President Trump Fires James Comey

a reply to: carewemust

I'd personally have to research most of them before I could pick a favorite. Initial reactions to three of the names though:

• Ray Kelly: I'm always concerned when big-city officials are picked for national positions. I worry that their experience in the urban cesspool jungle might not translate well to the entire country. That is admittedly a biased reaction from me, though; I could be way off. He seems to be in the cat bird seat, though, with a prior professional relationship with Trump.
  
  
• Trey Gowdy: I have the same concerns as I did with Jeff Sessions... he would be awesome, but I want him in the Congress too. Too bad we don't have reliable cloning technology yet.
  
  
• McCabe: No. He's too mired in the present corruption. We need a clean slate in FBI management, not just a rearrangement of existing turds in the swamp.

TheRedneck

originally posted by: marg6043
a reply to: UKTruth

after Clapper came out of the hearing telling that he knew who the unmasker was and that he may knew who leaked information.

????

Hadn't seen/read that?

Can you give me a link?

a reply to: Gandalf77

Ah I got you. Well yes I would think most government agencies are like that. My experience is with the military, which tends to be mostly conservative, although there's more liberals than you would think (usually the more open-minded variety, not the type you have on here). But the agencies are more bureaucratic, filled in waves by one administration or another, so of course there can be divides along ideological lines. There may be other divides as well.

a reply to: Indigo5

Tom Price was walking in a hallway at the Virginia State Capital on his way to a meeting...

Exactly. The reporter was attempting to interrupt his attendance at an official government meeting. If Price had had time to answer, I will give the benefit of the doubt that he would have. He didn't, and the reporter continued to follow him yelling his questions.

Reporters can ask questions, but they cannot interfere with government activities.

TheRedneck

originally posted by: face23785
a reply to: Gandalf77

This is something I absolutely do not dispute. The messaging from the White House is awful. I think it is a product of most of them not being professional politicians. We're all so used to these pols being so good at controlling their narrative, even when it's false, that hearing normal people held to this type of standard of having everything they do questioned looks very strange. Let's be honest though, if we had dozens of reporters questioning everything we did 10 different ways, how well would we do?

That is how the game is played, though. Every corporation in America has to contend with it, like it or not.
Stocks oftentimes rise and fall due to good/bad messaging--right or wrong, it happens.
That's why it's critical to have a team of professional communicators on hand to craft the messaging--and everyone needs to be on the same page. The old saw about proper planning preventing piss-poor performance does seem applicable here. And given how quickly things can develop, particularly in a crisis type of situation, there may not be much time to plan; that situation requires agility, and teams that can do it tend to separate the rock stars from the groupies. Reactive speculation aside, this doesn't appear to have been a crisis type of situation.

Also, it is true that not every little announcement requires an all-hands type of effort. Much of that game is a routine cadence and fairly easy to manage if you've got mildly competent pros on your bench. But I think we can agree this was a BIG one, and they fumbled it for a loss where controlling the narrative goes. Now they have to contend with the blowback.

Hopefully they can learn from it. Or not.

originally posted by: TheRedneck
a reply to: Indigo5

Tom Price was walking in a hallway at the Virginia State Capital on his way to a meeting...

Exactly. The reporter was attempting to interrupt his attendance at an official government meeting. If Price had had time to answer, I will give the benefit of the doubt that he would have. He didn't, and the reporter continued to follow him yelling his questions.

Reporters can ask questions, but they cannot interfere with government activities.

TheRedneck

Still doesn't make sense?

The reporter did not block Tom Price? No one is claiming that?

How is asking questions in the hallway of the State Capital (repeatedly or not) qualify as "interfering with government processes"..

originally posted by: face23785
a reply to: Gandalf77

Ah I got you. Well yes I would think most government agencies are like that. My experience is with the military, which tends to be mostly conservative, although there's more liberals than you would think (usually the more open-minded variety, not the type you have on here). But the agencies are more bureaucratic, filled in waves by one administration or another, so of course there can be divides along ideological lines. There may be other divides as well.

That's a good point. And I've heard very similar descriptions about the military from folks I know who've served.

a reply to: Gandalf77

I really can't argue with any of this either. They seem to be slow to adapt. The press secretary certainly leaves something to be desired. When they don't know something they should just say they don't know. They try to answer questions they shouldn't, then Trump says something different later and it just looks bad. Easily avoided by just saying "I don't know".

originally posted by: Indigo5

originally posted by: TheRedneck
a reply to: Indigo5

Tom Price was walking in a hallway at the Virginia State Capital on his way to a meeting...

