Trump & Co. -- Law Professors File Misconduct Complaint Against Kellyanne Conway

Photo: The Crypt Keeper's Wife  Kellyanne Conway. Photo and cited article from this page.

Sorry for the name-calling, but I'm getting a little tired of the BS. So the latest from this monster:

According to the article cited above, esteemed and established law professors from around the country have filed a complaint against her, which could (and, frankly, should) lead to her disbarment. I mean, at my job, if I proclaimed to the world that a massacre occurred that never did, I'd be in big trouble, so why shouldn't she? And I can't pitch someone's product (or my own) at my job, either.

For those of you not in the know:

The letter, filed with the office that handles misconduct by members of the D.C. Bar, said Conway should be sanctioned for violating government ethics rules and “conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation,” the letter says.

The 15 professors, who specialize in legal ethics, cite several incidents, including a television interview in which Conway made the “false statement that President Barack Obama had ‘banned’ Iraqi refugees from coming into the United States for six months following the ‘Bowling Green Massacre,’ ” and the use of her position to endorse Ivanka Trump products.

“We do not file this complaint lightly,” the professors said in their filing. “We believe that, at one time, Ms. Conway, understood her ethical responsibilities as a lawyer and abided by them. But she is currently acting in a way that brings shame upon the legal profession.”

The professors teach at law schools such as Georgetown University Law Center, Yale Law School, Fordham University and Duke University.

Professors at those awesome schools don't rat on each other without cause.

First, you can't use your public position to push products:

Conway was also criticized for using her position during a Feb. 9 interview on Fox News to endorse Ivanka Trump’s fashion products.

“Federal rules on conflicts of interest specifically prohibit using public office ‘for the endorsement of any product, service or enterprise, or for the private gain of friends, relatives or persons with whom the employee is affiliated in a nongovernmental capacity,’” the complaint said.

By the way, can you work in the legal profession in D.C. and not be a "suspended" member of the D.C. Bar? From the same article:

The letter was sent to the D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel, the chief prosecutor for disciplinary matters that involve active or inactive attorneys who are members of the D.C. Bar. Conway is listed as a D.C. Bar member under her maiden name, Kellyanne E. Fitzpatrick, but is a suspended member for not paying her dues, according to the disciplinary filing.

Conway was also responsible for an upsurge in Amazon sales of classic dystopian literature, such as Animal Farm and 1984, because of this infamous utterance:

Since she has been serving as counselor to President Trump, Conway has been caught up in several controversies. Last month, during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” she said the White House had put forth “alternative facts” regarding the size of Trump’s inauguration crowd.

“ ‘Alternative facts’ are not facts at all; they are lies,” the professors said in their filing.

Couldn't have said that better myself.

Library of America: War of 1812

From the weekly emails I get from the Library of America, here's what I've gleamed from the journal of British soldier George R. Gleig, who assisted in the burning of the White House, the treasury, and the Capitol.

For this entry, we'll focus on what British soldier Gleig wrote about what he saw when he helped burn D.C.

--First, this was not mentioned in either account, but was in the summary: When British Admiral George Cockburn arrived in the city, he searched for the offices of the National Intelligencer, which had long been insulting and taunting him, and oversaw personally the destruction of the pressroom. Spectators overheard him denouncing the publisher “with much of the peculiar slang of the Common Sewer.” The Encyclopedia of the War of 1812 mentions a contemporary report claiming that the admiral instructed soldiers to “take special effort to obliterate all of the c’s in the newspaper’s type racks” so that the publisher could no longer spell Cockburn’s name.  Amusing.  If the Admiral was that thin-skinned dealing with a foreign newspaper, how could he have been with the papers, politicians and brass in his own country?

From Gleig:

--The inhabitants of D.C. were so sure of victory over the British that they didn't leave the city--until the British troops were actually in it.  This includes Madison, the President, too.

