Apostrophes and Hyphens: a Liddle Issue

Seldom do I write an article about Trump's bad grammar. After all, there's certainly bigger fish to fry, especially now, than misspellings, random capitalization and weird syntax. There is however, always a "but"...but Donnie made such a big deal about the criticism he received regarding his use of the word Liddle' that I had to weigh in.

Trump was criticizing Re. Adam Schiff on Twitter, referring to him as "Liddle' Adam Schiff", with an apostrophe at the end of the word "Liddle". He was criticized by CNN for misspelling the word "little", although it's evident from his previous use of the spelling that he meant to do it that way. He somehow believes that "liddle" is more insulting than "little". Sure. Okay.

That's when it got weird. Weirder than normal.

Trump, unable to stomach any criticism, shot back on Twitter that he used the word Liddle' not Liddle, emphasizing that there was a hyphen at the end of the word.

No Donnie, that's an apostrophe, not a hyphen.

Even as an apostrophe it makes no sense. There are several reasons to use an apostrophe:

• As a possessive Trump's corruption
• In a contraction to indicate missing letter - "don't" for "do not"
• Similar to a contraction, but to indicate a colloquial usage 'em for them

Very seldom is an apostrophe to be used at the end of a word. A word that ends in "s" that is also a possessive sometimes has an apostrophe after the "s". It can also be used, as in a contraction, if the missing letter is at the end of a word. Trump's nickname for Ted Cruz was "Lyin' Ted"

There's obviously no missing letter at the end of "Liddle", nor is it a possessive. It is incorrect. End of discussion. Not to mention his spelling of "describing" as "discribing" in his tirade over being criticized over his spelling.

This is what he's focused on as impeachment hearings get underway.

Whistle-Blower Part III (Excuses, excuses, excuses)

One of Trump's go-to moves when he is accused of something is to to accuse someone else, often his accusers, of exactly what he is being accused of. How many times have we heard "Obama did something worse", or "What about the Clinton's"? And it's no surprise that he's trotting this move out in the face of the upcoming impeachment inquiry.

Despite the questionable wisdom of the Vice President's son taking a position as a consultant in a Ukrainian company while the Vice President was the point man in an effort to curb corruption in the Ukrainian government, neither Vice President Biden nor his son Hunter have done anything to cause the Ukrainian government to press charges or to further investigate Hunter Biden or Bursima, the company on whose board that he served. The main argument by Trump and his sycophants when confronted with Trump's efforts to use a foreign government to further his personal agenda is point the finger back at Vice President Biden. "What about Biden?" they shriek, "What he did is worse!" There's also a letter from three Democratic Senators urging Ukrainian prosecutors to continue their investigation into Paul Manafort when they were being pressured by the Trump administration to drop their investigation. The disjointed logic seems to be "This thing that I did is okay because 'the other side' did it, but it's bad that 'the other' side did it" (Logic is not a strong suit with Trumpists)

If Vice President Biden used his position to protect his son, then why is it just coming up now, instead of when he was still in office and the opposition party controlled both houses of Congress? Why would Vice President Biden push to have Ukraine dump their incompetent and corrupt chief prosecutor who wasn't investigating Bursima or his son and see him replaced with a new chief prosecutor who did investigate Bursima and Hunter Biden.

Trump is also investing prime Twitter time suggesting that the whistle-blower, and those who passed on details of the call, are traitors, and cannot be believed because they have a partisan bias.

Media reports about the call and the complaint are labelled "fake news", even though they generally are reporting what Trump and his representatives have either said in public, or released in the "transcript" (actually a reconstruction of the call by note-takers). Representative Adam Schiff is being called upon to resign for "lying to Congress" because in a question to the Acting Director of National Intelligence he read what he thought Trump's conversation implied, rather than the literal text, even though he clearly said that he was relaying the "essence" of the call to a room full of people who had read (or at least had access to) the text itself.

The facts are not in dispute. Trump and his team of yes-men and faithful cult followers believe that what the facts say does not constitute a problem.