Exactly. The reporter was attempting to interrupt his attendance at an official government meeting. If Price had had time to answer, I will give the benefit of the doubt that he would have. He didn't, and the reporter continued to follow him yelling his questions.

Reporters can ask questions, but they cannot interfere with government activities.

TheRedneck

Still doesn't make sense?

The reporter did not block Tom Price? No one is claiming that?

How is asking questions in the hallway of the State Capital (repeatedly or not) qualify as "interfering with government processes"..

When you read his arrest by capitol police they state he was warned about being there several times. He kept sneaking by into a restricted area.

a reply to: dragonridr

You'd be better off banging your head against a wall. No matter what source you cite or how well you explain it he will not admit he was wrong. He's a devout worshipper of the Dem talking points.

a reply to: Indigo5

The reporter did not block Tom Price? No one is claiming that?

Oh, please...

The reporter was chasing him, yelling his questions. He was being overly disruptive, in an area secured by the Secret Service. Price was not conducting a press briefing; he was attempting to get to a meeting and needed to concentrate on the material in that meeting.

It's one thing to ask a question, even at loud volume, to an official walking down the hall. It's another to then chase after that official, yelling the same question over and over to interrupt the official's thought process. We are also discussing the problem with incomplete or inaccurate data being disseminated... how the hell can anyone think that cannot be partially caused by reporters interrupting officials at inopportune times by insisting the official drop everything they are doing to answer impromptu and unprepared?

TheRedneck

originally posted by: dragonridr

originally posted by: Indigo5

originally posted by: TheRedneck
a reply to: Indigo5

Tom Price was walking in a hallway at the Virginia State Capital on his way to a meeting...

Exactly. The reporter was attempting to interrupt his attendance at an official government meeting. If Price had had time to answer, I will give the benefit of the doubt that he would have. He didn't, and the reporter continued to follow him yelling his questions.

Reporters can ask questions, but they cannot interfere with government activities.

TheRedneck

Still doesn't make sense?

The reporter did not block Tom Price? No one is claiming that?

How is asking questions in the hallway of the State Capital (repeatedly or not) qualify as "interfering with government processes"..

When you read his arrest by capitol police they state he was warned about being there several times. He kept sneaking by into a restricted area.

I hadn't read that.

Do you have a link?

a reply to: Indigo5

From the NYT. I suppose you'll say they're a right-wing conspiracy advocate?

The arrest stirred suspicions that officers were trying to thwart his effort to ask questions, though a criminal complaint said he “tried aggressively to breach the security of the Secret Service” and was “causing a disturbance by yelling questions.”

And the entire premise is absurd. They had him arrested so they wouldn't have to answer questions about that? I guess they forgot they were stonewalling on that when they already answered questions about it. It's a pure conspiracy theory, and absurd.

originally posted by: face23785
a reply to: Indigo5

From the NYT. I suppose you'll say they're a right-wing conspiracy advocate?

The arrest stirred suspicions that officers were trying to thwart his effort to ask questions, though a criminal complaint said he “tried aggressively to breach the security of the Secret Service” and was “causing a disturbance by yelling questions.”

Actually I responded to and was looking for something that supported this:

originally posted by: [post=22223053]dragonridr

capitol police they state he was warned about being there several times. He kept sneaking by into a restricted area.

As far as him "aggressively to breach the security of the secret service"?

Other reporters were present and even took pictures and gave accounts of what happened..
A protestor filmed the arrest on her cell phone...

So "restricted area" seems illogical..

More so for a hallway in the state capitol.

So perhaps "security of the secret service" was being defined as personal space?
I see no evidence it was a "restricted area"?...But would be open to it if you could show me a link to a police report explaining the same?

I do see claims that have not been disputed that it was a public hallway at the Capitol..

Your posts still seem to consistently include personal insults...hard to take you seriously in that context.

a reply to: Indigo5

I've been googling trying to find you a link (because I haven't read an official report either), but all I get are somewhat sensational stories. Some paint Heyman as an out-of-control maniac, others as an oppressed reporter just trying to do his job.

And that's the whole problem. Why isn't that police report online and linked by the MSM? Why is it more important for us to know what the ACLU thinks than to read exactly what he is charged with?

TheRedneck

originally posted by: TheRedneck
a reply to: Indigo5

And that's the whole problem. Why isn't that police report online and linked by the MSM? Why is it more important for us to know what the ACLU thinks than to read exactly what he is charged with?

