DOYLE MCMANUS: Hillary Clinton has a right to be a major voice in American politics — but maybe it’s time she moved on.

She has accused President Trump of pursuing what appears to be “a commitment to hurt so many people.” She called House Republicans’ healthcare bill “shameful.” She proclaimed herself “part of the resistance.” She’s traveling the country giving speeches. She’s reportedly organizing a new political action committee to raise money for Democratic causes. And she’s writing a book to explain her side of the 2016 presidential campaign. She says she doesn’t expect to run for president again. But she has been careful not to rule it out.

Clinton’s impulse to get back into the fight is understandable. Democratic politics has been the cause of her life, and she’s surely entitled to work through her grief over the campaign. If her book turns out to be a candid self-examination of what went wrong — a big if, based on her self-protective previous memoirs — that could be healthy for her party.

But by moving so fast and so visibly, and by keeping the door open to another presidential campaign, Clinton risks harming not only her own image, but the anti-Trump resistance she wants to help.

Run, Hillary, run!

KURT SCHLICHTER IS HAPPY: Trump Cans Comey Like A Boss. “We always knew Donald Trump was brassy, but until he sent half-stepping ex-FBI Director James Comey packing, we didn’t know that his manparts were made of brass. You gotta be hardcore to step up to that sanctimonious tool, that Kasich-With-A-Badge, and cut him off at the knees in the face of the inevitable monsoon of fake news media panic, girlish Democrat howling, and sputtering Menschian Russianoia. No hesitation. No apologies. When it became inarguable that this pumped up functionary with delusions of omnipotence had finally passed his sell-by date, Trump pulled the trigger. That’s taking charge. That’s leading from the front.”

ED MORRISSEY: The Comey Firing Proves We Need Two Special Counsels, Not One.

I think it proves that everyone needs to read my book (written with bigshot DC lawyer Peter W. Morgan) The Appearance of Impropriety: How the Ethics Wars Have Undermined American Government, Business, and Society.

IT’S JUST TAXATION AT RANDOM: Blue Civil War in California as State Jacks Up Traffic Fines.

Pressed to come up with the money to stave off its public employee pension time bomb, the state of California is jacking up the cost of traffic tickets. . . .

This is a variation of what we call the “blue civil war”—the way the tightening fiscal vise around state and local governments end up pitting Democratic constituencies against one another. In this case, poor and minority Californians, who tend to need to drive further to work, are paying the brunt of the increased traffic fines—which are going to cover the retirement hole for unionized public employees.

In the long run, California’s growing pension liabilities will also likely force cuts in education and welfare programs that vulnerable citizens depend on, creating a further conflict between the interests of unions and the interests of the poor.

As the blue model becomes fiscally unsustainable, the political coalition that holds it together will come under strain as well. The big question is whether Republicans or reform-minded Democrats can take advantage of this looming schism.

The GOP’s not looking terribly bright, but on the other hand, unlike reform-minded Democrats, it actually exists as a political force.

PERSPECTIVE: Comey sacking doesn’t rise to Watergate levels.

Nixon was fighting a pitched battle with Archibald Cox and the courts.

Cox, a Harvard professor who had been appointed as special prosecutor in May that year, had issued a subpoena ordering the White House to hand over nine tapes of phone calls and West Wing conversations in connection with the Watergate break-in. Nixon’s legal team argued the principle of executive privilege should apply, and the tapes should remain private.

On 12 October, however, the Court of Appeals in Washington upheld a lower court’s ruling granting Cox’s request. Rather than comply, Nixon decided to fire the special prosecutor, something his Attorney General Elliot Richardson had promised Congress would never happen.

A president stood in defiance of the courts, putting himself above the law of the land. It was a textbook constitutional crisis.

Donald Trump’s sacking of his FBI director, while highly unusual and deeply controversial, is constitutionally permissible. No court orders have been flouted. The president, while breaking with the norm of allowing FBI directors to serve out their 10-year terms unimpeded, is not putting himself above the law.

RUSSIANS VISITED THE WHITE HOUSE AND YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED NEXT: “They tricked us.”

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Jimmy Kimmel is everything that’s wrong with America’s healthcare debate.

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PRIORITIES: Immigration and Customs Enforcement Division of DHS Spent Tens Of Thousands Of Dollars Sending Officials To Tolerance Seminar.

PROGRESS: HIV life expectancy ‘near normal’ thanks to new drugs.

The study authors, from the University of Bristol, said the extraordinary success of HIV treatments was a result of newer drugs having fewer side effects and being better at preventing the virus from replicating in the body.

It is also more difficult for the virus to build up a resistance to the most recent drugs.

Improved screening and prevention programmes and better treatment of health problems caused by HIV are thought to have helped, too.

But many people with HIV still do not live as long as expected, especially those infected through injecting drugs.

People injecting illegal drugs probably won’t live as long as expected even without HIV.

SOLVE THE PUZZLE, BECOME A SPY: Apparently this recruiting tool works.

TAXES ARE FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: John Oliver’s Hypocritical Property Tax Scam.

TAMMY BRUCE: Why the media’s attempt to hobble Trump admin w contrived Comey drama will fail.

