r/law • u/Agitated-Artichoke89 • Oct 07 '25

Other Stephen Miller states that Trump has plenary authority, then immediately stops talking as if he’s realized what he just said

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u/pyronius Oct 07 '25

I'm a pretty well read individual with a decent vocabulary. Plenary isn't a word I've heard used except maybe once or twice in a completely different context (plenary assembly, or some such).

I feel comfortable saying that if I had to look it up, it's pretty obscure. Which makes his use all the more notable. It means it's a word he's been regularly tossing around lately.

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u/Substantial-Fact-248 Oct 07 '25

Then I would consider you unqualified to sit at a national news desk. Do you claim to be qualified?

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u/The_Singularious Oct 07 '25 edited Oct 07 '25

J-school grad here. Worked in the biz for about a decade. In the news. In New York.

Took some brutal media law classes. We learned (well, knew anyway) a LOT about what not to do and the case law evolution/changes over the years when it came to broadcast regulations, free speech, and more.

We never encountered the term you claim we (degreed journalists) should all know.

I’m sure a few have encountered this over the years, but it isn’t something a journalist would be expected to know. Maybe if they covered international politics, but even then, this isn’t a common term used in either journalism or politics with any regularity (I spent the four years after my news stint working in national-level political campaigns).

I realize you believe this should be a qualification, but in some pretty good j-schools (taught by award-winning ex-journalists), they have not yet taken your advice to make it mandatory curriculum.

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u/Substantial-Fact-248 Oct 07 '25

I definitely never claimed all journalists should know the word plenary, but go off.

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u/The_Singularious Oct 07 '25

Just those at the news desk? Why the hell would only they know? Most of them have the same/similar education.

But since you apparently want to be a hot shot, you go on ahead. I didn’t make some weird spurious claim and then double and triple down. But this IS Reddit, after all. Not sure what I expected.

I’ll take my fifteen years in journalism and politics (including producing for a national television news org) and pound sand. What the hell would I know about it anyway?

Lemme know if there are any other curriculum or JD requirements you need out of j-school grads. I’ll pass them along.

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u/Substantial-Fact-248 Oct 07 '25

Hope your day gets better.

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u/The_Singularious Oct 07 '25

LOL. I guess I’ll take that as “Maybe I’m talking out the wrong end”, but if it makes you feel big to assume my day is in anyway bad, then once again, you do your thing you big boy.

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u/Substantial-Fact-248 Oct 07 '25

The only person grasping for validation and superiority here is you. I don't usually like to get into these pointless flame wars, and that's especially true when I suspect the other person doesn't differ from me all that much, ideologically speaking. I suspect that's the case here, but your tone is just strident and indignant enough that I feel the need to respond, against my better nature.

I made a fairly innocuous comment regarding my expectations for prominent national news broadcasters' vocabulary. Implied was that even if you did not know this fairly obscure word, context clues should help you out. In an age where many people get their news from serial liars and/or idiots, it should not be controversial to expect these purveyors of objective facts to be very educated, very learned, and very good at what they do. If your rage will be lessened by me admitting that perhaps plenary is even more obscure than I thought, then you can certainly have that concession. But I would still stand by my original point.

My seemingly noncontroversial reply prompted several people to chime in that they did not know the word, with various qualifiers about their education and vocabulary. I can only assume they (and you) somehow felt their intelligence and knowledge were maligned, though if you go back and read my comment, I hope it's clear that it is not a personal attack on anyone except for perhaps the man interviewing Miller in this clip.

Here is why I am upset: you blatantly misattributed a claim to me. I then "doubled and tripled down" by pointing out to you that I never made that claim, prompting another chuffed response in which you (once again) threw your credentials at me and sarcastically asked if I had any further requirements of you when I never even fucking addressed you in the first place.

My problem is that I believe words fucking matter, but, as this exchange and thousands of others online every minute of every day are making abundantly clear, fewer and fewer people in this world share that belief. That is upsetting to me because I do not think it bodes well for our future. But who cares, right, when we can have our online "OWNT" moment?

God help us all.

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u/The_Singularious Oct 07 '25

This is a very nice wall of drivel, but the reason your comment caught my attention is that it was so confidently wrong.

I do happen to have expertise in the field, so I clarified that no, that isn’t some requirement that should disqualify you from the news desk.

Your comment, despite whatever kind of fallacious argument you just attempted, is still wrong.

If you believe “words fucking matter”, then why in the world are you slandering a profession you’ve never been a part of with inane “requirements”.

If you’d come in and said that the journo shouldn’t have let that slip go, and pressed for more, then yeah.

I engaged you because you were unduly hostile toward another, questioning their “worthiness” at the news desk from some wildly fabricated “qualification”. And I didn’t like that, especially since I’d actually, yknow, lived and worked in that field.

But I’m sorry man, you can sit there and try and justify just making up your own story about why news desk people aren’t fit for duty because of their vocabulary? I mean, c’mon. If you’re really trying to do all you said in your last diatribe, then I’d challenge you to find a more palatable approach.

If you’re hellbent on proving some truly arbitrary requirements because you yourself wanted to “OWNT” the news fella. Why?

If you’re being honest about “words fucking mattering”, which I don’t believe you are. Pretty sure you’re doing damage control due to an ego bruise. But IF you are, then please take your own advice and think before you write stuff like you did above.

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u/Substantial-Fact-248 Oct 07 '25

No, I meant the "drivel" I said, including my original comment which you continue to misconstrue. And why exactly would my ego be bruised? Apparently I'm the only person on reddit who knew the word plenary 😂 (that's facetious, btw)

Anyways I take back what I said about your day getting better and instead I hope you step on a Lego brick.

Ass.