Cant get used to the tone, or cant get used to the tone directed at democrats?

Cuase I seem to recall Obama calling conservatives weak and fearful and clinging to guns, god, and bigoty

Oh the Trump hate is hilarious. I would think you would realize it is written at an eighth grade level. That is the highest level the press can comprehend.

Is the swamp drained, yet? :-D

I just wish the Trump administration would stop doing so many things that are calculated to make me like the guy.

All this handwringing about 'tone' reminds me, as it reminds lujlp, about things like 'clinging to guns, or religion', or the 'basket of irredeemables . . . . deplorables'. Wasn't so much 'tone' then, was there?

President Trump is making it crystal-clear to the embedded apparatchiks of the Deep State that there's a new sheriff in town. No longer will you be quietly 'retired' or 'laterally demoted' when you screw up - instead, you will get an A-sized box for your stuff and what you did will be plainly stated on the 6 o'clock news. Washington DC desperately needs a dose of this real-world approach.

When they say that you serve 'at the pleasure of the President', it doesn't mean ' . . . unless we disagree'. Ms Yates never subjected her opinions to a vote even once in her life, and President Trump did. His opinions prevailed. That means he stays, and she goes. I hope he does a lot more of this, and just as publically and forthrightly.

llater,

llamas

Bush couldn't simultaneously walk and chew gum.

I guess beltway Lefties can't simultaneously clutch their pearls and wring their hands.... have to put down the martini...

Don't let the door, etc...

I'm holding my outrage until Trump swims naked in the Potomac like Andrew Jackson.

Seems like strong language to me: "betrayed the Department of Justice."

The whole thing reads as a big FU to her and to the previous administration - strong language again.

In any event, when one is criticizing tone rather than substance, one has lost. "He's doing the right thing, but sounds like an 8th grader in doing so" - hardly an argument.

Trump is speaking to the people, rather than the elite, and the elite, who've probably spent years developing their writing skills, are pissed.

Well clearly he is not what you'd call "corporate."

When "corporate" speech is used, everyone has to read between the lines and "interpret" the true meaning of white-washed language.

Looks like he just saved everyone a lot of time and removed a lot of ambiguity.

Kind of refreshing, actually. I wish this kind of directness would catch on where I work.

I'm holding my outrage until Trump swims naked in the Potomac like Andrew Jackson. ~ Ben David at January 31, 2017 4:17 AM

Dood! I'm eating breakfast here!

"Ms Yates never subjected her opinions to a vote even once in her life, and President Trump did. "

Yep. The Attorney General refusing to defend an Administration's policies in court is just this side of a coup attempt. As far as I can recall, it is unprecedented in my lifetime. It deserves every word of harsh criticism it gets.

(And yes, this is yet another example of Reynolds' maxim: "Is more Trump what you want? Because this is how you get more Trump.")

I'm sorry, what? I'm supposed to get worked up over someone, who serves at the pleasure of the President, got canned because she wouldn't do her job?

Remember when these same folks rushed to the defense of that county clerk in Kentucky who refused to grant marriage licenses to gay couples?

Oh, right, that exercise of conscience was badthought and roundly criticized. And rightly so: do your job or quit.

...do your job or quit. ~ I R A Darth Aggie at January 31, 2017 7:16 AM

People no longer look upon a job in government as a job (follow orders and push paper) or as public service, but as an exercise of conscience. The lowest clerk in the DMV thinks of himself as a part of the policy machine, a policy maker.

That's one of the complaints the Republicans have had about the State Department for decades. It's highly politicized; the lowest employee at Foggy Bottom thinks he's entitled to interpret and implement foreign policy.

The politicization of other departments is accelerating as well. The IRS can arbitrarily block unacceptable groups from getting a tax-exempt status. The Attorney General and the Justice Department can choose which laws to defend and which to execute. NASA can change its mission from space exploration to climate change to enforce a president's agenda rather than expand the country's (and mankind's) knowledge.

This is very entertaining!

What happens when civil servants who don't believe they can be fired get a boss who used "You're fired" as the tag line of his TV show? Yep, fired. A few more of those and civil servants may realize they have to do their job or leave.

"People no longer look upon a job in government as a job (follow orders and push paper) or as public service, but as an exercise of conscience."

You know, I'm kind of okay with that. If you have serious moral or even legal objections to something you're being asked to do, I think it's perfectly okay to dissent.

I also think this should be reserved for serious objections, along the lines of "Load those Jews into the boxcars". Seems to me that people who object without serious and good reasons are going to pretty much select themselves right out of the workforce.

And the other thing to keep in mind is: if you object to following an order that you think is illegal or immoral, you should expect consequences, so don't whine about them.

To quote "The Wire": "Conscience do cost."

You know, I'm kind of okay with that. If you have serious moral or even legal objections to something you're being asked to do, I think it's perfectly okay to dissent. ~ Dwight Brown at January 31, 2017 10:24 AM

Then quit. Resign in protest. Send a memo up the line objecting to the policy. Slack off and do a half-assed job. You don't get to simply change government policy because you don't like the president or the policy.

If it's that morally objectionable a policy, resign and join the opposition. Resign and run for office to fight back.

Acting Attorneys General don't get to make or veto policy, even if they are holdovers from the previous administration.

And as much as Donald Trump can be objectionable, he's not Hitler, all Leftist hyperbole aside. The Acting Attorney General was not being asked to load Jews into box cars or gas innocent civilians. She was being asked to implement a temporary halt to immigration from questionable countries for 90 days; the same type of halt her former boss had enacted at least once before.

