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NYT op-ed: I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration

phands said:
Interesting theory.....


[FONT=&]As the media world (and the White House) scrambles to figure out the identity of the anonymous senior Trump administration official who wrote a scathing New York Times op-ed rebuking the president, one producer thinks he may have figured it out.[/FONT]

[FONT=&]Panoply audio producer Dan Bloom tweeted that the use of the word “lodestar” to laud the late John McCain not only ruled out people like Stephen Miller — it also stuck out because he’d heard it before.[/FONT]


[FONT=&]“‘Lodestar’ just seems like an unusual word to use in general, not to mention in an op-ed that’s going to be widely read,” Bloom wrote. He added that he researched whether White House chief of staff John Kelly and Defense Secretary James Mattis had ever used it, but it doesn’t appear that they had.[/FONT]

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Dan downLODESTAR Bloom@danbl00m

· 3h



Replying to @danbl00m
The word is "LODESTAR." Note that it comes in the same paragraph praising John McCain. That would rule out flame-throwers like Stephen Miller and Dan Scavino and suggest someone with Senate ties. This reveal is not going to take long. pic.twitter.com/NwnUtvFlko







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Dan downLODESTAR Bloom@danbl00m



"Lodestar" just seems like an unusual word to use in general, not to mention in an op-ed that's going to be widely read. It has this whiff of sanctimony. So I search for John Kelly and James Mattis ever having used the word "lodestar." Nothing. But then...
3:57 PM - Sep 5, 2018


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[FONT=&]He then ran across the word in a speech Vice President Mike Pence made to the United Nations in 2017, saying that the NGO “must again be our lodestar, our ideal, and our aspiration.”[/FONT]

[FONT=&]The term came up again two months later at a dinner, Bloom noted.[/FONT]

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[FONT=&]Pence used it again in February 2018, the producer wrote — but he also was documented using it in 2011 as well.[/FONT]

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Dan downLODESTAR Bloom@danbl00m

· 3h



Replying to @danbl00m
Two more months later (like clockwork,) February 2018. Vice President Mike Pence speaking in Tokyo, alongside Japanese PM Shinzo Abe. Place your bets... another "lodestar." https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-vice-president-pence-prime-minister-abe-japan-joint-statements/ … pic.twitter.com/88vJJfVamM







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[FONT=&]In subsequent tweets, Bloom noted that it couldn’t simply be attributed to Pence’s speechwriter Stephen Ford because he began working for the vice president in 2001, but the first usage that anyone had found was in 2001.[/FONT]
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https://www.rawstory.com/2018/09/word-anonymous-new-york-times-op-ed-may-prove-mike-pence-wrote/
Click to expand...

Busted!
 
RavenSky said:
ZiprHead said:
I found this comment particularly apt.:

Are we supposed to feel good about this?

A clearly unqualified, incompetent and possibly mentally unstable person occupies the Oval Office. Rather than do something about it -- you know, save the nation from an immediate threat? -- the unelected cabal around him sits wetnurse and does its best to keep little donny's fingers out of the pie while working to achieve its own goals which it determined how?

No clue. Ayne Rand's wishlist, perhaps. Paul Ryan's fever dreams. This explains why the GOP leaders in congress are so quiet -- they're too busy pulling the strings.

If what this essay is true, American democracy is dead. We have an unelected cabal, answerable to nobody, running things, and this guy says "don't worry, there are adults in the room."

For god sake, where?
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^^^ All of this!

It isn't Pence (imo). He's a religious fanatic and doesn't believe in "free minds, free markets and free people."

Who else has been with Trump from the beginning? Someone who is old-school conservative, probably military background.

This, though, sums up the situation and scares the crap out of me:

We have an unelected cabal, answerable to nobody, running things, and this guy says "don't worry, there are adults in the room."
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

Yes, it scares the crap out of me too.
 
Mumbles said:
Also, isn't Pence the sole high-level person who doesn't merely serve at the President's leisure?
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That is the main argument I've heard against it being Pence.

