Harry Reid retired from the Senate after many years of service. In this interview, he gives his candid appraisal of FBI Director James Comey and Russiagate.
My view: the election of a totally unqualified demagogue is a disaster for our country. Every new appointment demonstrates Trump’s far-right radicalism. Every person he has chosen is either a military general, a billionaire, or someone determined to destroy the mission of the agency he/she will lead. Or both.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Well Jimmy Carter said he was not bother by Trump because he had no Ideology .
Looks like Trump adopted one : Fascism
DRUMPH!
He is replacing an unqualified, socialist who helped to create him. Look around people. Things have not been good for a long time…and it is getting worse. Give Trump a fighting chance.
You are joking, aren’t you? Using satire, snark or sarcasm? The only qualified democratic socialist in this whole narrative is Bernie Sanders for whom I voted. When does Trump denounce Alex Jones?
I am going to assume That you are not joking .I can make the argument as to why things are good or bad . But I would like to see your reasoning . So tell us how bad things are .More importantly tell us why you feel these things have happened.
Diane,
I think you mean James Comey, not the great educator James Comer.
Thanks Mike, I corrected that dumb error about half an hour after posting. I walked the dog and the cold night air cleared my head.
Every post I make. I wish I had that five minute edit button. Never see it till I read the post . But your error made me feel a bit better.
On that note you might appreciate this post from Moyers . It is relevant to this conversation conversation (not Comey) and an argument I have made to other union members as to why their only chance to survive is fighting for others who have less. It does explain the mentality of the Trump voter.
http://billmoyers.com/story/media-morality-neighbors-cow/
Like I said cross out one conversation.
Didn’t Obama select 3 generals? Obama’s initial team included, as pointed out by the Washington Examiner’s Jamie McIntyre on Wednesday: retired Marine Gen. Jim Jones as national security adviser; retired Army Gen. Eric Shinseki as veterans affairs secretary; and retired Navy Adm. Dennis Blair as director of national intelligence.
Harry Reid – isn’t he the one who had a fictitious informant who sent the mainstream media searching on a “fake news” comment that Romney didn’t pay taxes for 10 years? I wouldn’t jump to follow that guy – Anything done by Trump is considered by a far left winger is radical –
jscheidell
Romney liked Trump( two deplorables )was refusing to release his taxes .
(Anybody who could say the things he did about Trump and then go kiss Trumps butt, has not got a moral fiber in their body .
That also goes for the rest of the party who he attacked insulting wives, parents, appearance. The party which is limning up to rape the American people) .
Reid said that as dare to Romney to prove him wrong. As i recall
Romney had an effective tax rate of 11 percent mine is 22% after all my high tax state deductions. Whats yours ?
The devil is in the details on the generals . Not how many but whom .
The law is that the defense secretary has to be at least 7 yrs out of the services. When you lose an election as Trump did you should not get an exemption to the law and endanger civilian control over the military . You already are looking like a Latin Junta
Flyn is just a bat sh-t crazy racist dog who probably should be locked up for working with the Russians to subvert an American
election.
Any further questions I can assist you with
jscheidell says: “The law is that the defense secretary has to be at least 7 yrs out of the services. When you lose an election as Trump did you should not get an exemption to the law and endanger civilian control over the military . You already are looking like a Latin Junta.”
In THIS situation with Trump, what’s also important is that it sets a VERY BAD PRECEDENT. In insidious fashion, such breaches soften the Constitution’s power for future events; and so it’s just another step for the lawless fascist to more easily disregard the law and do anything he wants.
What concerns me the most is the selection of leaders who have worked to decimate the institutions they will likely lead. Betsy DeVos may be the best example. This is Ronald Reagan all over again, who placed extremists in the Dept. of Interior but is now “Saint” Ronnie of the right.
Trump’s appointments go beyond the far right. They are the Alt-Right.
“The campaign and election of Donald Trump have energized and emboldened a small but vocal corner of American right-wing politics that was mostly absent from the public consciousness: the ‘alt-right.’ But what does the term mean?”
“The ‘alt-right,’ or alternative right, is a loosely defined far-right movement associated with white nationalism, racism, misogyny, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and a desire to keep the United States a majority white country.”
http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation-politics/what-is-the-alt-right/
Catherine – I did not say anything like that – please read closely – it was Joel’s reply. So is he the “Latin Junta?”
