"Trump Fires FBI Director James Comey"

President Donald Trump on Tuesday fired FBI Director James Comey, who had been leading an investigation into whether Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia to influence the presidential election.

“The FBI is one of our Nation’s most cherished and respected institutions and today will mark a new beginning for our crown jewel of law enforcement,” Trump said in a statement Tuesday.

Trump’s campaign aides are the subject of an ongoing FBI investigation into whether his campaign colluded with Russia on the hacking and release of Democratic National Committee documents during the 2016 elections. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a former top adviser to Trump’s campaign who was, until Tuesday, Comey’s boss at the Justice Department, has recused himself from that investigation.

Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein recommended Comey be removed from his post in letters to Trump Tuesday. […] – HuffPost

H/T: MSNBC, CNN.

HP Reader:
The 'Coverup' has been expedited as Trump and Sessions close ranks to keep from being exposed for being in bed with the RUSSIANS…. The isht is about 2 drop people, Get ready. […]

HP Reader:
This news is terrifying. He's now in charge of his own investigation. These things aren't supposed to happen. And now, everyone needs to work together to fight all the crap that Trump & his minions are going to throw at us. […]

We’re in a moment of incredible political surrealism.

Excerpt:

No Republican at the hearing challenged the assertion that Flynn was compromised. None suggested a defensible reason why Trump might have kept Flynn around for 18 days after Yates spoke to McGahn, firing him only after the Washington Post reported on his lies. The Republican senators simply and insistently changed the subject, over and over again. The hearing was officially about “Russian Interference in the 2016 Election,” BUT they acted as though the subject were actually leaks, or unmasking, or even—I swear—Hillary Clinton’s emails. It was as if two different hearings were going on simultaneously.

Thirteen years ago, an anonymous aide to George W. Bush—later revealed to be Karl Rove—told the journalist Ron Suskind:

“We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

Trump brought the right’s strange reactionary postmodernism to a new level, but he didn’t invent it. To be a modern Republican almost necessarily entails a degree of comfort with epistemological nihilism. This insistent, all-encompassing bullshit is disorienting and a little stunning; neither our media nor our political institutions are really fit to contend with it. But eventually, if only after a great deal of carnage, the fog lifts and reality reasserts itself. When it does, it won’t just be Trump who is revealed in all his bare disgrace. […] – Michelle Goldberg, Slate writer

I also want to add – there is no doubt in my mind that looking at the nightmare we're having to deal with here in America with Trump in the White House -that reality has scared the crap out of a lot of people around the world -some call it the "Trump effect." At least for now other countries are saying "No.Thanks" to taking such an extremely high risk of electing a dangerous right-wing extremist of their own.

But Russia won't stop trying to disrupt the governments of certain nations, especially EU member countries – and of course, the U.S. However, lots of people are on to Russia now so We have a fighting chance.

Btw- It was reported that 48 hrs prior to France's recent presidential election a massive amount of hacked emails were dumped on the French people. As per French reporters, the dump was basically "laughed at" and "ignored" by the majority of the French electorate. There is little doubt that Russian operatives were behind the dump……

….but, in this case, it didn't work.

I saw a bit of her Ms. Yates testimony yesterday. I am total agreement with Wolf, she was "remarkable." Not the least bit intimidated by Repub Senators who tried their darnedest to rattle her. She wasn't having any of it. A very smart lady. And yes she "crushed" Ted Cruz (another fella who passes for being "a very smart guy" in the Republican party). The video clearly shows that she took to the so-called Constitutional scholar" to *school."

And she clearly put to rest any notion that Trump and members of his staff weren't adequately warned -multiple times- about Flynn, including the fact that even Pres. Obama told that fool (who's playing president) about Flynn.

Will out-an-out "collusion" between the Trump campaign and Russia ever be proven? Who knows.

But we most certainly do need an Independent investigation into the matter to find out as much as we can about what really happened and to what extent.