Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

This blog will pay for itself.

This fight is for everything.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

No one could have predicted…

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Republicans in disarray!

This really is a full service blog.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

We still have time to mess this up!

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

You are here: Home / Politics / Impeachment / Impeachment Trial – January 30, 2020

Reader Interactions

237Comments

  1. 1.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Rand Paul is such a fucking tool. I almost never say this, but good for John Roberts for steadfastly refusing to name the whistleblower!

  2. 2.

    Yutsano

    Wait…if this is going to be done by tomorrow apparently all the shafting of the witnesses will occur then. That doesn’t seem to be a lot of time after the question period.

  3. 3.

    dnfree

    @SiubhanDuinne: okay, that’s one point for Roberts.

    Rand used to send me letters from some gun group to the right of the NRA, with lies that the UN was going to come and take our guns. So I’ve known that about him for years.

  5. 5.

    Adam L Silverman

    @dnfree: National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR). He and Massie buy NAGR’s email lists and several times a year send out joint emails with NAGR. From what I can tell all NAGR does is raise money and pay their small amount of staff, they don’t seem to do anything else.

  6. 6.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Phil Mattingly @ Phil_Mattingly
    Paul says he debated whether to move to overrule the chair re: his question, but decided against it so as not to delay the proceedings given how many votes will likely occur Fri

    Igor Bobic @ igorbobic
    Moments after getting shut down by John Roberts, Rand Paul stormed out of the chamber and held a press conference where he twice said the name of the alleged whistleblower

  7. 7.

    MomSense

    I can’t believe Schiff and the other House Managers are able to keep their cool in the midst of all this nonsense.

  8. 8.

    Kay

    Evan McMullin
    @EvanMcMullin
    · 3h
    Republican leaders in Congress believe—and privately say—that they fear the country is quickly changing in ways that may soon deprive them of power, and that they must use the power they have now to delay it as long as possible, even by harming the Republic if necessary.

    Now we know where mediocre hack Dershowitz lifted it from.

    They’re fundamentally anti-democratic. How is one supposed to compromise with this? They think they’re entitled to rule.

  9. 9.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Adam L Silverman: Just saw them! So sorry, I must have simply scrolled past them in the morass of Dem candidates wanting money from me. Deepest apologies!

    Will reply in an hour or so — about to head out on a round of quick errands but should be back by around 3:00pm ET.

    And yes, I’m alive and well. What I want to know is, has anyone seen Elizabelle showing signs of life recently?

  10. 10.

    Kay

    that they fear the country is quickly changing in ways that may soon deprive them of power,

    I love how passively that is phrased. “Changing”. My ass. It’s not the tides or the phases of the moon.

    What they’re mad about is not that the “country is changing” – they’re worried they’ll be affirmatively rejected by a majority of citizens. That’s what they’re frantically “delaying”. They hope to actually OBSTRUCT losing their jobs.

  11. 11.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kay:

    Republican leaders in Congress believe—and privately say—that they fear the country is quickly changing in ways that may soon deprive them of power

    take the next step, Evan. Who is “they”? Who do “they” think is taking their power? and how?

  15. 15.

    Immanentize

    @Kay: I was just thinking this morning, Mormon’s have a specific brand.  They work at it — even in their dress when going door to door proselytizing.  Their brand is one of steadfast morality.  Unshakable faith, yes, but a certain type of unflappable morality toward others.  McMullin always works toward that theme.

    But three of the four Mormon Senators (Crapo, Lee and Romney) have really crappoed all over that carefully crafted brand. Only Udall can say he upheld the patriotic Mormon ideal.

  16. 16.

    jeffreyw

    https://t.co/qdBbmMc9Dq— Jennifer Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) January 30, 202

    Dear John Bolton:…

    …You can now relish in the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to display true courage and patriotism, to go down in history with others who interposed themselves between wanna-be dictators and absolute power. But first, you have to do the right thing.

  17. 17.

    Adam L Silverman

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I must have simply scrolled past them in the morass of Dem candidates wanting money from me.

    You are more than welcome to send me a donation on behalf of those candidates if you like!//

  19. 19.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @WaterGirl: Oh, thanks! I missed that news. I had sent her a PM and hadn’t heard back, which is unlike her. Glad she’s off having fun.

    They seek her here, they seek her there,
    Those jackals seek her everywhere!
    Is she in Heaven? Is she in Hell?
    That demn’d elusive ‘Lizabelle!

  21. 21.

    mrmoshpotato

    @MomSense:

    I can’t believe Schiff and the other House Managers are able to keep their cool in the midst of all this nonsense. 

    Thank you all for putting yourselves through this shit show, and remember it’s ok to pause for a good scream into a pillow.

  22. 22.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Immanentize: one of the surprises of the trump era to me was how fast and hard Orrin Hatch dove in. Granted, over the course of the young century Hatch devolved into a mere shell of the overrated partisan hack he was at the end of the last one, but it was still a surprise.