Whether there was an explicit linkage between aid to Ukraine and opening an investigation into Bursima and the Bidens is really irrelevant. Donald Trump asked a foreign government to take action that had no national security or economic interest, but benefited him personally, specifically to cast a shadow on a potential election opponent....

...again.

Impeach the son of a bitch. 

Whistle-Blower, Part II

Now that the whistle-blower's complaint has been made public, as well as notes from the actual conversation, provided by The White House, we know slightly more than we knew before. We know that the whistle-blower learned of the contents of the call Trump made to Zelensky, the Ukrainian President, not first hand, by listening to the conversation, but second-hand, from other government officials. We know that the complaint alleges that the notes from the call were archived, not in the ordinary fashion whereby records of calls like this are made, but in a secure, possibly classified location, and that other calls were hidden away in this manner in the past. We know that early in the call Trump made a point of reminding Zelensky that the United States provides Ukraine with large amounts of aid, and that Ukraine does not reciprocate. He followed this up immediately by asking for a favor. Literally. He used the word "favor", asking Zelensky to "look into" the "missing server", mentioning Crowdstrike (the firm that forensically examined the DNC server back in 2016). He then asked Zelensky to "look into" the "very bad" things that Joe Biden did when he was Vice-President and his son was on the board of Bursima, a Ukrainian company. Trump insists that it was a "nice" call and that he did not pressure Zelensky in any way. Zelensky, sitting next to Trump at the U.N. also said he did not feel pressured.

It's worth noting that Trump often uses this elliptical way of speaking when asking people to do things. Former White House Counsel McGahn testified, as did others, that he was asked to communicate to Attorney General Sessions that he wanted Special Counsel Mueller "gone". Trump later tried to deny this by insisting that he "never said fire", incredibly claiming that absence of that one word indicated that he didn't want to fire Mueller. Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen verified that Trump implies, speaks in code, communicating his meaning without actually saying the words. Some have compared this to organized crime shakedown language: "Nice country you have there, it'd be a shame if anything happened to it". Trump is not denying saying any of the things that are in the notes from the conversation, what he is denying is an explicit quid pro quo (i.e. I'll do this for you, if you do that for me). In my view, only a moron, or someone who is willing to defend Trump's actions at any cost, can look at the proximity of the statements that he makes and see anything other than Trump attempting to use the power of the presidency of the United States in order to open a criminal corruption investigation into a political rival. Trump denies that what he said was "pressure", but who knows how this man, who mangles the English language on a daily basis, defines the word?

Much is being made by Trump apologists of a supposed bias on the part of the whistle-blower. Everyone has biases, explicit or implicit, but that doesn't necessarily determine our actions in all situations. Keep in mind that Trump has labelled anyone who has had any connection to the Obama administration, even non-political career officials who happened to be working at a government agency during the Obama years, as "working for Obama. Even Republicans or members of his team who dare stand up to him, or even mildly criticize him, are attacked and ridiculed. All of this with only a select few even knowing who the whistle-blower is. Supposedly the whistle-blower's attorney has worked for Democrats; hardly surprising given that a lawyer connected to Republicans might be afraid of retribution from Trump.

Don't forget that the suggestions that Ukraine "look into" Joe Biden weren't just in the phone call, but Rudy Giuliani, who is not a government official, but is Trump's personal lawyer, has made several trips to meet with Ukrainian officials to convince them to investigate Biden. And admitted it in public.

Take the time to read the text of the whistle-blower's complaint and the notes from Trump's phone call, and tell me with a straight face that Trump isn't using his position for personal gain or that he actually cares about corruption in Ukraine or anywhere else. Even Pinocchio would have a hard time with that.

Whistle-blower, Ukraine, Biden & More Collusion

It's hard to keep up. Just when you get a good rage going about the latest Trump bullshit, something else comes up. And just like the sun comes up every morning, Trump will try to deflect the attention elsewhere.

