monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

I would be very surprised if that polling of Canadians didn't match polling in every western nation re Trump.

Former U.S. attorney Preet Bharara on Sunday said he thinks there is evidence to start a case for obstruction of justice against President Trump.

"I think there's absolutely evidence to begin a case -- I think it's very important for all sorts of armchair speculators in the law, to be clear that no one knows right now whether there is a provable case of obstruction," he said on ABC's "This Week."

"It's also true...that there's no basis to say there's no obstruction."
Bharara also said during the interview that there is evidence from someone who is under oath that "on at least one occasion, the president of the United States, cleared the room of his vice president and his attorney general and told his director of the FBI that he should essentially drop the case against his former national security adviser."

"Whether or not that is impeachable or that's indictable, that's a very serious thing and I'm not sure that people fully get that the standard is not just whether something is a crime or not," Bharara said.

"Whether or not it can be charged as a crime or Congress will impeach, it is a very serious thing."

He said there is a lot to be "frightened" and "outraged" about.
"That's an incredibly serious thing if people think that the president of the United States can tell heads of law enforcement agencies, based on his own whim or his own personal preferences or friendships, that they should or should not pursue particular criminal cases against individuals," he said.

President Donald Trump fired U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara the day after the prosecutor refused to return a call from him, Bharara said on ABC News’ “This Week” Sunday.

Bharara said he viewed direct contact from the president to himself, as a law-enforcement official, to be an inappropriate breach of protocol and reported it to the office of Attorney General Jeff Sessions on March 9. “Twenty-two hours later, I was fired,” Bharara said.

Bharara’s account echoes the testimony of former FBI Director James Comey, who told the Senate Intelligence Committee last week that Trump contacted him directly by phone numerous times between the presidential transition and Comey’s own dismissal last month. Comey also testified about one-on-one meetings he had with Trump, some of which he said left him feeling uncomfortable.

Bharara attended the Comey hearing.

“It’s a very weird and peculiar thing for a one-on-one conversation without the attorney general, without warning, between the president and me, or any United States attorney who has been asked to investigate various things,” Bharara said.

In reporting the phone call to the chief of staff to the attorney general, I said it appeared to be that he was trying to cultivate some kind of relationship,” Bharara said.

Comey similarly told Congress he believed Trump wanted to establish a “patronage” relationship between them.

In all, Trump telephoned Bharara three times between December and March, the ex-prosecutor said Sunday.

“They were very unusual phone calls. When I’ve been reading the stories about how the president has been contacting Jim Comey over time, it felt a little bit like déjà vu,” he said.

“The number of times that President [Barack] Obama called me in seven-and-a-half years was zero. The number of times I would’ve been expected to be called by the president of the United States would be zero, because there has to be some kind of arms-length relationship, given the jurisdiction various people have,” Bharara said.

Likewise, Comey testified to just two one-on-one conversations with Obama during the more than three years their terms overlapped.

After winning election in November, Trump met with Bharara, who had been U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York since 2009, and asked him to remain in his position when the new administration took office. Bharara agreed, only to be fired on March 10 by Sessions, who had asked for the resignations of other U.S. attorneys across the country who hadn’t already stepped aside in deference to the new administration.
It is common for incoming presidential administrations to replace U.S. attorneys, though the abruptness with which Sessions handled the matter sparked criticism.

“To this day, I have no idea why I was fired,” said Bharara, who stressed he was not alleging a direct connection between his refusal to speak to Trump by telephone and his subsequent dismissal. Sessions dismissed Bharara after he declined to voluntarily resign.

After “This Week” aired, Bharara used his Twitter account to comment on a critical tweet from Mark Corallo, a representative of Trump’s legal team. Bharara tweeted that Sessions’ office backed his concerns about the March 9 call from the president.

Bernie Sanders Vows To Fight Back Against Islamophobia In The 2016 Race

Bernie Sanders Doesn’t Think Christians Are Fit For Public Office

Sanders doesn’t think Christians are fit to serve in government because they’re bigots. Basic Christian theology, in Sanders’s view, “is indefensible, it is hateful, it is Islamophobic, and it is an insult to over a billion Muslims throughout the world.”

President Donald Trump fired U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara the day after the prosecutor refused to return a call from him, Bharara said on ABC News’ “This Week” Sunday.

“To this day, I have no idea why I was fired,” said Bharara.

