USA under presidency of a know-nothing, neo-fascist, racist, sexist, mobbed-up narcissist!!

[Peter Lemkin]

[Peter Lemkin]

[Peter Lemkin]

James Comey, FBI director, fired by Donald Trump

US president sacks James Comey over his handling of the probe into Hillary Clinton's emails.


Comey was appointed as FBI chief four years ago [File: Reuters]US President Donald Trump has abruptly fired FBI Director James Comey in the fallout over Comey's probe of Democrat Hillary Clinton's emails last year, saying Comey was no longer able to effectively lead the law enforcement agency.
Comey had been leading an FBI investigation into allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election and possible collusion with Trump's campaign. His dismissal on Tuesday will likely fuel concerns about the integrity of the probe and renew calls for an independent investigation.
The FBI director had been embroiled in a controversy surrounding his probe into whether Clinton's use of a private email server while US secretary of state during President Barack Obama's first term compromised national security.
"It is essential that we find new leadership for the FBI that restores public trust and confidence in its vital law enforcement mission," Trump said in a letter to Comey released by the White House.
Trump told Comey in the letter he accepted the recommendation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions that he could no longer provide effective leadership. Comey's term was to run through September 2023.
'Political bombshell'

The decision, announced by White House press secretary Sean Spicer in a brief appearance before reporters, caught Washington off guard.
"President Trump's nearly four months in office have been controversial, but this is almost certainly the most controversial decision yet," said Al Jazeera's Washington Editor James Bays, calling the move "a political bombshell that will reverberate for a long time.
"It doesn't end here, because a new FBI director has to be confirmed by the Senate, where the Republicans hold a very slim majority."
Comey had said in July the Clinton email case should be closed without prosecution, but then declared - 11 days before the November 8 election in which Clinton was the Democratic nominee - that he had reopened the investigation because of a discovery of a new trove of Clinton-related emails.

Clinton said last week that she partly blames Comey's decision for her election loss.
The White House released a memo by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that provided the administration's justification for firing Comey.
"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," Rosenstein wrote.
Top US Democrat Chuck Schumer said firing Comey was "a big mistake", and questioned the timing of the move.
"We know the FBI has been looking into whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians," he said.
"Were these investigations hitting too close to home for the president?"
In a letter, Trump told Comey: "While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau."
Russia investigations

There are several Russia probes ongoing in Congress. The US House of Representatives' main investigation has been stymied in recent weeks by partisan squabbles, while the Senate's parallel probe has been slow-moving and equipped with a much smaller staff than previous high-profile congressional investigations.
The Senate Republican leading that investigation, Richard Burr, said he was "troubled by the timing and reasoning" behind the firing.
He said he found Comey to a public servant of the highest order, and his dismissal "further confuses an already difficult investigation" by his panel.
Matthew Schmidt, an assistant professor of national security and political science at the University of New Haven, said Trump's move gives the impression that his administration has something to hide, as there have been no new revelations about the email probe to motivate the timing of the firing.
"Now there's no way that any report coming out of the FBI that is favourable to the president will be seen as being not tainted," he told Al Jazeera. "The only way to save this is to appoint a special prosecutor that is seen as being independent of White House interference."
Some Republican lawmakers supported Trump's argument that the FBI needs a "fresh start".
But Republican Senator John McCain, a former presidential candidate, said he was "disappointed" in the president's decision to fire Comey, whom he called "a man of honour and integrity".
McCain said he had long called for a special congressional committee to investigate Russia's interference in the 2016 election.
"The president's decision to remove the FBI director only confirms the need and the urgency of such a committee," he said.
Senator Bernie Sanders, Democratic presidential candidate in 2016, said Trump's decision to fire Comey "raises serious questions about what his administration is hiding.
"President Trump has repeatedly taken steps to kill inquiries into Russia's involvement in the US election. It is clear that whomever President Trump handpicks to lead the FBI will not be able to objectively carry out this investigation," he said in a statement.

[Peter Lemkin]

President Trump Fires F.B.I. Chief

Posted on May 9, 2017

Former FBI Director James Comey testifing before the House Judiciary Committee in September. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP)

Update: 4:29 p.m. PDT: The head of the American Civil Liberties Union and former National Security Agency contractor-tuned whistle-blower Edward Snowden both commented publicly about Comey's firing after the news broke. ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero offered his thoughts in a statement:

The independence of the FBI director is meant to ensure that the president does not operate above the law. For President Trump to fire the man responsible for investigating his own campaign's ties to the Russians imperils that fundamental principle.
Regardless of how one judges the performance of James Comey in either the Hillary Clinton or Russia investigations, President Trump's dismissal of a sitting FBI director raises serious alarm bells for our system of checks and balances.
The terms of FBI directors were purposefully structured to span across sitting presidents to ensure the FBI's independence and insulate the bureau from partisan politics. President Trump's dismissal of Comey raises questions about the administration's inappropriate meddling in bureau operations precisely at a time when the bureau appears to be investigating the president, his advisors, and his campaign for potential collusion with Russian agents in our last election.

