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The new, temporary FBI Director Andrew G. McCabe says that employees loved Comey:
Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe Thursday rejected assertions by the White House that FBI employees had lost faith in James Comey and that the bureau's probe into Russian election meddling was one of its most minor concerns. "I hold Director Comey in the absolute highest regard. I have the highest respect for his considerable abilities and his integrity," McCabe told members of the Senate intelligence committee. He said Comey, who was fired by President Donald Trump on Tuesday, enjoyed "broad support within the FBI and still does to this day." He added, "The majority, the vast majority of FBI employees enjoyed a deep, positive connection to Director Comey."
Furthermore, he will inform the Senate of any interference with the Russia investigation:
Acting FBI director Andrew McCabe vowed Thursday that he would tell the Senate Intelligence Committee if the White House tried to interfere with the bureau's probe of possible coordination between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign to influence the 2016 presidential election — though he asserted that there had "been no effort to impede our investigation to date."
Meanwhile, President Trump has undermined the White House's messaging on Comey's firing, saying that he planned to fire "showboat" and "grandstander" James Comey regardless of any recommendation from Attorney General Jeff Sessions or Deputy Attorney General Ron Rosenstein. The President also insists that he is not under FBI investigation.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Friday May 12 2017, @07:27PM (11 children)
Where by "The majority", you mean the superdelegates.
The whole episode was shameful. On the evening before the biggest state primary (California), the DNC announced that HRC had "won", despite the lack of an actual vote on the topic by superdelegates. Result: low turnout for the Democratic primary. Yes, the superdelegates may have been leaning towards voting for HRC, but there is a reason we don't use opinion polls to elect people. They could have changed their minds between the time of the CA primary and the convention.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday May 12 2017, @08:00PM (8 children)
Where by "The majority", you mean the superdelegates.
No, I don't mean that at all. Why do people like you keep complaining about the superdelegates? They were not a factor AT ALL. Bernie lost the popular vote in the primaries, full stop. Hillary had several million more votes than he did. The regular voters failed to vote for him. There was a fear that he would lose because of the superdelegates, but it never even got that far for them to be a factor.
the DNC announced that HRC had "won", despite the lack of an actual vote on the topic by superdelegates. Result: low turnout for the Democratic primary.
Yes, but again, it's ultimately the peoples' fault for failing to show up and have their voices heard. The people failed to vote for Bernie, yet enough of them did manage to turn out and vote for Hillary.
There's other factors here too: the primaries should have been open, but in some states they're closed. The DNC should have worked to change that but didn't, but that's a state-by-state thing. If you want things more democratic, caucuses should be eliminated and replaced with primaries, because caucuses favor only politically-active people willing to go spend a lot of time at those things (and travel to them). Yet Bernie did better in states with caucuses than primaries. The DNC obviously shouldn't have been working directly for Hillary and stabbing Bernie in the back, but really it was obvious that was happening. So again, ultimately, it's the fault of the people. Hillary wasn't coronated by the DNC with zero votes; she got millions, and did especially well in the South BTW. If we could cut the South out of the country (or at least disallow them from voting), then Bernie would have won. Honestly, this country would be in much better shape if the South had never been fully admitted back into the union, and were instead treated as occupied territory, and later, after fixing the whole slavery problem, spun off into a separate country (just like companies do with business units that are dragging them down). The people there have no ability to properly govern themselves, and never have.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday May 12 2017, @09:50PM (3 children)
Why do people like you keep complaining about the superdelegates? They were not a factor AT ALL.
I strongly disagree. Those superdelegates gave Clinton a strong boost throughout the nomination process that she didn't warrant. The key factor here are the donations paid to the sure winner. If all you're interested in is bribing a political candidate, there is a huge increase in ROI once you get to the point where there is an obvious winner since you only have to pay campaign contributions to one candidate instead of two or more.
Clinton started with a bloc of about 10% of all Democrat party nomination votes before the first primary happened. That gave her campaign an unwarranted perception of winning that it didn't deserve and meant her campaign would be get an edge via the sure bet money, from start to finish than Sanders's campaign.
Hillary wasn't coronated by the DNC with zero votes; she got millions, and did especially well in the South BTW. If we could cut the South out of the country (or at least disallow them from voting), then Bernie would have won. Honestly, this country would be in much better shape if the South had never been fully admitted back into the union, and were instead treated as occupied territory, and later, after fixing the whole slavery problem, spun off into a separate country (just like companies do with business units that are dragging them down). The people there have no ability to properly govern themselves, and never have.
