Trump is obsessed with Barack Obama. He tried to reverse whatever his predecessor did. In the wake of the FBI seizure of classified documents from Trump’s residence, Trump insisted that Obama took 33 million documents and no one complained. This became a talking point on rightwing Trump talk shows.
The National Archives issued a statement refuting Trump’s lie:
The National Archives and Records Administration issued a statement Friday in an attempt to counter misstatements about former president Barack Obama’s presidential records after several days of misinformation that had been spread by former president Donald Trump and conservative commentators.
Since the FBI search of his Florida home and club this week for classified documents, Trump has asserted in social media posts that Obama “kept 33 million pages of documents, much of them classified” and that they were “taken to Chicago by President Obama.”
In its statement, NARA said that it obtained “exclusive legal and physical custody” of Obama’s records when he left office in 2017. It said that about 30 million pages of unclassified records were transferred to a NARA facility in the Chicago area and that they continue to be maintained “exclusively by NARA.”
Classified records from Obama are kept in a NARA facility in Washington, the statement said.
“As required by the [Presidential Records Act], former President Obama has no control over where and how NARA stores the Presidential records of his Administration,” the statement said.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The bigger the lie the more the morons believe it.
Ha! The Goebbels philosophy with a Trump bent.
The Goebbels philosophy with a Trump bent is known as the “Gerbils philosophy”
Did you know that gerbils are useless as a lab animal to study alcoholism because that are almost impossible to get drunk? Apparently, they metabolize alcohol so fast because they stockpiled grain in a way that allowed it to ferment, and then ate it all winter.
The bigger the lie, the more gerbils believe it.
The problem is that the righties on Fox & other outlets lie to & misinform their zombie followers, but if & when they are refuted, the bad information is already out there & the zombies either don’t hear the correction or don’t believe it if they do hear it. It’s intentional, insidious & horribly damaging to keeping a democracy intact.
Interesting new developments, heh?
Trump wears his racism on his sleeve like so many other conservatives. He cannot bear to believe that a Black man served as President and did a better job than him. Isn’t it time to “lock Trump up?” However, I doubt it. Trump’s lawyers will likely file appeals until he “shuffles off this mortal coil.”
Retired Teacher you never hear , No Castro no Problem, No Trump , No Problem. Trump got to be crazy or most of his cells , human body got 38 trillions of cells around more or less now Trumps cells are not all evils but most are , I’m wrong ? Wow Trump has done a lot of mess o my God an old men causing so many troubles. Maybe Trump need go internet to a place where he get sociology therapy and very well prepared therapist who knows how to change conduct, Maybe Trump need to see professional mental health Doctors he could be NGI and that way many people will have peace of mind 🤦♂️
How can you tell Trump is lying? Because his lips are moving. While I absolutely agree that his lies should be called out and fact-checked, it is clear at this point that his cult base (cognitive dissonance is a powerful thing) will cling to whatever remnant of toxic messaging is spewing from his mouth. To really take him down and hit him where it hurts would require enormous restraint by the media. Stop talking about him. Stop reporting ever little nuance around his “campaign”. Stop feeding him what he wants. Stop paying attention to his every outrage, each one greater than the next. Like a screaming toddler who gets the attention he craves, it’s never enough and we’ve seen the inevitable results. Unfortunately, it will never happen. The media craves outrage for clicks and $$$, and is culpable in the level and scope of Trump’s continued mind control over millions of Americans.
It is, indeed, a cult. Here’s the defining, the essential characteristic of the cult member: he or she is impervious to any negative information about the cult leader and his or her teachings. Blind adherence.
Totally agree. I CANNOT understand why the media (and, I mean places like CNN or MSNBC) continue to babble about Trump. They keep him alive. Perhaps the owners of these establishments want to attract eyeballs, and they really don’t want to see Trump go away.
Trump indicates a major flaw in our society. It isn’t his fault. We need to correct the flaw.
Daedalus,
I wish Trump would disappear into complete obscurity. He makes my brain hurt.
Totally agree.
Trump is a mob boss. As such, he needs to be controlled, not promoted. By giving him attention, however, he gains power. He should have been in jail long ago.
It is sorta hard to ignore Trump when he is the leading figure in the GOP
We live in an age where the story of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” has been turned on its head.
The problem is that Trump pays no price for his lies. And neither do any of the many Republican leaders who embrace his lies. Until that happens, they are simply incentivized to keep lying. Even if only 10 people believe the lies, that’s 10 additional people and the next time that person has an opinion the media will still treat it as if this person has complete credibility, even if they only happen to tell the truth half the time.
People who lie should lose credibility, period. They gain their credibility back by CORRECTING what they said if they did not intend to lie and acknowledging their mistake. But when they pay no price for doubling down on their lies, why shouldn’t they continue to lie, especially when they pay no price?
Years ago, before the media got co-opted into believing that it was “biased” to have any Republican lose credibility, the lessons of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” were clear. If you lie and lie, no one will believe you if you tell the truth. That is YOUR fault, not the fault of the people who no longer believe you because you lied.
Now the lesson seems to be: If you lie and lie, it would be too biased for the media and everyone else not treat your utterances with respect whenever you do happen to tell the truth. Because it would be very wrong for you to pay any price for your lies.
In our modern version of “The Boy Who Cries Wolf”, the boy lies and cries wolf 7 days in a row and each time the townsfolk rush to help him and then gently admonish him for lying. And on the 8th day, the boy sees a wolf and the townspeople rush to help him and they praise him and celebrate him for telling them there is a wolf. The past is irrelevant. Even if the boy has lied about there being a wolf for 100 days straight, in the new version, when the townspeople come rushing to help him on the 101st day and see the wolf, they praise the boy for saving the flock.
That’s the lesson we have normalized for our kids. Thank you so-called liberal media for helping to brainwashing all of us a bit to accept this “new” fable as the lesson to embrace.
Again, this guy’s mentality is that of a friggin’ ransom note.
That metaphor is so spot on.
The only thing wrong with NARA’s statement is it refers to “misstatements “ by commentators and the former president. They are lies, not misstatements. Lies from liars. We have listened to lies, not misstatements, from those liars for years. Call them what they are.
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!
You are welcome.
Trump is not obsessed with Obama. He used Obama to ‘dog whistle’ his Fascist, Rascist attack dogs. If Obama were White, and Clinton were Black, he’d constantly go back to Clinton.
Trump is haunted by Obama’s popularity, which is incomprehensible to him. And Hillary is a ghost, too, still swirling around with her 3 million vote margin. DT can’t get over it.
I meant Bill Clinton. Hillary is, of course, a female (another dog-whistle).
Trump may be a narcissistic sociopath, however he is shrewd and dangerous.
Honestly, folks. How weird is it that a federal agency has to put out information to clear up a lie of a former president? Norm is just another new obsolete word.
Exactly my reaction, Greg. Another “first,” thanks to TheThing45.