I'm stuck on the implication that there is a group rather than one person, which makes me think it's the military people - Mattis (who frequently uses the term "first principles"), Kelley, Pompeo, even Zinke (former Navy Seal).

Stephen Ford is a really good possibility, too. He's backed by the Koch Brothers, and a lot of the overblown language in the op-ed sound just like them.

"free minds, free markets and free people" - op-ed

[Charles Koch] described Trump’s plan as “the wrong approach” that violated its dedication to “free and open societies.”
 
It is Pence. He is positioning himself for legitimacy after Trump.

He also cannot be reasonably fired and he holds considerable leverage over Trump with future pardons.
 
ZiprHead said:
phands said:
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/09/word-anonymous-new-york-times-op-ed-may-prove-mike-pence-wrote/
Click to expand...

Busted!
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Umm... you think Mike Pence writes his own speeches?

I doubt very much that the NY Times would print this if it was the Vice President because this could be considered a prelude to a coup. However, it is an interesting letter and the lodestar seriously does seem to tip who wrote this. This letter is saying a lot more than people are reading into it. It is making a plea to the right-wing and the independents for legitimacy and a mandate in a post Trump White House, prior to 2020. There is no other reason for this letter to be published. They can't be saying, "We the conservatives are doing our best to keep the train from plowing into an iceberg (yes, they are that far off the tracks!)... vote Trump in 2020."

This letter wasn't merely written, it was crafted. And if I was the Trump children, I'd be making certain I had a bag ready at any moment.
 
AdamWho said:
It is Pence. He is positioning himself for legitimacy after Trump.

He also cannot be reasonably fired and he holds considerable leverage over Trump with future pardons.
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This person agrees with you:


Mark W. Alexander said:
‏Yeah. I suspect #Pence as #AnonymousOpEd because #Mueller is likely to include him. #25thAmendment gives him the presidency.

He's panicking because #Kavanaugh protecting #tRump keeps him from succession by #impeachment.
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That said, I agree with Jimmy that it wasn't Pence directly.

The more I'm reading, the more I'm thinking Stephen Ford wrote it and delivered it to the NYT; and that the Koch brothers are behind it - but with the intent to install Pence asap; maybe even before November. Or, at minimum, the timing of the "op-ed" is in the hope of hanging on to a Republican majority in House and Senate, with Pence installed before 2020.
 
RavenSky said:
ZiprHead said:
I found this comment particularly apt.:

Are we supposed to feel good about this?

A clearly unqualified, incompetent and possibly mentally unstable person occupies the Oval Office. Rather than do something about it -- you know, save the nation from an immediate threat? -- the unelected cabal around him sits wetnurse and does its best to keep little donny's fingers out of the pie while working to achieve its own goals which it determined how?

No clue. Ayne Rand's wishlist, perhaps. Paul Ryan's fever dreams. This explains why the GOP leaders in congress are so quiet -- they're too busy pulling the strings.

If what this essay is true, American democracy is dead. We have an unelected cabal, answerable to nobody, running things, and this guy says "don't worry, there are adults in the room."

For god sake, where?
Click to expand...

^^^ All of this!

It isn't Pence (imo). He's a religious fanatic and doesn't believe in "free minds, free markets and free people."

Who else has been with Trump from the beginning? Someone who is old-school conservative, probably military background.

This, though, sums up the situation and scares the crap out of me:

We have an unelected cabal, answerable to nobody, running things, and this guy says "don't worry, there are adults in the room."
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

They are accountable to Trump if he so chooses and ultimately the voting public in 2020. There is nothing in democracy that says the guy you elect will be a competent leader and will hold the people under him accountable.
 
