O'Reilly Fired by Fox

[Jon Estes]

[Sandy]

It's not so much of an ideological issue, or one of "spin" in news reporting. It's a matter of an individual with high visibility and lots of money getting a pass on serving the consequences of a crime he committed. Plenty of high profile, extremely well off so-called Christian leaders have done, and gotten away with, the same thing, walking away with bank account mostly intact, with a few gestures looking like repentance getting the cheers of their followers.

Justice depends on how high the threshold of tolerance will eventually go among those who are victims. It's hard to turn down, and hard to blame someone who doesn't, the kind of money that gets offered to settle. For the victim, who just wants the attention to go away and to get past the humiliation, a settlement is appealing. The only ones in our society who have to suffer and pay for the crime in a real sense, are those who can't afford to settle.

There is a little bit of ideological bias here. Among O'Reilly's conservative following, there is little sympathy for, and a lot of hostility, toward his victims. Regarding the horribly despicable behavior of harrassment and abuse exhibited by O'Reilly, not much fuss. Influence and power trump morality and principle every time, and Stephen is correct in his assertion. Many of his followers are evangelical Christians, who have been overwhelmingly silent on this, and on Trump's abominable, illegal, immoral behavior in this regard as well. The room where their values were once kept, and trotted out conveniently when needed, is empty, you can hear the crickets chirping loudly through the door.

[Jim]

[Sandy]

If Stephen's post, and his choice of words riles you up like that, but O'Reilly's abominable, disgusting behavior and bribery doesn't, then clearly, your priorities are misplaced. Nice try at diverting attention away from O'Reilly's troubles.

[Stephen Fox]

Easy google for last weekend. They get the story right on Fox. Ailes and Sean Hannity and Oreilly; Shamans bad for America as Ted Koppel nailed them.

[Sandy]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/bu ... 101165618/

Shine is gone, opening the door to speculation as to whether or not Hannity will hang around. These guys think that money ought to be able to buy them the right to abuse and mistreat women. I think their behavior disqualifies their opinion and political position, and compromises their right to comment.

[Jim]

[Sandy]

[Jim]

[Sandy]

Oh, it's not hard, nor is it taxing on my faith and self confidence to discern the glaring difference between the factually supported comments of intelligent and insightful people, and you and your comments.

[JE Pettibone]

[Sandy]

You must have been watching a different campaign, Ed.

Clinton points to evidence indicating the effect that the Comey letter had on the polling, and also points to the wikileaks dumps, which we now know were engineered by the Russians. It's hard to change those things a week prior to the election. And I'm glad to see the Senate grilling Comey on both the timing of his information release, which eventually led to confirmation of the FBI's previous conclusion, that there was nothing in Clinton's email to warrant even so much as a fine, and on why he didn't release the same kind of information about the ongoing investigation of the orange haired buffoon, which is not only still going on, but so far has yielded eight connections to the Trump campaign, and is already yielding requests for immunity in exchange for testimony.

Trump's electoral victory comes down to 50,000 votes in five counties in three states. The information Clinton presented indicates that she would have won those three states, and most likely Florida as well, if it hadn't been for the timing of Comey's release and the wikileaks dumps. The buffoon and his followers don't deal in facts.

Jim doesn't allow facts to invade his fantasyworld.

[Jim]

I watched the Comey hearing and found it to be fascinating, better than a spy-thriller. Having Hillary's classified documents on Weiner's laptop was a jewel, about as good as the missing emails by the thousands. I've watched Comey in the other hearings (be thankful for C-Span) and found that he doesn't intend to be the scapegoat for the Lynch/Bubba tarmac talk, where the deal to roast Comey was probably hatched. He was determined in all the hearings not to let that happen, though his hands are dirty in some of the kowtowing. He got even whether he meant to or not, thank God or that. He's too smart by half for those jugheads, whose cupidity is outdone by only their stupidity. Hillary joined Humpty-Dumpty in the whole rancid affair...fell off the wall and couldn't be put back together. As for the Russians (assuming they actually" discovered" Podesta or anything else...who knows), they did the world a favor if they helped keep this country from going third-world.

[Jon Estes]

[Haruo]

Clinton is yesterday's news. Trump is today's president. Not pleasant (especially the latter), but facts.