The ex-President had the opportunity, was asked, and notified to return everything. It’s well documented.
His followers will never know because they only know what he tells them. And, no GOP official will say a word. And, they don’t care anyway.
Below is my response to the Beto O’Rourke comments yesterday – fits here, too and I sure wish democrats would respond to the GOP defenders similarly.
With respect to First Lady Obama and borrowing her statement:
When they go low, we can go high with integrity and the truth…
However we gotta go low with how we say it!
Democrats want to be teachers (some are)
Republicans use one to three word phrases that can set a rally on its feet screaming and hooting and hollering.
I hope someone laughs and challenges Mr. O’Rourke about the exPresident’s treasonous lies and antics as if they are justified and he has a choice short response.
and the hits just keep on comin’
NYT: “Breaking News: A Trump lawyer signed a statement that all files marked as classified and held in boxes at Mar-a-Lago had been returned. The F.B.I. found more.”
I can hear it now (just like every day in middle school): I was just holding it for someone else.
Trump put out a statement today that he had a standing order that all documents he took from the Oval Office were automatically declassified.
As though he could just wave one of his little, stubby fingers and they would be declassified. As though this makes ANY sense–that a president could do ANYTHING with ANY INFORMATION.
The man is an utter moron, and a criminal. And Putin’s dog. And he had access to highly classified material for four years. Lord knows how compromised we are now and in what ways. There must be a lot of laughter about all this in the Kremlin.
Does that mean he was standing when he ordered someone to declassify the documents?
As opposed to a sitting order?
Or a lying order?
Or a lounging order?
Who knew there were so many methods of declassifying documents?
Trump told his former chief of staff, John Kelly, that he [Trump] didn’t “believe in” the classification system. Now, this statement is really, really revealing. First, Trump thinks that the verb “to believe” has the meaning of “approve of,” so that “I don’t believe in” means “I don’t approve of.” Second, this illustrates his stupidity, his inability to make crucial distinctions. Third, because he cannot make crucial distinctions, he can’t understand things, like why we have a classification system for secrets related to national security. Fourth, this particular lack of understanding of a distinction is an example of a general cognitive issue that Trump has: He cannot distinguish between reality and what he wishes were the case. Whatever he wants, right now, must be reality, to Trump, or he throws a childish fit. He is the Child-man in the Promised Land. Toddler Trump. If reality doesn’t fit his desires, he throws a fit and throws food at the wall.
If reality doesn’t fit his desires, he throws a fit and throws food at the wall. If the thing he doesn’t like is a rule or a law, he just breaks it. This is how the mind of a criminal sociopath works.
How about a yoga-ing order?
“Putin’s dog”? Why are you continuing to try to start a war with Russia? The United States put tRump in office, not Russia. Trump is our responsibility, not Putin’s. And, if you are at all concerned with ‘foreign influence’, let’s discuss Israel.
I lived through the ‘cold war’, and I’m sick of it.
Trump has been a Russian asset since the 1980s, when he took his first trip to Moscow., on a KGB airplane, a trip paid for by the US Russian ambassador. Lord knows how much this traitor has compromised our national security.
And, so, ‘Bob’, why do we allow politicians to accept money from other countries? That’s not ‘Putin’s’ fault. Why do we allow internet input from foreign countries? That’s not exclusive to Putin. What about Ukrainian propaganda? What about Israeli propaganda? What about our own propaganda?
And, Bob, in how many other countries does the US interfere with elections? Perhaps before pretending to stand on the high ground, the pot should stop calling the kettle ‘black’.
We do not allow the President to accept personal gifts for himself or his family. Any gifts given to the President have to be reported and become property of the United States. And that’s all aside from the point, Daedalus. We had a Russian intelligence asset sitting in the Oval Office for four years. How much damage did that do? Well, it’s probably incalculable.
Russia, Russia, Russia… Bob, we have American assets (consider Pinochet in the past and Zelonsky now) sitting in how many countries? Russia has never invaded the United States. They ‘sold’ us Alaska, and haven’t tried to ‘recover’ it. Yet, the US HAS tried to ‘invade’ Russia, as has France and the ‘Allies’. So, why shouldn’t Russia be wary? All one needs to do is look at history.
Have you ever read Orwell? That’s the American playbook.
All due respect, but these are red herrings. I care about the here and now.
Well, Cindy, the Ukrainian War is ‘here and now’, and Bob’s continual blame of Putin for everything wrong in the world is, in fact, a ‘red herring’ designed to point the finger elsewhere in order to avoid looking at ourselves.
Once we clean up our own house we may have the status to criticize or help others. Currently, we have no such status.We sink deeper and deeper into the giant hole left by Hiroshima and Vietnam.
My father grew up in poverty on the Standing Rock—he was Native—and in spite of the horrors visited on his people by the US Army in years past, he signed up for WW2 and flew in a B24 over Japan and was shot down twice. He was fighting totalitarianism. The big picture, as they say. I am well aware of the less savory aspects of American foreign policy, so I don’t need a lecture. DT is the most dangerous president we have ever had, and his groveling at the feet of Mr KGB himself is nauseating. Makes me think there probably WAS a pee tape after all. Our country’s sins (and there are plenty) doesn’t mean we should go all bothsidesy with Putin’s meddling.
My father grew up in poverty on the Standing Rock—he was Native—and in spite of the horrors visited on his people by the US Army in years past, he signed up for WW2 and flew in a B24 over Japan and was shot down twice. He was fighting totalitarianism. The big picture, as they say. I am well aware of the less savory aspects of American foreign policy, so I don’t need a lecture. DT is the most dangerous president we have ever had, and his groveling at the feet of Mr KGB himself is nauseating. Makes me think there probably WAS a pee tape after all. Our country’s sins (and there are plenty) DON’T mean we should go all bothsidesy with Putin’s meddling. (Fixed it.)
Correct “doesn’t mean” to “don’t mean.” There!
Sorry, Cindy.
The purpose of written language is to communicate as clearly as possible. Language is mutable (one only needs to look at the history), so as long as the idea is clearly communicated, that’s the goal. However, one might argue that using a plural instead of a singular confuses.
If you want confusion, however, I’d invite you to study Japanese, where the same spoken word can mean a constellation of different things. Not all languages operate in the same way, and many are just as adept at transmitting an idea. Some are far more poetic.
Putin had no valid reason to invade Ukraine and destroy that country.
If he acted to weaken NATO, he miscalculated. Because of Russian aggtression, Finland and Sweden joined NATO and Germany increased its military spending.
I know Orwell extraordinarily well. I’ve read just about everything he ever wrote. And he wrote brilliantly about the threat of Soviet (now Russian) totalitarianism and its exportation around the world.
Orwell was just like me, a Socialist who detested Communism (and other Totalitarianisms). A kind of intellectual mentor of mine.
Agree about Orwell. He had zero sympathy for the USSR.
