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Post by Deleted on Dec 4, 2017 20:25:07 GMT -5
As you all might have gathered, I've been super busy and so have just been doing fly-by posts. Hopefully things will settle down soon. Meanwhile, here is my petty annoyance of the week. As you all have no doubt read, Trump sent out an incriminating tweet that he now claims his lawyer, not he, sent out: As everyone and their cousin is saying, there's no way a lawyer wrote that tweet. But gaah, if one more person says "ha! a lawyer didn't write that because no REAL lawyer would say pled rather than pleaded!" I will fucking scream. FYI, pleaded is preferred by us pedant types, but plenty of competent lawyers say pled. abovethelaw.com/2011/12/grammer-pole-of-the-weak-pleaded-v-pled/The reason no lawyer wrote that tweet is because it is fucking incriminating -- it essentially is a confession to obstruction. It's also idiotic -- any competent lawyer would be telling Trump to not fucking tweet about this at all, much less a tweet like that. The lawyer is taking one for the team. And, whether he's lying or not, he should be fucking disbarred, either for lying to his country and covering up for Trump or for typing something that incriminating and idiotic under his client's name. But the pleaded-pled thing -- STAHHP.
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Post by poetinahat on Dec 4, 2017 20:29:49 GMT -5
You had me at 'quibble'.
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Post by Rolling Thunder on Dec 4, 2017 20:35:53 GMT -5
Ha! a lawyer didn't write that because no REAL lawyer would say pled rather than pleaded!
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Post by Deleted on Dec 4, 2017 20:38:09 GMT -5
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!
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Post by Rolling Thunder on Dec 4, 2017 20:45:05 GMT -5
Interesting fact:
Since the operation I can't say pleaded. It sounds like pleded.
Does this mean I'm now a lawyer?
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Post by haggis on Dec 4, 2017 21:56:05 GMT -5
Ha! a lawyer didn't write that because no REAL lawyer would say pled rather than pleaded! Say that again artie. I love it when Cass chuckles like that.
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Post by Optimus on Dec 5, 2017 0:20:48 GMT -5
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Post by michaelw on Dec 5, 2017 5:50:26 GMT -5
I dislike this thread. I only enjoy nugatory cavils.
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Post by markesq on Dec 5, 2017 9:43:18 GMT -5
I actually do say "pled," so am on board with Cass's annoyance. And, I think it's fair to say, I've PLED out more cases than anyone here. So there. Btw, I don't know if my use of "pled" is a function of being English, it may be. But I still use it.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 5, 2017 10:07:01 GMT -5
I actually do say "pled," so am on board with Cass's annoyance. And, I think it's fair to say, I've PLED out more cases than anyone here. So there. Btw, I don't know if my use of "pled" is a function of being English, it may be. But I still use it. As far as I can tell, about an equal number of lawyers say "pleaded" and "pled" right here in 'Murica, so I don't think it's a function of your being English. My guess is that most of us, somewhere back in law school or early in our careers, worked under someone who had a preference for one over the other, and got in the habit of using it ourselves. The editor of Black's law dictionary weighed in for "pleaded," using the rather pedantic argument I remember from way back when, but I have exactly zero problems with "pled." I think either word is perfectly acceptable. But about a zillion people on Twitter are using this as a "GOTCHA!" on Trump. The assertion has reappeared in my Twitter feed several times a day since Dowd claimed authorship of the tweet. So. Freaking. Stupid. Especially when there are genuine, excellent reasons to assert that no lawyer wrote that tweet. I think this stems from people preferring simple "tricks" to actual analysis -- "AHA! no lawyers would use that word and so that PROVES, in itself, that Trump is a liar!" You actually have to stop and think for half a second and use a couple of sentences to explain why no lawyer who wasn't actually braindead would send out that tweet, and most Twitter peeps just can't be bothered. ETA: "Pled" actually rolls off the tongue better, IMO. I can imagine that for people like Mark who have PLED out a ton of cases over the years , "pled," might be preferred for that reason alone. Me, I use it primarily in writing, and I'm a former English major, so the grammatical argument in my link above appeals to me. But, pfft, English is not exactly the most consistent language, so that really doesn't count for all that much, frankly.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 5, 2017 11:23:38 GMT -5