  24. 24.

    Kay

    Madeline Peltz
    @peltzmadeline
    ·3h
    Alan Dershowitz has repeatedly cited Harvard professor Nikolas Bowie’s scholarship to support his argument that abuse of power is not a crime.
    Well, Bowie is on CNN right now calling Dershowitz’s interpretation “a joke”

    HUGE points in my book for calling it a joke. It’s time to speak plainly about Mr. Dershowitz. Past time.

  25. 25.

    Gravenstone

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Is it wrong of me to express the desire that the whistleblower replicate the curb stomping Paul got from his disgruntled neighbor? Granted, I’d not wish the resulting assault charges on that individual, but Paul surely needs his daily dose of corporal comeuppance.

  30. 30.

    Kay

    @mrmoshpotato:

    It’s funny though, in a sad way. “You WILL love us, like it or not!”

    That’s the sense I always get with the Trumps. They’re fucking horrible but also needy and demanding.

    They’re horrible so they’ll never be loved, yet they also demand we all love them. I can’t be involved in this contradiction, this sick cycle they’re in. I want out.

  31. 31.

    Jager

    @Immanentize:

    I used to work with a guy originally from Idaho. He told me the best regular sex he had in college was with a Mormon coed whose fiance was on his mission.

  32. 32.

    Immanentize

    @Kay: Tribe on the radio here in Boston called Dersh’s argument, “stupid.”. The big guns of academia are pulling no punches.

  34. 34.

    brantl

    I know this is petty of me, but I think this Philbin character was one of those little schoolyard narcs that got his ass kicked daily for being such a WATB, how many people vote with me?

  35. 35.

    Captain C

    @Gravenstone: If that happened and I was on the jury for the whistleblower’s notional assault trial, I would be very, very receptive to a self-defense defense.

    Also, how Schiff and the rest of the Democrats have so far restrained themselves from strangling both the Trump defense team and Moscow Mitch is something I don’t understand.

  37. 37.

    the Conster

    Who actually thinks we’re going to have an election when he’s acquitted?  Who doesn’t think he’ll try and arrest Hillary and Obama, and probably accuse Pelosi of treason?

    I predicted all of this would happen during the IMPEACHNOW screaming.

  38. 38.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kay:

    HUGE points in my book for calling it a joke. It’s time to speak plainly about Mr. Dershowitz. Past time.

    Hear, hear. People on MSNBC are taking him far too seriously. Why engage? “He’s a bitter, clownish old has-been desperate for celebrity.”

  39. 39.

    JanieM

    @MomSense:

    I can’t believe Schiff and the other House Managers are able to keep their cool in the midst of all this nonsense.

    Someone I know was once thinking of running for governor, and another friend, a longtime legislator, told him he couldn’t do that. The aspiring politician said “Why not?” The legislator said, “Because you don’t suffer fools gladly.”

    Edited to fix a typo.

  42. 42.

    dexwood

    Dershbag deserves all the ridicule and mockery he’s earned. I’m hoping many others will join in.

  45. 45.

    Zinsky

    I’m so glad that the Republicans brought up the issue of the unethical dealings of children of famous politicians.  That is why it is essential that the Democrats insist Ivanka and Don Trump Jr. must be required to testify at their old man’s impeachment trial.  They almost certainly know more about their fathers misdeeds than Hunter Biden.  Given the fact they have been meeting with shady Middle Eastern businessmen and questionable Asian connections since their Dad lost the 2016 election but was installed anyway by the Electoral College, they should be subject to “enhanced interrogation techniques”, such as waterboarding.  Since it is clearly in the “national interest” that Allan Dershowitz was babbling about yesterday, we must find the national courage to torture Trump’s children to get to the truth!

  46. 46.

    MJS

    @the Conster: I believe we’ll have an election. I also believe he won’t arrest Hillary and Obama. I’m also willing to wager large amounts of money on both of those things. Things are really bad. We don’t need to make things up to make them worse.

    Put another way – he’s been in power 3 years. Who’s in jail currently, or going to jail, or convicted. Answer – not Dems.

  47. 47.

    Bill Arnold

    @Kay:

    HUGE points in my book for calling it a joke. It’s time to speak plainly about Mr. Dershowitz. Past time.

    I haven’t had the willpower to look; how are the RW fever swamp creatures treating Dershowitz’s demented clownfuckery? (That’s to anybody.)

  52. 52.

    zhena gogolia

    @Zinsky:

    One of the Dem Senators opened the door to this last night with a question to the House managers. Unfortunately, our team decided to “go high” — “This isn’t about anybody’s children.”

  53. 53.