And about our having assets around the world–this is a bad thing? Do you really prefer that we act out of ignorance of the rest of the world? That we not be aware of what adversaries around the world are up to? If so, that’s breathtakingly naive.
Nothing you said justifies Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.
I don’t think I’m trying to justify Russia’s invasion. I’m simply pointing out hypocrisy. I think hypocrisy is a fault, although it just might be the way our nervous system works. Why don’t I hear about the brutality of America’s invasion of Afghanistan, or Iraq, or our support of the brutalizing of Gaza, or the children killed in Nablus, or the starving and bombing of Yemen. Is it racism?
I’m also pointing out that this situation in Ukraine was supported by the United States as a ploy to ‘weaken Russia’. This was admitted by our State Department. So, why don’t you believe them?
And, on a final note, was it you who encouraged me to read Kuhn?
The US did not tell Putin to invade Russia. Yes, I hope Putin’s naked aggression weakens Russia si Putin won’t invade Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Moldova, or Poland.
Daedalus: This video is a good primer on Orwell’s politics.
Bob, that is a brilliant summary of Orwell’s ideas.
Thanks. I agree. I was so pleased when I ran across this because there is so much nonsense said about Orwell by folks on the right.
How do you copy and paste this. I don’t see a link or share button.
Method 1: Click on the link to go to the Youtube page for the video. Then, select the URL and copy it.
Method 2: Right click on the video thumbnail in this thread. Select Copy URL.
Indeed, Bob. I think I knew most of this. Orwell learned to distrust the stuff he was fed by the press and appreciate the fact that official lies can distort reality for many people.
And, I think we all know about the fight between Trotsky and Lenin. (try John Reed’s book). However, I’m not so sure Orwell ‘hated Russia’. His great works (Animal Farm and 1984) clearly hated a system that used propaganda to manipulate people. That included Germany. Now, let’s move to today’s world.
Are you asserting that in the United States, we are not subject to government propaganda? You can’t say that with a straight face. Orwell speaks to us, almost directly.
Now, on another topic. I’m pretty sure you ‘recommended’ that I read Thomas Kuhn. I did so. I learned nothing about the history of science, however I did learn a bit about Kuhn. For example, I learned that he didn’t even know science had a history until he was ready to write his PhD thesis. Odd, I knew more than that when I was a college sophomore (a year before Kuhn’s book was published). He must have gone to a rather backward school. I also learned that he was involved in ‘theoretical physics’. It’s surprising that he knew nothing about Einstein. Hmmmm.
Nobody in ‘science’ is quite so ignorant. Kuhn may be a revelation to English majors, however not to anyone studying science. His brief flame may have been as an attempt to widen the traditional, Eurocentric ‘liberal arts’ curriculum, however I got his book for less than $2 (not a big seller, nowadays).
Bob… When you balance your checkbook, what numbers do you use? (Arabic). When you solve simple numerical puzzles, you often use ‘algebra’, which is an Arabic word, but transmitted to into your culture from India). Why are there 60 minutes in an hour? In Sumerian cuneiform, the ‘indication’ for one and sixty were the same (bigger mark for 60), however the Mesopotamians looked to the stars to tell time and predict the future (science). They knew that the great conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn occurred once in twenty years, and that after 60 years, that event happened in the same part of the sky (full circle). This also explains ‘three in one’ in so much European lore.
The only people ignorant of ‘scientific history’ seem to be ‘history majors’. After all, ‘science’ was too ‘hard’ for them. They
Now, let me differentiate ‘science’ from ‘engineering’. Engineers are designed to make something. They use the results of science to enhance their production. When college science majors find the path too difficult and monetarily unrewarding, they often choose engineering. I would not be surprised to find that engineers know nothing about history.
I was not recommending Kuhn as a favored philosopher of mine, Daedalus. I simply mentioned him because the topic of fashion in science came up, and Kuhn is the preeminent author on this topic. You seem to assume, Daedalus, that because you had some scientific training that you have the golden key to understanding and that others don’t. This is an odd view of the world. First, there are lots and lots and lots of other people who know a lot about the many, many topics of study that are among the sciences. You are not a member of a select few. Second, the categories of scientist and engineer are not mutually exclusive. Third, as Kuhn and Kahneman and others have demonstrated, scientists are human and are capable of cognitive biases and of being swayed by fashion. Science is not some utterly rarified and noble arena of perfection of thought. Quite the contrary. It’s a messy business involving inference that is inherently falsifiable, that is, inductive and abductive inference, so it’s not a source of absolute certainty. It’s the religious kooks who think that. Fourth, as with any field of study, there are levels of understanding of any particular science. So, for example, name a science, say classical mechanics. There are folks like Donald Trump who have only utterly unexamined and folk notions about mechanics because they are ignorant of everything, there are folks who have PhD-level knowledge of mechanics, and there are people AT EVERY STAGE INBETWEEN. This is not an either-or situation, in which there is either possession of the Golden Key or not.
Yes, there were times when I engaged in attempting to “sell” textbooks. Most of the time, however, I was engaged in making them. I considered myself a teacher. But my classes were quite large. They included students all over the country.
No, Bob, Kuhn is NOT the “preeminent author on this topic”. I bought his book for less than 2 bucks. Nobody reads it anymore. He published it 3 years after Koestler’s ‘Sleepwalkers’ was published, and (although Koestler had no science background) Koestler was WAY more on target. Why did Kuhn even bother to put this out?
And, the blatant Eurocentrism of Kuhn’s limited view was so apparent that the previous owner of my book wrote “WRONG” in the margin on page 168 when Kuhn tried to claim that only sciences following the Hellenistic tradition produced more than rudimentary ‘science’. Here, Kuhn revealed his profound ignorance, and there are at least two people who caught that.
No, Bob, there’s a big difference between science and engineering. Science examines basic principles (philosophy) whereas engineering tries to use science to build stuff and make money (whatever that means.. but they ‘leach’ upon the discoveries of science). I know, Bob, that you have no science background, and probably don’t care about the intellectual history of human inductive thought. No doubt you were introduced to Kuhn in some ‘history’ class by a professor who also had no science background in his resume. It’s assumed by such ignorant people that anyone in ‘science’ is stupid about history. You tend to prove the point (sorry).
Classical Mechanics is not a science., Bob. Let’s try to focus on semantics, a bit. Whereas ‘classical mechanics’ was a product of science, it is no more a ‘science’ than a dishwasher is ‘engineering’.
I wasn’t introduced to Kuhn by a professor. I knew him because I freaking read, Daedalus. I am not even going to start debunking the many, many profound misunderstandings in this tirade, Daedalus. It’s a waste of time. And you have no clue what I know or do not know about the sciences. But here, a little taste of what a rebuttal of these many absurdities would look like, From the Merriam-Webster dictionary:
me·chan·ics | \ mi-ˈka-niks \
1: a branch of physical science that deals with energy and forces and their effect on bodies
2: the practical application of mechanics to the design, construction, or operation of machines or tools
So, you don’t even know that mechanics isn’t a science, which is not suprising to me given that you didn’t know who Kuhn is and clearly don’t read much because who he is and how important he is in the history of philosophy of science has entirely escaped you. You would be aware of these things if you read at all widely.