Meanwhile, Snowden sounded off on President Trump's favoredplatformTwitter:
* * *He weathered a contentious election seasonto which he added no small measure of conflictand the tumultuous transition that ensued from the Obama administration to the Trump White House, but as of Tuesday, F.B.I. Director James Comey was obliged to step down from his post.
The reason? According to officials from the current regime, it once again came down to Hillary Clinton's infamous emails.
The New York Times relayed word that President Trump fired Comey over his handling of the investigation into the former secretary of state's use of a private email server for State Department-related communications
Mr. Comey was leading an investigation into whether members of the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election.
"While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the bureau," Mr. Trump said in a letter to Mr. Comey dated Tuesday.
"It is essential that we find new leadership for the F.B.I. that restores public trust and confidence in its vital law enforcement mission," Mr. Trump wrote.
Sen. Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a post on Twitter that Mr. Comey "should be immediately called to testify in an open hearing about the status of Russia/Trump investigation at the time he was fired."
The paper also reported that the newly installed Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein advised the president to oust Comey.

[Peter Lemkin]

AMY GOODMAN: On Sunday, comedian John Oliver dedicated nearly 20 minutes of his HBO program to explain that net neutrality is under threat. He directed much of his criticism to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai.

JOHN OLIVER: Pai's main argument is that we don't need Title II to have net neutrality. But some of his ideas for what to have instead are almost laughably lax. For instance, he reportedly floated just having ISPs voluntarily agree not to obstruct or slow consumer access to web content by putting that promise in their terms of serviceyou know, the things that no human being has ever read, and that can change whenever companies want them to. That idea would basically make net neutrality as binding as a proposal on The Bachelor.

AMY GOODMAN: That's John Oliver, who ended his show by calling on his viewers to write to the FCC, just as he did after a similar segment in 2014. Once again, the enormous response broke the commission's website. So, Craig Aaron, talk about net neutrality, what it means, and what it means under a Trump administration and Ajit Pai, the chair of the FCC.
CRAIG AARON: Well, net neutrality is just a way of saying no discrimination. Net neutrality is what ensures that when you go online, you can go wherever you want, do whatever you want, download whatever you want. And it's not up to your cable company or the phone company to decide which websites and services are going to work and which won't.
We fought a fightI've talked about it many times on this showover 10 years to push the FCC to pass strong net neutrality rules and have clear legal authority to enforce them. And the Trump FCC has really declared war on those rules. The chairman has said he wants to take a weed whacker to them. He's trying to undo the rules passed at the end of the Obama administration, undo the rules supported by millions and millions of Americans, just to give Comcast, Verizon and AT&T more ability to create special fast lanes for their own content, to favor the content and sites and services that they own or who they're in business with, and cut off competitors, undermine the competition, make it harder for independent voices to be heard, really damage the amazing tools that so many political organizers have used to build social movements using the free and open internet. All of this is at risk if we lose net neutrality.
Now, the good news is, it is easier said than done. They actually have to build a case for doing this. They have not done that so far, but they are starting the process. So, here, in a couple weeks at the FCC, Ajit Pai is going to move to reopen these rules, make new rules. We're certainly going to be there at Free Press with all of our allies, speaking out in opposition and preparing the case against what Ajit Pai is going to do on all fronts, whether that's Congress, the courts, at the agency itself. This net neutrality victory was an incredibly important victory for free expression, for the public interest. And Donald Trump's FCC is prioritizing taking it away.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Craig, what about this claim by the FCC, because after theafter the Oliver broadcast, that they weretheir site crashed. They claimed that they were victims of a denial-of-service attack. And you would think that if anyone had sufficient bandwidth to take in public comments, it would be the Federal Communications Commission. That's their job. And your response to their claim that they've been victimized by an attack?
CRAIG AARON: You know, I really don't know. What I wouldwhat I would urge the FCC to do is, if that is indeed the case, they should share the logs of what happened, so people can understand, if they indeed did come under attack, because, given the timing, you can't help but question: Were they under attack, or was it actually just an attack of democracy, with so many people coming in, trying to make their voices heard, and the FCC being unprepared? The FCC should be better prepared. They need to open up these systems so the public can actually comment. Congress needs then to give them the money to be able to do that. These are important things. So I am skeptical of those claims, but I would certainly hope the FCC will share what exactly happened. And hopefully they'll get the support they need to secure their systems and actually give people the time and the space to make their voices heard. And really what the FCC needs to be doing is make it a lot easier for the public to weigh in. They have a lot to say. They care about the future of the internet. Millions and millions of people are going to speak out in this proceeding. And the FCC shouldn't be, you know, closing off its ears because of technical difficulties.
AMY GOODMAN: Craig, I want to turn to the FCC Chair Ajit Pai speaking at the Newseum last month. During his speech on the future of internet regulation, he attacked your group, Free Press.

AJIT PAI: Consider, for example, the leading special interest in favor of Title II: a spectacularly misnamed Beltway special interest called Free Press. Its co-founder and current board member makes no effort to hide the group's true agenda. While he says that we're not at the point yet where we can completely eliminate the telephone and cable companies, he admits thatand I quote"the ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists and the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control."