Joel – interesting that you didn’t mention Obama’s 3 generals – Bias? And there is no law that says you have to release your taxes. and my taxes are probably more than yours but you must be jealous that their tax rate is lower than your – could you not afford to hire a lawyer competent enough to use the tax laws legally – like they did to avoid paying – I consider that smart – maybe that is oner reason why the one percent are disliked – but don’t forget they are also the ones that pay, as a collective, a higher percentage of the tax bill.
I noted that the first word out of you is name calling – deplorable –
even Lloyd couldn’t contain himself and got those lefty adjectives in that have been a number of times in this blog – Seattle times? wow left leaning journalism at its best. BUT at least the editor further clarified his papers and the AP approach: Here is what we decided: As a matter of policy, The Times will avoid using the term “alt-right” except in quotes or in stories about the term or movement, and then explain / define it whenever we do use it. That led to a staff-produced story about the term and its origin. We plan to link to this story whenever the term is used.
This approach was consistent with The Associated Press’ existing guidance to news providers for handling similar labels, which says, in general, avoid such terms in favor of more precise descriptions of an individual’s political philosophy.
After we offered this direction to our own news staff, AP issued specific guidance on writing about the “alt-right.” The direction and conclusions are the same.”
You might want to stop classifying every conservative who disagrees with you thought processes or ideology “in a corner?” of alt right
One reason the tears are flowing is because the Dems and Hillary called half the population a basket of deplorables and irredeemables, and Obama didn’t help too much by classifying the rest as “rednecks” and Bible holder with their gun… – I don’t think left is learning anything from your recent loss…
jscheidel: Mistake: The quote in my note was from Joel, not you. The Junta comment is unimportant to me. If you “read closely,” and drag yourself away from personal polemics for a moment, you’ll understand that my point is about setting precedent for Trump by breaking with the Constitution. I’d rather hear if you think it’s important or not, and why.
Alt-right would be accurately defined as “white nationalists”
jscheidell
No there is no law that requires a candidate to release his tax returns. It has become an established tradition to restore the trust of the American people in those they elect. Only those who have something to hide refuse to reveal returns to the public. The public is entitled to know, in whose interest a politician might act . Now as to our respective incomes let me just say that my ideology and my voting have not been in my immediate economic interest, so don’t be so sure on our respective incomes.
Yes I use the word deplorable s. I do not use it lightly and I will not use it to describe someone whose economic interest is served by the Republican right agenda. They are acting in their economic interest and perhaps rationally . I use it to describe those who use hate and bigotry, to be their guiding light. I use it to describe those politicians as I described before, who were berated by a demagogue, who has made a fascist appeal to the American people. . Contradicted himself on a daily basis . Conducted himself in a manner not fit for a pimp no less President of the united States.
A child rapist, who has assaulted numerous women . A philanderer who has cheated on every wife he has had, including the current gold digger who entered the country illegally. A fraud who has defrauded investors , contractors and students . I could go on but I wont.
So yes I do not care what standards the AP or the Times or the Washington Post use to normalize this abomination . This man and some who surround him are a threat to the democracy and the camera does not lie. Just role the tapes.
just roll
Joel,
There would not be enough space here to cover Clinton if she won – the comparison was made in the election – enough said.
jscheidell
Yes the comparison was made and she won by near 3million votes .
I for one was looking forward to filling these pages with criticism of her .
But not only were her taxes revealed Wiki and the Russians released everything we already feared about her actions.
But we are talking about Comey. So let us roll the tape of Juliane
who looked like a little boy waiting for the bathroom pass but with a smile. While he described a big surprise coming in the next few days .
Juliane who either conspired with retired and thus current agents of the NY office to either pressure or willingly get Comey to deliver an October surprise.
Yes wiki confirmed our worst fears about Clinton and the DNC,
but wouldn’t we love to know about the emails and the conversations of the Trump campaign and the RNC.
Specifically why was one of this countries top former security officials sitting next to Vladimir Putin at a dinner celebrating the RT network. A strong critic of the Obama administration a supporter of Donald Trump and soon to be our National Security advisor .
GENERAL FLYNN DID YOU WORKING FOR THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN CONSPIRE WITH RUSSIAN OPERATIVES TO RIG AN AMERICAN ELECTION.?
That is Treason
Like Nixon sabotaging the piece talks or Reagan sabotaging the .hostage negotiations. We have a long history of this in that party.
Peace (never fails )
I didn’t know that there was such a thing as adjectives that belonged to lefties. Where did you learn that, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, or another far, Alt Right hate media source or maybe several since they seem to be all cut from the same bloody, black cloth made in hell?
And why do all Alt-Righters sound the same, as if they all came off of the same assembly line?
