appeared next to CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, who was apoplectic. “The fact that he did this will disgrace his memory for as long as this presidency is remembered. There is only one date that will be remembered after Januarth 20th so far in the Trump presidency, and it is the day of the ‘Tuesday Night Massacre,’” Toobin said, referencing President Richard Nixon’s firing of Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox during the Watergate scandal.
Toobin had also told CNN’s Anderson Cooper earlier that Trump would likely name a “campaign stooge” as Comey’s replacement at the FBI.
But Dershowitz disagreed.
“Should Comey be the director of the FBI? The answer to that is no,” he said, noting that he had called earlier for Comey to resign. “He lost his credibility. … A lot of this is his fault.”
When Toobin objected that Trump had fired former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates and former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara as well as Comey, “all three of whom had the potential to investigate and trouble the Trump presidency,” Dershowitz argued that they were all Democrat appointees and had all been dismissed appropriately by a Republican president.
Perquisites of the job that have been replicated time and again by Demorat presidents.
Where is John McCain on this because, after all, when the story appears to be about someone else, well, it’s really about John McCain, isn’t it? From the WashingtonPost.com:
John McCain on Comey firing: ‘There will be more shoes to drop’
by Josh Rogin
President Trump’s sudden firing of FBI Director James B. Comey is bad for the country and will not be the end of the Trump-Russia affair, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told a group of foreign diplomats and experts Tuesday night.
Although McCain did not directly accuse the White House of firing Comey to thwart the FBI’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s possible Russia ties, he did say that if that was the intention, it would fail.
Again, news about truth isn’t news. News about specious insinuation is news.
“This scandal is going to go on. I’ve seen it before,” McCain told a meeting of the Munich Security Conference core group. “This is a centipede. I guarantee you there will be more shoes to drop, I can just guarantee it. There’s just too much information that we don’t have that will be coming out.”
He called Trump’s actions against Comey “unprecedented” and said the position of FBI director has held special meaning in American public life dating back decades.
Ooooh, scary, John, very scary.
“Probably the most respected individual in all of the American government is probably the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” McCain said. “I’m very sorry that this has happened.”
The event was off the record, but McCain gave me permission to place his comments on the record. He said that Trump had the legal basis to fire Comey but that his decision would have long-term negative consequences.
“I regret it, I think it’s unfortunate,” McCain said. “The president does have that constitutional authority. But I can’t help but think that this is not a good thing for America.”
I refer to this article solely to illustrate how terribly out-of-touch is John McCain with the law and with reality. However, even McCain isn’t yet sufficiently addled to refute the authority of a president to fire an FBI director.
Former FBI Assistant Director James Kallstrom weighs in on the Comey situation and likewise concludes that President Trump acted appropriately. “I’m glad it happened.”
As I’ve said, I still have law enforcement contacts across the fruited plain and I know that the bulk of line-level agents, not necessarily supervisors or managers, were relieved to see the dismissal of William Comey. Judge Andrew Napolitano confirms this.
Newt Gingrich also weighs in on the issue with Sean Hannity.
Let us not forget the 10 major scandals that occurred on the 3.5-year watch of Director Comey.
The bottom line is this: former FBI Director James Comey made quite a number of flawed decisions based not upon the law but instead on politics. He placed himself in front of cameras frequently as he enjoyed the limelight. He did so for self-aggrandizing reasons. Having a self-righteous and poor decision-maker in charge of the FBI is not a formula for success or for ensuring confidence in the bureau.
Kari Baxter Donovan happens to be the East Coast Political Goddess or, as White Mambas suggested in chat, the ECPG.
My thanks to the SHR Media Network for allowing me to broadcast in their studio and over their air twice weekly, Tuesdays and Thursdays, as well as appear on the Sack Heads Radio Show™ each Wednesday evening.
Thursday night on the Berserk Bobcat Saloon:
Monty Python’s Eric Idle interviews me on UK television;
BZ wonders: should I go for a daily one-hour show?
Trump lobs a MOAB (Massive Ordnance Air Blast) trinket at ISIS in Afghanistan;
UK confirms: GCHQ assisted Obama; Judge Andrew Napolitano was correct;
Muslims at MN free food bank demand Halal free food; they have rights, you know;
UK Muslims ask Christians: “are you jealous that we’re taking over?”