Let's dissect the newest:

Back when Barack Obama was the president, The United States government had some concerns about a culture of corruption in Ukraine at a time when we were assisting them with loan guarantees. They needed cash to fund their defense against Russian aggression in the eastern districts of the country. One of the officials whom we determined was egregiously corrupt was the chief government prosecutor, Viktor Shokin. The United States, as well as other NATO nations, pressured the Ukrainian president to remove Shokin. At one point Vice President Biden was dispatched to Kiev to give the president the message that if Shokin was not fired, then the $1 Billion in loan guarantees would be withdrawn. Shokin was canned.

At the same time Hunter Biden, Vice President Biden's son, was on the board of a Ukrainian company. Trump and his team are alleging that Shokin was investigating Hunter Biden and his company and that Joe Biden used his position to stop the investigation of his son. There are conflicting reports regarding whether Biden was under investigation by Shokin. Adam Entous, who has written extensively on Hunter Biden, told NPR that his interviews with Ukrainian officials revealed that no investigation was taking place. Another prosecutor, however, did investigate Biden and his company and found no illegalities or ethical issues. Furthermore, there has never been any suggestion that Vice President Biden used his position to help his son, either in the case of the investigation or in any other circumstance. Hunter Biden eventually resigned from the Ukrainian company.

Fast forward to 2019. Joe Biden has decided to run for the Democratic presidential nomination and is polling ahead of the other Democrats, but also ahead of Trump in a hypothetical head-to-head general election contest. Trump has devoted a fair amount of Twitter time to attacking Biden, hanging the nickname "Sleepy Joe" on him. Just last week the Congress was informed by the Inspector General of the combined intelligence agencies that there was a whistle-blower complaint that he found credible and of "urgent concern". The Acting Director of National Intelligence prohibited him from forwarding the actual complaint to Congress. The media soon reported that the complaint involved the president. Soon after it came out that it involved the president asking Ukraine to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden.

At first Trump denied that his call with the Ukrainian president was anything but routine, but soon, Trump and his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, both confirmed that both Trump and Giuliani asked the Ukrainians to open a corruption investigation into the Bidens. As of this writing Trump is attacking the whistle-blower as partisan, a member of the "Deep State", and the complaint a partisan Democratic hack-job and a new witch hunt, all the while admitting to the basic facts. He is insisting that the "real" story is not that he is asking for foreign assistance in taking down a potential election opponent, but that he cares deeply about corruption and that Biden is the one who used his position for corrupt purposes. The actual rationale is hard to follow, because, as usual, Trump is quite incoherent when not using a TelePrompter.

Trump's assertions are nonsense on their face. Nobody seriously believes that Trump cares about corruption, especially not in Ukraine. Nobody seriously believes that this would have come up if Biden wasn't doing so well in the polls. (If the polls are all fake, why the concern?) Only an idiot would believe that this was anything than what it appears to be: the President of the United States recruiting the assistance of a foreign government in order to influence another election.

The Mueller Report found no clear coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, and the campaign's actions did not rise to the level of conspiracy, but the report was clear that Russia offered help and Trump and his campaign were happy to accept that help. In the aftermath of the release of the report Trump said that if offered foreign help in 2020 he would at least look at it. Now we have a brazen attempt, first in secret, but now in broad daylight, to actively coordinate with a foreign government to influence the election by casting a dark cloud over the front running challenger.

Does he literally have to shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in order for Congress to remove him from office?

Trump & The Raccoons

I saw this today; supposedly by Steve Harvey. First of all, it’s not by Steve Harvey, secondly it makes a lot of assumptions about why people don’t like Trump. (Original in regular type, my comments in bold)

HOW I FEEL ABOUT TRUMP:

You’ve been on vacation for two weeks, you come home, and your basement is infested with raccoons.. Hundreds of rabid, messy, mean raccoons have overtaken your basement.. You want them gone immediately!.. You call the city and 4 different exterminators, but nobody can handle the job.. But there is this one guy, and he guarantees to get rid of them, so you hire him.. You don’t care if the guy smells, you don’t care if the guy swears, you don’t care if he’s an alcoholic, you don’t care how many times he’s been married, you don’t care if he has a plumber’s crack, you simply want those raccoons gone!.. You want your problem fixed!.. He’s the guy.. He’s the best!

