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James Comey never saw it coming, taking the news report of his firing as a prank, but the biggest joke was the reason given by the White House for his firing, claiming that it was because of his handling of the investigation into Hillary's e-mail server abuse.  I'm not sure who the White House thinks it is fooling, but certainly not the broader American public.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders made the case for the White House on Fox News that it was time to move on from the Russian probe, but this summary dismissal of Comey is only calling more attention to it.  Fox News followed what it believed to be James Comey's motorcade in LA, making him look like O.J. Simpson fleeing police custody.

Tucker Carlson and other Fox News pundits continue to claim "there's nothing there," despite what was rather damning testimony by Sally Yates that the White House refused to heed her warnings regarding General Flynn.  Instead, she was fired when she wouldn't stand up for the Trump administration's proposed travel ban.  The White House forced Flynn to resign only after Yates' concerns had been "leaked" to the press.

Not content to ply just Fox, the White House has found a convenient ally in Condi Rice, who has taken to the mainstream airwaves to tell the same story.  She sees the Russian hacking investigation as nothing more than sour grapes on the part of the Democrats and liberal media and says it is time to move on as well.  Quite a turn-around from last October when she called on Trump to quit the campaign after his divulged Access Hollywood tape.

I do have to agree with Tucker that the whole thing is getting absurd.  Not since Nixon have we seen an administration go so far to bury a potentially very damaging investigation.  Unfortunately, for a lot of Americans Fox is their primary source of news, which has been feeding them conspiracy theories for the past two decades so that they have come to believe that Washington is a duplicitous cabal of Democrats and moderate Republicans whose sole aim is to undermine the Trump administration or any conservative administration for that matter.

We won't mention that radical conservatives hounded Obama throughout his entire administration on his birth certificate, or that Republicans churned out investigation after investigation to determine Hillary's role in the Benghazi attack, which ultimately led to the e-mail server scandal.  

These same folks were pleased as punch when Comey dropped his October bombshell that he was re-opening the investigation into Hillary's questionable purging of her e-mail server when new e-mails surfaced in the Anthony Weiner case.  Weiner's wife, Huma Abedin, had apparently used this server to send e-mails to her estranged husband, as she worked in Hillary's state department at the time.  Comey's actions were praised by Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, who is said to have urged Trump to fire the FBI director because of this very same investigation.

Needless to say, there is not much introspection at Fox News, despite the salacious stories that swirl around their news room.  They continue to present an alternative reality, which feeds directly into the Trump administration, promoting the White House narrative in opposition to the news stories being filtered through the mainstream media, or "fake news" as Trump so much loves to call it.

For many Americans it is a real struggle to sort through these competing narratives.  Like Fox Mulder of the X-Files, they want to believe what is coming out of Fox News and their host of conservative blogs is true.  For them this is their basis of reality.  CNN, MSNBC and the host of liberal blogs are seen as the "Smoking Man," or better yet "Cancer Man," who was manipulating poor Fox throughout his eight-year run on the highly popular television show.

There is no longer a firm baseline of fact, as Agent Scully was so insistent upon.  Many Americans' views have become so shrouded in the many conspiracy theories floating around that they no longer can separate fact from fantasy.  They refuse to accept anything coming out of the government, mainstream media and what they view as liberal academia.  For them, it is all tainted by what they see as a coordinated attempt to undermine their way of life.  

Trump has become their standard bearer, which is why he continues to garner so much support among the conservative base despite the very serious allegations that his administration has been compromised by Russian connections.  For them, this is nothing more than a diversion from the "real issues" at hand like restoring Christian religious identity, ending Obamacare or any form of "nanny state," and purging the godless from our society.  In their minds, it has become a holy war, and Trump has proudly assumed the mantle of this new American theocracy.  

As such, it is not surprising that so many Republican Congresspersons are scared to challenge Trump.  By doing so they threaten their own support among this deeply religious base that doesn't seem to care how Trump goes about imposing this new order as long as they are free to express their peculiar religious identity.  The two issues may seem completely detached to the rest of us, who believe in a separation of church and state, but to Trump's loyal supporters church and state are one in the same.  Just read David Barton.

The longer Trump stays in power the more opportunity he will have to impose this religious order, one he feels he is immune from much like past tyrannical kings.  He will remove anyone who represents a threat to his administration and he will refuse to recognize any authority other than his own.  He wants to create an autocracy just like Putin has created in Russia, using the religious base of the Republican Party to bully and intimidate GOP congresspersons to follow his lead.  As such, it is highly doubtful we will see a special investigative committee, much less a special prosecutor unless moderate Republicans come to their senses and join  Democrats to depose King Trump.

Enough is enough.  It is not time to move on, as Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Condoleeza Rice insist, but to dig deeper into this mess and expose it for what it is -- a huge pile of shit -- or as Jon Stewart so much liked to call it "Bullshit Mountain!"

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