A lot of people have been (maybe just had been) pretending or hoping that Rod Rosenstein somehow wasn’t quite understanding the decision he was party to. I’ve heard he was in a professional bubble, naive in political terms. This must be somehow like career Army intelligence officer Michael Flynn didn’t understand the US’s historic rivalry with Russia.

Now we’re hearing that days before his firing, Comey asked Rosenstein for more money and personnel for the Trump/Russia probe. Yes, boom! Read More

Here’s the moment, caught by an AP photographer. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov cracking a joke (see video here) about Comey’s firing before heading into his meeting with the Secretary of State. He’s currently meeting with the President.

Click the headline of this story to see a full size version of the photo.

Without the need of an argument or storyline, I want to put together some key facts tied to last night’s events. Read More

Oh hey, here’s Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov cracking a joke about Comey’s firing before going into a meeting with the Secretary of State. Later he meets with Trump. Video after the jump. Read More

Let me add a few more thoughts on the events of the evening.

There is a glorious swirl of irony, disingenuousness and bad faith in the vortex of opinions about James Comey and the notional rationale for firing him. Speaking just for myself, after Comey’s October 28th letter to Congress, I thought and think that by all rights he should have resigned. I think I wrote shortly after Trump’s election that by rights Comey should be fired but that it would be a national calamity if he was. An independent FBI Director was critical to the security of the nation as soon as a countdown started for Trump to become President of the United States. Read More

Just a few moments ago Jeff Zeleny reported on CNN (rush transcript) that the President started discussing firing Comey a week ago and then asked DOJ to come up with a “rationale” for the firing. Transcript after the jump … Read More

I can only remember a few times in twenty years in this business that I heard genuinely stunning news. Obviously 9/11 was stunning; natural disasters are stunning. But I mean political developments which are totally unexpected and substantially shocking. This is shocking.  Read More

We are putting together breaking news that James Comey is out as FBI Director. He was apparently fired by President Trump.

Statement from the White House … Read More

Were you assuming the Senate would tame Trumpcare? GOP Senators say they’re good to go with massive Medicaid cuts.

Let me return for a moment to the monopoly beat.

This time it’s a book recommendation and some brief ruminations on the topic of tech monopolies. Read More