--The withdrawal of the President was so quick and last-second that he left a gourmet dinner for 40 still hot on his table, with many bottles of wine open and ready.  All of this was enjoyed by the British troops before they torched the White House.  "[After speaking to the troops, President Jackson] hurried back to his own house, that he might prepare a feast for the entertainment of his officers, when they should return victorious. For the truth of these details I will not be answerable; but this much I know, that the feast was actually prepared, though, instead of being devoured by
American officers, it went to satisfy the less delicate appetites of a party of English soldiers."

--The British were surprisingly humane.  Though they burned the White House, the Capitol and the Treasury (and "a noble library"), they let all of the other houses stand--except the home of the guy who killed the General's horse.

--All of the citizens of D.C. were still there when the troops arrived because Madison had just crossed the only bridge that spanned the Potomac--and immediately ordered it burned:  "...the rest were obliged to return, and to trust to the clemency of the victors."  Thanks, Mr. President.

--All the National Archives were burned.  Can you imagine the historical stuff that must've been in there?  Things from the Pilgrims to the Revolutionary War--all lost.

--Greig wrote that the American forces vastly outnumbered his own--but they didn't (or couldn't) fight.  He says the American forces should've been successful, no problem, but that the generals and soldiers didn't know what they were doing.  Reminds me of the Northern generals defending D.C. in the beginning of the Civil War, just 49 years later.

--The Government section of D.C. was completely destroyed--and the awesome, mile-long wooden bridge, the National Archives, the White House (and all of the historically relevant things in it) and all of the early buildings, all built just 25-30 years before--if that.  Devastating.

Lincoln: Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin--Book Review

Photo: Book's paperback cover, via doriskearnsgoodwin.com. There are many editions, but this is the one I read.

Extremely well-written and well-researched book (and, from just a few pages, partially the source of Spielberg's movie, which was also very good) that will make you see and know Lincoln like you never did--or, like you never thought you could.  There's so much to digest here that you'd better take your time to do so--but it is well worth the slower pace.  I normally read books--even ones this long--in a few days (just over 700 pages, including the epilogue and notes.)  Maybe a few weeks, if I'm really busy.  This one took several weeks, and I started and finished other things in the meantime.

But, as I said, it was worth it.  Reading this spawned a few historical fiction ideas for me.  (My book would be narrated from John Hay's POV.  Read the book to find out who this guy was.)  It gave birth to a memory that I have Carl Sandburg's (until-now authoritative) biography around here somewhere.  Reading this book reminded me that I also have a book of Lincoln's own writing around here somewhere.  (I have to seriously organize my books.)

By the time you're done with this, you'll feel like you knew Lincoln personally.  That you were there in D.C. with him, in those cold rooms, during those cold winters.  That you were there to see Mary, his wife, misbehave.  That you were there for Chase's political greed, or for some northern generals' incompetence.  In essence, you'll simply feel like you were there.

There've been so many books about Lincoln that writers now have to find a different vehicle from which to tell his story.  (I suspect the same is true for Jesus and Shakespeare.  A recent book about Shakespeare--his biography written in tandem with the exact lines of Shakespeare's famous "Seven Stages of Man"--comes to mind.)  This is true here.  Goodwin chose to write her Lincoln biography via the men of his cabinet.  His team of rivals, if you will--all men who ran against him, or who were in different political parties, or who had differing political agendas, or...you get the idea.  And so we get a biography of Lincoln, in Goodwin's voice, told with the information taken from Lincoln's team of rivals.  And the wives, girlfriends, and friends of those men.  And throw in the information provided by the more important generals, too.  The people providing most of the material include John Hay and John Nicolay, his assistants; William Seward, his Secretary of State; Edwin Stanton, his Secretary of War; Salmon Chase, his Secretary of the Treasury; Edward Bates, his Attorney General; and Gideon Welles, his Secretary of the Navy.  The generals we see and hear from the most are, of course, Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman; and, to a lesser extent, Generals McClellan, Hooker and Burnside--all three of whom almost managed to lose the war.