Oh, but they did because they learned it all from their choice of a biased, lying, cherry picking, misinformation media source that doesn’t know the first thing about real journalism.
Wow Lloyd – in making an argument name calling doesn’t win a debate
You even seemingly place all of us who are right of center in the Alt-Right group – Do the adj belong to the left – no but they are used in your basket of arguments – Salinsky adores you I guess
You must listen to Obama who has blamed Limbaugh, Fox etc for his poor performance – and again you place them as well into the Alt- right
You are becoming unbalanced- argue with points not name calling.
The left leans to their fake news channels “they learned it all from their choice of a biased, lying, cherry picking, misinformation media source that doesn’t know the first thing about real journalism msnbc, cnn abc, cbs nbc – With the election of Trump I assume Chris Mathhews has something more than a tingle down is legs –
When I come up against the empty blockhead wall of ignorance that represents any semblance of the Alt-Right, even a fraction of it, I reserve the right to turn to words that some will call “ad hominem” to express my frustration when attempting to use logic backed by legitimate data to pierce their bubble of bias and hate for anything different than what they ignorantly and foolishly think. The deplorables who support Trump have aptly earned that title.
I don’t listen to Obama.
I don’t listen to what you label the liberal media.
I do my own fact checking instead from primary fact and data gathering sites that the Alt-Right cherry picks or ignores.
Not half the population. Most of the deplorables (I really like that term) are the ignorant, biased, hating, idiots that sign up to follow Trump’s Twitter feed.
I’m looking at @realDonaldTrump right now and see that there are 17.1 million followers. That is obviously where his hard core rust belt followers are located. But I’m confused by the few likes Trump has had for 34.1 thousand tweets. FORTY-FIVE likes. Really!
DT has more than 16 million likes on Facebook. Why not on Twitter? But Facebook asks for likes. I’m not sure Twitter does. I guess you have to want to without being asked on Twitter to click Like.
Maybe the deplorables can’t figure out how to like one of his deplorable, thin skinned tweets.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
For a comparison, my Twitter page has had 3,156 likes.
Back to actual facts.
More than 130 million Americans voted.
More than 90 million eligible Americans did not vote.
Only 17.1 million followers on Twitter and more than 16 million likes on Facebook are probably all from the same people.
It’s obvious that the deplorables can’t be half of the population. It’s safe to say that about 5 percent of the population fits this label.
Trump actually follows 40 Twitter pages, and that’s where we learn where he gets his deplorable misleading, biased, cherry picked information.
For instance:
Laura Ingraham
Drudge Report (I caught this guy lying and spreading ignorant misinfomration about China on his site once, and I called him out on it. He deleted that post on but didn’t reply directly.
Sean Hannity
Fox Nation
Corey R. Lewandowsky
Ann Culter (She is the queen of hate)
Bill O’Reilly (a mixed bag)
Fox & friends (the media source the Alt Right turns to for being kept ignorant)
Most of the rest are DT’s family, and some of his businesses.
Last year I addressed a group of workers with these very same lines of thought. It does represent the Trump voter more than even deplorable. I took a couple of quotes out. The whole article is worth reading.
Few of the Trump voters are on Obamacare their objection is that somebody is getting something. Most have employer sponsored health care . They are tired of paying for those moochers!!! (working their butts off for low pay with no bennifits )
Of course this doesn’t count :
“Employers can deduct 100 percent of their employees’ health insurance cost as a business expense. If the business is incorporated, the business owner’s own insurance costs are also deductible. ”
Neal Gabler:
“America is in moral crisis. Many Americans seem far more interested in making sure that those they consider undeserving — basically, the poor — get nothing than in making sure that they themselves get something.”……..
The conclusion
“There were three farmers: a German, a Hungarian and an American. Each had a cow. One day, misfortune befell them, and their cows died. Each remonstrated against God, saying God had failed him, and each lost faith. God realized he had to do something to make amends. So he came to Earth and approached the German.
“What can I do to restore your faith?” He asked. And the German answered, “God, I lost my cow. Please give me another cow.” And God did so.
“What can I do to restore your faith?” He asked the Hungarian. And the Hungarian answered, “God, I lost my cow. Please give me that cow and another to compensate.” And God did so.
And finally God came to the American, and He asked, “What can I do to restore your faith?” And the American answered, “God, I lost my cow. Shoot my neighbor’s cow.”