    Adam L Silverman

    @the Conster: The concern has to be exactly how quickly he and those closest to him who are able to enact their own agendas through him (Miller, Barr, Pompeo, etc) accelerate things as soon as the acquittal happens. What the Senate will have done, should the do what we’re all expecting and in the manner in which we’re expecting them to do so, is right the US Congress and, for the most part, the Federal courts out of the Constitution. The Congress will be ignored completely except for McConnell pushing through judicial appointments. The Federal courts will be ignored except when the administration needs something.

  56. 56.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    He’s a bitter, clownish old has-been desperate for celebrity.

    Who has access to the President and is listened to by the President. He also has access to and is a regular on the President’s preferred pet news and propaganda outlets. He can do significant damage as a normalizing force for this anti-Constitutional garbage.

  64. 64.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Kay:

    That’s the sense I always get with the Trumps. They’re fucking horrible but also needy and demanding. 

    They’re all spoiled fucking children.  The entire Russthuglican party operates on “we deserve everything by virtue of the greatness of our existence.”

  66. 66.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Captain C:

    Also, how Schiff and the rest of the Democrats have so far restrained themselves from strangling both the Trump defense team and Moscow Mitch is something I don’t understand. 

    Did someone say Nobel Peace Prize?

  67. 67.

    Zinsky

    @zhena gogolia:  I was kidding, of course.  Unfortunately, Democrats sense of fair play and instinctual aversion to attacking an opponent’s family are liabilities in the current political environment.   I really don’t understand why the Democrats haven’t made a bigger deal of the Trump families shady dealings and obvious abuse of their father’s position for personal gain!  Not to mention the use of private e-mail and texts for government business, which they skewered Hillary Clinton for!

  68. 68.

    the Conster

    @Adam L Silverman:

    it means Barr is the fixer/mob enforcer for whatever hit Trump wants to make.  I don’t know how we get out of this trap.  We’re just another Russian satellite now, being run by Mogilevich and his global cartel of murderous thugs.

    The only question left to wonder about is when the mandatory Russian language classes start.

     

    ETA:  I’ve never wanted to be more wrong about something in my life.

  69. 69.

    Mnemosyne

    @Kay:

    That’s the sense I always get with the Trumps. They’re fucking horrible but also needy and demanding.

    Not to leap up on my hobbyhorse again, but … yeah, that’s the narcissism at work. Everyone around the narcissist must demonstrate not just loyalty, but adoration of the narcissist. In their deepest core, they realize that they’re terrible people, so they have to shore that up by demanding that people worship them.

    It doesn’t work, of course, because they know deep down that it isn’t real, so they demand more and more demonstrations that are never satisfying because they can never fix the core issue.

  70. 70.

    Kay

    @Immanentize:

    even in their dress when going door to door proselytizing.  Their brand is one of steadfast morality.

    That’s true of them here, too. Then I read Under the Banner of Heaven and… them smashing the printing presses was concerning. Troubling , even :)

  73. 73.

    Kay

    @Mnemosyne:

    Thanks. That whole angle interests me. The more they demand the more you loathe them and resist and you know you’re in it but it just goes ’round and ’round.

    “No. I don’t like you AT ALL” That’s what you have to say. Clean break.

  74. 74.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @the Conster: IANAL but my hunch is that Barr will use the DOJ to harass people, like he’s already doing with Brennan and Comey. I don’t think they’ll come at Obama other than rhetorically. There is that lizard-brained survival instinct.

  76. 76.

    the Conster

    @zhena gogolia:

    It’s one of the first thing conquerors do – force the populace to adopt their language.  It will begin in the public schools as rubles start flooding the system.  Just watch.

  77. 77.

    Adam L Silverman

    @the Conster:

    The only question left to wonder about is when the mandatory Russian language classes start.

    Americans are afraid of the metric system, they’re never going to be able to handle the Cyrillic alphabet.

  81. 81.

    JanieM

    Funny about the language issue. When I spent five weeks in China a few years ago, a number of people insisted that any day now Chinese was going to replace English as the world’s lingua franca, not only because of the self-evident fact that China was so superior to all other countries and cultures, but because Chinese was so easy to learn.

  82. 82.

    the Conster

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Yes, and I will use this opportunity to remind everyone that Jane Sanders’ nemesis in Vermont – Brady Toensing – was hired by Barr’s DOJ this summer.  If you don’t think that Jeff Weaver announcing Jane’s bank fraud FBI investigation was *closed* the week of the blue wave, unconfirmed by anyone in the US Atty or the FBI is unrelated to Toensing being hired, I have a bridge to sell you.  I’ve always believed that Sanders running the same Kremlin playbook this time to ratfuck the Dems is the quid pro quo for letting Jane off the hook *for now*.  I would do this if I were as crooked as Barr, which is why I’m sure they’re doing everything they can to make Sanders the nominee.

  86. 86.

    the Conster

    @Jamie:

    If things don’t happen that I believe will, I feel much better about things.  There is no bottom to the Trump sewer.