But this book isn't just told via diaries, journals, letters, etc.  Goodwin's writing style and voice gather all of these together.  The result is a mesmerizing, incredibly thorough and very enlightening book that is never boring or condescending.  It'll show you why Lincoln is revered, even deified, by many Americans today.  If you thought Lincoln's reputation was overblown or perhaps ill-deserved, read this book, and, like me, you'll learn otherwise.  And who knew he had such a high-pitched voice, or that he was such a political genius?

The Alienist by Caleb Carr

 Photo: Bellevue Hospital Ambulance, New York Times, 1895--from the Wikipedia page of The Alienist.

Been a few weeks away with illness, exhaustion, overwork, and some good headway on my novel and some shorter pieces.  Sort of an odd time lately, mostly without focus.  I've been reading six or seven books, and writing too many things at once--and not completing any reading or writing at all.  My sleeping patterns have been all screwed up, and...blah blah blah.  I'm tired of my own whining, but it is what it is.

That changed with The Alienist, a novel so well-written that I finished all 597 pages in just a few days, even waking up early to read it.  I read it through my cluster-headache on Sunday; I read it through an otherwise scattered-minded few weeks.  It cut through all that and straightened my focus and psyche out--for quite awhile, I hope.

I'd heard great things about this for a long time, and finally I gave it a go, with regret, since I'm trying to finish about six other things, like I said.  But I'm glad I did.

This novel has a lot going for it.  It's told in a first-person limited POV, by a reporter narrator who's good at describing his world without making it seem like he's purposely describing his world.  But he is, and he needs to for us, because he's describing 1896 NYC (and a little of D.C. and New Paltz, NY, too).  Caleb Carr does a fantastic job making this world interesting and alive, and the crimes he covers--and the investigation they cause--are top-notch.  (But not for the squeamish.) Essentially Carr describes the first wrinkles of what has become known as criminal profiling, which basically can be boiled down to analyzing the crime, and then asking yourself, What kind of person could have committed this crime, exactly this way, in this exact place and time?

As readers of this blog should know, I've long been interested in this kind of thing myself, so it was very cool to see some characters using these methods as the focus of their investigations.  In addition to profiling the crime, they profile a letter the serial murderer sends to a victim's mother--with some handwriting analysis as well, also new at the time--and there's a lot of attention paid to the earliest childhood years of many criminals in the book, also a cornerstone of criminal profiling.  Abusive and criminal parents will, more often than not, create abusive and criminal offspring.  This sort of implies that it's more nurture than nature, and that free will isn't all that strong, either, but that's a misreading that many people today--and many characters in the book--suffer from.

I'll leave that to the reader.  Bottom line is, if you like historical fiction, or crime/criminal investigation, or the 1890s in general, or if--like me--you happen to like all of those things combined, than this book is the one for you.  As I've said about some of Stephen King's books, there's something to be said for a 597-page book that's read in about three days.

As I mentioned, it was so good that it straightened out my psyche for a few days, and made me feel more complete, more whole, more in my own realm--whatever the hell that is.  Next up: his follow-up, The Angel of Darkness.

As the footnote at the beginning of the book says, an alienist is today's psychiatrist, or mental health researcher, as someone who needed to speak to someone like this (because there were few private practices in those days, so most people, especially the poor, would have to be committed to a facility or to a hospital to speak to one) was thought to be alienated, both from their society and from their own true natures.  (Sort of like how I've felt the last few weeks, though not to the extremes you'll read here.)  So a helper to these people would be an alienist.

Caleb Carr himself is quite an interesting guy, as is the story surrounding Lucius Carr, his (in)famous father.  It seems as if his father stabbed to death a man who was hitting on him, and William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac helped him dispose of the body and of some evidence before Carr confessed.  He served a couple of years in an Elmira prison, then worked for UPI for 47 years, though he was apparently also an alcoholic and an abusive father.