And I see that my point about engineering and science went WHOOSH over your head.
And I have spent a lifetime teaching the history of ideas, and I’ve actually studied logic (the intellectual history of inductive thought) and the history and philosophy of science and would gladly go one on one with you in any competition on these matters IF IT WEREN’T SUCH A COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME.
I’m hoping comments such as yours get published. It opens a window into your personality.
First, you went after me (instead of my ideas). Then you claimed you wouldn’t ‘refute’ my statement, and then went on a long trail of postings attempting to do just that. Try not to be so sensitive to criticism. It makes you appear to be insecure.
Unlike you, I don’t rely on dictionaries to give a definition of science. (perhaps, the OED can sometimes be useful for an etymological background). Bob, you aren’t the only person that reads, though you would have others to believe that. And, my definition of science involves an inductive process, and a continual understanding that our ‘models’ are simply a current way of trying to link the stimulus given to our nervous system to what our senses experience (and help predict future stimuli so as to reduce the element of surprise. However, to a scientist, ‘surprise’ is a good thing. Not so much to an engineer.). This view comes from examining the history of science, as well as individual writings of groundbreaking works. Kuhn noted (early on) that Astronomy had an ancient history, and then ignored it in the rest of his analysis.
According to you, I’m not supposed to know this, but you understand that a word like ‘science’ involves a concept, yes? And, so, different people have a different vision. It appears that to you, your vision is ‘the Truth’, which is not a helpful mindset in ‘science’. In ‘science’, there is no ‘Truth’, only an approach.
So, I meant not to respond and then couldn’t help myself, for I was much offended. Of course, science makes use of inductive and abductive reasoning and constantly evolves. What made Kuhn so very important (one of the most cited authors ever) is that he demonstrated clearly that science has its fads and fashions, its periods of normal science punctuated by dramatic change driven by new accounts for anomalies. Thus, for example, the death blows dealt to Behaviorism by Lashley’s observations regarding improvisation and Chomsky’s regarding rule-based recursion and the incompatibility of these with the S-R model.
First, Bob, we need to define ‘science’. To me, psychology is in the same class as economics. But, you see, I was involved in a rather esoteric realm of physical science.
Bob, when you present yourself a a ‘know-it-all’, you had better know it all. No basic scientist would do so. What they know most is that they don’t know it all. AND, they can’t learn it from books.
Look, you have my definition of ‘science’, and it’s very different from engineering and (certainly) math.
Note that Kuhn influenced the understanding of scientific history NOT among scientists, but among ‘liberal arts’ people. He may have been widely read, however to me he offered less than nothing new. Perhaps, however, he helped to open your eyes to another perspective, and if he did so, bravo! Indeed, there is a history of science that goes back tens of thousands of years, and most don’t even try to understand.
I did not “present myself as a know-it-all,” Daedalus. You made a number of claims that were false, and I simply pointed out that they were false and, in each case, provided evidence to that effect. So, for example,
You claimed that classical mechanics was not a science, so I provided you with a standard Merriam Webster definition stating that mechanics is a science.
You claimed that Thomas Kuhn was relatively unknown and unimportant, so I provided you with info from a study that found that he was one of the most cited authors of the twentieth century (in academic papers) and a quotation from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (a standard reference work) saying that he was one of the most influential or perhaps the most influential philosopher of science of the 20th century and was among the most cited of authors.
You suggested that I must have heard of Kuhn from an English professor and that as a person with an ELA background, I wouldn’t understand much about science. I mentioned my scientific and mathematics publications and summarized some of my scientific interests. I also pointed out that there are many people with ELA backgrounds who know quite a lot of science and that these are not mutually exclusive. I also explained that knowledge of any particular science, on the part of individuals, is on a spectrum.
You suggested that I must not understand “the history of inductive reasoning,” so I pointed out that I have studied logic and have done an enormous among of study and writing about the history of ideas.
You argued that science and engineering were quite distinct, and I pointed out that getting one’s hands dirty—doing applied stuff—is very much in the spirit of science and that a LOT of science involves engineering—creating and maintaining scientific apparatuses, for example and that the distinction between pure and applied science was not a well-demarcated one.
You suggested that I needed “semantics” explained to me, and I pointed out that’s within my field of professional expertise.
As to your claims that social sciences are not sciences, well, that’s certainly odd. The science of linguistics is not a science. The science of psychology is not a science. Sciences are not sciences. Well, that’s an interesting position.
Citing facts in refutation of falsehoods is NOT presuming to be a “know-it-all.” I simply have an aversion to strings of falsehoods on social media, including ones characterizing me. Here’s my definitive statement about “knowing it all”:
The Limits of Learning | Bob Shepherd | Praxis (wordpress.com)
This topic of the limits of learning and understanding is of such great interest to me that I have, on my computer, a book-length work on Uncertainty. At some point I hope to find a publisher for it.
Odd, Bob. Apparently, you definition of ‘science’ is rather different from mine. My background is in Astronomy and Physics. Both are generally considered ‘sciences’. But, who care about labels? In my world, part of the the purpose of ‘science’ is to predict the future so as to inform and ease the shock of coming events, and so ‘linguistics’ doesn’t fill the bill.
Don’t get me wrong, here. Linguistics is certainly an important study, and helps us come to grips with our human nervous system. However, despite our attempt to analyze our verbal utterance, it is not a science. It doesn’t predict anything observable.
Like the works of Adam Smith, it may be an attempt to put a scientific framework around an activity that is poorly understood, but it isn’t ‘science’ (unless you mean to destroy the meaning of the word).
Linguistics makes no predictions? Lol. I suggest that you go read any introductory linguistics text. Linguists can predict, for example, what utterances you will consider grammatical and ungrammatical based upon models of syntactic structures that you have learned unconsciously without knowing that you have learned them. They can predict particular usages and syntactic and phonetic rules you will employ based on what language you speak and where you learned it. They can predict that students will not dramatically increase their vocabulary based on explicit vocabulary instruction based upon what they have learned, via scientific study, of how vocabulary is acquired. Same with regard to explicit instruction in syntax. I could go on an on multiplying examples.
Oxford English Dictionary:
lin·guis·tics
/liNGˈɡwistiks/
noun
the scientific study of language and its structure, including the study of morphology, syntax, phonetics, and semantics. Specific branches of linguistics include sociolinguistics, dialectology, psycholinguistics, computational linguistics, historical-comparative linguistics, and applied linguistics.
Linguists would be quite amused to hear from you that they have been confused all their lives about being practitioners of a science. LMAO.
Back to dictionaries , eh?
‘Linguistics’ should have taught you that ‘dictionaries’ aren’t a reliable source.
So what, exactly, does ‘linguistics’ predict, other that the mutation of language?