I really like phands' speculation that the use of "lodestar" in the past by Pence points to him as the author. The term "lodestar" is rare, and those of us familiar with text mining techniques call a unique term a  hapax legomenon. But it is really related to a very well-known concept of  Zipf's law--that the frequency of a word is inversely proportional to its rank in a frequency table. To put it in more comprehensible terms, a low frequency word in a text can be used to disambiguate the meaning of other words in a text and, indeed, point to metadata such as the author of the text.

This is not ironclad proof that Pence is the author, because there may be others in the administration who use the term "lodestar" but whose use of it hasn't been recorded or noticed. Nevertheless, I like the chances of this being the anonymous author. And there are the other facts that people have pointed out here--that Trump cannot fire Pence and that Pence is the one who stands to benefit the most from an Article 25 action or an impeachment/conviction. If Pence is basically the only one willing to go for Article 25, it must be frustrating to him that he can't get others to go along. This op-ed piece may be a tactic to try to break the logjam. Interesting.
 
Copernicus said:
I really like phands' speculation that the use of "lodestar" in the past by Pence points to him as the author. The term "lodestar" is rare, and those of us familiar with text mining techniques call a unique term a  hapax legomenon. But it is really related to a very well-known concept of  Zipf's law--that the frequency of a word is inversely proportional to its rank in a frequency table. To put it in more comprehensible terms, a low frequency word in a text can be used to disambiguate the meaning of other words in a text and, indeed, point to metadata such as the author of the text.

This is not ironclad proof that Pence is the author, because there may be others in the administration who use the term "lodestar" but whose use of it hasn't been recorded or noticed. Nevertheless, I like the chances of this being the anonymous author. And there are the other facts that people have pointed out here--that Trump cannot fire Pence and that Pence is the one who stands to benefit the most from an Article 25 action or an impeachment/conviction. If Pence is basically the only one willing to go for Article 25, it must be frustrating to him that he can't get others to go along. This op-ed piece may be a tactic to try to break the logjam. Interesting.
Click to expand...

It would also explain why it is difficult to resign as many have suggested this admin official should have done/should do. The VP resigning would cause a lot of chaos.

However, Pence so far has been very loyal to Trump and, as others have pointed out, the "free minds/people/markets" doesn't seem like a phrase he would use.
 
I read a report saying that Pence's staff was much more separated and walled off from Trump's staff than other VPs in the past.
 
An online bookie site now features betting odds on who the op-ed writer was. Donald Trump Specials Betting Odds & Politics & Business Lines | MyBookie Sportsbook & Casino

WhoOddsUnnorm ProbNorm Prob
Mike Pence-1500.60.158187
Betsy DeVos2000.3333330.0878819
Mike Pompeo4000.20.0527291
Steven Mnuchin4000.20.0527291
John F Kelly4000.20.0527291
Jim Mattis5000.1666670.0439409
Jeff Sessions5000.1666670.0439409
Ryan Zinke6000.1428570.0376637
Sonny Perdue6000.1428570.0376637
Wilber Ross7000.1250.0329557
Alex Acosta7000.1250.0329557
Alex Azar8000.1111110.029294
Ben Carson8000.1111110.029294
Robert Wilkie8000.1111110.029294
Kirstjen Nielsen10000.09090910.0239678
Ivanka Trump12000.07692310.0202804
Jared Kushner12000.07692310.0202804
Stephen Miller15000.06250.0164779
Field-3000.750.197734
"Field" is anyone else or uncertain.
Odds are "American odds", as explained below
Unnorm Prob = probability directly calculated from the odds
Norm Prob = unnorm prob / total of it -- assumes constant relative bookie fee or vigorish

What is the difference between fractional, decimal, and american odds systems? has the math:
  • Fractional, British odds: probability = 1/(1 + odds)
  • Decimal, European odds: probability = 1/odds
  • Moneyline, American odds (positive): probability = 100/(100 + odds)
  • Moneyline, American odds (negative); probability = (-odds)/((-odds) + 100)
Return on win = bet / probability
 
Mike Pence is the favorite, but next in line is someone unexpected: Betsy DeVos.