Compared to who? Texas, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, and Georgia, for example, are really strong states economically (which I consider the strongest indication of "proper governance"). Texas in particular has been growing stronger in a variety of metrics compared to rivals California and New York.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday May 13 2017, @05:24PM (2 children)
I strongly disagree. Those superdelegates gave Clinton a strong boost throughout the nomination process that she didn't warrant. The key factor here are the donations paid to the sure winner.
Donations are not votes. The voters can vote for whoever they want, and they voted for Hillary. The superdelegates were only a factor after the voting was all done and all the delegates in all the states showed up at the convention to vote: at that point, if it was close, the superdelegates could change the result. That never happened: just going by the delegates alone, Hillary won, because the voters chose her. The voters are to blame. If they allowed the mere presumption that the superdelegates would vote for Hillary to cause them to actually take time out of their day, go to the voting booth, and vote for a candidate they didn't prefer, that's their own stupid fault. No one forced them to vote for Hillary. (And no one forced them to stay home either.)
Compared to who? Texas, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, and Georgia, for example, are really strong states economically (which I consider the strongest indication of "proper governance")
No, it's not. It's sheer luck. I live in Virginia, and this state is terribly governed and horribly inefficient (for one thing, there's way too many counties, and there's extremely high taxation in this state because of all the administrative overhead and the number of counties). The reason the economy is strong is one reason: Washington DC. That's it. If you take a handful of northern Virginia counties out of the state, it'll be economically middling, with only the Hampton-Roads and Richmond areas doing any good, and the rest a disaster. The northern Virginia counties aren't doing well because the state is governed well, they're doing well (and have some of the highest costs of living in the country) because of their proximity to DC, the presence of the Pentagon, the presence of countless defense contractors gorging themselves on taxpayer money, etc. If those few counties were to secede from Virginia and instead join Wyoming (despite a bit of a geographical separation), then suddenly you'd be saying that Wyoming is "well governed" because of its fantastic economy. Sorry, no.
Texas is technically "South", but it's only barely. It's really not part of the "Deep South", no more than Tennessee or Arkansas. The worst Southern states are SC, AL, and MS anyway. GA is an oddity, mainly because of Atlanta. NC is a mess too; RTP is economically strong but the rest of the state is a disaster.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday May 14 2017, @04:40AM
Donations are not votes.
I agree. My point though is that higher donations from the very beginning through to the end of the nomination process is a huge advantage in getting those votes.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday May 14 2017, @05:34AM
Texas is technically "South", but it's only barely. It's really not part of the "Deep South", no more than Tennessee or Arkansas. The worst Southern states are SC, AL, and MS anyway. GA is an oddity, mainly because of Atlanta. NC is a mess too; RTP is economically strong but the rest of the state is a disaster.
Let us note most of the South is not part of the Deep South [wikipedia.org] either. Virginia surely isn't.
Now do that exercise for any other part of the US rather than just the "Deep South" specifically. Every state has parts that are messes, disasters, etc.
But the worst states by a variety of measures tend to be spread throughout the US rather than concentrated in the South. For example, this evaluation [247wallst.com] of the "management" of a state had the south fare relatively poorly (with the exception of Texas and Virginia), but still had Illinois and New Mexico underneath Mississippi, the worst of the "Deep South" states (and only half of the bottom 10 worst states were part of the South in any sense). And this rating of the "fiscal condition" [mercatus.org] of the states had most of the Northeast US rated worse than any part of the southern US (aside from two peripheral states Kentucky and Maryland which are occasionally considered part of the South).
I never understood the hard-on that some bigots have for the South.It's just another part of the country and there are plenty of other places in the US trying hard to be just as bad as the alleged excesses of this region.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Friday May 12 2017, @10:11PM
1. [I can't believe I am writing this, but ..] See khallow's comments.
2. I believe that the unwarranted pre-announcement of Clinton's victory disproportionately reduced voting amongst Sanders supporters. Hence the superdelegates mattered.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Saturday May 13 2017, @01:55AM (2 children)
Sure -- ignore closed primaries where you had register before he even kicked off his campaign. Ignore the voter roll purges. Ignore rule changes that favored HRC. For example in my state, they changed the viability level for precinct caucuses last election. Previously, you needed 15% to be considered a viable candidate. They eliminated that this year so in my precinct, HRC got 14% of the popular vote, and 25% of the delegates to the county convention. And sure, while Bernie did win WA, the margin between them was artificially reduced by the rule change thus making it impossible for him to catch up.