  87. 87.

    mrmoshpotato

    @JanieM: From mylanguages.org

    “There is no Chinese alphabet in the sense we understand it in the West. Chinese characters are not letters (with some exceptions), Chinese characters represent an idea, a concept or an object.”

    A language whose fundamentals are radically different from Western languages.  Easy as pie.

  88. 88.

    Adam L Silverman

    I see and hear we’ve reached the campaign reelection advertisement portion of the Senate Q&A.

  90. 90.

    azelie

    It’s the ultimate “ask Mom, ask Dad” – Trump’s lawyers are arguing today that courts can’t intervene in enforcing subpoenas because the remedy for the president ignoring congressional subpoenas is impeachment, while his lawyers are arguing that the House should have gone to the courts to enforce subpoenas. And Collins, Murkowski and Gardner won’t care.

    https://www.rawstory.com/2020/01/senate-stunned-as-schiff-reveals-doj-just-argued-in-court-that-defying-subpoenas-is-an-impeachable-offense/

  91. 91.

    Leto

    Whoever the last asshole Republican “lawyer”  that was just up: FUCK. YOU. Give him the ole Luke Skywalker: we’ll never join you! Fucking lies, lies, lies. These assholes.

  94. 94.

    JanieM

    @mrmoshpotato: Not to mention tonal vs not tonal. But no no no, I was told over and over again, that’s all silly. See, there are only like eight (?) basic characters, whereas English has twenty-six letters, QED.

  96. 96.

    germy

    Kyle Griffin

    @kylegriffin1 13m

    Politico on the new video released by the attorney for Lev Parnas: “The video shows RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel greeting Fruman with a hug and saying, ‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ before asking whether he’s ever been to Trump’s Florida estate Mar-a-Lago.”

  99. 99.

    smintheus

    I gather that Sen. Reed asked Trump’s lawyers to explain who was paying Giuliani’s fees and expenses when he was screwing around in Ukraine, and Jay Sekulow <s>responded</s> just changed the subject without answering. Those old catch phrases from the Nixon impeachment are relevant as always. “Follow the money.” Also: “What did the president not know, and when did he start not knowing it?”

  102. 102.

    mrmoshpotato

    @JanieM: Also, as with any language, “this language is easier than your native language” is a weird argument.  I already know my native language!

  104. 104.

    catclub

    @azelie: It’s the ultimate “ask Mom, ask Dad”

     

    well, not quite, the kid usually figures out to tell parent B that the other has agreed already and do they object. But parent A  had not yet agreed. However, now, being told it was ok for parent B, parent A agrees when they come back saying the other parent agreed.

     

    This is more Catch-22 style.  and as it says, that’s some catch. During the House investigation refuse subpeonas because they are only allowed by the Senate trial.  Now at the Senate trial say that the subpoenas should have been argued in the courts during the investigation and now is too late.

  110. 110.

    the Conster

    Sanders wakes up long enough to ask a stupid question of *checks notes*…  Adam Schiff.

  111. 111.

    hilts

    The Washington Post’s motto is Democracy Dies in Darkness.  If the stories I’ve read from multiple sources today are accurate, the Senate will shortly disprove this motto.

    When Moscow Mitch and his Rethuglican colleagues vote tomorrow to reject witness testimony, Democracy will not die in darkness.  It will die in full public view and in living color on television.

  114. 114.

    zhena gogolia

    @Baud:

    I missed it because I can’t watch continuously.

    But yesterday the best questions were from Harris and Warren.

  116. 116.

    Steeplejack

    @mrmoshpotato:

    And it’s a tonal language. We will have no problems at all with that!

    In order to differentiate meaning, the same syllable can be pronounced with different tones. Mandarin’s tones give it a very distinctive quality, but the tones can also be a source of miscommunication if not given due attention.

  117. 117.

    Mnemosyne

    @JanieM:

    Isn’t the tonal vs non-tonal issue one of the reasons why people from Chinese-speaking countries often choose an English nickname for when they talk to English speakers? IIRC, our lame attempts at correctly pronouncing their tonal names are so ear-grating that they adopt English names to make it stop.

  120. 120.

    the Conster

    @Baud:

    Maybe I’m hearing it from yesterday, since I’ve been busy at work – asking about Trump’s 16000 lies and why should we believe him?  Is that old news?

  122. 122.

    Ninedragonspot

    @Martin: Mandarin has no declensions, no cases, no tenses, no grammatical gender.  Positioning of a long series of adjectives before a noun seldom comes up, and violations of convention just aren’t that serious.

  127. 127.

    sdhays

    @Steeplejack: Yeah, the favorite example is that the word for mom is the same as the word for horse, just with a different tone. It creates a lot of opportunities for interesting puns.

