WHO TO BELIEVE DONALD TRUMP OR JAMES COMEY ?

Note:  After some further thought I have decided to add this addendum to my below-noted Blog.  In particular, I had no difficulty with Director Comey's leaking his notes in a bid to protect his reputation.  Indeed, I would have done that too in a similar situation.  But Comey confessed that his real motivation for the leak of his notes was in the hope that it would lead to the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the President which is what in short order happened.  No one person should have that power and if that was indeed his motivation as he has professed, the guy has lost any respect I earlier had for him.  G   

My Blog:

Well surprise, surprise, I believe the former FBI Director.

But don't get too excited, the matter falls far short of an Impeachable Offence.

With that let's review today's testimony:

• Comey testified that President Trump said he hoped the investigation into former Security Advisor Michael Flynn would be dropped.  And that he correctly, in my opinion, viewed that as an order coming directly from the President of the United States.

My Note:  Trump was wrong to have done that.  Full Stop.

• Comey also testified that officers in the Obama Administration had similarly made unethical advances to him to get matters they did not like deep-sixed as well.

My Note:   They were wrong to have done that as well.

• Senator John McCain asked Comey how come he came out and stated, before Election Day, that Hillary Clinton was no longer being investigated by the FBI even though reports were swirling that the Russians may have been hacking into her unprotected emails.  McCain called it a double standard.

My Note:  Seems like a double standard to me.  

• The former FBI Director went on at length to bitterly complain about how the President and his Administration went out of their way to belittle Comey's management of the FBI by suggesting that it was ill run and the morale was a record low.

My Note:  Trump and Company were wrong to vilify the former FBI Director in this way but don't forget right or wrong this is Trump's modis operendi as his fellow candidates in last year's Republican Nomination Process can well attest.  Electors knew full well when they voted for Donald Trump this was the beast they were getting.

There was more but for me the above was the gist of today's testimony.

Now a fuller analysis:

As I said, Trump was wrong to have asked Comey to let go of the investigation of Flynn even though as as Comey himself admitted today, there was no suggestion that the President had anything whatsoever to do with the Russian Shenanigans.  I have said from the beginning that when this Russian Investigation finally and thankfully comes to an end, Trump will be vindicated.  Why I say 'thankfully comes to an end' is because it is taking up so much time and resources that could be better allocated to truly important matters such as the economy and restoring health care both of which Obama damaged.

Second I see much of Comey's testimony being an effort to restore his own credibility which to me took a fatal hit during last year's election when he came out say that Hillary was not under investigation by the FBI and then mere weeks later came out to say she was.  Although I think Hillary should have been prosecuted for deliberately exposing top sensitive emails on her unprotected server, the FBI should never have said merely days before the vote that they had reconsidered and were once again investigating her.  Comey should have been fired right there and then since even Hillary did not deserve that type of treatment.  (Trump should have cashiered Comey the first week of his new mandate given the seriousness of Comey's mistake.  Had he done so this farce could have been avoided.

What is at stake here transcends Trump, Comey and Politics in general.  What we are witnessing is a fight for Democracy.  Trump was fairly elected President by the non-elites and ever since the Elites have gone out of their way to derail him.  He is admittedly a Bull in the China Shop ...when he asked Comey to cease and desist he thought he was talking to one of the boys...just making a deal as he so often pats himself on the back for being able to do.  He has rough edges but so to do many of his supporters throughout the hinterlands of America.  A lesser man would have folded by now...I know I would have, but if Elites and their minions throughout the bureaucracy are ultimately successful in getting rid of Trump it will mean that Democracy will have likely taken an irreparable hit. 

As I see it...

'K.D. Galagher'

KINGSTON PENITENTIARY...A VISIT TO HELL WOULD BE PREFERABLE.

Yesterday, I visited the now closed Kingston Penitentiary (KP) which was once our country's largest maximum prison for the very worst of society and ...it left me shaken.

Opened in June of 1835, it closed the 30th of September 2013 and at its peak, 'housed' if I can use that word, upwards of 500 convicts and an equal number of guards.

I am no bleeding heart, but I quickly sympathized with the masses of prisoners and even the guards who were unfortunate enough to spend any time there.

Other than for the above, I am not going to recite a bunch of facts and figures to exhaust your mind, nor am I going to deal much in the way of descriptives or personalities, rather I am going to focus on my own feelings that surfaced during the 1.5 hour tour.

My background is Law and in 1971 I was slated, along with members of my law class, to visit KP. The course we were taking that required these visits was Criminology where Reform Buzz Words like 'rehabilitation, re-integration, and restitution' were bandied about in place of 'punishment and retribution' .  And, for the most part, the institutions we visited that term were consistent with this 'new way of thinking'. But they were Medium and Minimum Security Facilities.

I now know from yesterday that my own personal thoughts on penal reform would have been dramatically altered back then but for the fact that our tour got canceled due to a large and violent riot.  
So back to yesterday.  Kingston is called the limestone city and in that regard KP fits right in with its limestone construction and high intimidating limestone walls.  The iron doors at the entry are a foot deep and the inside walls are a bleak grayish brown...there is no joy to be had in the olde girl's decor or demeanour.  

As you move further in you soon reach what the guards called the guts of the beast where, in a very small area for upwards to its 500 inhabitants, ranges of cells reach skyward, all enveloped in a thick wire mesh.  It is like a commercial chicken-coop for humans and just as inviting.

It is also soul-destroying.  My sister, was part of a KP tour in the days just prior to the infamous 1971 riot and to this day she regrets having accompanied her class. Even these many years later, her face goes pale and she shutters at the memory.

Try as I might rationalize the inmates' living conditions with the evilness of their deeds I come up short, nobody should have been put through what they endured, many for the entirety of their   remaining life.  

Most would have come to KP young - victims themselves of violent upbringings.  To face serious time in such dehumanizing circumstances defies understanding but goes along way to explain why so many of them became mere animals in their captivity. 

Where was the compassion? Where were their Human Rights?

Our Tour Guide told us that in the 1800s Charles Dickens inspected Kingston Penitentiary and came away impressed.  Rather explains how really bad it was. 

As I see it...

'K.D. Galagher'