
President Trump Fires FBI Director James Comey - zhyan7109
http://www.npr.org/2017/05/09/527663050/president-trump-fires-fbi-director-james-comey
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pm90
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14304088](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14304088)

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gsylvie
1 hour ago thread is here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14304088](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14304088)

(Not sure why it's already down to 2nd page despite 408 points in 1 hour!)

~~~
dang
HN doesn't run on upvotes alone; it's a constitutional democracy. The
constitution is
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
and this story is unconstitutional.

If 500-point stories on hot topics were dispositive, HN would be a 500-point-
stories-on-hot-topics site. It isn't that kind of site, and intervention is
required to keep it from going that way.

This is a clear case of 'if they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-
topic', so it's worth dwelling on. It doesn't mean the story is unimportant
(on the contrary), but that it doesn't fit the mandate of the site. Sometimes
there are exceptions, and this isn't one.

More here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14306111](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14306111)

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mattnewton
Previous thread pointed out the interesting fact that Trump fired FBI director
Comey, who is heading an investigation against him, at the recommendation of
Jeff Sessions, who recused himself from said investigation.

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steve-benjamins
This isn't great news. A Trump appointed FBI director will not be an
improvement over Comey.

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savethefuture
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75SEy1qu71I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75SEy1qu71I)

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hackuser
@dang, @sctb: Could you let your many users know the current HN policy on
political articles? Obviously something is going on, it seems since
(February?). Not being up front leads to frustration with wasted time on
submissions and comments, and of course a bit of suspicion (e.g., is it
supporting some political agenda?). I don't think people want to to reverse
engineer your intentions; it's your site, just politely say what they are.

I know the guidelines object to _Most stories about politics ... unless they
're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon_, but that is enforced very
unevenly. The top story, last I looked, was about politics, as are many
others.

I know moderating is thankless, so many thanks. :)

P.S. IMHO it would be useful to answer on the guidelines page or FAQ. Answers
in a thread probably won't be seen by most readers; for all I know, you've
already answered several times.

EDIT: For those interested, here is some recent discussion of it by dang, but
not really addressing this question directly.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13857086](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13857086)

~~~
dang
The policy has been the same since 2008. Most political stories are off-topic.
Sometimes there are exceptions. The principle that guides exceptions is
whether the story is 'deeply interesting', as originally described here:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20090206141746/http://ycombinator...](http://web.archive.org/web/20090206141746/http://ycombinator.com:80/newswelcome.html),
and still here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html).

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enraged_camel
Let's hope this one doesn't get flagged and buried by the aggressive "I want
HN to be a tech-only news site" crowd, like the other article did.

edit: to add more content, we may be witnessing history here. I think it would
be a huge mistake for us to stick our heads in the sand in a misguided effort
to avoid politicized discussions.

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chillwaves
Which is unfortunate because I left work thinking I could catch up on the
comments when I got home. I was wrong.

Is there a way to find the old thread? I value the discussion this community
has to offer.

ETA: Thank you both

~~~
pm90
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14304088](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14304088)