Caleb Carr comes off as a novelist of historical fiction who also dabbles in historical articles and books (and, it turns out, screenplays of two Exorcist prequels), but it turns out to be the opposite.  He's a well-respected historian.  Caleb has an injury to his arm and shoulder, similar to his alienist character, and he lives in a beautiful, self-made home with a wrap-around porch, in the mountains--alienated from his society, and recovering, as Carr admits, from being alien to himself.

Art imitates life.

Lincoln

photo: Movie poster, from its Wikipedia page

A few comments about Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, which you should go see:

--I was pleasantly surprised to find myself sitting in the second row from the front for this film.  Spielberg film or not, historical films or biopics do not draw huge crowds.  I got to this one twenty minutes early (pretty amazing for me) and almost had to see the next one, half an hour later.  The crowd, at a quick glance, was about 28 and older.  No teens; no kids.  (This will make for a better film experience.)

--Spielberg is usually the star of a Spielberg film.  This time he shared the billing with Daniel Day-Lewis, who was amazing.  But the film was so well-directed, with obvious Spielberg/Wellesian flourishes, that he doesn't let you forget who's sitting in the director's chair.

--This movie could've been a bore without Spielberg and Day-Lewis, as historical films and/or biopics can be.  Over 95% of the film is interiors and dialogue.  Day-Lewis and Tommy Lee Jones often hold forth.

--This apparently isn't just movie theatrics, either, as characters throughout both cringe and anticipate Lincoln's long-ish stories.  Jones's character was also known to fillibuster, too, apparently.

--I'm betting $20 that most of the fires in the fireplaces were CGI.  I guarantee you the heat made by them would screw with the cameras, the lights, and who knows what else.  And it looked CGI most of the time to me.  If someone reading this happens to know whether this is so, please let me know.

--Who knew that Lincoln had a sense of humor?

--In case you're reading this: Uh-kay.

--The film (actually, Sally Fields' Mary Todd Lincoln herself) often mentions the First Lady's struggles with depression (she'd be classified bi-polar today, I'll bet), but the film does not mention Lincoln's own well-documented melancholia.  (Both had a lot to be depressed about.)

--One of the film's strongest moments is when Lincoln mentions her depression.  Her sadness.  Her anger.  The point being that she was so worried about her feelings that she ignored those of her husband and her other two sons.  From what I've read of her (and her sadness-drawn love of seances), this smacked of truth.

--Both Lincolns seemed like people you would not want to mess with--Lincoln on the political battlefront, Mary Todd at home.

--Speaking of home, the White House was apparently a pigsty when the Lincolns got there.  I'd known about this--the White House famously was ill-designed for heating and ventilation, and it was often in ruin because the Presidents then were, well, ill-kept themselves--but I had no idea it had gotten that bad.

--Obama and Lincoln are often compared, but I'll throw out another one: they were both either extremely well-loved, or extremely despised, with nothing in between.  Few people would think of either with a shrug of the shoulders.

--Someone mentioned that Bush Junior was the same way, but I was quick to point out that, though he was very heavily despised, he was not very well-loved, even by the dumbies who voted for him.  (I had to go back and delete a stronger word there.)

--Speaking of Dubya, make it a point to notice, in a VERY heavily researched and historically accurate film, that every table was filled with books, piled high.  Lincoln was mostly home-schooled and self-taught, and Bush went to Yale, but one has a Presidential Library that's known as a good place to research, with lotsa books.  The other hasn't opened yet, but when it does, to the tune of $250 million, the sound you'll hear is one hand clapping.

--And both Obama and Lincoln had a country at war with itself, socially.  Then and now, it is very evenly divided.  The south has not, apparently, changed all that much.  Perhaps we are two separate countries after all.

--David Strathairn is in a ton of films, and always does a quietly great job, and never gets any recognition at all for his work.  He's been doing this since the 80s.  For example, how many of you know who in the film I'm talking about?

--Daniel Day-Lewis will get the recognition he deserves (he already is), but the greatest thing about his work is that he made a revered American icon surprisingly and appreciably human.  Lincoln is almost as revered in the U.S. as many religious figures, then and now, and think for a moment if someone were to try to humanize one of them.  (::cough:: Martin Scorsese, 1988 ::cough::)

--Day-Lewis almost made me not wonder when Lincoln would pick up an axe and start swingin'.  Almost.  Two Lincolns at opposite ends of the spectrum in the same film year.  Weird.

