Trump, Sessions, Timing — and Climax of Epic Film, THE LUBYANKAN CANDIDATE!!!

LUBYANKAN CANDIDATE

Production Notes

FROM: Natasha F., Executive Producer

TO: Boris, nobody in particular (and associate producer)

DATE; 7 November 2018

Subject: Re-re-rewrite: Climax

Boris —

Get semiliterate hacks you call writers chained to desks again. Fearless Leader and fearful oligarch money-people want turning-point/climax with great instinctive move by insomniac Trump-puppet pushing story into Tent-Pole-epic heights, but maybe with tragic fall for end, if FL in that kind mood.

Is day after 2018 Mid-Term Election, and political apparatchiki of Deep State hung over and thinkingThanksgiving and Christmas when thinking at all: visions of sugar-plums, lobbying jobs, and maybe getting night’s sleep. And BANK-BANG!! Trump-puppet (not so puppety here) snaps off TV, fires Jeff Sessions, and appoints consigliere new Attorney General.

Do in S.-M.-Eisenstein heroic montage, cutting back-forth, and quick shot Sessions as snake slithering off — plus appropriate music: snatches “God Save the Czar.” (Americans play for 4^thJuly “1812 Overture” and not get irony, so this work.) Also on sound-track, bits pieces great Karl Rove on fake-news and other Enemies of People “’in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' [...] 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' […]. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality […] —we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, […]. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

Maybe Trump-puppet get away with it; maybe not. Win-win-win-win for Fearless Leader and Motherland. Also big profit on movie.

So: get writers writing. A little enhanced motivation okay, but no knout … yet.

N.F

Donald Trump vs. the NFL et al.: Free Speech, Patriotism ... Blacklists and Firing Blacks

Coming to very different conclusions, a couple of my friends going back to high school have argued or allowed on athletes' "taking a knee" that "it is within the rights of the owners to fire them." Under the "employment-at-will doctrine," this is indeed the case, though there are competing theories on job security.

Firing for political reasons, however,  is also in the tradition of the 1940s and 1950s Blacklists 
and the attenuated loyalty-oath requirements which lasted for teachers in the two states I worked in until, at least, 1971.

Additionally, given the racial implications, Americans should overcome our historical amnesia enough to recall the brag of the National States Rights Party during the time of the civil rights movements that they have "been preaching a 'Fire Your Nigger' campaign at our meetings to force more of them to leave the South" (my on-line source cites here The Kansas City Star for 7/21/63; I can remember a later call by White racists — White Citizens Councils? — for a "Fire Your Nigger Day").

There's history here, and some pretty nasty parallels, oNr parallels once we pass the possibly unique instance of a US president taking time away from fire, storm, and flooding national disasters and picking two fights involving nuclear weapons — to defend patriotic gestures and question quiet protest.

Editing Note on "Bad News Letter": Firing James Comey

External Memorandum

FROM: Richard D. Erlich, Pedant in English Emeritus

TO: Hon. D. J. Trump et al., White House

SUBJECT: Note on "Bad News Letter": Firing James Comey

IMMEDIATE ATTENTION!

At least one sentence needs to be rewritten before the letter gets any publicity. "While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau."

This is President Trump's sentence, yes? In any case, I suggest replacing it with «The nation and I appreciate greatly your service; still, I concur with the judgment of the leadership of the Department of Justice that you are no longer able to lead the Bureau effectively.»

        * The Russia investigation has nothing to do with firing Mr. Comey (right?), so don't bring it up.

        * It's too personal and/or informal for the context to say, "I greatly appreciate you informing me"; the key thing would be the action, not the person, so that would be "I greatly appreciate" — or "I appreciate greatly" — "your informing me" (possessive with gerund: an "ing"-form acting as a kind of noun).

        * Whether the entire DoJ agrees with the move is something that can and will be argued and can't be determined, the DoJ being pretty abstract. You have documentation on the view of its two main leaders.

        * There's nothing ungrammatical about splitting an infinitive, but you needn't do so here, and reuniting "to lead" makes for easier reading and allows the sentence to climax with the important word "effectively."

        * Saying "not able" to lead effectively could imply he is not and never was, a bit of a rebuke not only to Mr. Obama — which works for you — but to the U.S. Senate who confirmed him; "no longer" avoids that potential problem.

This letter will be examined closely, and the current wording of this sentence is non-professional and rather blatantly neither written nor seriously reviewed by professionals. Your base audience won't care, but you have them anyway; potentially significant demographics among your opponents will at least sense the casual contempt and resent it: presumably the office of the President, to say nothing of the President's personal wealth, would cover editing. (As I like to say, "Everybody needs an ediotor.")

Of course, if the point is to piss off opponents, go for it.

Trump, Comey, and a Point of Grammar, a Point of Style

While I greatly appreciate you informing me, 

on three separate occasions, 

that I am not under investigation, 

I nevertheless concur with the judgment 

of the Department of Justice  that 

you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau.   * * *

 I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors, 

— Donald J. Trump [to James Comey, 9 May 2017]  

Note the introductory clause to a key sentence in Donald Trump's brief letter firing Mr. Comey: “While I greatly appreciate you informing me [...] that I am not under investigation, [...]." On that clause: 

          (1) It's unnecessary. 
          (2) It's unsupported. 
          (3) It's part of a "shit-sandwich" structure of the traditional Bad News Communication, with a compliment near the beginning and an upbeat end to the letter: here reduced to "best of luck" at the very end. 
          (4) It's ungrammatical, or at least questionable for a formal document: the "you" should be "your," the possessive, giving "your informing me." Mr. Trump doesn't so much appreciate Mr. Comey as he does Mr. Comey's action in informing him that he, Donald Trump, isn't "under investigation" — if that happened, which is a question of fact, not language usage.  

           (To elaborate: The issue, in old-fashioned terms, is whether to use the possessive case ["genitive'] with an "ing-form" acting as a noun [a gerund], or the object case ["accusative"]. The venerable William Strunk and blessed E. B. White apparently suggested this test: "Do you mind me asking you a question?" or "Do you mind my asking you a question?" In the first possibility, the question would be if you'd be mildly bothered with me, in the second, it would be my action. In the Trump-letter case, it'd be «I appreciate you, because you informed me [...] that I am not under investigation» OR, what I think is the intention, «I appreciate your {act of} informing me [...], that I am not under investigation.» In informal usage, it would be perfectly correct to say, «Hey, Jimmy: I really like you letting me know the Feds aren't» — or "ain't" — «on my case.»)

Note also the final clause,  "[...] you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau." 
          Now, it's perfectly grammatical and generally okay to (unobtrusively) split an infinitive, but there's no particular reason to do so here; and keeping the infinitive together yields, "you are not able to lead the Bureau effectively." Usually, nouns outrank modifiers, but it would help drive home the point to climax the sentence with "effectively."

So let me bet a $100 monetary contribution to the ACLU that this sentence is a Trump Family writing contribution: Mr. Trump or his kinfolk or small circle of political operatives produced that one, with only minimal vetting — as in proofreading — by professionals (e.g., a word person other than Sean Spicer).