Dictionaries aren’t reliable sources on the meanings of words? Now that is certainly a novel suggestion. ROFLMAO!!!!
In physics, you make a mathematical model, then you go out and conduct observations and see if the model fits the observations. In many fields in linguistics, exactly the same thing occurs. One creates a formal model of a linguistic behavior; then one tests it against actual usage to see if it is predictive. A model is successful when it predicts those linguistic forms that actually occur among native speakers and only those forms (that is, it does not predict forms that are judged ungrammatical by native speakers). And most of what people “know” about their languages is not consciously known. Rather, it is unconsciously acquired. Thus the endeavor among linguistics to build formal models to account for what the brain has accomplished when it has learned a language. I just gave you a list of things that linguistics predicts. Go read it over again. That list could me vastly expanded. But clearly, you don’t understand what linguistics is. It’s not simply knowing how to use spoken or written languages. Again, I don’t have the patience to give you a course in introductory linguistics. Order a beginner’s text and read it and you will understand that it is about creating formal models to account for phenomena (what rules are at work here), said accounting including but not limited to prediction. You know, like any science. In this case, the subject of study, about which the formal models are made, is linguistic phenomena. Here’s a good starting place for you:
Click to access Radford2009.pdf
I’m not claiming to be an expert in ‘linguistics’, Bob. Perhaps such people predict what animals say, and how. I doubt it, however if linguists have so conquered the human mind as to be able to model our verbal communication process, good for them.
The small amount I know about ‘linguistics’, however, involves trying to identify ‘rules’ within an already existing body of verbal communication. It does very little predicting. It does, however, trace patterns to help illuminate the past.
Well, I see that I have completely wasted my time here.
I did want to respond to ‘paradigm shifts’ and so on. Unfortunately, not possible thanks to the inability of people to directly respond on this internet format, so this will have to do.
Back in the day, when I was an Astronomy major, I noticed a trend. Those that couldn’t ‘hack it’ often chose to ‘change majors’ (like Kuhn). In Astronomy, the first change went to ‘Physics’ (roughly the same curriculum without the philosophical element). Then, to ‘electrical engineering, then to ‘civil engineering’ and then to …. Business (called ‘Management Science’). I could elucidate a similar pathway from ‘chemistry’ ending in the same place. Business majors tend to use ‘paradigm shift’ because it appears them to be intelligent.
Interesting that you admit “science folks” other than me don’t like Kuhn, much. There’s a reason. Kuhn appears to me to be a fraud. All ‘science folks’ know very well that our models change. They do so, however, in a fairly constant fashion. This is not a ‘revelation’. The fact that Kuhn didn’t even know this indicates a rather dull student. Kuhn claims ‘normal science’ to rule, but doesn’t even seem aware of the remarkable shifts of Jeans (relating Newtonian mechanics to Classical thermodynamics), Shapley (expanding the universal image to almost infinity) and Hirschfelder, Curtiss and Byrd during his lifetime. No wonder ‘scientists’ consider him irrelevant.
On the other hand, if he managed to get ‘liberal arts’ people engaged, more power to him.
Your primary critique of Kuhn is well taken, Daedalus. I share it. I think as well that most scientists are quite aware of the phenomena that Kuhn describes.
Perhaps Kuhn’s main contribution was to make others aware of what people in science already knew. I think he gets a few things wrong, however at least he makes others aware that there is a history to scientific ideas.
I kinda disagree with his idea that there are only occasional massive changes, however. Ideas in science are constantly changing (that’s ‘normal’ science). This process was suppressed in the European ‘Dark Age’, but we are now supposed to be ‘Enlightened.
But remember that he was writing in the 1960s at a time when there was a LOT of scientific hubris in the U.S.–doctrinaire Behaviorists who through that they knew how to run schools, makers of weapons of mass destruction, “scientists” who worked for industries and were in the business of assuring people that tobacco and red dye no. 5 wouldn’t harm them, efficiency experts who introduced intolerable working conditions, and so on. So, his work was a check on this kind of scientistic hubris.
cx: doctrinaire Behaviorists who thought
Sp glad, Bob, I wasn’t one of your students.
Dictionaries are prepared by experts precisely so that people will have reliable reference works with regard to the meanings of words. I’m surprised, Daedalus, that I have to explain this to you. Note that the meanings given in them, these days, are typically descriptive, not prescriptive, unless otherwise noted.
I will give you ONE example of the general phenomenon, Daedalus.
Suppose that I have a formal model of the grammar of English that says that a verb does not agree with the noun in an immediately preceding prepositional phrase but, rather, with the subject that precedes that phrase. This is a standard rule found in high-school grammars of English. This rule predicts, accurately, that one of these statements is grammatical and the other (marked with the asterisk) is not:
A. One of my friends come here.*
B. One of my friends comes here.
The idea is that the verb, comes, agrees with the subject, one, and not with the noun in the intervening phrase.
So, is that a good rule? Well, it turns out that it isn’t, that the typical high-school grammar book rule isn’t correct, for it doesn’t account for the following phenomenon. Both of these sentences are grammatical:
C. Jerry is one of those students who works in the evenings.
D. Jerry is one of those students who work in the evenings.
The first sentence is perfectly grammatical. It means Jerry belongs to that group of students AND Jerry works in the evenings. The second sentence is perfectly grammatical as well, but it has a different meaning. It means Jerry belongs to the group of students who work in the evenings. So, what this shows, is that our initial rule is not properly predictive. It doesn’t predict all the relevant utterances that are grammatical and none that are ungrammatical. It violates that rule by predicting that a sentence that is in fact grammatical actually isn’t. So, we have to revise our rule because it is not properly predictive. The new rule will provide structures from which sentences c and d are derived by various transformations.
So, in fact, it is precisely predictive accuracy by which a linguistic model is evaluated.
So, the phenomenon is accounted for by the derivation of the surface structures of these very similar-looking sentences from underlying structures that are quite different.
Jerry is one of those students. Jerry works in the evening.
vs.
Jerry is one of those students. Those students work in the evening.
It’s actually a little more complicated than that, but you get the idea.
I just gave you a detailed, concrete example of prediction in linguistics as a model. One tiny example, but concrete enough for you to grok how this works. Linguistics is a science, and it is predictive. Alas, the example is in moderation, which is odd because there is nothing controversial in it.
Suppose that I have a formal model of the grammar of English that says that a verb does not agree with the noun in an immediately preceding prepositional phrase but, rather, with the subject that precedes that prepositional phrase. This is a standard rule found in high-school grammars of English. This rule predicts, accurately, that one of these statements is grammatical and the other (marked with the asterisk) is not:
A. One of my friends come here.*
B. One of my friends comes here.
The idea is that the verb, comes, agrees with the subject, one, and not with the noun, students, in the intervening phrase.