--Back to the fireplaces again: Everyone's cold.  Sure, it's winter in D.C., which can be worse than winter in New England, but the White House seemed like nothing more than a big barn with one big fireplace in each room.  As I can assure you, one fireplace is not enough to warm a big room.  Everyone's wearing shawls, even the manly, well-dressed and -suited politicians.  Nice historical touch.

--Notice also that everyone wrote on small, wooden portable desks, sort of a take-it-with-you tiny podium.  I've got to get myself one of those.  What're they called?

--Spielberg said he didn't want to release this film until after the election because he didn't want to influence any votes.  You'll see why when you see it, but that tells you another very obvious comparison between Obama and Lincoln--in many ways, they're fighting the same issues.

--The same issues, about 147 years later.

--Thank goodness Lincoln was president during the Civil War.  Can you imagine Dubya or Mitt as President during the Civil War?  We'd still have slavery--and women still wouldn't be able to vote.

Dan Brown's Robert Langdon Trilogy (So Far)

Photo: Da Vinci's The Last Supper.  Go to the back of the class if you didn't know that.  But don't be ashamed if you didn't know that the real name is Cenacolo.  You didn't expect a guy who spoke Italian and Latin to name his painting in English, did you?  Did you?!?


A couple of comments on Dan Brown's Robert Langdon Trilogy:

Angels and Demons:

Maybe better than Code.  One of the better 1-2 punches in recent literary history.  I wish the public could've let Umberto Eco or Iain Pears do the same for the genre, but at least someone put the genre on the map.  I'll bet the better writers like Eco and Pears benefited from Brown's success.  Creepy bad guy, and Brown shows how pace and history/description (with the occasional hysterically false entertainment) can be done.  Again, like Code and Harry Potter, it made non-readers want to read.  That's good enough.

And the Annotated Angels and Demons is even more cool.  Buy it, and Google the interesting stuff.  It's like having Wikipedia in a cliffhanger book.  You know how you read some books for the recipes, or for things that have nothing to do with the story or writing?  Read this stuff for the interesting artwork, (occasionally correct) history, and real-life historical people, and then Wikipedia them or Google them.  I'm nerdy like that.

The Annotated Da Vinci Code:

Much cooler than just the novel alone.  Great pictures of artwork a must to see what Langdon was seeing.  Good page-turning pot-boiler that isn't meant to be more than it is.  Intelligently gripping, though not quite intellectual.  Nice Gnostic touches, though, and a little bit of common sense never hurts.  The intelligent reader will be able to sift through the material and separate nuggets of intelligent coolness from the hysterically false entertainment.  Made non-readers want to read, so what's not to like about that?  Cardboard characterization a la Crichton, but the best of its type.  Angels and Demons may be better.

I repeat the Wikipedia/Google comments here.

The Annotated Lost Symbol:

Disappointing sequel, but anything really was going to be after such mega-sales from the previous two.  Made me see D.C. in a different way, though I knew much of the history in the book already.  Didn't know about the creepy, Washington-as-God painting.  Googled it--really weird.  But the most disappointing thing about it is how Brown (aka Langdon) immediately backed down from the controversy Code made about the Church.  (SPOILER!)  Third-person POV says that Langdon was surprised at the public's occasional vitriol towards him because of the controversy "he" made by publishing "his" book about what happened, but, hey, c'mon, Brown wasn't TOTALLY off-base, and it helped make the Vatican at least a little culpable about the other, more real and modern-day problems it has.  It all made some people (outside Bible-belt America, apparently) doubt and take a step back--and actually think for a moment.  What's wrong with that?  Don't back away from that!  Be proud of it!  Weak "author intrusion" made an already-disappointing book worse.  Put a bad taste in my mouth about it.  ::sigh::