AMY GOODMAN: Craig Aaron, defend yourself.
CRAIG AARON: Well, I appreciate being called the leading group. Besides that, you know, obviously, this is the kind of sort of neo-McCarthyism and red-baiting that we thought we left in the past. The reality is that Free Press, for 10 years, has fought for the free and open internet, advocated for net neutrality, and there are thousands and thousands and thousands of pages filed at the FCC, op-eds published, emails sent. Our website is filled with content saying exactly why we stand where we do and exactly what we want, which is actually just a freethe free and open internet. So if they want to go dig around the internet to find out-of-context quotes from one of my board members, I guess that says a lot about the chairman and his priorities. We're happy to have this fight and win on the facts.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what wouldwhat would the internet look like if these forces prevail and net neutrality is abolished?
CRAIG AARON: Well, I think the simplest way to think about it is that the internet, the free and open internet and all that it offers, starts to look a lot like cable TV, where a company picks and chooses the channels for you, decides what's going to get the best service, decides what's available in a package. And everything that makes the internet so great, the fact that anyone with a great idea can go online, start their own business, find their own voice, make their own art, that's really in jeopardy if you lose this fundamental protection of net neutrality. And suddenly these companies will have free rein to interfere however they want, often in ways that would almost be impossible for the average user to see or recognize.

[Peter Lemkin]

Arkansas had initially planned to execute 11 men during the month of April, but several of those executions were blocked by the courts. One of the judges who blocked the state's efforts is now facing calls to be impeached. On April 14th, state Judge Wendell Griffen issued a temporary restraining order halting six of the executions over concerns that the state used false pretenses to obtain a key drug slated to be used in the executions. Following his ruling, Judge Wendell Griffen took part in an anti-death penalty protest outside the Governor's Mansion organized by his church to mark Good Friday. In addition to being a judge, Griffen is an ordained Baptist minister. Calls for Judge Wendell Griffen's impeachment began soon after photographs from the vigil appeared in the press showing him lying down on a cot with his hands bound together as though he were a condemned man on a gurney. The state's high court soon barred Judge Griffen from hearing cases involving executions, capital punishment and the state's lethal injection protocol. Then, last week, lawmakers set the stage to impeach Judge Griffen. If they succeed, Griffen would become the first judge ever impeached in the state of Arkansas. While Wendell Griffen's future as a judge is in question, he has opted not to stay silent. Today he joins us in his first national television interview.
Judge Wendell Griffen, welcome to Democracy Now! Can you talk about your actionsyour ruling in a death penalty case and then going outside to protest outside the Arkansas Governor's Mansion? Welcome to Democracy Now!
JUDGE WENDELL GRIFFEN: Thank you, Amy. Thank you, Juan.
First of all, let me correct the narrative. The case in which I ruled was not a death penalty case. The case involved a complaint by a distributor of a pharmaceutical product, a drug, that hadthat drug obtained by the Arkansas Department of Corrections under false pretenses. The drug was obtained, and the distributor sought to get the drug back. The distributor filed a motion for a temporary restraining order on Good Friday, the afternoon of Good Friday, shortly before I was going to attend a prayer vigil that our congregation had scheduled in front of the Governor's Mansion. Based on the law that governs contracts and propertybasically, property lawI found that the distributor had a case and that the distributor's chance of having its property returned was likely to be destroyed, unless I entered temporary restraining order. I entered the temporary restraining order, went to the prayer vigil, and the ruling was incorrectly reported as a ruling as blocking executions. Actually, the effect of the temporary restraining order was to simply hold the status quo, to simply say to everybody, "Listen, do not dispose of this drug until we can get all of the parties before me and we can sort this out, whether or not the Department of Corrections correctly has the right to hold this drug, or whether or not this drug in fact was wrongly obtained." The evidence before me showed it was wrongly obtained. And so I did what I was supposed to do.
Now, I also went to theI also went to the prayer vigil. That's what I'm supposed to do. I'm a pastor. Good Friday is the religious holiday before Easter when followers of Jesus commemorate the death of Jesus. Our congregation had planned to have our Good Friday observance in front of the Governor's Mansion before this motion was submitted to me. And so, as a pastor, as a follower of Jesus, I went to the Good Friday prayer vigil. And as a follower of Jesus, in solidarity with the religion of Jesus, I lay on a cot to show my solidarity with Jesus, who was a condemned man, condemned by the Roman Empire to death. And so that's what happened.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Judge Griffen, were you surprised by the firestorm that followed your participation in that vigil, and the calls for your impeachment?
JUDGE WENDELL GRIFFEN: I was surprised that there was such a refusal to even ask about the facts. The case, as I mentioned earlier, was not a death penalty case. It was a case about the return of wrongfully obtained property. I was surprised that people did not understand that no matter what my views are on the death penalty, the law on the right to get your property back is the law on getting your property back. And no matter who the judge is, that law has to be followed. As a matter of fact, after the Arkansas Supreme Court removed me from the case, the judge who took that case after me heard the same case, heard the same facts and ruled the same way. So, the issue is not what one's view is or what people want one's view to be about capital punishment. The issue is whether or not a judge will follow the law regardless of how he or she feels about an issue. I did that. Now, what surprised me is that people who claim to believe in the integrity of judiciary and judicial independence now somehow believe that judicial independence is a threat, so that they believe that judges who follow the law should be impeached. That surprises me. And really, it disappoints me.
AMY GOODMAN: Judge Griffen, Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge told KTHV it was inappropriate for you to participate in the Good Friday protest against the death penalty. She suggested it impacted your decision to grant a temporary restraining order on the use of the execution drug. This is what she said.