Okay, let assume that this comparison is accurate, that our country’s position is analogous to a raccoon-infested basement. I’ll get back to that later.

Here’s why we want Trump: Yes, he’s a bit of a jerk; Yes, he’s an egomaniac; but we don’t care!.. The country is a mess because politicians suck, the Republicans and Democrats can be two-faced and gutless, and illegals are everywhere.. We want it all fixed!..

Great, let’s continue assume that there’s something to be “fixed”. But here’s where there’s a logical breakdown, Why do we assume that just because Trump said that he could fix this “mess”, that he actually had a plan to do so? He certainly didn’t even get close to articulating a plan to “fix” anything. 

We don’t care that Trump is crude, we don’t care that he insults people, we don’t care that he has changed positions, we don’t care that he’s been married 3 times, we don’t care that he fights with Megyn Kelly and Rosie O’Donnell, we don’t care that he doesn’t know the name of some Muslim terrorist.

But for some reason “we” cared about all those things when there was a Democrat in the White House.

This country became weak and bankrupt, our enemies were making fun of us, we are being invaded by illegals, we are becoming a nation of victims where every Tom, Ricardo, and Hasid is a special group with special rights to a point where we don’t even recognize the country we were born and raised in; “AND WE JUST WANT IT FIXED”.. And Trump is the only guy who seems to understand what the people want..

And there it is. If the invocation of “illegals” in every paragraph wasn’t a hint, it’s getting a bit more overt. The not-so-subtle change of “Tom, Dick & Harry” to “Tom, Ricardo & Hasid” should alert us to the underlying bigotry. Though perhaps the author didn’t realize that a “Hasid” is a member of an orthodox Jewish sect and not a Muslim name.

We’re sick of politicians, sick of the Democratic Party, sick of the Republican Party, and sick of illegals!..

Somehow I think the author of this piece has a problem with “illegals”.

We just want this thing fixed.. Trump may not be a Saint, but we didn’t vote for a Pope.. We voted for a man who doesn’t have lobbyist money holding him back, a man who doesn’t have political correctness restraining him..

The myth that Trump was somehow not influenced by contributions from lobbyists has been long ago been disproven. The backdoor lobbying by spending money at Trump properties has become epidemic.

We all know that he has been very successful, he’s a good negotiator, he has built a lot of things, and he’s also NOT a politician, NOT a cowardly politician.!.. And he says he’ll fix it..

No, we don’t “know” that he has been successful. If he has been successful at all, it has been at convincing everyone that he is a good businessman when he has multiple bankruptcies under his belt. If he has a skill it’s been to suck every dollar out of a business into his own bank account while running it into the ground and stiffing contractors. His negotiating skills are nothing but bullying & throwing money around, which may work when it comes to screwing small businesses out of their livelihood, but hasn’t worked when it comes to screwing sovereign nations.

And we believe him because he is too much of an egotist to be proven wrong, or looked at and called a liar..

That part is partially right. He will never admit to being wrong, and lies through his teeth when he is proven wrong. It’s always someone else’s fault

Also, we don’t care if the guy has bad hair.. We just want those raccoons gone, out of our house, NOW!!!

But the raccoons are still there, even though he is claiming that the raccoon population is the lowest in 94 years, and hiring people who have a vested interest in there being more raccoons.

I don’t care about his multiple marriages or his philandering either. However, most of you Trumpists seemed to care about those things when Clinton was President. 

• I do care that the supposed president of all Americans routinely attacks and belittles those he disagrees with. I care that he regularly calls the free press “the enemy of the people”. 
• I care that his executive orders chip away at regulatory protections for ordinary Americans. 
• I care that science-based and other evidence-based decision-making has given way to “what will it cost?” decision making. 
• I care that his foreign policy consists of threatening to obliterate whole nations and then backing off when he gets “a beautiful letter”. 
• I care that he verbally attacks our longtime allies and cozies up to dictators. 
• I care that he cavalierly withdraws us from international agreements that had taken years of negotiations to put together, causing the rest of the world to view American commitments as not worth the paper that they’re written on. 
• I care that he makes economic decisions without any understanding of economics or the consequences of his actions. 
• I care that his trade wars have done nothing but financially impact American businesses. 
• I care that he is running the executive branch as if he’s a dictator, including refusing to cooperate with Congress, and withholding information that is within their oversight authority. 
• I care that he views the Justice Department as his personal lawyers. 
• I care that he finds no problem with asking foreign governments to investigate his political rivals. 
• I care that he lies constantly, even about things that can easily & quickly be fact-checked.
• And yes, I care about the rampant bigotry.

