The Crisis
by Thomas Paine
December 23, 1776
THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.
So, last night when we were, depending on our locations, mixing the dinner salad or driving the kids to soccer, James Comey, who was at work in Los Angeles meeting with agents there, was summarily fired by Donald Trump who did not have the grace to learn that Comey was not at the location (FBI HQ) where the letter firing him was sent and leaked the letter to news media so that Comey found out via TV while working. This is the shoddiest, shabbiest way I have ever seen anyone fired. It was worse than doing it by post it. Worse than a text or Facebook PM. It was a WTF kind of firing.
No love is lost between Team Hillary Clinton and the guy obsessed with her emails. He probably had a lot to do with some of her election results. If she had prevailed, none of this would have happened because no matter how inimical he was to her candidacy, she would never have fired him.
Before we arise in a standing ovation that Comey is gone, let’s assess the fact that the guy who fired him remains, and he is POTUS. He will be meeting today with Sergei Lavrov and apparently his own Secretary of State, Tillerson, will not be in on the meeting. How weird is that?
Do you see any kind of agenda here? Consolidation of influence at the top – not a good thing. President Obama always trusted Secretary of State Clinton to meet effectively with FM Lavrov. Why does Trump not trust Tillerson similarly? Despots consolidate influence at the top.
Still laughing about how Comey was terminated? He was getting close to Trump’s Russian relations. Trump fired him in a way that was supposed to humiliate him – and probably did.
But that is nothing to celebrate. Comey was wrong-headed in some ways and deservedly should feel sick about how he wrong-headedly affected the election. Nevertheless he served – honorably as far as we know. He did not deserve to be treated like a used mophead.
Think before you laugh or celebrate. You never know. The next head on the chopping block could be your own. See The Tudors, The Borgias, The White Queen, The White Princess. Yes, we codified treason in our Consitution so those things would not happen, but look at James Comey!
We should be very careful and skeptical about the firing of the head of the FBI.
Don’t celebrate. Cerebrate! (Think!)
Still4Hill 
I had just gotten home from work. After speaking to some friends for a few minutes, I checked Twitter on my phone. I was only momentarily stunned since I put nothing past Trump at this point. And, clearly, Comey and the investigation were getting uncomfortably close to things Trump wants to keep buried. Comey, like Trump, has authoritarian tendencies. What he doesn”t have are ties to a hostile foreign government which helped put him in office. Someday, some future president would be right to fire James Comey. But not this president at this time. And, yes, the way it was done was obscene. Michael Flynn, Russian asset, got much more respect.
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I don’t know any Democrat who cheering this, including me, and I was no fan of Comey, to put it mildly. Like it or not, Comey was the one leading the counterintelligence investigation of Trump and his associates, and for Trump to fire him him now is 100 percent a case of obstruction of justice. This is all about the Russia investigation getting too close for comfort. Period.
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I saw some folks I know to be Dems cheering on Facebook.
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Disappointed to hear that.
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We still don’t know for sure, Were Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump being investigated in 2016 by the FBI or CIA? The answer is probably yes, yet Trump made it known in his letter firing Comey that Comey stated on three different occasions that Trump was not under investigation. Is Trump right, or is he cracking up?
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We don’t know. What we do know is that investigation of associates can turn the spotlight onto Trump. In the same way the FISA warrants picked up communications between Trump associates and foreign entities, investigations around the Trump sphere can pick up Trump on a hot mic or phone call or even a face to face conversation saying something compromising and in a snap he will be in the investigation.
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