ATTORNEY GENERAL LESLIE RUTLEDGE: Those actions are inappropriate, and that's why we have asked the Supreme Court to vacate Judge Griffen's temporary restraining order, and that it is inappropriate for Judge Griffen to be on this case.

AMY GOODMAN: And, Judge Griffen, state Senator Trent Garner questioned whether your views on the death penalty threaten your ability to be fair and impartial as a judge. This is Garner speaking to Fox 16. .

SEN. TRENT GARNER: Making a public statement, a protest, in front of the Governor's Mansion is unacceptable. It's a disgrace to the judiciary system.

AMY GOODMAN: So I wanted to get your response to both of these people, Judge Griffen, and also if you can describe the scene outside the Arkansas Governor's Mansion when you did lay down on that cot.
JUDGE WENDELL GRIFFEN: Let's talk about the scene. First of all, members of our congregation were present at the Governor's Mansion. There were also other persons present, other persons who were protesting the death penalty. They all had a right to be there. Our congregation had no right to chase off other people. And other people had no right to expect that our congregation would not be present. And, in fact, our congregation led the protesters in singing "This Little Light of Mine" and "Amazing Grace." Those are songs of our faith. And so, we did, as the followers of Jesus' congregation, what we had a right to do. And as a judge, I did what I had a right to do as a citizen, by practicing my faith. That's not disgraceful. That's American. That's democratic. We believe, because of the First Amendment, that every person has the right to live out his or her conscience. As a judge, I have an obligation to follow the law. That means that when a case comes before me, I have an obligation, as a judge, to apply the law that applies to that state, no matter what my personal views may be on an issue. It is not disgraceful for a judge to have views one way or the other way about capital punishment or anything else. It is not disgraceful for a judge who holds views to hold those views and decide cases involving those issues. What is inappropriate is for people to believe that when a judge decides a case according to the law, he or she should somehow be suspected as not being faithful to the law simply because he or she is faithful to their faith. "Faithful to faith" and "faithful to law" are not mutually exclusive terms. We can be faithful to our faith and faithful to the law, and the law can be followed even when we, as a people of faith, find questions about the law. And I think that's something that we have to understand.
Now, let me speak about Attorney General Rutledge. Attorney General Rutledge represented the Department of Corrections, the governor of Arkansas and the director of the Department of Corrections in the lawsuit in which the distributor was trying to get its drug back. If Attorney General Rutledge believed that I was not qualified to decide the case, she had an obligation, as a lawyer, to bring that issue up before me. She didn't do so. She did not tell me she was bringing the issue before the Supreme Court when she did that. The Supreme Court did not tell me that it was considering Attorney General Rutledge's motion to disqualify me when it did so. The Supreme Court did not give me an opportunity to tell the Supreme Court what the facts were, before it removed me from the case and disqualified me from hearing all death penalty cases in Arkansas or any case involving the death penalty. That's unfair, because no matter how thinly you pour it, every pancake's got at least two sides. And part of what a judge is supposed to do is hear all the sides. It's unethical for judges to refuse to hear the sides simply because one side doesn't want the other side heard. And it's unethical for a lawyer who's supposed to be representing the judgesthe attorney general of Arkansas represents judgesto basically go behind a judge's back and try to have a judge removed, without even telling the judge that she's doing so and giving the judge opportunitya chance to hire their own lawyer and set the record straight on what the facts are. So, I am not concerned about my conduct. I'm very concerned about the conduct of the attorney general and the conduct of our Supreme Court, because, ethically, our justice system depends upon people trusting that our officials will follow the law. And when the attorney general of Arkansas doesn't follow the law, when the Supreme Court doesn't follow the rules that say that every dispute must be heard by all sides, people are going to have questions. If they will not follow the procedures when it affects a judge, how can they expect the procedure to be followed when it affects people who are ordinary citizens? So I'm concerned about that. And I think we should all be concerned about that.
Now, as to Senator Garner, I think that we should all be concerned about the notion that a legislator believes that it's something somehow undemocratic for people to think about issues affecting public policy. What's undemocratic about practicing your faith? What's disgraceful about living according to your faith? And what's disgraceful about following the law even when you have to follow the law and have questions about an issue involving the law? By point of fact, I followed the law in another case involving the death penalty where I refused to allow an amended complaint to challenge the Arkansas death penalty case, because the Arkansas Supreme Court had said the death penalty inmates could no longer challenge the constitutionality of the death penalty. I followed the law in that case, even though I oppose the death penalty. So, when Trent Garner says to me, and to the world, "Judge Griffen is disgraceful," I don't understand how he defines "disgrace," because, quite frankly, by following the Supreme Court's ruling, I disprove his claim of disgrace. By following the Supreme Court's ruling, I disprove Attorney General Rutledge's notion that I can't follow the law. And by not allowing me to tell the Supreme Court that, the Supreme Court basically has prevented me from letting the record be made clear.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Judge Griffen, this is not the first time you've been involved, obviously, in controversy over your personal views. You've beenyou're a native of Little Rock, Arkansas. You've openly voiced support for raising the minimum wage, for opposition to the war in Iraq and opposition to demonizing of immigrants and LGBT people. Have youcould you talk about the reactions you've gotten in the past to your personal views?