So, is that a good rule? Well, it turns out that it isn’t, that the typical high-school grammar book rule isn’t correct, for it doesn’t account for the following phenomenon. Both of these sentences are grammatical:
C. Jerry is one of those students who works in the evenings.
D. Jerry is one of those students who work in the evenings.
The first sentence is perfectly grammatical. It means Jerry belongs to that group of students AND Jerry works in the evenings. The second sentence is perfectly grammatical as well, but it has a different meaning. It means Jerry belongs to the group of students, all of whom work in the evenings.
So, what this shows, is that our initial rule is not properly predictive. It doesn’t predict all the relevant utterances that are grammatical and none that are ungrammatical. It violates that rule by predicting that a sentence that is in fact grammatical isn’t. So, we have to revise our rule because it is not properly predictive. The new rule will provide structures from which sentences C and D are derived by various transformations.
(You can read the rest of this reply when it comes out of moderation.)
The way linguists work, Daedalus, is by putting together a formal model of a linguistic structure and then testing it via observation to see if it is predictive. You know, as people do in any other science.
https://www.linguisticsociety.org/resource/science-linguistics
By simply stating that my claims were ‘false’, you set yourself as a ‘know it all’, claimed your position as unassailable. Surely, anyone as practiced in the use of language as you realizes the trick you played.
If you want to communicate, fine. If you want to belittle, I’m not interested.
OK. Sure, Daedalus. Linguistics is not a science. Neither is mechanics. And Putin is St. Francis. And anyone who says that these things are false is a know-it-all. Haaaaaaaaaaaa. Oh lord.
Linguistics is a commendable attempt to apply scientific principles to human speech (as was Smith’s attempt in Economics). (Ha Ha). Mechanics is a ‘branch’ of physics, however it was undercut by the model that found ‘mass’ and ‘energy’ to be the same thing. Mechanics works well for engineers, but as a definition of science, not so much. (Ha Ha).
It’s not a definition of science. No one said it is a definition of science. I said that it was a science. You said that it was not. But I’m sure that all the linguists in the world will be fascinated to learn from you that they aren’t scientists. Poor, benighted fools. Thanks for clearing that up for them.
What’s the difference between a ‘scientist’ and a rational human being, Bob ?
Oh, and thanks for clearing up the confusions on the parts of all those crazy lexicographers who think that mechanics and psychology and linguistics are sciences. It really is amazing that all these experts on word usage and meaning are so ignorant. LMAO. Better straighten out the encyclopedists on this, too, D. Oh, and while you are at it, contact the National Academy of Sciences to let them know about the mistake they made in admitting the linguists Morris Halle, Noam Chomsky, and Steven Pinker as members, since, of course, linguistics isn’t a science.
And, thanks for the snark, Bob.
Any time, Daedalus.
Scientists are members of the set “rational persons,” but that set contains many people who are not scientists. András Schiff is a rational person. Susan Gubar is a rational person. But to my knowledge, they are not scientists, though both doubtless know quite a lot about various sciences. But this is irrelevant to the fact that mechanics, psychology, and linguistics are sciences whether or not you think that they are. If you thought that the dark side of the moon was made of plum pudding, that wouldn’t change the fact that that’s not true. That it is false. So, yes, there are such things as true propositions and false propositions, Daedalus, whatever you might think to the contrary.
Daedalus, I just explained to you how linguists build formal models of linguistic competence in order to predict linguistic performance. This is a major modus operandi of a science–you build a formal model and judge it by its ability to capture generalizations about observable phenomena, ones that have predictive power. What makes the propositions of a science scientific is that they are falsifiable, and the formal models built by linguists met all of these criteria. That’s because linguistics is a science.
Kuhn is extremely unpopular among scientists because they like to think that they are above fads and fashions and groupthink and a long list of cognitive biases. However, they aren’t. They are human. However, this is true: scientific methods have built-in checks on assertions that some other fields, such as theology, do not. However, one doesn’t have to look far among scientists to find examples, when they engage in public discourse in the public sphere, of them making assertions that go far beyond what is actually known. I remember, for example, reading the geneticist Richard Dawkins making the claim that wherever we went in the universe, in any circumstance, if there was life, evolution by natural selection would be operating. He also made the claim that one certainty we have about the universe is that it is non-teleological. In other words, that it is not directed. These large claims are unwarranted by the facts. We humans, at a very early stage in our technological development (I hope), but we are already at a point in which we are poised to start tinkering with our own evolutionary design, at which point this is no longer a “blind watchmaker” phenomenon, to use Dawkins’s terminology, but a teleological one. And since it is quite likely that the universe is teeming with life, it is altogether possible that there are life forms in the universe who have long since passed into that teleological phase in which evolution was done by design. So, Dawkins’s contention that a teleological universe is impossible is unscientific. It’s scientism, not science. It’s very like religious belief.
https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2014/02/28/the-limits-of-learning/
And that there are periods of Normal Science in which people accept the current fashions without evidence is clear from the facts that at the turn of the 20th century many physicists clung to the notion of the luminiferous ether and rejected the atomic hypothesis, even though the latter was millennia old, having first been advanced by Democritus and then by Lucretius. It wasn’t until Einstein’s paper on Brownian motion (1905) that most converted, but some clung to the notion that atoms were imaginary even after that.
Yes, you are probably right that Kuhn is cited more in the humanities than by scientists. This is not surprising given that his is a critique of what scientists do–of how they commonly behave as opposed to how they profess to behave. Consider the technocratic hubris of the 1950s and ’60s that led so many to think that general AI was but a few years away. Scientists are human and like other humans fallible. But you and I agree that theirs is a better method than most, for most purposes. But not for all. That, again, is hubris.
At some point, concepts are so well established that no one expects them to be falsified, ofc.
“Not so much to an engineer.” LOL. That’s a funny line, Daedalus! Well said.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions has been credited with producing the kind of “paradigm shift” Kuhn discussed. Since the book’s publication, over one million copies have been sold, including translations into sixteen different languages. In 1987, it was reported to be the twentieth-century book most frequently cited in the period 1976–1983 in the arts and the humanities.
Yeah, one of the most cited books of the twentieth century is obscure and unknown. LMAO. That’s funny.
Introduction to the entry on Thomas Kuhn from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
Thomas Samuel Kuhn (1922–1996) is one of the most influential philosophers of science of the twentieth century, perhaps the most influential. His 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is one of the most cited academic books of all time. Kuhn’s contribution to the philosophy of science marked not only a break with several key positivist doctrines, but also inaugurated a new style of philosophy of science that brought it closer to the history of science. His account of the development of science held that science enjoys periods of stable growth punctuated by revisionary revolutions. To this thesis, Kuhn added the controversial ‘incommensurability thesis’, that theories from differing periods suffer from certain deep kinds of failure of comparability.
I have studied linguistics seriously for much of a lifetime, Daedalus. So I would venture that I know something of “semantics” and the art of definition. How many dictionaries and glossaries have you prepared for publication during your time, Daedalus? My count is probably about fifty. How many textbook chapters have you written about types and methods of definition? My count is probably about twenty.