[KeithE]

[Jim]

[Sandy]

[Jon Estes]

[Haruo]

Be interesting to see how much Trump will get accomplished with a Democratic majority in Congress. I mean, he's done wonders thus far with the GOP in power. Jon, maybe you've been missing out on the backlash to the AHCA, which has led to comfortably-elected GOP congressmen being booed and hissed by constituents at town hall meetings in places like Iowa and Idaho. These are people who in many cases voted both for the congressmen in question and for Trump, and who are now feeling betrayed. I think it will take some major finessing by Trump and the Senate to calm these waters, and I don't think it will happen.

[Jon Estes]

[Sandy]

The evidence that has been made public demonstrates that the Russians did interfere with the election, extensively. Right now, here in PA, they are actually looking into the possibility that voting machines, and vote totals, were hacked from outside. But even the Republicans have had to concede, and figure out how to handle, the mountain of evidence of their interference, and now, the individual connections of Trump campaign officials, eight of them by the most recent count, who had multiple direct contacts with the individuals on the Russian end who have been identified as having been involved. Among them, Michael Flynn and Carter Page, pretty close to the buffoon himself, and Flynn is already trying to negotiate immunity in exchange for testimony. Flynn appears to have been the key contact, as his name surfaces almost daily regarding the evidence being made public by the FBI.

When either a direct connection to the buffoon, or the establishment of his awareness of what was happening, is made, and I believe it will be, then the Republicans will be on the horns of a dilemma. Will they have the wherewithal and the integrity to do the right thing and draft articles of impeachment? They may well do that if they think that will get them ahead of the buffoon's sinking popularity and keep any chance alive of coming out ahead in 2018. They may have to, in any case, if criminal charges are filed, which is what I expect will happen.

Yeah, so what if 96% of buffoon voters would still vote for him now? He didn't come close to the 50% threshold, so 96% drops him below 40% of the total, which is similar to his job approval rating of 36%. If that's representative of the kind of vote Republican candidates for Congress can expect in 2018, then the Democrats will win fairly easily. But given the way things are going for the buffoon administration politically, if the FBI investigation drags on that far, the Democrats have a year and a half of his inept, incompetent, insanity to help them boost their Congressional numbers significantly. The health care bill has already helped immensely. Trump won't last two full years.

[Jim]

The Clapper/Yates hearing was carried by TV yesterday so I watched as under oath both of these worthies swore that no collusion of the Trump campaign and Russia took place. The dem senators were horrified (probably shocked and awed, too) that Flynn wasn’t fired for two whole weeks—count ‘em—after Yates told the WH gang that she was putting it on notice, glibly not mentioning that Trump would have been an idiot to believe her instantly since she was a holdover from the Obama/Clinton pigsty of lie after lie. She fell into the acting AG job when Lynch resigned and got out of Dodge after being exposed, with Bubba, on the torrid tarmac where they doubtlessly and certainly unsuccessfully set up FBI guy Comey as the villain sinking Hillary, who was about as charismatic and convincing as a bear in hibernation. Strangely, neither worthy knew who “unmasked” (leaked) to some newsie the ID of an official, whose privacy was violated (no telling how many others…time will tell). Doing that is a felony and can be racked up to the Obama crowd, also. Otherwise, nothing new except a new set of hate-Trump speeches by the dems. Chairman Graham didn’t seem to even make a prepared opening statement, just let the ranking member drone on and on about the disaster that had befallen the country on election day. I had to laugh since committee-member Leahy was thrown off a similar hearing back in the eighties for LEAKING to the press.

[Jon Estes]

[Sandy]

Oh, Jon, I really feel sorry for you. So far away, and so out of touch. Here's a dose of reality. The buffoon fired James Comey yesterday. I suggest you click the link here and watch some real facts.

https://www.rawstory.com/2017/05/watch- ... watergate/
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show ... nal-crisis

You can use judgmental terms like hate, and apply them all you want to, all that does is weaken your credibility. You're not around, and you're certainly not in any kind of a position to determine or judge what I "chase after." I'm not in favor of seeing the country ruined, which is what "pulling for Trump to keep going as he is going" would be. His first 100 days in office proves that to be a completely true statement.

"Character is important. But it is OK to abandon it in order to elect a President who will throw you a few political bones so you can get what you want." That's the message my high school students got, loud and clear, from Christian supporters of Trump. I hear it from them, in their conversations, and I see it in attitudes and actions. They've picked up on the hypocrisy.