BZ interviews Kari Baxter Donovan about Bannon, Trump, the media, & more;
Kari Baxter Donovan is the East Coast Political Goddess, an American Patriot who is well versed on the Constitution, and an actual conservative Republican. A supporter of our Military and Veterans, she cherishes family and believes in American Exceptionalism. Kari is the epitome of what it means to be an American, no hyphens involved. She readily admits to being a Steve Bannon Fan Girl. Wait, sorry: devotee. Enchantress?
Please join me, the Bloviating Zeppelin(on Twitter @BZep and on Gab.ai @BZep), every Tuesday and Thursday night on the SHR Media Network from 11 PM to 1 AM Eastern and 8 PM to 10 PM Pacific, at the Berserk Bobcat Saloon — where the speech is free but the drinks are not.
As ever, thank you so kindly for listening, commenting, and interacting in the chat room or listening via podcast.
Please stay tuned because, next week, we have Jersey Joe, the Reaver of Common Sense on Tuesday the 18th, and White Mamba, the Official Attorney of the Berserk Bobcat Saloon, on Thursday the 21st.
Shirts will be on sale at the door. Free beer tomorrow.
Want to listen to the Berserk Bobcat Saloon podcast archives? Go here.
BZ
P.S.
I am still a techno sound neophyte. Trust me. I’m working on it.
My thanks to the SHR Media Network for allowing me to broadcast in their studio and over their air twice weekly, Tuesdays and Thursdays, as well as appear on the Sack Heads Radio Show™ each Wednesday evening.
Tuesday night at the Saloon we discussed:
Happy Stories: grandfather upset that home invasion victim killed his grandson and two other suspects with an AR-15 — as opposed to a pellet pistol or a butter knife?
How I conduct business at the Saloon; thanks be to those in chat;
Mother talks about how her son was tortured and killed at the hands of an illegal alien who systematically killed her son and set his body on fire;
Victims of illegal immigrant crime speak to Donald Trump;
Who is REALLY sitting next to your child in the classroom: is it an illegal alien or a 30-year-old man who shares a bathroom with 10-year-old kids? Your school probably couldn’t care less and it won’t tell you any way;
No Shaun at the Sack Heads Radio Show tomorrow night?
Nancy Pelosi: we actually have nothing on Trump and Russia;
In depth: an extended update on the surveillance of President Donald Trump
Please join me, the Bloviating Zeppelin(on Twitter @BZep and on Gab.ai @BZep), every Tuesday and Thursday night on the SHR Media Network from 11 PM to 1 AM Eastern and 8 PM to 10 PM Pacific, at the Berserk Bobcat Saloon — where the speech is free but the drinks are not.
As ever, thank you so kindly for listening, commenting, and interacting in the chat room or listening via podcast. Thanks also to the BBS bouncer Fluffy for kicking all the louts out of Mary Brockman’s chair at the bar.
Want to listen to all the Berserk Bobcat Saloon archives in podcast? Go here.
This may be the most important post I’ll write the rest of the year.
My thanks to the SHR Media Network for allowing me to broadcast in their studio and over their air twice weekly, Tuesdays and Thursdays, as well as appear on the Sack Heads Radio Show™ each Wednesday evening.
Featured in the Saloon tonight was the White Mamba, Esq., The Official Attorney of the Berserk Bobcat Saloon, otherwise known at TOABBS. Because of his lawyerliness (yes, that is an official word), I asked him to weigh in on the recent events of the US Supreme Court this week, to include the opinion on the Trump travel ban and two other important SCOTUS cases.
Please join me, the 
If you’d been listening to the American Media Maggots the past 24 hours, you’d think the sky had indeed fallen all across the United States of America.
Many Demorats themselves were calling for the severed head of William Comey quite recently.
Kari Baxter Donovan
Kari Baxter Donovan is the East Coast Political Goddess, an American Patriot who is well versed on the Constitution, and an actual conservative Republican. A supporter of our Military and Veterans, she cherishes family and believes in American Exceptionalism. Kari is the epitome of what it means to be an American, no hyphens involved. She readily admits to being a Steve Bannon Fan Girl. Wait, sorry: devotee. Enchantress?
My thanks to the SHR Media Network for allowing me to broadcast in their studio and over their air twice weekly, Tuesdays and Thursdays, as well as appear on the Sack Heads Radio Show™ each Wednesday evening.