I imagine Matt Gaetz or Marjorie Taylor Greene lecturing Edward Whitten about Mathematics.
And I daresay that I have probably read as much or more science in my lifetime than you have, Daedalus. It’s been a lifelong interest of mine, ever since I was a kid. Don’t make claims about matters of which you are entirely ignorant, Daedalus. It’s unscientific.
I wrote a college textbook on computer science that was widely used around the country.
I edited a widely used physics textbook and did a great deal of illustration for it.
I edited a best-selling trade book on physics by the author of an extremely widely used textbook on quantum mechanics.
I’ve written and edited a number of mathematics textbooks.
But my primary field is English language arts.
Being an ELA guy doesn’t make one, ipso facto, scientifically ignorant, whatever you might think.
cx: that mechanics IS a science
And yes, sciences have little sciences within them and beget new sciences. LMAO
It is breathtaking to me that you would imagine that I would not understand that engineering applies scientific principles. That’s the very definition of engineering: science applied to practical ends. The point I was making is that a proper approach to science is, as Thomas Huxley wrote, “to sit as a little child before the facts.” Even Einstein waited anxiously for confirmation by observation of his contention that light bends around objects of sufficient mass. Many scientists spend a great deal of time tinkering with and developing machinery to use for experimental purposes. The demarcation between pure and applied is not a clear or absolute one. THAT was my point.
You might be surprised at the scientific knowledge held by some literary types (English majors, you call them) and other folks in the humanities. Let me remind you of Goethe, who made contributions to theatre and poetry and the novel AND botany and optics. My thesis advisor, whose undergraduate degree was in physics, but whose academic specialty was American Romantic Literature, springs to mind, as does one of my mentors, E. D. Hirsch, Jr., who took a scientific approach to questions about education. And please don’t give me that crap about none of the social sciences being sciences. There are varieties of scientific approaches to various kinds of problems. There is even, today, an emergent field of experimental philosophy, championed by folks like Eric Schwitzgebel.
And you underestimate the importance of Kuhn. When people talk of this matter, now–of fashions in scientific thinking–it’s Kuhn’s language that they use. They speak, for example, in terms of “normal science,” of “anomalies,” and of “paradigm shifts.” So, he has had a profound effect on intellectual discourse, generally. To give a similar example: There are very few Freudians these days, but terms and concepts that Freud introduced or promoted, are part of the intellectual air that people breath: repressed motivations, id, superego, transference, Oedipus complex, libido, death wish–one could go on and on. It’s a long list. There are various ways to measure someone’s influence or importance, but surely this–the creation of standard categories of thought widely adopted–is one of them. So, Kuhn is not someone who is not obscure and forgotten. I am surprised that you should imagine this to be so. His name pops up everywhere in serious nonfiction today.
I would venture, as well, Daedalus, that disdaining getting one’s hands dirty–the way of the engineer–is utterly unscientific. That sort of Aristotelianism is the very thing that the scientific Enlightenment was a reaction against. There are self-appointed keepers of science, these days, who pooh-pooh philosophy. These benighted fools don’t understand that there are varieties of questions to which differing approaches are applicable. These folks are boors. Which is ironic, given their lordliness.
The unconscious mind. Wish fulfillment. That’s another. There are few Freudians left, but everyone’s now a Freudian. LOL. Kuhn has had that KIND of influence. Most public intellectuals know him and refer to him by name. And even those among the masses who have never heard of him nonetheless typically, if they are at all educated, use the term “paradigm shift.” Once a concept falls to the level that it is commonly found in pop business books, you know that it has become a meme (in Dawkins’s sense–part of the intellectual currency of an era).
That would be “The Notorious B.O.B.”
Whatever Trump does is for money.
In case you weren’t paying attention, Putin’s government put enormous resources of time and intelligence resources into getting Trump elected, including a massive pro-Trump, anti-Hillary disinformation campaign on social media, run by one of the Russian intelligence services, the GRU.
And having an asset of a foreign power have access to national secrets and having that asset have these at his private golf and beach resort, well, that’s extremely dangerous. These documents are classified Top Secret and SCI BECAUSE they contain information that, if leaked to a foreign power, could to extreme and irreparable damage to the United States. And doing that is espionage and treason.
Trump has told a string of lies about the search of Mar-a-lago, and he has been outed about them, one after another, and yet the toadies in the Repugnican Party keep defending him.
He took to his freaking golf club/beach house the most secret information belonging to the United States Government, information so secret that even CIA officers have to get special permission to view it and then only in an ultra-secure facility. And yet these sycophants, these brown-nosers, utterly lacking in principle, continue to back him.
It’s disgusting. What the ___ has happened to this party? Yes, I understand that Russian intelligence probably has dirt on some of the leaders and that that’s why they are so slavishly behind Vlad’s Agent Orange, but they are almost all OK with the criminal Don the Con having committed treason.
Some party of law and order and patriotism.
And a great thank you to Attorney General Garland, Chistopher Wray, and the officials of the FBI involved in this search for doing their duty on this. Well done, folks. History will remember that you rose to the occasion in defense of your country.
How do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways from just the last few days.
Trump suggested that the FBI might have “planted” documents when he knew that he and his family members had watched the search live on Mar-a-lago’s closed-circuit television system. So, a lie.
Trump said that the FBI had raided his “beautiful home” after his having cooperated fully. But he hadn’t cooperated fully. He had retained, illegally, despite repeated requests that he turn them over, documents with the highest level of security classification. And he knew this. So, multiple lies.
Trump and his son Eric have claimed that the raid was political motivated and have suggested that this was Biden’s doing. A lie. Trump doesn’t seem to get that the DOJ is not the president’s private police force, as much as Trump tried to turn it into one during his tenure.
Trump claimed that he had a “standing order” that any documents that he took from the Oval Office were automatically declassified. He knows that there is no such thing as a standing order declassification policy. Especially not for top secret and SCI documents, which are so classified because revelation of them poses a grave threat to national security. Another lie.
Trump claimed that all presidents do this. A lie.
Trump claimed that Obama did this with large numbers of documents. No, Obama followed official procedure and protocols for transfer of documents from his administration from the National Archives to the Obama Presidential Library. A lie.
Trump called on the DOJ to release, immediately, the warrant and property list for this search, knowing all the while that he had copies of these and could release them. So, another lie, on which Garland called his bluff.
I’m sure that this is not an exhaustive list. Trump lies so routinely that it’s difficult to keep up with them all. He also lies blatantly because his moronic base will believe anything, and because his toadying supporters among elected Republicans, who long since gave over any principles they might have once had, will cravenly back him no matter how blatant the lies are.
cx: politically motivated
As I said elsewhere, Trump picked Obama in order to call together his racist Nazis. Pretty smart dog-whistle.