Heh. This is a particular pet peeve of mine, actually -- people who do not recognize that different perfectly acceptable usages can exist side by side, especially when it's as widespread and used as long as pled/pleaded has been. derail/ I used to work with an insufferable colleague who constantly, CONSTANTLY, stopped me mid-sentence to correct what she considered "errors." (She did it with regard to written stuff, too, but the conversational interruptions were infinitely more irritating. And yes, she did it with other people too, but she seemed particularly fond of doing it with me.) Taking aside that it's quite rude to interrupt someone in that manner, she was invariably (and I mean invariably) wrong. I mean, if you're going to be rude, at least be correct, amirite? And she did it not just with legal terms, but with the use or pronunciation of ordinary words as well. A couple of times she did it with my use of me versus I -- when, hello, I was using them correctly. (She was one of those people who thought "me" was always wrong. She'd say "He gave the document to Cass and I." I wouldn't correct her, but she'd correct me if I said "He gave the document to Faux Pedantia and me.") Usually I just ignored her when she did it in conversation. When it came to written documents, I'd politely explain why my usage was correct -- but no matter how many times I did it, she was not deterred from "correcting" me again. The thing is, if she'd been CORRECT in her "corrections," (and made them in a reasonably diplomatic manner), I'd have appreciated them. But she was invariably both wrong and rude. Finally, one day she interrupted a casual watercooler conversation in which I referred to my aunt, pronouncing it (as most Americans do) "ant." She happened to hail from the tiny portion of the northeast U.S. that pronounces it as "ahnt," and had evidently decided that it was therefore the ONLY correct pronunciation. It was the final fucking straw. After the conversation broke up, I went to my office, plucked my dictionary off my shelf, stalked down to her office, put it down in front of her, and informed her that there was such a thing as regional pronunciations. We didn't participate in a lot of casual watercooler conversations together after that, which was perfectly fine with me. /derail
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Post by Vince524 on Dec 5, 2017 12:55:39 GMT -5
I hate to say this, but I'd say pled in that context. Of course, I'm not a lawyer. Would it really be Flynn pleaded guilty?
Probably Trump wrote it, but there was no 'sad' at the end.
BTW, whenever I'm on Twitter and I see someone end a Tweet with Sad like that, I think their mocking Trump or imitating him. Sad.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 5, 2017 13:26:41 GMT -5
No need to hate to say it. Pled is perfectly fine. That's my whole petty quibble here.
I'm quite certain Trump wrote it. It's in his style. And ABSOLUTELY no competent lawyer wrote it, not even if he were drunk. A decent lawyer would have advised that Trump shut up entirely with regard to Flynn and the Mueller investigation, but if he were going to tweet anything it certainly would not be something that
(a) is not consistent with Trump's own previous statements on the matter (to the extent those statements are consistent, which, yeah... it's Trump, but Trump didn't previously say anything about lies to the FBI), and
(II) is essentially a confession to obstruction. Trump subsequently urged Comey to drop the investigation into Flynn (and then, of course, fired Comey after he didn't drop it). If Trump fired Flynn because he lied to the FBI, that means Trump knew that Flynn lied to the FBI, which is a crime, and which also means Trump knew damn well that Flynn was guilty and the investigation should not be dropped. Hello, that's a problem.
Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. And very clearly the work of Trump as he was perched on his golden toilet watching Fox & Friends.
Just as clearly, this is a desperate attempt by Team Trump to prevent this tweet from being used in an obstruction investigation. But pfft. Unless you want to believe that the lawyer secretly logged in as Trump and tweeted this against Trump's will (I don't see the lawyer being fired here...), Trump at least OKed the tweet -- he owns it.
What I can't figure out is why Trump didn't claim that some low-level dumbass aid tweeted it rather than a lawyer. It still would have been a lie, but it would have been a more believable lie.
ETA:
If the lawyer really DID craft this email, Trump should fire him. And no one else should ever hire him. Fer serious.
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Post by michaelw on Dec 6, 2017 7:26:33 GMT -5
If the lawyer really DID craft this email, Trump should fire him. I think the fact that Trump didn't fire him is another solid reason why the explanation is obviously bogus. If he actually wrote that tweet and Trump had nothing to do with it, how could Trump possibly trust this guy ever again?
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Post by Deleted on Dec 6, 2017 21:32:09 GMT -5
If the lawyer really DID craft this email, Trump should fire him. I think the fact that Trump didn't fire him is another solid reason why the explanation is obviously bogus. If he actually wrote that tweet and Trump had nothing to do with it, how could Trump possibly trust this guy ever again? Agree. Heh. As an aside -- Trump is always telling his fans his Twitter feed is his straight-from-the-fountainhead words, sans filter. But now he's claiming his lawyer wrote one of his tweets, and without identifying that it was not directly from Trump. If this were true (which of course it ain't), would that mean some of Trump's other tweets were written by lawyers, aides, etc.? Will this bother the Trumpites who think they're getting unfiltered authentic Trump?
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