And for those of you who don’t care about any of those things that I care about, and still believe that he’s going to “fix” things: he hasn’t. 

All of his “accomplishments” have benefited a narrow constituency: the rich. His “massive” tax cut was a pittance while corporations reaped a huge windfall, which they, in most cases, failed to pass on to employees or consumers. The so-called Trump Economy, which was never more than an extension of Obama-era growth, his starting to sputter, as businesses begin to worry about how the erratic tariff policies will affect their future.

The raccoons are still in the basement…and they’ve mutated.

Comey is Still Living Rent Free in Trump's Head

I stopped counting, but I believe that Trump has tweeted about former FBI Director James Comey a dozen times in the last few days. If you haven't been keeping track of the Dotard-in-Chief's ravings over the weekend, he apparently wants us to be sure that we are aware that the Justice Department Inspector General just concluded that Comey broke Justice Department rules when he turned over certain memos to the press.

To refresh your memories, James Comey was the FBI Director when Trump took office. Many of us were ready to lynch him when, a few weeks before the election, he announced that the investigation into candidate Hillary Clinton's handling of emails was being re-opened. A week later it was "Oops, nothing to see here, nothing new, false alarm." He referred us back to his much earlier proclamation that Clinton had broken no laws, but "was extremely careless". This guy was no friend of Democrat or of anyone who opposed Trump. It was widely believed that this late announcement tipped the scales toward Trump in what turned out to be close margins in battleground states.

What he didn't announce was that the FBI was also investigating the Trump campaign regarding Russian influence. It became known that several top Trump officials, including then National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, were under investigation. Flynn soon resigned. Comey was summoned to the White House for several one-on-one meetings with Trump. In several of these meetings people such as then Attorney General Jeff Sessions, technically Comey's boss, were excused from the room for these private discussions. Comey kept notes of these meetings during which he says that Trump asked him to "let this Flynn thing go" and asked him if he was loyal. Comey was fired as FBI Director shortly thereafter. Trump is reported to have said to visiting Russian officials that Comey was a "nut job" and that now that he was gone the Russia investigation would go away.

Once he was fired, Comey took his notes of these meetings with him and eventually turned them over to the press. The memos themselves, with some redaction, are available to anyone who wants to look at them. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4442900-Ex-FBI-Director-James-Comey-s-memos.html It is possible that getting this information out spurred the appointment of the Special Counsel.

For the last two years Comey has been a target of attacks by Trump, who has painted him as "a liar and a leaker", in all likelihood to undercut any credibility that Comey may have and frame his memos as politically motivated. The attacks, as I previously noted, have escalated in the past few days. The Inspector General's Report makes two main points: that the memos were not, as Comey claimed, personal recollections, but were FBI records and that holding on to them after he was fired and giving them to the media violated FBI rules. At no point in the Inspector General's report are not contents of the memos called into question.

Trump has been crowing about this report as if it's some great victory. I beg to differ. Comey has been accused of being a grand-stander; he has been accused by Democrats and Republicans alike of making improper announcements and of improperly editorializing on investigations. I don't disagree, but passing on these memos looks to me to be the equivalent of whistle-blowing. The conversations that Comey memorialized in his memos could be interpreted as the beginnings of the obstruction that clearly has been taking place throughout Trump's presidency. Trump tried to get his FBI Director to drop an ongoing investigation; he tried to secure his personal loyalty. When he couldn't get either, he fired the man, laughed about it with officials from a hostile government, and embarked upon a campaign of disparagement and attempted to undermine his credibility.

Personally I'm glad that we have public servants who will put the good of the country above bureaucratic rules.