In short, while "conscience do cost," the cost for your conscience should be borne by you, not imposed by you on everyone else.

"You know, I'm kind of okay with that. If you have serious moral or even legal objections to something you're being asked to do, I think it's perfectly okay to dissent."

The U.S. military sets the standard here: When you are a highly placed official, there is a right way and a wrong way to go about it. The right way is to respect the office, even if you don't respect the person currently in it, and that means that you do it this way: You go directly to the President, and then to the public, and you say: "I think this order is unlawful, and this is why, and I cannot be in good conscience be a party to enforcing it. So I resign my office, effective immediately." The wrong way is to do something that whiffs of sedition, encouraging people under you to defy the Constitutionally elected officials and acting like your own office is an entitlement.

When President Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliott Richardson to fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, Richardson gave Nixon his resignation. He explained why he did so in terms of respect for his office, and a public pledge that he had made to not interfere with Cox's investigation. He didn't whine about it, and he didn't encourage Justice employees to be openly insubordinate to the President. He earned bipartisan respect for doing that, and he remains one of the few Nixon officials who is generally considered to have come out of Watergate with clean hands.

WOW. I reluctantly, reluctantly, voted for the guy - and it seems as if this is the very first time I am NOT going to have "voter's remorse"!

Kick some effing butt! yea!

If anyone cannot "do their job" then quit or be fired. period.

Hey, maybe she can get a job as a county clerk some where?

Conan:

Slack off and do a half-assed job.

You're seriously advocating the passive-aggressive approach to policies you don't agree with?

Eric Holder adopted a similar approach to this Acting Attorney General. He simply said that he would refuse to enforce DOMA. As much as I don't agree with DOMA, it is not the place of the Attorney General to pick and choose which laws he will enforce based on whether he finds such laws to be unconstitutional.

Nonetheless, when six state attorneys general said they wouldn't defend DOMA, Holder said that they didn't have to defend laws that they consider unconstitutional.

Wrong. They do.

The constitutionality of laws is for the courts to decide, not the Attorney General. And until such time as the Supreme Court struck down DOMA, it was his job to enforce that law to the best of his ability.

You're seriously advocating the passive-aggressive approach to policies you don't agree with? ~ Patrick at January 31, 2017 6:54 PM

I'm not advocating it. I'm advocating the resign option. However, slacking off is an option and perhaps a better one than outright disobedience and lawbreaking.

I'm sure Madame Hillary, had she won, would put out statements that would be like giant sleeping pills to the average American.

Trump called it as he saw it, just like you call things out as you see them. I would not expect any less of Trump or you, Amy.

"Bush couldn't simultaneously walk and chew gum."

A splendid example of two things: how completely the media narrative is accepted by an unquestioning public, and how poorly some experience translates into leadership in office.

See, the man qualified in and flew the F-102. Tell me all about your flight time.

Amazed at all these triggered people pledging to "hold Donal Trump accountable".

Never occurred to them before, as they were lied to and cheated time and again, their virtue signaling that their burden and their suffering was only just.

I'm going to follow up on the Elliott Richardson story because it's an interesting and crucial bit of American history. Richardson's resignation was the beginning of an episode known as the "Saturday Night Massacre" because it occurred on Saturday evening, October 20, 1973. And it was the beginning of the end of Nixon's career.

Archibald Cox was the special prosecutor who had been investigating the Watergate break-in, and he was finding ties back to Nixon, and Nixon was getting nervous. To try to preempt the investigation, Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliott Richardson to fire Cox. (It's not clear to me if there was some aspect of law at the time that prevented Nixon from firing Cox directly, or if he decided not to do so because of bad optics.) Richardson, who had promised Congress at the time of his nomination that he would not interfere in Cox's investigation, refused the order and resigned. Nixon then transmitted the order to Richardson's deputy, William Ruckelshaus, who had made the same promise to Congress. He also resigned.

Working his way down the chain of command at Justice, Nixon then sent the order to the Solicitor General. This was a man who had been in that position since before the beginning of the Watergate scandal, so he had never spoken to Congress about the matter. However, he also penned his resignation. Before he could send it, Richardson reached him and convinced him to carry out Nixon's order. Richardson's reasoning was that if the Solicitor General resigned, it would lead to a ripple of resignations that would leave Justice leaderless at a moment of crisis. The Solicitor General took Richardson's counsel, and fired Cox.

Who was that Solicitor General? As fate would have it, it was Robert Bork.

Who was that Solicitor General? As fate would have it, it was Robert Bork. ~ Cousin Dave at February 1, 2017 7:23 AM

And that was the source of Ted Kennedy's undying animosity toward Bork and the impetus for Ted's efforts to "bork" him when he was nominated for the US Supreme Court.

One possibility here is that Trump issued the immigration order for the express purpose of baiting one of Obama's holdovers to disobey. That way, he could publicly fire the dissenter and establish beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was now in charge, the new sheriff in town.

Reagan gained considerable credibility when he fired the PATCO strikers, not just domestically, but internationally as well. No one doubted Reagan's resolve after that.

Trump may be establishing a PATCO moment of his own.

Sherry Bobbins covered this approach in a catchy little musical number on The Simpsons.

Cut Every Corner

Loved that episode, Gog. Especially the end.

Badly worded? Probably.

Bad action? Not at all.