Yes, it was very insightful. Except I thought the boy was supposed to be eaten by the wolf so maybe he should have copy and pasted the entirety of his post from a more hard core stories website.
But once he’s eaten by the wolf, there’s no opportunity for the Wise Old Man to tell him where he went wrong, thus imparting the moral of the story.
Unless the writer decides to have the Wise Old Man stand sadly over the wolf’s scat, some days later, and import the moral to the pile of what used to be the boy.
Anyway: just a note in passing: Fox News hosts are all het up about how McCabe was a LIAR and thus needed to lose his pension. But they don’t seem to be too upset that Michael Flynn, who actually pleaded guilty to lying, is happily collecting his own pension.
…the flipside to this is provided by this statement from McCabe’s lawyer:
So the OIG report was part of a larger investigation: the McCabe part was “cleaved off” from it, so I’m guessing parts of it are entirely devoid of context. McCabe and his legal team had little time to review and even less time to respond. I’m going to assume the larger investigation is still going. And it appears this was “expedited” for one reason only: to fire McCabe before he qualified for his pension.
Thank you, Banquet Bear. I had heard that the process was not followed per spec, as it were.
If Trump said the sky was blue, I’d assume I had had some serious brain injury and been in a coma for quite a while and during that time the color of the sky changed to banana-peel yellow.
I can’t say I’m fully read up on all the details of the case - but it sure as hell seems the fact he was fired literally a day or so before he was eligible to retire with pension/benefits was not a coincidence, but was deliberately timed for a maximum “fuck you” effect.
I don’t know what if any appeal rights McCabe might have, but the whole thing screams “denial of due process” to me.
I didn’t think I really needed to cite something that has been reported on by multiple media sources. Many, many opinion pieces and other more "traditional’ news stories have implied, if not outright claimed, that it was Trump’s pressure on Sessions that led to the firing. And I’m not saying that the OPR recommendation is being omitted from reporting. Its just that its not getting much emphasis. Maybe its just me but it seemed there was a pro-McCabe slant to the reporting. Perhaps he deserved to be fired, even with two days until his pension. I guess we’ll just have to wait until the IG’s report is released and see.
MikeF, your analysis has a problem with perceptual bias. Your mistake is to read opinion pieces on a charged political topic where there are few facts available. What possible good can come from that?
As for mainstream media: A CNN article. In mainstream sources, I believe the issue you encounter when finding bias, is that Trump is a jerk. Even justifiable acts like firing Comey or firing McCabe are acts performed by a jerk. So it seems like something unethical even when it is perfectly ethical and protective of a widely respected institution like the FBI.
Here’s my analysis that I wasted a small piece of my life on:
6364 characters total
548 characters on introduction: Sessions firing him, Trump taunts, and the consequences for McCabe’s pension.
435 characters on McCabe’s response.
286 characters for a Trump tweet.
289 characters on pension outcome of firing.
2353 characters on Horowitz’s investigation and OPR’s investigation into McCabe specifically.
773 characters on McCabe’s accusation that this is an attack stemming from the election investigation.
619 characters on how McCabe learned he was fired.
525 characters on more of Trump’s incessant attacks on McCabe.
320 characters on speculating about the pension.
Subtracting the introduction, well more than half the article covers the Justice Department’s and Trump’s view of McCabe. This view, that he should be fired, is backed up by two separate, non-partisan, investigatory bodies.
Approximately 1/2 of the remaining text is devoted to McCabe’s defense and counter-accusations. The weight of anything McCabe says is not backed up by two separate, non-partisan, investigatory bodies.
Another 1/2 covers the pension and minor controversy over how he learned of his firing.
I don’t see the problem here. There’s no bias in terms of coverage. All the facts, as we know them, are presented. This article is only slightly less informative jasg’s linked blog article. I come away from the CNN article with two major pieces of information: Trump is a dick and McCabe probably screwed up.
(emphasis mine)
What you may be seeing is not a pro-McCabe slant to the reporting, but instead a pro-due process, pro-rule-of-law slant to the reporting.
I’m not seeing any mainstream media outlets saying “McCabe is a sweetheart and that’s why we find this troubling.” But I am seeing a lot of mainstream media outlets saying “this firing violated procedure and protocol, and that’s why we find this troubling.”
What procedure did it violate? What process is McCabe due?
Normally one would expect an opportunity to confront one’s accusers before punishment is meted out. One does not expect to be told by upper management “Ooooh, three more days until you can retire with a pension. Unless you get fired first! Ha ha ha, wouldn’t that be too bad for you if you got fired just before you got your pension? Oooh, you’re getting close to the deadline, maybe you’ll get that pension after all! Oh, you didn’t. Ha ha ha, you’re not getting that pension that you worked over 20 years to get. See what happens when you don’t pledge fealty to me?”
So, I gather you also don’t know if any procedure was violated. I take it your objection is lack of “opportunity to confront accuser” and that the decision was reached too slowly leading to uncertainty over his pension (the opposite of the complaint I’m seeing elsewhere which is that they acted too quickly).
OPR issued its recommendation on Wednesday (or, at least, it was reported on Wednesday). McCabe made his case to the senior career official at Justice on Thursday. And was fired on Friday. I think that the too quickly people may have the better of the argument. Then again, I don’t think you care fire someone who has retired (I don’t actually know), so presumably they had to act in that window or not at all (and, given that McCabe resigned and went on terminal leave in January after the FBI Director previewed the inspector general’s findings, I assume this issue was on management’s radar).
What does “confronting your accuser” look like in this context? I’m not sure that’s something I would expect. But I would assume he was interviewed by OPR.
The fact that they even considered firing a guy who had already announced his retirement date is laughable. The rationales may be legitimate, or they may be a mere smokescreen for the true reason- retribution. In addition, it was done with the intent of discrediting a witness and giving pause to other potential witnesses-“will they go after me if I talk? Will I lose my pension?”
This is far more than taking the pension from a career civil servant, this is obstruction of justice.
Next up is the mass arrest of the FBI OPR and DOJ OIG.
Banquet Bear posted this in post 23 (quote from linked article)
(bolding mine)
What would expect McCabe’s lawyer to say? :dubious:
Given verifiable facts? Are you expecting them to be proven false?
I note that the OPR hasn’t refuted them, nor have they released the report.
If the facts are verifiable, then provide them.
A lawyer’s opinion, acting in the interest of his client, is not a fact.
Is it a fact that McCabe violated the FBI and DOJ policy on media contacts? If you wish to make that assertion, please provide the IG report and OPR report as your cites.
We will all be grateful for that information.