  128. 128.

    germy

    “Arabian is the easiest language in the world to learn, next to Choctaw,” says the Princess Ludovica von Preepos und Schnurbart, whose novel, Tight Grows the Eel-Grass, is already being considered for rejection by the Aesophagus Press. “All you have to do is remember that all verbs meaning ‘to inhale’ take the dative.”

    – Robert Benchley

  130. 130.

    germy

    In spelling, I need every aid to memory that man can devise and even then I can whip up a few novelties by myself. I am more the inspirational type of speller. I work on hunches rather than mere facts, and the result is sometimes open to criticism by purists.

    So it really is a matter for serious pause on my part when I remember “i before e, except after ——” and am then confronted with c, d, e, g, p, t and v as possible rhymes. Also, I am not even sure whether it is “i before e” or “i after e.” This practically vitiates the rule as a guide to spelling, whatever virtues it may have as a jingle.

    In the study of foreign languages, I am equipped with several rhythmic grammatical rules which mean nothing, because I have forgotten the pay-off. In German, I can swing along on aus, ausser, bei, mit, nach, seit, von and xu, and I know that these words all are followed by the same case. But is it dative or accusative? That’s what I can’t remember!

    In Latin (which, fortunately, I am not called upon to use in my work-a-day routine) I can recite ad, ante, con, in, post, prae, pro, sub and super, but, if you ask me whether it is the accusative, ablative, gerundive or putative case that follows them, I blush prettily and say, “See my lawyer!” You can’t expect a man to remember everything!

    – Robert Benchley

  131. 131.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Baud: Might want to start studying for your Voight-Kampff test so you don’t have to cram at the last minute.

  132. 132.

    Adam L Silverman

    @germy: Arabic is a royal pain in the ass to learn. It is partially tonal, has 11 different rules for verbs, drops the diacriticals used to distinguish between certain vowels and certain consonants in standard usage. What we think of as punctuation is traditionally viewed as decorative ornamentation in formally printed Arabic. And those are just some of the things that make it so hard to learn.

  133. 133.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Steeplejack:

    but the tones can also be a source of miscommunication if not given due attention. 

    Sorry, what was that?  I wasn’t paying attention.

  137. 137.

    Steeplejack

    @Mnemosyne:

    Exactly: I have told this story here before:

    Some years ago I worked in a software group that had three Chinese programmers—Lily, Rosa and I forget the third one. Mary, maybe, or Marian. My mind went to outlandish theories about oppressed Christian émigrés, etc., but one of them explained to me that they used Western first names because Chinese is a “tonal” language and Westerners almost always butchered their Chinese personal names (usually two syllables). Apparently it’s a common practice. Certainly shows up a lot in the credits for Chinese movies.

    And, of course, one of my honkie co-workers had to make a big deal of learning what Rosa’s “real” name was. She told him, he repeated it, and she said, “Thanks, you just called me a small dumpling.”

  140. 140.

    Mnemosyne

    @Adam L Silverman:

    G was doing literacy tutoring for someone whose first language was Spanish, and the big breakthrough for her was when she finally realized that English makes no damn sense. There are very few hard and fast rules, and most of the “rules” that her teachers had told her in school are really more like style suggestions.

    She was very relieved to find this out and made much faster progress once she stopped beating herself up for not being able to figure out the logical rules that she was convinced must be in there somewhere.

  141. 141.

    Martin

    @Ninedragonspot: It also has a written language that is completely detached from the spoken with a completely different set of conventions. So you actually have to learn two languages, not one.

  144. 144.

    Barbara

    @Steeplejack: Yes, I had a Chinese boyfriend once upon a time and he told me that the hardest thing was to listen to people trying to speak Chinese, especially personal names.  So while his family always used their original names when speaking with each other, they adopted western names as soon as they moved to the U.S.   He was actually very sympathetic because, as a Mandarin speaker, he found it very difficult to follow Cantonese speakers.  Cantonese has more tones than Mandarin.

  146. 146.

    Ninedragonspot

    @Steeplejack: conversely, I use a Chinese name in Taiwan and China, because few are comfortable pronouncing my English one.

    Unfortunately for me, the Chinese name I adopted was later used for the title character of Fifty Shades of Gray.  This led to some unusual conversations. Nowadays when I have to give my name at a Starbucks, I usually just call myself “Santa Claus 聖誕老公公” and everything clicks.

  147. 147.

    Just Chuck

    @Mnemosyne:

    She was very relieved to find this out and made much faster progress once she stopped beating herself up for not being able to figure out the logical rules that she was convinced must be in there somewhere.

    Good philosophy for life, too.

  148. 148.

    Mnemosyne

    @Barbara:

    One of G’s friends who was from Taiwan adopted a kitten from us, and the cat also had both a Chinese and an English name so that she could tell us stories about the cat’s antics. ?

  149. 149.