Sanders doesn’t think Christians are fit to serve in government because they’re bigots. Basic Christian theology, in Sanders’s view, “is indefensible, it is hateful, it is Islamophobic, and it is an insult to over a billion Muslims throughout the world.”

Pakistani man sentenced to death for insulting Prophet Muhammad

A 30-year-old Pakistani man has been sentenced to death by a counterterrorism court, following the conviction on charges he insulted the Prophet Muhammed and his wives on Facebook, officials said Sunday.

Scores of others in Pakistan remain on death row for alleged blasphemy, including Asia Bibi, a Christian woman who remains in solitary confinement after being convicted in 2010 following a debate with two Muslim women in a Punjab village.

Bernie Sanders Doesn’t Think Christians Are Fit For Public Office

Sanders doesn’t think Christians are fit to serve in government because they’re bigots. Basic Christian theology, in Sanders’s view, “is indefensible, it is hateful, it is Islamophobic, and it is an insult to over a billion Muslims throughout the world.”

pretty sick "joke".

The most troubling issue that Wray may face is the fact that his law firm — King & Spalding — represents Rosneft and Gazprom, two of Russia’s largest state-controlled oil companies.

Rosneft was prominently mentioned in the now infamous 35-page dossier prepared by former British MI6 agent Christopher Steele. The dossier claims that the CEO of Rosneft, Igor Sechin, offered candidate Donald Trump, through Trump’s campaign advisor Carter Page, a 19% stake in the company in exchange for lifting U.S. sanctions on Russia. The dossier claims that the offer was made in July while Page was in Moscow.

Rosneft is also the company that had a $500 billion oil drilling joint-venture with Exxon in 2012, when Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was Exxon’s CEO. However, the deal was nixed by President Obama in 2014, when he imposed the sanctions that crippled Russia’s ability to do business with U.S. companies. The lifting of sanctions by the Trump administration would enable Exxon to renew its joint venture agreement with Rosneft, and the law firm of King & Spalding could end up in the middle of the contract negotiations between those two companies.

Duh...a popular politician was caught lying about his sexual activity.

Neither the Senate nor the citizenry thought that represented anything perilous; it didn't threaten our system of government.

People might feel differently if Flynn starts talking and we find out that there's something more serious going on. We deal with these matters as they appear.

The fact that Clinton wasn't convicted doesn't give the next guy a free pass.

Again, impeachment is a political process, not a legal one. The Senate can arrive at any conclusion it chooses. That's how it's set up in the Constitution.

It's not "corruption". Corruption is a thing, whereas "corruptly" is a state of mind, i.e., consciousness of wrongdoing. And I addressed Trump's state of mind in my initial post on this matter.

Trump himself admitted on national television that he made up his mind to fire Comey because of the ongoing FBI investigation of his campaign and Russia's meddling in our election. He wanted to get rid of that cloud hanging over his head ... to hell with the country ... he was only thinking of himself.

Maybe now that Trump's endeavor or attempt to obstruct was unsuccessful, Flynn will come forward and talk. Time will tell.

Trump was not Comey's boss in any ordinary sense. The FBI is not Trump's business or personal bureau that he can rein in or sic upon anyone according to his own whims.

If you were an employer in an at-will state, then you have the right to fire an employee for any reason you want except for an unlawful reason. By analogy, the same holds true for Trump and he admitted that he fired Comey because of the bureau's probe into Russia's meddling in our election and his campaign's involvement in that meddling. And remember, the probe had two interrelated facets: the criminal investigation and the intelligence investigation. Comey was reporting to congressional committees that were holding official proceedings on those matters. And Trump fired him!

This matter is not as simple as "giving a good guy a break" as you allege. There's more to it, and to allege otherwise is disingenuous.

I think there might be some hail in those storm clouds hanging over Trump's head.

Setanta wrote:

Furthermore, as defined by the Supremes in Morrison versus Olson, 1988, the Director of the FBI is an inferior executive branch officer, and can only be appointed or dismissed with congressional approval.

You've interpreted the decision incorrectly.

Your good ole boy's club is hilarious. Pat each other on the back while you diss the woman and try to put her in her place.

House and Senate lawmakers leading the Russia investigation have asked the White House to produce tapes President Trump hinted might exist of a conversation between him and ousted FBI Director James Comey. They also made a formal request to the Comey camp for copies of the memos he testified he made to document the meetings....

At a press conference in the Rose Garden on Friday, the president toyed with reporters vowing to say “in the very near future” if the tapes exist.