I was wrong.
I thought that Reid’s 2013 motion was for judicial nominations other than Supreme Court.
But . . .
So, yes, straight majority, no filibuster.
Correct with a tie vote presumably still getting confirmed based on Pence’s tiebreaker as VP.
One wrinkle is that the confirmation process goes through the Judiciary Committee for the hearing. That’s one of the Committees that is currently investigating Russian involvement. It’s the one that called Yates as a witness Monday.
It’s not exactly the friendliest confirmation process if Trump tries to foist off a weakly qualified loyalist. Just getting out of committee to the Senate floor in that case could be difficult without a well qualified nomination.
Sure you weren’t.
Again, I defy anyone to take my posts in this thread and establish some “side” to this issue that I was espousing.
Feel free to take your shot. 
Very easily, as I already did. You kept coming up with excuses for why Trump did this, and subsequently made fun of liberals for being upset about it. You’re clearly taking the side that this is not inherently untoward, and that liberals are hypocrites for saying it is.
And I would assume it didn’t belong in Elections because it’s not about an election.
Okay, making fun is the wrong term. But clearly playing the “liberal hypocrisy” card.
We don’t support the head of the FBI being fired by the President who is in the middle of an investigation by the same FBI. That is Nixonian conflict of interest.
And there is no emergency, so no reason to fire him until after the investigation unless the goal was to influence the investigation.
You clearly are arguing the opposite of this, coming up with excuses for why it could make sense.
First of all, I’ve not come up with “excuses”. I’ve pointed out that there are multiple alternative explanations for what happened, and I’ve pointed out that some of these actually have evidence to support them as being the reason. I’ve further pointed out that for the most part, those asserting that this is President Trump acting out of some sort of fear or unhappiness regarding the investigation into contacts with Russia have yet to produce much of any evidence in support of this theory; it’s speculation only.
Second of all, I’ve not accused or implied that there is any “liberal hypocrisy”. For one thing, it wouldn’t be hypocrisy, because that’s saying one thing and doing another. To hold mutually conflicting viewpoints is not hypocrisy. But secondly, all I’ve noted is that, if you didn’t like Comey last year, and wanted him fired last year, you should be basically happy to see that his firing has finally happened. Anyone’s worry about the President’s potential conflict of interest here needs not to focus on the firing, but upon the replacement.
Unless, of course, what you’re saying is basically that Director Comey was a bad guy only when he was doing things you didn’t like, and once he started doing things again you DID like, you changed your mind about him. Which is, in my opinion, just partisan stupidity. Since I’m not partisan one way or the other, I tend to dislike it when others behave in ways totally influenced by their partisanship.
Thirdly, I haven’t said whether I accept the reasons offered by the White House or not. I have said that I think his testimony last week was directly involved in the decision, and evidence is mounting that that is a correct assumption. But I have no idea why the President did what he did, and frankly, neither do you. I have pointed out that the opinion expressed by the Deputy AG regarding the commentary on the email investigation is in line with viewpoints most people expressed last year. It’s gratifying to know he agrees. But whether the Attorney General, or the President, truly agree with that and acted accordingly, or whether they had different motives is not yet known. Imputing to me some particular opinion as to what the real reason is, and asserting I’m taking a side is wrong. Just because someone doesn’t say, “Yeah, you’re so right!” doesn’t mean they are taking an opposite “side” from you. But I’ve gotten used to liberals here on the Board acting like that’s the case; this is, I suppose, no different.
It isn’t speculation that there’s a connection between the Russia investigation and Comey being fired. Every news story I have read in the last 18 hours has reported that Trump was furious that people are still talking about the investigation of his campaign.
And the Washington Post reported today that the White House’s initial line - that the Deputy Attorney General instigated Comey’s firing - produced threats from Rosenstein that he would resign if that story persisted.
With respect:
What people are “saying”, what the buzz on the street is, etc., is not evidence of jack shit. I’ve read that it was everything from how he’s handling Russia, to how he wasn’t handling leaks, to how he refused to allow his bosses to preview his testimony last week, to generalized unhappiness that he refused to support Trump’s statement about Obama wiretapping him, to a feeling that he was disloyal simply because he was unhappy at the effect his statements had on Clinton’s campaign, but not sorry for what his statements did to Trump’s campaign. All of these are being reported as true, based upon anonymous sources at the White House. I suppose it’s possible that every single bit of it is true, but really, if that’s the case, can we say that any one of them is “THE” reason?
You made me think of a rhyme regarding Trump:
Oh, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive,
If at first you don’t succeed,
Try, try again
To have an opponent, one could have accused other people of “carefully gloss[ing] over” things. Claiming other people are being dishonest in their commentary creates opponents.
And, again, people in the US SENATE think this is a big deal re: the Russia investigation. To continue to say no one can point to any difference this will make is incorrect.
You didn’t have to type so many words to claim “fake news.”
I can’t say what I think in IMHO.
Unless you’re aware of telepathic technology, I’m pretty sure that demanding a confirmed reading of the President’s brain is impossible. If the people who know and work with him are insufficient for your process of determining his motives, then I question what you would reasonably expect that is better?
If, of ten aides, five are saying that it’s Russia, three are saying that it’s wiretapping, and two are saying that it’s the refusal to review his testimony, then the logical course is to assume that the decision was 50% one, 30% the other, and 20% the last, not that it’s proof that there’s no knowable answer. Finding disagreement among experts isn’t proof that the experts are all wrong, it’s evidence that the situation has some subtlety to answer.
I assume you’re staying current with the news this morning. Any new thoughts about your 2am position?
If not, lets wait another 24 hours. Perhaps even this afternoon.
The gist of the reporting I’ve seen is that Trump fired Comey because he felt Comey should have tamped down public discussion of the Russia investigation, focused more on leak investigations, and that (as I suggested earlier) he was particularly outraged by Comey’s congressional testimony about Russian interference affecting the election.
All in all, it does not appear at this point that Trump was worried about the substance of the Russia investigation so much as the continuing discussion of it.
That said, the main reason this firing is so terrible is because Trump apparently views the director of the FBI as he would an employee of the Trump organization, whose priorities should include making his “boss” look good and being a “team player”, rather than dispassionately focusing on his official job description.
It’s ironic that the whole basis for Comey’s prominence is the infamous Lynch/Clinton conversation which made her recuse herself, but Trump seems to feel that he’s entitled to have significant input into how the FBI deals with investigations of his people. This could be a very bad precedent, in undermining the independence of the FBI.
By contrast, the mere fact of the head of the FBI getting fired while the presidential campaign is being investigated is not a big deal, IMO. Otherwise any FBI director on the hot seat could guarantee their job security by opening up an investigation into people connected to the president, at which point he can’t be fired.
I think that reports of the deputy AG (Rosenstein) threatening to quit over being used by the WH to justify Comey’s firing is fairly significant development as well.
“Hey, new guy…put together a few bullet points on why Comey is bad. No particular reason. Just hypothetical.”
is it not expected, no? Trump has shown no signs I think he understands the presidency of your country different from his family business.Since he has never been outside of the family business context, he has never really shown any grasp of the complex organization or the modern corporate company.
It isn’t just that he lacks experience or understanding of government. The issue is that Trump is intellectually incompetent and psychologically unfit/unstable to be head of state.