    Yutsano

    @Ninedragonspot: True. But Mandarin and Cantonese do have other methods to handle those situations. And it is my understanding that word order highly matters, at least in Mandarin.

  150. 150.

    Ninedragonspot

    @Martin: The written language is not completely detached from the spoken one.  Characters often have multiple components, one of which is there to help with pronunciation.

  151. 151.

    Martin

    @Mnemosyne: Just remind them that opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose noun is inviolable. Just about the only inviolable rule in english, even though there’s no particular benefit to such a rule.

    There’s also the oxford comma, which is only violated by pedophile communists, making them easy to spot.

  152. 152.

    gene108

    @the Conster:

    2018 Democrats flipped the U.S House of Representatives, defeated Republicans for governorship, places like MI, and made gains in state legislatures.

    2019 Democrats flipped the VA House of Delegates, even with all the Republican gerrymandering.

    We’ve been operating the same form of government, since 1788.  It’ll take more than Trump, and subservient Republicans, to undo 230+ years of rule of law, no matter how hard they try.

  153. 153.

    Ninedragonspot

    @Yutsano: the previous post referred to the placement of a long series of adjectives before a noun.  Violations of this are stylistic defects, but not likely to lead to a lack of clarity or miscommunication.

  158. 158.

    hilts

    @Adam L Silverman:

    At some point tomorrow, whether it be in early afternoon or late into the evening, this democracy of ours will be as dead as a doornail. Our democracy will have expired and gone to meet its maker. It will be bereft of life. It will be pushing up the daisies. It will be an ex-democracy.

  160. 160.

    Steeplejack

    @Martin:

    There’s also the oxford comma, which is only violated by pedophile communists [. . .].

    Tsk. Strictly, “only violated by pedophile communists” means that was the sole action the pedophile communists performed on the comma, whereas what you really want in this situation is “violated only by pedophile communists.”

  161. 161.

    trollhattan

    @Ninedragonspot:

    Nowadays when I have to give my name at a Starbucks, I usually just call myself “Santa Claus 聖誕老公公” and everything clicks.

    On leaving do you find yourself followed by small crowds of children? :-)

  163. 163.

    Ninedragonspot

    @Martin: speaking of Mandarin, how do you pronounce these characters: 包，抱， 飽， 炮， 鮑， 雹， 胞，鉋？ or 保，堡，煲，葆，褓？

  165. 165.

    Yutsano

    @Sister Golden Bear: Yeah. But the hasty wrap up is but one more feather in their albatross.

    Side note: I didn’t get around to commenting on your situation yesterday. I do hope it works out. And hey maybe you can move up north where Uncle Bill or Uncle Jeff can hire you.

  167. 167.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:  I’m with you.  “Privately say”, you say?  “Said on condition of anonymity”? Over 200 sources for that stable genius book, all those who shall not be named?  Mattis, Mueller, Bolton?  Cat got your tongues?

  168. 168.

    Rand Careaga

    I can’t vouch for the anecdote, but long ago I read of a nineteenth century French jurist who spent decades mastering several other European languages, following which he concluded that French was superior to all the rest, because the word order matched exactly the sequence of one’s thoughts

    (I add this thought: many lands have believed themselves the ideal, the exemplar, of culture and civilization, but I can think only of the French—and perhaps China, in its sphere—who have persuaded large numbers of their neighbors of the truth of this proposition.)

  171. 171.

    Martin

    @Ninedragonspot: Let me put this a different way. I’ve worked with multiple individuals who learned written english but never had a real chance to practice it vocally. Their pronunciation was all over the map, and was occasionally confusing to the point that the words couldn’t be identified, but no differently than someone speaking perfect Scottish english to someone from Alabama. But these individuals could learn the various vowel and consonant forms and read any word in english and put off a passable pronunciation of it. They could read words they’ve never seen before.

    氏拾是十獅屍適石室 doesn’t exactly communicate that it’s pronounced shì shí shì shí shī shī, shì shí shì. Nor does hearing that necessarily communicate the meaning of the phrase (Shi picked up the corpses of the ten lions and took them to his stone room.) without quite a bit of context.  It’s not terribly different from the ‘James, while John had had had’ example in that sense, because it only makes sense with a particular set of punctuation when written and a particular intonation when spoken, you have to work VERY hard to find such examples in english while they are much more common in Mandarin. Context is much less important in English which is why the oxford comma argument is what it is – you have to take the phrase out of the larger context to construct an argument why the comma is important. In context, it’s perfectly clear what you mean with or without the comma, because you don’t need intonation to differentiate when spoken. It’s just kind of obvious.

    So not only do you need to learn tone for Mandarin, which is really only a problem for people coming from largely non-tonal languages, the role of context is very important which is why mastery is so hard to achieve for speakers from languages where context is not that important – because those languages have tenses, declination, gender, etc. to clarify the context.

  177. 177.