JUDGE WENDELL GRIFFEN: Thank you, Juan. I think, really, that is what we're really talking about here. The issue is not whether or not I followed the law on Good Friday. The issue really isand I think Trent Garner has made this very clear. Senator Trent Garner has made it clear. He has a long-standing objection to the fact that Wendell Griffen, as a person, and Wendell Griffen, as a judge, holds views about public policy and life that he finds objectionable. I believe that people should earn a living wage, and I'm not afraid to say so. I believe that it is wrong for us to demonize immigrants, for us to pick on our LGBTQ brothers and sisters, for us to marginalize people because they are different. I supported marriage equality. I am glad that we have finally in Arkansas embraced the notion that all persons are entitled to live out their love openly and honestly without being demonized for it and having to be forced to live in the shadows. There are people who find my perspective on life and on faith abhorrent. They have a right to do that. But they don't have a right as public officials to punish me or to try to punish anybody else simply because they disagree with what I view life should be.
I think that we, as public officials, have a responsibility to honor the freedom in this society to disagree. That's a wonderful thing. And it is something very dishonorablewe have a word for it, "tyranny"something very dishonorable when we use power to punish people with whom we disagree. And so, this issue involving impeachment is nothing that I need to think about, other than simply the latest effort to punish a judge, a black judgeI will say it, a black judgewith whom the white power structure in Arkansas disagrees. And I am a black judge and a black preacher. And just like the power structure disagreed with Martin King and found him objectionable, the power structure in Arkansas disagrees with Wendell Griffen and finds me objectionable. But I think that the important thing for me to remember is, if I am to be faithful to the law, I've got to follow the law, no matter whether the people agree with me or not, or whether people approve of me or not. If I'm going to be faithful to my faith, I've got to live true to my faith, even if people find my faith objectionable and even if they're willing to punish me for it. And I've got to be willing to say, "If you want to punish me for my faith, I'm going to live out my faith. You can decide whether to punish me."
AMY GOODMAN: Judge Griffen, we want to thank you so much for being with us. Judge Wendell Griffen, judge of the 6th Circuit for Pulaski County in Arkansas. This is Democracy Now! Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman in Chicago. Juan González is in New York.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We're joined now by Mike Laux, civil rights attorney. He's one of the attorneys representing Judge Wendell Griffen, the Arkansas judge who is facing calls to be impeached for participating in an anti-death penalty protest. Can you talk about how unusual it is for a judge in Arkansas to face impeachment?
MIKE LAUX: Sure. Let me just say, first, thank you very much for having me. And I am just one of the attorneys that represents Judge Wendell Griffen. Also on our legal team is Mike Matthews of Foley & Lardner of Tampa, Florida, and Austin Porter of Little Rock, two great attorneys.
How rare is it? It's extremely rare. The latest version of the Arkansas Constitution was adopted in 1874. So, in almost 150 years, there has never been an effort to impeach a sitting judge the way that they're doing here with Judge Griffen.
And I think that, you know, you've really got to like kind of put this in context here. A lawyer smarter than myself recently said to me, "You know, normally when there is some type of a race against time involving an execution, that race against time is to save a life." Well, not here. This was a race against time to kill people before drugs expired. So I think it's important to always kind of see this entire kind of situation through that prism.
You know, going on after Judge Griffen is always kind of a challenge, because he's so eloquent, and he covers the bases so well. But let me just recap a bit here. Judge Griffen followed the law. On Good Friday, that TRO, or temporary restraining order, petition came before him. And it sought to maintain the status quo, so that these property issues could be settled. Again, McKesson claimed that the false pretenses were used to get the drug. This was the conservative thing to do. And the judge heard the petition. The elements were satisfied. The complaint was verified. Affidavits were attached. The movant alleged imminent risk of irreparable harm. When you check those boxes, you're supposed to grant the temporary restraining order. And that's what he did. The fact that it involved a paralytic in this kind of breakneck-paced execution schedule by the state of Arkansas is really immaterial to his decision.
So, you know, this is a witch hunt of the first order. Judge Griffen has been singled out because of his history of outspokenness, his history of advocacy on social issues. And this is just another attempt at trying to take him down, like so many attempts before.
AMY GOODMAN: And so, what happens now? The significance, if he is impeached, the first time a judge in Arkansas would be impeached, Mike Laux?
MIKE LAUX: Yeah, I mean, the possibilities are frightening and staggering. This is such an extraordinary measure that they're taking here, and it really speaks to the naked political motivation behind these maneuvers. You know, this happened on Good Friday. The TRO was entered on the 14th. Later that evening, literally hours after that, hours after the prayer vigil and the rally there at the Governor's Mansion, moments after that, you heard state senators and state representatives taking to the airwaves and making statements impugning Judge Griffen and threatening impeachment, a mere hour after this protest. And, you know, that really speaks, I think, to the zeal and the rabidness with which they are kind of approaching this matter. It's clear that they're trying to take Judge Griffen down. They saw an opportunity to do so, and they wasted no time in doing that.