The debates were a complete softball, the media colluded w/ the DNC to exclude Bernie from coverage -- the whole fucking thing was an anti-democratic shitshow. And then you get the Superdelegates who had the power of 10,000 voters.
Finally, if we are stuck with a two party system, primaries should be totally open with the ability to choose your side on the day you vote. We have that in WA -- no registration half a year in advance. You decide this election you like the Republican, you declare yourself Republican and vote. You like the Dem -- you declare yourself Dem and vote. If the parties are going to exert the kind of control they do over our voting process, we have no democracy at all because time and again, it results in GiantDouche v. ShitSandwich elections.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday May 13 2017, @02:21AM
Yes, they purged new voters off the rolls in New York, about 100,000 if I remember correctly. In New York, that means they purged Democratic, not Republican, voters. Because they were new, that means they were Millenials who were inspired to register by Bernie, because he ran away with that demographic. Lawsuits were filed, but it was a fait accompli. It was essential, you see, to avoid the crushing embarassment of losing New York to Bernie because Hillary lives here and was Senator for New York, and because Chuck Schumer (Senator, New York) was the head of the Senate Campaign Committee for the DNC and would have been horribly embarassed to see Hillary lose to a "fake" Democrat like Bernie. Kirsten Gillibrand, New York's other Senator, was a protege of Hillary's so of course she couldn't be embarassed by Hillary losing New York, either.
In truth Hillary would probably have won New York anyway, even without the shenanigans, because the political machine rules here, but even a narrow win would have been just about as bad as losing for her momentum in the primaries.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday May 13 2017, @05:51PM
Finally, if we are stuck with a two party system, primaries should be totally open with the ability to choose your side on the day you vote. We have that in WA -- no registration half a year in advance. You decide this election you like the Republican, you declare yourself Republican and vote. You like the Dem -- you declare yourself Dem and vote.
Yep, we had exactly that here in Virginia. The usual voting registration deadline (a couple months I think), but the primaries were open and when you walked into the polling station, you could declare whether you wanted to vote for the Reps or Dems. Hillary won the primaries here.
Yeah, the deck was stacked against Bernie, but ultimately it was the voters who were to blame. Superdelegates worth 10k votes still can't outvote everyone when they vote against them. Closed primaries don't prevent people who identified as Dems before from voting for Bernie. They all voted for Hillary. The voters are to blame.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 12 2017, @08:03PM (1 child)
On the evening before the biggest state primary (California), the DNC announced that HRC had "won",
No they did not.
The AP ran a story [apnews.com] by reporters who interviewed all the superdelegates and compiled their public, on the record endorsements.
The AP, not the DNC.
Conspiracy theory logic: The AP is controlled by the DNC so its the same thing.
Critical thinking logic: The AP reported on public information that made for a sensational story because that's what sells clicks.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Saturday May 13 2017, @01:38AM
> The AP ran a story [...]
Yes. I'm trying to post the calendar for June 2016, when the story ran. It's not displaying properly in the preview, but 1 June was a Wednesday:
June 2016
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8 9 10 11
12 13 14 15 16 17 18
19 20 21 22 23 24 25
26 27 28 29 30
At your link, the story is dated 7 June, which was a Tuesday on which several primary elections were held. However, it actually ran a day earlier, as you can read in the secondary reporting about it at Slate:
On Monday night, the Associated Press announced that, due to some new superdelegate commitments, Hillary Clinton has clinched the Democratic nomination.
-- http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/06/06/clinton_clinches_democratic_nomination_associated_press_reports.html [slate.com]
Note that the date on the AP page linked by Slate also says 7 June. A possible explanation is that the AP uses a different time zone.
Note that NBC News ran a similar story, dated 6 June, supposedly based on NBC's own research:
By NBC's count, Clinton now has 1812 pledged delegates and 572 superdelegates, while Sanders has 1520 pledged and 46 superdelegates.
-- http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/clinton-hits-magic-number-delegates-clinch-nomination-n586181 [nbcnews.com]
That doesn't prove there was any intrigue, but it's intriguing.