The better-known staffers are not far behind her, but Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are way down there.

Doing the best, however, is "Field" -- anyone else or uncertain.


I think that "lodestar" is a good catch -- it's a very unusual word. So the writer was either Mike Pence or someone trying to imitate him.

Are there other stylistic features that one might be able to identify? Like typical vocabulary or grammatical features. By grammatical features I mean choices between constructions like these:

I saw Trump. He was watching TV. (two independent clauses)
I saw Trump, and he was watching TV. (with a coordinating conjunction)
I saw Trump while he was watching TV. (with a subordinating conjunction)
I saw Trump, who was watching TV. (with one clause made a relative clause)
 
I'd like to know why so high a probability is assigned to DeVos. While this is a dumb move, I don't give her credit enough to be simply dumb.

Also, I concur that while I could believe that Pence would write such a thing, I also think that the NYT wouldn't have published it anonymously unless it came from someone who Trump could fire. I could possibly believe that Pence wrote it and DeVos presented it to the NYT as her own. She's stupid enough to be Pence's patsy.

I'm also tickled that so many people think that Trump's own daughter would betray him before Stephen Miller would. (I agree)
 
While the “lodestar” reference is a good catch, I find it hard to believe it was Pence. I would guess it’s a Roger Stone concoction (made to look like it came from the VP’s office) before I’d believe it was Pence himself.

If it’s legit, I would think it came from someone with a military background. Possibly Kelly (and possibly as a way to offset Woodward’s depiction of him), though more likely someone less senior. Perhaps someone under Kelly.

The tone of the piece is assurance in a time of chaos, which seems to me like something that would come from someone that had been or currently is in the military, but I guess it could also come from State.

The bigger question, of course, is why now and who was it meant to calm? Or, more likely, fool.
 
Axulus said:
Copernicus said:
I really like phands' speculation that the use of "lodestar" in the past by Pence points to him as the author. The term "lodestar" is rare, and those of us familiar with text mining techniques call a unique term a  hapax legomenon. But it is really related to a very well-known concept of  Zipf's law--that the frequency of a word is inversely proportional to its rank in a frequency table. To put it in more comprehensible terms, a low frequency word in a text can be used to disambiguate the meaning of other words in a text and, indeed, point to metadata such as the author of the text.

This is not ironclad proof that Pence is the author, because there may be others in the administration who use the term "lodestar" but whose use of it hasn't been recorded or noticed. Nevertheless, I like the chances of this being the anonymous author. And there are the other facts that people have pointed out here--that Trump cannot fire Pence and that Pence is the one who stands to benefit the most from an Article 25 action or an impeachment/conviction. If Pence is basically the only one willing to go for Article 25, it must be frustrating to him that he can't get others to go along. This op-ed piece may be a tactic to try to break the logjam. Interesting.
Click to expand...

It would also explain why it is difficult to resign as many have suggested this admin official should have done/should do. The VP resigning would cause a lot of chaos.

However, Pence so far has been very loyal to Trump and, as others have pointed out, the "free minds/people/markets" doesn't seem like a phrase he would use.
Click to expand...
People, this wasn't an individual talking, it was a group talking.
 
I found this statement from spineless Lindsey Graham quite interesting.

CNN said:
As Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham told CNN's Wolf Blitzer: "In my world, where I live in South Carolina, most people are very pleased with what the President is doing," adding that Woodward and The New York Times did not cut much ice among his voters.
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An interesting saying to use... for people that live in a state with little frozen water. What makes it more interesting, while I can understand if brown shirts don't jump off the Trump train because of the book and the Op-Ed, they should be having the exact opposite reaction due to the presumed coup that is going on... within the White House.. unless Graham is suggesting that Woodward and the NY Times are flat out lying.
 
It's Barron Trump. He just wants to go back to New York and be a normal rich boy.

Yes, I totally believe a moderately clever teenager could convincingly write like an experienced Republican politician.
 
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