    Jay

    GOP Senators know Trump's claims about Biden in Ukraine are lies.Here's proof.In a 2016 hearing, numerous GOP Senators were briefed on the *Obama administration policy* of pursuing Shokin's ouster. There was zero controversy.I have new details here:https://t.co/iQMCRZHS8C— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) January 30, 2020

  181. 181.

    joel hanes

    @the Conster:

    I took three years of Russian language in high school, 1969-1971, in a small town in northern Iowa.

    (That was back in the days when Iowa was a good-government state with a deep commitment to education, and sent people like Harkin to the Senate.  Now today’s Republicans run the state, and like many other measures of social health, that school system has declined.)

  187. 187.

    Jay

    I collected Obituaries of every Republican who voted for or against Nixon's articles of impeachment.Insight into how this Senate's historic votes—on whether to have a fair trial with witnesses and whether to acquit—will be remembered.https://t.co/QnU9WGaddV— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) January 29, 2020

  188. 188.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mnemosyne: Spanish’s grammar and rules are basically super simplified versions of Arabic’s. Which makes sense given Spain’s long domination by Arabic speakers who were the ones who codified Spanish’s linguistics.

  189. 189.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Jay: Did Ryan Goodman just admit to murdering every Republican who voted for or against Nixon’s articles of impeachment?

  191. 191.

    Jeffro

    @gene108: also 2017: won the NJ and VA governor’s races.

    Fox News covered this on that particular election night for six seconds total.

  193. 193.

    BC in Illinois

    And so it seems that on the same day that the Senate GOP brings the Trump cover-up to an end, the United Kingdom will bring its membership in the European Union to an end (the first step, perhaps, of bringing the “United” Kingdom to an end). In both cases, leaving a bitter taste behind and a facing an uncertain future ahead.

    YouGov Poll

    Will you be doing anything to mark Britain’s departure from the European Union on Friday?

    Definitely will — 6%

    Probably will — 7%

    Probably will not — 23%

    Definitely will not — 57%

    Don’t know — 7%

    Lots of enthusiasm there.

    YouGov  again

    Should Scotland be an independent country?

    Yes — 51%

    No — 49%

    To break it down . . .

    18-24: Yes 62% No 38%

    25-49: Yes 67% No 33%

    50-64: Yes 46% No 54%

    65+: Yes 25% No 75%

    Now, I get my UK news mainly through the Scottish National Party, so I might have some bias here . . .

  195. 195.

    Ninedragonspot

    @Martin: Homophones are an issue in spoken Mandarin, and there are a wide variety of very casual ways native speakers deal with ambiguities (clarifying 「石頭的石」 for example). Synonyms work well, too.  (Outlier cases like tongue twisters really don’t say much about the oral language, of course, since they are crafted along principles closer to poetry. )

    If, when discussing an operatic performance I accidentally say 馬桶 mǎtǒng toilet instead of 馬童 mǎtóng horse-groom, people might suppress a smile, but there will be no misunderstanding.  Just as I wouldn’t think a non-native speaker of English means “shit” when they clearly mean to say “sheet”.

    Yes, learners of Mandarin have to struggle with a lack of cognates and the building blocks of vocabulary.  In exchange for that, they get to enjoy the benefits of a vastly simplified grammar.  Those who’ve studied Slavic languages or Japanese will know what a blessing this is.   And there is absolutely a relationship between the way a number of characters are written and their pronunciation.  Now if you excuse me, I have to 跑。

     

     

    @Martin:

  197. 197.

    Dave Empey

    @Martin:

    That’s not really true, though. E.g. you can speak of a big bad wolf (or a big beautiful wolf) which puts size before opinion.

  198. 198.

    Adam L Silverman

    @joel hanes:

    I took three years of Russian language in high school, 1969-1971, in a small town in northern Iowa.

    I appreciate your fidelity to the KGB cover story, but we know that the mock up Iowa town was on the border of Siberia.//

  199. 199.

    zhena gogolia

    I set up a monthly donation to Hickenlooper today, joining Sara Gideon, Amy McGrath, and Ditch Mitch, and I sent a big one to Uncle Joe. Feels good.

  200. 200.

    Raven Onthill

    @Martin: This remark perhaps also applies to Chinese:

    My theory, developed during many interesting discussions of linguistics with immigrant cab drivers, is that at this point English is actually two languages, Little English and Big English.

    Little English is grammatically straightforward, drops articles and particles and other linguistic loose change, and barely recognizes the existence of past tense verbs, much less irregular ones.

    Big English is one of my core professional skills. Appropriate occasions for the use of its subjunctive are determined by factual content of sentences in which it is used. There are no signals identifying its numerous phrasal verbs. Its system of prepositions was established by Congress via the Full Employment for Native Anglophone Copy Editors Act. And it has way too many words for everything.
    —Teresa Nielsen Hayden, http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/016593.html#4335544

  201. 201.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Barbara: At this point, significant numbers of Americans have blamed them for everything else, so I’m sure adding this to the list shouldn’t do too much more harm.