Republicans brought us here with the assistance of a passive media. Whether we can bring ourselves back is the new existential question. Until then, we are shooting our neighbor’s cow.”
http://billmoyers.com/story/media-morality-neighbors-cow/
That American must have been from the Alt-Right and they listened To Fox News “religiously” but never read a book, newspaper, or magazine.
yet he just made Donald Trump President
Catherine = Trump is not breaking Constitution nor precedent – he is aware that the Senate has to approve selection BUT he also is aware that a WAIVER on the seven year issue can be called for…but thanks for the “apology” as it is – Catherine – by having 3 generals he is not endangering the civilian pop of control – Were you worried with Obama doing such with his 3 generals? Another question would be – how many generals are too many?
Clarification on your comment- Trump lost the pop vote but WON the election through the Electoral College. And this has happened 4 times before in presidential elections…Although, as I posted before a short perspective on Hamilton and the Federalist papers explaining the origin of the College, and noting Diane’s wish = as with others on this blog to abolish the it, I personally do not want California, New York and and highly populated states negating my vote. And could you imagine California reverting back to Republican from whence they were – or New York?
Predicting that Democratic opposition to the Mattis waiver was not robust enough to lead Democrats to risk a government shutdown, in one of their last acts of the 114th Congress, Congressional Republicans inserted language into a must-pass bill to fund the federal government that will streamline Mattis’ confirmation process.
The language, which is limited to “the first person appointed as Secretary of Defense” after the date of enactment of the federal government funding bill, and thus, limited to Mattis, reduces the number of years in the existing statutory prohibition against military officers serving as Secretary of Defense after retirement from seven to three to correspond to Mattis’ retirement date. Additionally, the language includes numerous fast-track mechanisms for Mattis’ confirmation, including expedited consideration by the Senate Armed Services Committee, elimination of the potential for procedural delays to attempt to postpone the Senate’s consideration of the confirmation, and a limitation on debate on the Senate floor to 10 hours. To appease Democrats, Republicans included a requirement that General Mattis must receive 60 votes to be confirmed, as opposed to a simple majority of 51
I cannot find any defined limitation historically in the Constitution or other wise – even back to Washington. If you can please enlighten this crowd and me.
jscheidell: It’s the emollients clause–7 years out of the military. And the absence of tax returns is a break with tradition and presidential-candidate protocol–which is not there arbitrarily, but for justifiable reasons. (Look for Trump to brush it aside as unimportant, if he hasn’t already.)
It’s a slippery slope that, when fascist personalities cannot use brute force, they can rely on their cronies in the Republican legislature first, and then on the “Well, you did it before” argument (precedence)–if Trump actually needs an argument, one is already at-the-ready. And adding a “this time only” bill is probably legitimate in some cases, but not in this case, and certainly should not be taken lightly or “buried” in some other “must pass.” legislation. <–That should tell us what it’s real value is, even to the people who buried it. It’s the written equivalent of a half-truth or a rider on some other legitimate expression–a form of corruption. It’s the re-rigging of the swamp that’s not really being drained; not to mention a form of extortion–threatening to shut down the government if the bill is stopped. This is far from legitimate compromise. The corrupt take such gerrymandering of legislation as a given way of doing things. I’d laugh–because it sounds like another joke–except that it’s played on the American people. And: again, the point is that, with all of the fascist tendencies, which are NOT speculation, it sets a terrible PRECEDENT.
I speculate about what Congress will do in the mediation phase; however, the horror of that speculation becomes more and more like reasonable thinking as these awful days go forward, where the “accident” keeps occurring in front of our lying eyes; as the historical analogies mount up; and as so many previously-stalwart and vocal Republicans remain mute–John McCain being the exception. Perhaps only those over 75 and who have no children should be able to run for office.
Somehow, however, I think you already understood what I meant. Rationalization, along with flights of fancy, are such nice exercises for the creative mind.
I know its the emollients clause – Trump’s whole election campaign has been totally non-traditional – I don’t think he has something to hide – the IRS reviews him in audits every year – can’t hide from those creatures
jscheidell: You call what Trump is doing “non-traditional”? And what we did to Japan in World War II was drop a couple of little bombs over a border dispute. We’re back to lipstick on a pig again. Just wave it off as nothing.
Just this morning FINALLY, Mitch McConnell gave a statement regarding Russia’s meddling in the election process. He actually said “Russia is not our friend.” And that they do not “wish us well.” I never thought I’d hear it, from him especially. OMG he broke wiith Trump. After paving the way for Trump to get anything he wants (with the breach of the emollients clause and whatever else they have changed) they finally decided that treason is a bit too much.
I have been spelling the Constitutional clause wrongly: It’s “emolument clause.” Here it is:
“No person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign state.”