[Peter Lemkin]

MAY 10, 2017 | MATTHEW HARVEY AND RUSS BAKER

WWW ANALYSIS: TRUMP'S EVEN MORE DESPERATE REASON FOR COMEY FIRING

James Comey, former Director of the FBI. Photo credit: FBI
Trump's firing of James Comey yesterday proves that even those who carry water for the president are not safe. Trump is in greater peril, it seems, by the hour. And in response, the long knives are out for anyone who is less than 100 percent dependable.
He needs unquestioned loyalists around him especially in the office that could send almost anyone to prison.
After all, Trump and his cronies are investigable for so very many things, from questionable business dealings and conflicts of interest to tax matters to allegedly colluding with the Russian government.
Comey, under criticism for his own actions, faced significant public pressure to demonstrate that the FBI does its job. That could not have sounded good to Trump.
As it happened, just hours before the Comey news broke,WhoWhatWhy had published a lengthy investigation into the back story to Comey's most famous or infamous act. It chronicled how Trump's close surrogates and media allies pressured the FBI director to reopen the Hillary Clinton email investigation. Evidence strongly suggests that this surprising move days before the election was decisive in Trump's unexpected victory.
Overall, having Comey at the Bureau was a blessing for Trump. Besides damaging Clinton, he also aided Trump by withholding information about the Bureau's potentially much more serious probe into the Trump campaign's ties with Russia.
The incoming president knew he had a good thing going. In early January, during a reception for top law-enforcement officials, an obviously grateful Trump singled Comey out for special praise and even a hug. But he soon cooled on the FBI director as he so often does with people.

Also, Comey's life was growing increasingly complicated, and he himself appeared to have lost his footing. In recent days, he looked incompetent in front of Congress, even bungling key testimony, such as exponentially overstating the quantity of Clinton emails forwarded to Anthony Weiner's computer. Trump, who if anything is about appearances, could not have enjoyed watching this televised spectacle.
But the real problem was, as they say in mafia movies, you're either with us or you're….out.
"While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the bureau," Trump said in a letter dated Tuesday.
Comey is only the second FBI director ever to be fired. He joins William Sessions, who was dismissed by Bill Clinton in 1993.
Ostensibly, the reason for Comey being sacked was his "handling of the conclusion of the investigation of Secretary Clinton's emails," according to a May 9th memorandum from Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein. That reasoning rings hollow, however, as the alleged fireable offense took place more than six months ago.
It is much more likely that Comey's revelation that Trump's campaign is being investigated for its Russia ties as well as his testimony before the Senate last week were the real reason for his dismissal.
Trump and his team are desperately seeking to stifle Russiagate. Matters continue to heat up on that front. As we write, CNN is reporting that prosecutors have issued grand jury subpoenas. Firing one of the people in government who knows most about that sensitive topic would serve that aim twofold.
The FBI is itself entwined in the matter and urgently needs to clear the air. As WhoWhatWhy reported in another major investigation, published in late March, the Bureau maintained a long and close informant relationship with a Trump business associate working out of Trump Tower. The president may have been worried about where that thread could lead, as it includes hints as to Trump receiving long-term financing from oligarchs tied to Vladimir Putin and organized crime.
Comey now can't make any trouble on the matter; and it serves to put any other determined federal appointees planning to rigorously follow Russiagate even if it leads to the Oval Office on notice that such conduct will mean the end of their career.
Not surprisingly, Trump acolytes are presenting the firing as long in coming. As the veteran Trump strategist and hatchet man Roger Stone, himself under scrutiny in Russiagate, tweeted yesterday:

[Peter Lemkin]

FBI Chief James Comey Was Fired Days After Reportedly Seeking Resources for Russia Investigation

Posted on May 10, 2017

James Comey, then FBI director, is sworn in before the House Judiciary Committee in September. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP)

This post was originally published Tuesday.
Update: Wednesday, 8:45 a.m. PDT: New reports indicate that several days before being fired by President Trump, James Comey had asked the Justice Department for increased resources to aid in the FBI's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The New York Times writes:

Mr. Comey asked for the resources during a meeting last week with Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general who wrote the Justice Department's memo that was used to justify the firing of the F.B.I. director this week.
Mr. Comey then briefed members of Congress on the meeting in recent days.

The Times notes that this new evidence comes from "three officials with knowledge of his request."
Update: Tuesday, 4:29 p.m. PDT: Anthony Romero, head of the American Civil Liberties Union, and Edward Snowden, National Security Agency contractor-turned-whistleblower, both commented publicly about Comey's firing after the news broke. Romero offered his thoughts in a statement:

The independence of the FBI director is meant to ensure that the president does not operate above the law. For President Trump to fire the man responsible for investigating his own campaign's ties to the Russians imperils that fundamental principle.
Regardless of how one judges the performance of James Comey in either the Hillary Clinton or Russia investigations, President Trump's dismissal of a sitting FBI director raises serious alarm bells for our system of checks and balances.
The terms of FBI directors were purposefully structured to span across sitting presidents to ensure the FBI's independence and insulate the bureau from partisan politics. President Trump's dismissal of Comey raises questions about the administration's inappropriate meddling in bureau operations precisely at a time when the bureau appears to be investigating the president, his advisors, and his campaign for potential collusion with Russian agents in our last election.