Not that I disagree...but LACK of information is lessor threat to honest discourse than INVENTION of information...

originally posted by: dragonridr


When you read his arrest by capitol police they state he was warned about being there several times. He kept sneaking by into a restricted area.

What arrest report?

I will retract my inference of BS wholeheartedly when you can give me a source for your claim.

originally posted by: face23785
a reply to: Gandalf77

I really can't argue with any of this either. They seem to be slow to adapt. The press secretary certainly leaves something to be desired. When they don't know something they should just say they don't know. They try to answer questions they shouldn't, then Trump says something different later and it just looks bad. Easily avoided by just saying "I don't know".

I tend to agree. In fact, I believe it was Tom Peters who made that very point in one of his books on leadership: One aspect of good leadership is knowing that it's OK to say "I don't know."

In all fairness, this episode could just be an aberration. However, if it's a trend, then I have to wonder if it's more symptomatic of Trump's leadership style in general. That is, if his stye is the "Blink" style of leadership that tends to rely on shoot-from-the-hip tactics, I've seen that style work well, and I've also seen it fail with disastrous consequences.

The "Blink" style of leadership generally relies on intuition--the 'gut instinct.' As effective as that can be, it's also highly susceptible to things like unchecked ego and emotion (anger in particular) because they cloud judgement.

In this case, the stakes were clearly high due to all the factors we've been discussing--timing, circumstances, etc. So I have to wonder what, if any, political calculus went into this. You would hope they considered all the angles and variables in that equation rather carefully. If the primary variable was just an instinct that Comey was unpopular on both sides of the aisle and firing him would go over like a supersonic jet, rather than the buck-snort fart in church that it became, then they truly should have stayed at the drawing board a little longer.

One of the biggest challenges here is that it has the appearance of being less-than-transparent with the American people. Lack of transparency can make things go sideways in a hurry--even when there isn't anything to hide.
Well thought out messaging can go a long ways towards achieving some semblance of transparency. Corporate strategery 101.

Where the MSM is concerned, you also have to be prepared for a gamut of questions ranging from the well-researched and articulate to the asinine, shallow, and borderline incomprehensible--and a good smattering in between those extremes.

a reply to: Indigo5

Anywhere the Secret Service is positioned is automatically a restricted area. If a government official stops by a Walmart to use the restroom (extreme example), that restroom and the area leading to it from any direction is a restricted area under control of the Secret Service until he leaves.

TheRedneck

originally posted by: Indigo5

originally posted by: face23785
a reply to: Indigo5

From the NYT. I suppose you'll say they're a right-wing conspiracy advocate?

The arrest stirred suspicions that officers were trying to thwart his effort to ask questions, though a criminal complaint said he “tried aggressively to breach the security of the Secret Service” and was “causing a disturbance by yelling questions.”

Actually I responded to and was looking for something that supported this:

originally posted by: [post=22223053]dragonridr

capitol police they state he was warned about being there several times. He kept sneaking by into a restricted area.

As far as him "aggressively to breach the security of the secret service"?

Other reporters were present and even too pictures..
A protestor filmed the arrest on her cell phone...

So perhaps "security of the secret service" was being defined as personal space?
I see no evidence it was a "restricted area"?...But would be open to it if you could show me a link to a police report explaining the same?

I do see claims that have not been disputed that it was a public hallway at the Capitol..

Your posts still seem to consistently include personal insults...hard to take you seriously in that context.

That's fair enough, it's hard to take you seriously when you push lies. Security of the secret service is indeed partly the personal space around those under their protection, and that's likely what they're referring to. That may explain the "restricted area" referenced in other reports, I don't know. I haven't seen that phrasing anywhere. The poster who originally claimed that would have to address that. As far as anyone filming the arrest, that's cool because filming the arrest doesn't necessarily show the incident that led to the arrest, so that proves nothing. The bottom line here is he wasn't arrested for asking questions, and the purported reason why they would do that is bogus anyway. So are you gonna continue to push this lie all day too like you usually do or do you wanna just accept he was arrested for breaching the Secret Service protection in a manner they didn't appreciate? They have wide discretion with that, the guy will never win his case.

a reply to: TheRedneck


And BTW - Having researched it myself?

They guy sounds like an idiot in interviews...
His "news outlet" looks like a goof-ball outlet...wannabe news..

That said...Briebart has WH Press Credentials..

And I would be up in arms for any of their reporters or any other person with press credentials, any side of the fence or spectrum, bias news et al..

Debating the veracity or credibility of reporters is healthy...good..needed in a free democracy..

Outlawing and arresting them is not.