Mr. Trump’s one mistake upon taking office was not immediately sweeping out bureaucratic and partisan hacks like Ms. Yates and Mr. Comey. We wanted a team that was from outside the disaster, and with that comes a learning curve. With the firing of Mr. Comey, it became obvious that Mr. Trump now understands the nature of the beast he is assigned to dispatch.

The harpies in legacy media and in Congress scream about the timing of the firing, as though this is some evidence of nefarious intent.

That’s nonsense, and they know it.

The fact is this: With the firing of Mr. Comey, Andrew McCabe is now the acting FBI director. About Mr. McCabe’s wife, the Daily Mail reported: “Before McCabe was appointed as the Deputy Director of the FBI, his wife Jill McCabe ran as a Democrat for the Virginia State senate in 2015. Her campaign received funds from the state Democratic Party and a political action committee run by Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe. McAuliffe is a close friend of the Clintons and before his group, Common Good VA, donated to McCabe’s campaign, Hillary Clinton headlined a fundraiser for the PAC.”

Even without this Democratic partisan waiting in the wings to take over the FBI, it’s clear no investigation at the FBI is quashed because the director leaves. No matter who takes the helm, the work in progress continues.

If Trump had immediately fired everyone who deserved it, we’d barely have any government left to function — not that there’s anything wrong with that.

DOMESTIC TERRORISM: The “Resistance” to GOP Congressman: “This is how we’re going to kill your wife.”

People should be asking Democratic politicians to disavow and denounce this sort of thing, the way they’d do with Republicans if it were people on the right doing it.

WELL, GOOD: Manufacturing openings, hires rise to highest levels of the recovery. “The ratio of unemployed workers for each job opening, an important metric of labor market health, fell to 1.25, the lowest since January of 2001. During the worst of the recession, there were more than six unemployed workers for each advertised job, a sign of how hard jobs were to find for people who were laid off.”

FAKE NEWS: WaPo story on Trump and Comey cites more than 30 officials but can’t beat this one editor’s note.

GO FURTHER HIGHER: Brand-new Ford Fusions used to smuggle marijuana from Mexico.

New 2017 Ford Fusions shipped from Mexico had their spare tires swapped for packages of marijuana, not only making their way to dealer lots but onto the driveway of an 86-year-old Minnesota man. According to Alpha News, more than 1,100 pounds of marijuana were recovered from 22 vehicles, most of which traveled north on the same train car.

The drugs were found between February and March of this year. A contractor for Burlington Northern Sante Fe railroad tipped off authorities after discovering drugs in two cars. The contractor was inspecting the Fusions before loading them onto a transport headed to dealerships. Thirteen other cars, all from the same railcar, had already made their way to dealer lots. Each car had 40 to 60 pounds of marijuana in the trunk. In March, another Minnesota dealer found another seven Fusions packed with drugs.

That might have been a fine way to get the marijuana into the country, but the smugglers don’t appear to have thought through how or when to get it back out of the cars.

IF IT WEREN’T FOR FAKE RACISM. . . . The Great St. Olaf College Racism Hoax of 2017. “It’s worth noting that St. Olaf’s already was hostile to conservatives, just as Oberlin was prior to its hoax, Conservative Students Say They’ve Been Threatened With Violence at St. Olaf College. St. Olaf’s is a symptom, one we have seen at many colleges and universities where students so want to be victims they create fake victimhood.”

MICHAEL LEDEEN: The New McCarthyites.

I STAND WITH RAND: Rand Paul Doesn’t Want a Special Prosecutor on Russia: “I think a lot of the uproar is concocted,” the libertarian senator tells CNN.

I continue to think it eminently possible that the whole Russian-collusion thing was hatched after Hillary lost because there was so much illicit spying on the Trump campaign.

SHORT ANSWER: NO. Did a Voter ID Law Really Cost Clinton a Victory in Wisconsin?

There’s no escape from Betteridge’s Law, not even at Slate.

ALLIES: Turkey threatens military action against U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish fighters.

The warning was delivered to senior U.S. national security officials in closed-door meetings this week after the Trump administration expressed its intent to arm the Kurds following months of deliberations, the Turkish officials said.

“Turkey’s message to the Trump administration was that Turkey reserves the right to take military action,” said a senior Turkish official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Turkey has already conducted limited strikes against the U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters in northern Syria in recent weeks, but it could increase the tempo of those strikes, Turkish officials said. American officials have complained bitterly to Turkey, a NATO ally, about the airstrikes, which have targeted the principal U.S. partner in Syria in the fight against the Islamic State.

Sure would be nice if our treaty allies acted like our actual allies.

THE HILL: Comey farewell: ‘A president can fire an FBI director for any reason.’

Former FBI Director James Comey on Wednesday sent a letter to agents and friends following President Trump firing him the previous day.

“I have long believed that a President can fire an FBI director for any reason, or for no reason at all,” he wrote, according to CNN. “I’m not going to spend time on the decision or the way it was executed.”

He continued: “I hope you won’t either. It is done, and I will be fine, although I will miss you and the mission deeply.”
Comey added that the FBI should continue “the mission of protecting the American people and upholding the Constitution.”

He described the FBI ideal as a “rock” for the American people.

Under Comey, it’s seemed like anything but.

CLAIM: For Trump Supporters, the Real Outrage Is the Left’s Uproar Over Comey.

It isn’t outrage so much as it is mocking derision for the bootlegger’s turn they took when Trump finally did what they’d been demanding since October.