Yep. Throwing spaghetti on the wall to see what sticks.
exactly
Much has been made, of late, of the rift between Trump and Fox News. However, I just did a quick review of the Fox News website’s coverage of the Mar-a-Lago search. The coverage is overwhelmingly negative. It repeats Trump’s lies about the search, including the lie about all the records that were seized being unclassified. It insinuates and sometimes outright says that the search was politically motivated. It does not cover the fact that NO ONE can simply transport top secret/SCI documents anywhere he or she likes. It does not cover the fact that Trump legally was required to turn over all presidential records, including the seized documents, to the National Archives and was holding these documents despite repeated requests to turn over any such documents that he had.
So, the half the country that gets its news from Fox is getting a steady stream of divisive lies about this. Fox simply doesn’t care. It sees a ratings opportunity, and that’s all that matters to it. It’s the journalistic equivalent of those supermarket tabloids that run headlines that read “Unborn Baby Sings like Elvis” and “Did Madonna Marry an Extraterrestrial?”
This is extraordinarily serious. We are freaking close to Civil War in this country because half the country gets its news from a source that lies about really important matters all the time.
I would agree, except for the fact of the Trump base. At least 20% of the population will loathe Fox and go to ____ news if Fox does not make that group feel comfortable with the news. The news, to this group, must conform rigidly to their individual levels of comfort with it. Fox knows this. Since news is private enterprise, it is like a vending machine. We punch the buttons we want.
I’m still here, Ravitch!They may take down Trump with this bogus classified paper BS and make it impossible for him to run again, but……DeSantis is waiting in the wings. DeSantis is smarter, more measured, and he will wear down the lib/dems over the course of 4 or 8 years. BE CAREFUL OF WHAT YOU WISH FOR.
King Donald the Wurst | by the Notorious B.O.B. Shepherd
Dumb Donald Trump
sat on his rump,
eating cheeseburgers all day.
He called for his Miller
and brownshirted killers
and hypocrite fundies to pray.
He called for his Barr
to make him a czar
and all rule of law to allay.
And to meet his requirement
that it trash the environment,
he neutered the EPA.
“To switch out democracy
for rank kakistocrasy,
I had but to bellow and bray.
I’ve drawn to my Trump
many millions of chumps
and given sweet Vlad complete sway.”
“I’ll call it a day,” the con man did say,
“I’m still president anyway.”
Then he farted and stood
and called it all good,
and went to a golf course to play.
How, exactly, is mishandling top secret, SCI materials “bogus”? Traitorous, criminal, yes? Bogus, hardly. You are self-parodying, Mikey.
How much is a million? 1 million stacked papers would be 103 meters high. 33 million papers would be 3,399 meters high. An object 3.399 kilometers (2.11 MILES) tall!
Haaa! The documents of the entire executive branch of the federal government over an 8-year-period would be numerous.
I would estimate that the typical English teacher produces 3 to 15 meters a year. You can’t even copy that much stuff. No wonder they quit after a couple of years.
yup
Document pile height.
A new gauge for teaching?
I bet the economists would love the idea.
They could call it Document Added Model (DAM)
And I wouldn’t even have to change my blogging handle.
Economists already use a similar thing go gauge members of their own field. Published papers height (or is it weight?)
Lotsa height, not much weight.
Lotsa height, not much weight. LOL. Yes.
They shouldn’t have much weight, but unfortunately, all too often they do.
Trump is just jealous that Obama was able to get 33 million documents for his library (legally) , while he was only able to get away (illegally) with 20 boxes (probably about 100k) of documents.
So Obama got about 330 times as many documents as Trump did (and got them all legally).
With Trump, there is always an element of jealousy: someone else has more money, more houses, more documents, more media exposure, more, people at his rallies and inaugurations.. I bet he would even be jealous if someone had more lawsuits against them than he does (if that were actually possible)
Suggested contents of Trump Presidential Library
Trump’s old Adderall boxes
Trump’s binky
Screenshots of 33 gazillion misspelled tweets
Shreds of the Constitution left after his presidency
Love letters to Kim Jong-un
Love letters to Vlad
List of Trump lies from New York Times fact checker (this will have to be a large facility)
Photo of Trump posing with one of those actually invisible stealth airplanes
Melania’s “I don’t care” jacket
Copies of the official reports prepared for the president on huge cards with pictures and just a few words on each, like a toddler’s picture book
Screens running continuous loop of Fox News during the Trump presidency
I believe you misspelled Trump Liebrary
The Trump Lie-brary. LMAO!!! Perfect.
The Trump Precedential Liebrary
I think it would be important to include his hurricane Dorian report, complete with the sharpue marker.s o that any kids who visit know how to do a real weather report.
Also, lots of empty bleach and Lysol containers to signify all the people who were saved by consuming household cleaners.
Haaa! The hurricane map, ofc!!!
Not consuming, injecting. He called for doctors to try injecting people with these.
No wonder why it didn’t work for me.
I thought he said to drink it.
Haaa!
But regardless, the empty containers would still signify the lives saved.
We shouldn’t get hung up on implementation details.
And the thing that Trump was most jealous of is that someone got more votes then he did.
Two someones, actually.
i also agree with everyone else here
Correct “doesn’t mean” to “don’t mean.” Fixed it!
Thanks for your wise posts, Ms. Watter!
Retired English teacher! Subject and verb must agree! Thanks, Bob.
Me, too, Cindy. It drives me nuts when I leave typos in a post (which I do all the time).
Lie
What do you have to say now? The National Archives lost a few Classified Documents during the Obama/Biden years. I wonder how many. My guess we will never know. Disgusting unequal government we currently live in. Chicago style corruption has taken over DC
There is a big difference, Nancy.
Trump fought to keep the documents.
First he said they were planted by the FBI.
Then he said they were his personal property.
Then he demanded a special master.
He refused and litigated.
He had over 100 highly classified docs.
Biden’s lawyers found 10 pages of docs and turned them over at once to the National Archives.
Biden and his Press secretary just said last week that all was found. Untrue, they were still looking and more were found. The FBI needs to be involved. Also, Biden was very sloppy with where he has been keeping them. Your are the definition of someone with “confirmation bias”
Biden did not resist or oppose turning over the documents, as Trump did. He didn’t hire lawyers to fight the transfer of the small number of documents. Trump refused to release classified documents for over a year. He went to court to fight for them. Biden turned them over at once.
Surely you don’t think the President or Vice-President does their own housekeeping.
Surely you thought they did when you were blaming Trump. I recommend you wait a bit. There’s more egg on your face to come. Amazing you accept Classified Documents in a garage…sure, not Joe’s fault. Get curious…it is your job.
Nancy, your hostility towards Jor Biden indicates that you are a faithful devotee of the worst president in US history. Do you ever read anything that honestly portrays his lifetime of bankruptcies, lying, philandering, cheating people he hired, and worshipping Greed? You are a textbook case of confirmation bias. Biden said all the docs had been found because he believed it to be true. Do you think he went to the garage and rummaged around to hide them? I bet you do.