Meanwhile, Snowden sounded off on President Trump's favoredplatformTwitter:
* * *He weathered a contentious election seasonto which he added no small measure of conflictand the tumultuous transition that ensued from the Obama administration to the Trump White House, but as of Tuesday, F.B.I. Director James Comey was obliged to step down from his post.
The reason? According to officials from the current regime, it once again came down to Hillary Clinton's infamous emails.
The New York Times relayed word that President Trump fired Comey over his handling of the investigation into the former secretary of state's use of a private email server for State Department-related communications
Mr. Comey was leading an investigation into whether members of the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election.
"While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the bureau," Mr. Trump said in a letter to Mr. Comey dated Tuesday.
"It is essential that we find new leadership for the F.B.I. that restores public trust and confidence in its vital law enforcement mission," Mr. Trump wrote.
Sen. Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a post on Twitter that Mr. Comey "should be immediately called to testify in an open hearing about the status of Russia/Trump investigation at the time he was fired."
The paper also reported that the newly installed Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein advised the president to oust Comey.

[Peter Lemkin]

A Very Unfunny Look at the Enduring Politics of Hate

Posted on May 8, 2017

By Bill Blum

A Donald Trump opponent in Seattle. (Ted S. Warren / AP)

I don't always agree with Bill Maher (witness his views on Islamand the death penalty), but the comedian was at his best on the April 28 installment of "Real Time," his Friday night HBO talk show. In both his opening interview with Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren and his closing "New Rules" monologue, Maheradmonished liberals to stop trying to win over Trump voters, especially his white working-class backers, with facts.
"You're wasting your breath," Maher quipped. "Trump supporters aren't changing their minds because the problem isn't in the mind. It's lower. It's emotional. He could have Ann Frank's skeleton in his closet. They'd all vote for him again."
True to Maher's observations, notwithstanding Trump's buffoonish ineptitude on the job and the many ways he has already undermined the objective interests of his working-class supportersappointing a cabinet stocked with right-wing billionaires and zealots committed to destroying public education and environmental protections; promoting a tax plan that is a shameful giveaway to the wealthy; pushing an Obamacare replacement bill that will strip millions of health insurance; backing proposed legislation that will end overtime pay, to cite just four initiativesthe president's GOP base hasn't deserted him. To the contrary, despite an overall approval rating that hovers at historic lows just above 40 percent, only 2 percent of those who voted for Trump in November say they now regret doing so, according to a Washington Post/ABC poll released on April 23.
If anything, in focusing on emotions, Maher touched only the surface of a complex and critically important dynamic that to date has left activists and pundits flummoxed, stunned and appalled. The question thus arises: If the key to understanding Trump's core support lies in grasping its emotional underpinnings, what kind of emotions or attitudes are at work?Is the thrust of Trump's allure based on racism? Is it a derivative of misogyny? Is it related to the fear of changing demographics, and the frustrations and anger engendered by the economic losses inflicted by globalization and neoliberalism?
Clearly, all of these attitudes are very much in play across the land. I've written before in this column of the widespread appeal on the right of "racial and gender-based nostalgia'"the longing for a mythologized past that harkens back to the pre-civil rights era following World War II.
Trump's "Make America Great Again" campaign slogan masterfully channeled this mythology. At the heart of Trump's presidential run was a hyper-nationalist vision of America drawn from distorted allusions to the wisdom of the founding fathers, the infantile narcissism and individualism of Ayn Rand and, on a more mundane level, patriarchal 1950s sitcoms like "Father Knows Best." In the vision, America prevails über alles internationally, while white Christian men hold all positions of authority at home, and women and racial minorities happily accept their second-class citizenship.
But in the wake of Trump's first three months in office and prompted by Maher's musings, I've come to think there's something far deeper going on at an emotional level among Trump voters.
What is that something? Bluntly put, it's this: Trump's base has given him unwavering support because he professes to hate the same people, institutions and values they hate.
I'm talking about hatred of immigrants and Muslims (the all-purpose sociological "others," who can be easily scapegoated as the source of our collective miseries); distrust of the press and the "fake" media; rejection of science and the disquieting truths it pursues; distain for judges and the rule of law, and the repudiation of civil rights. Many Trump voters also loathe the super-rich, having been flimflammed into believing Trump, one of the gaudiest and most predacious men on the planet, isn't part and parcel of the despised global elite.
Hate is central to Trump's power, and for good reason: Hate is a primal passion. Hate is part of our inherent makeup. We're hard-wired for it and can never entirely free ourselves from its grip.
No one understood this better than the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. According to Freud, as elaborated especially in his later textsand I apologize for simplifying an extraordinarily intricate body of work and bypassing the contributions of later analysts who amended and critiqued Freud's ideashuman beings are driven by two basic instincts: the life impulse (Eros, from the Greek god of love) and its opposite, the death impulse (dubbed by later disciples, though not by Freud himself, as Thanatos, the winged Greek demon of death).

Eros in this conception is directed at self-preservation and the quest to prolong life, both individually and socially. It embraces not only sexual gratification, but also life-affirming impulses and behaviors associated with communal engagement, harmony, collaboration and cooperation.