  204. 204.

    Yutsano

    @Adam L Silverman: My co-worker is a native Spanish speaker. There are several Arab patients at my physio clinic. One day I was listening to the Arab translator talk to the patient and I noticed the rhythms were familiar. I noted this to my therapist (who did his mission in Peru) and he noticed the same thing. The way the accents lie in both Arabic and Spanish are almost exact It’s subtle if you don’t have experience in at least one of the languages but once you hear it you can’t unhear.

  206. 206.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Yutsano: Similarly with Hebrew. Hebrew is basically super simplified Arabic with a vowel shift and seven fewer consonants/variants of consonants. When you hear Mizrahi Israelis speak Hebrew, especially those who grew up with parents and/or grandparents who were native Arabic speakers, you can really hear just how similar Arabic and Hebrew are.

  207. 207.

    Yutsano

    @Leto: A British friend of mine (who is now a dual citizen, yay!) emphatically did not want to leave the European Union. He’s in his mid 30s for context. A lot of the youngs in Britain have grown up with the EU. It really has been a positive unless you’re a rich person in England who was about to get smacked by new EU tax laws.

  208. 208.

    catclub

    @Martin: that opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose noun is inviolable.

    except when it isn’t?

    Big, fat, old, bad Leroy Brown might disagree.

    But I suspect the statement was made ironically.

  211. 211.

    catclub

    @Leto: The yoots know how much they’re screwed.

     

    They know it so well they were almost motivated

    to  get out and overwhelmingly vote against it?

    yeah, right.

  212. 212.

    sdhays

    @Ninedragonspot: If, when discussing an operatic performance I accidentally say 馬桶 mǎtǒng toilet instead of 馬童 mǎtóng horse-groom, people might suppress a smile, but there will be no misunderstanding.  Just as I wouldn’t think a non-native speaker of English means “shit” when they clearly mean to say “sheet”.

    Just to add to this – Mandarin isn’t the “native” language of lots of people in China in the first place, and tones slip and get lost a lot amongst natives, not just foreigners. It’s part of the accent, just like in English.

  214. 214.

    patrick II

    An interesting thing about Chinese is that people speak dialects as different as different languages, but they can all read the same writing. My wife, who speaks Mandarin Chinese, shops at a grocery store where the owner speaks Cantonese. They can’t understand a word the other says, but if my wife writes the name of the article she looking for, since the written word is not phonetic, they both understand and she will be directed to it. I think the ability to understand the written word regardless of how you say it aloud has been an important element in holding China together for all of these years.

  218. 218.

    Adam L Silverman

    @debbie: Roberts is working from the same model that Rehnquist did for Clinton: “I did nothing and I did it well”.

    The worst part is he ended it with “join us and be one nation, one people”. I’ve heard that last phrase before, though it was in German: “eine Nation eine Volk”.

  220. 220.

    debbie

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Yeah, I’ve about had it with that chaplin too.

    I feel I have to point out that Roberts admonished Schiff for that illusion to heads on a pike. He really should have said something today, though at least he refused to allow Squirrel Boy’s question.

  230. 230.

    Leto

    @Yutsano: Bit late on this reply, but this tracks with my experience with the youth I knew when I lived there.

    @catclub: I must have missed where 62% of the Scottish public voted to remain in the EU. Wait, nope, didn’t miss that. The majority of council areas had participation over 65% of the voting population (which is age 16 and up). Their people vote.

  231. 231.

    HalfAssedHomesteader

    @Spanky: Asking the House Managers to implicitly dis the Chief Justice. Don’t put them in that spot. Schiff artfully walked around that.

  232. 232.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @delk: Tohle také není můj den, kámo. (It’s not my day either, pardner.)

    (Figured your post out prior to googling, from sporadic study of Czech plus an understanding of how the two languages use drastically different symbols for the same sounds. FTR one of the crowning glories of such studies is to understand why the closest the average USAn can get to pronouncing Duke roundball coach Mike Krzyszewski’s last name is Shuh-shev-ski.)

  235. 235.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @mrmoshpotato: And he will be until the end of history – or an Appalachian walk-on at Chapel Hill pronounces his last name correctly three times in a row whilst turning widdershins to dunk over one of his point guards. At which point he will vanish in a sky-blue puff of smoke & take up his ancient residency in Cobalt Hell with the rest of the Azure Devils. (Those of us who were Terp fans during their long sojourn in the Addled Children’s Conference still curse Coach K daily. As well as the effin’ Tar Heels. What efg said!)

  236. 236.

    mapaghimagsik

    It was always going to be “vote them out.” But the popular vote wasn’t enough last time. I hope people are motivated. They seem motivated.

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