Hate is an expression of Thanatos, as are the impulses to destruction, sadism and masochism, envy, fear, violence, and above all, war. Freud's genius was his recognition that the life and death instincts don't exist in isolation. Rather, they overlap and interpenetrate, forming an inseparable duality, forever clashing and vying for dominance.
Freud laid out his instinct theory most concisely in a relatively unknown and underappreciated batch of letters exchanged with Albert Einstein in 1931-32. Although the correspondence between the great thinkers took place in the brutal aftermath of the First World War and during the uneasy quiet before World War II, it remains vitally relevant to Trump's America.
Einstein and Freud met only once in person in 1927 and didn't have further contact until 1931, when the Institute for Intellectual Cooperation, an advisory group to the League of Nations, invited Einstein to undertake a cross-disciplinary dialogue on war and peace with a scholar of his choosing.
Einstein selected Freud, to whom he wrote in April, 1931. He asked Freud to reflect on the "evils of war" in light of his theory of "how inseparably the aggressive and destructive instincts are bound up in the human psyche with those of love and the lust for life." In a subsequent letter written in July, 1932, he asked directly if there was "any way of delivering mankind from the menace of war" once and for all, and if hate could ever be erased from society.


Freud's response was less than sanguine. "All my life," he told a League of Nation's official about Einstein's effort to reach out to him, "I have had to tell people truths that were difficult to swallow. Now that I am old [he died in 1939 at age 83], I certainly do not want to fool them." Still, he promised to answer Einstein's query.
In September, he penned a lengthy and wide-ranging reply. "Conflicts of interest between man and man," he explained, "are resolved, in principle, by the recourse to violence." After summarizing his dark view of the instincts, he added, "The upshot of these observations … is that there is no likelihood of our being able to suppress humanity's aggressive tendencies. … It is all too clear that the nationalistic ideas, paramount today in every country, operate in quite a contrary direction."
But all was not lost, Freud cautioned. Although war and aggression could never be completely eliminated, mitigating measures could be taken, emphasizing reason, culture, empathy and community. "From our mythology' of the instincts," he wrote, "we may easily deduce a formula for an indirect method of eliminating war. If the propensity for war be due to the destructive instinct, we have always its counter-agent, Eros, to our hand. All that produces ties of sentiment between man and man must serve us as war's antidote. … All that brings out the significant resemblances between men calls into play this feeling of community, identification, whereon is founded, in large measure, the whole edifice of human society."
Becoming more concrete, Freud cited the "satisfaction of material needs and enforcing the equality between man and man" as additional components of tempering aggressiongoals, he added, the Bolsheviks had pursued in vain. He also endorsed the League of Nations as an international arbiter of justice.
The exchange between Einstein and Freud was published in pamphlet form in 1933. The rise of Hitler, however, limited the press run to 2,000 copies, causing the correspondence to fall into obscurity.There are at three basic takeaways to be drawn from the correspondence to burnish our efforts to combat and counter Trumpism:
First, to return to Maher, there is a pressing need to appreciate the full gravity of the hatred Trump represents. Attitudes of hate among Trump's base cannot be assessed simply as a regrettable but rational response to the depredations of Wall Street and globalization, as Elizabeth Warren and even Bernie Sanders have argued. They are decidedly more than that.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), in the spring issue of its quarterly Intelligence Report, warns that "After half a century of being increasingly relegated to the margins of society, the radical right entered the political mainstream last year in a way that had seemed virtually unimaginable since George Wallace ran for president in 1968."
The SPLC estimates there were at least 917 hate organizations active throughout the U.S. in 2016, to go along with another 623 extreme groups. They are but the most obvious manifestation of a much larger phenomenon.
Second, while progressives may never convert the KKK, skinheads, the Oath Keepers and other entrenched extremists, larger segments of Trump's base can be reached, and turned around. The lies behind Trump's faux populism can be exposedand in this essential enterprise, facts, faithfully and accurately presented, still matter.
The hate Trump has directed against immigrants, constitutional rights and egalitarian values can be turned against him through clear expositions of his hypocrisies, conflicts of interest and his obscene quest to gut the social safety net for the purpose of enriching himself, his family and his cronies. Although the progress made on this front has been uneven, elements of both the mainstream and alternative mediafrom The New York Times and the Washington Post to The Intercept and Truthdighave accomplished a good deal, publishing articles and analyses that have helped to arouse and fortify resistance movements the across the country. Those efforts must redouble.
Finally, and most important of all, in the spirit of Freud's Eros, the left will have to fashion and promote a positive, life-affirming vision of the future to rival and displace the death instinct behind Trump's "Make America Great Again" mantra.
Every major movement of social and political transformation, in addition to championing specific short-term reforms, has been animated by higher principles promising both solidarity and liberation. The American Revolution was moved by the demand for "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The French version was driven by the ideals of "liberté, égalité, fraternité." The civil rights movement was propelled by Martin Luther King Jr.'s "dream" of racial harmony and justice.
What, then, in this critical hour is our shared vision of the future? I don't pretend to have the answers, except to say that in the broadest terms it will be communitarian, diverse, inclusive, respectful of democratic institutions and the environment, and welcoming toward individual freedoms. It will not, if it is to succeed, call for a restoration of the hierarchical neoliberalism of the recent past. Try as Hillary Clinton might to convince us that she, too, is part of the resistance and perhaps worthy of another bid for high office, she isn't. Period. Full stop.
In the meantime, Donald Trump remains the leader of the most powerful nation on earth. We remain mired in the politics of hate.

[Peter Lemkin]