Althouse: At the Saturday Night Cafe...

June 1, 2019

At the Saturday Night Cafe...

... you can talk about whatever you want.

61 comments:

RK said...: It's been awhile since I've heard Trump and Hitler mentioned in the same sentence. So, what's the deal - is Trump the new Hitler or not?; 6/1/19, 8:39 PM
Ken B said...: RK
Trump is now the Jewish Hitler.; 6/1/19, 8:46 PM
Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...: yes-- just like in "The Shining"--
"Mr Torrance, you've always been the caretaker"

He's always been Hitler; 6/1/19, 9:06 PM
narciso said...: As were coming on the commemoration
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2019-05-30/new-tiananmen-papers; 6/1/19, 9:23 PM
Narayanan said...: https://ricochet.com/627932/we-have-met-the-new-cartels-it-is-us/

Expect headline soon. "Mexico to put tariff on pot from USA" that'll showing Trump; 6/1/19, 9:36 PM
Narayanan said...: is Trump the new Hitler or not?

Merkel was in Harvard and told them answer is yes; 6/1/19, 9:41 PM
JackWayne said...: OHere’s a good example of how vile reporting is today. It’s about water in Texas.

I know quite a bit about water in Texas and this AP reporter only gives half the story. He presents the State government as being all solicitous and noble about helping communities get the water they need. And how the local municipal water districts (MUD) are all selfish and creating problems for their saintly State government. The part left out is that the greens convinced the state legislators years ago that underground water was absolutely the Devil because of subsidence. Here in Texas, years ago the Legislators set up MUDs as a practical way to get water and sewage into the suburbs. Each subdivision has its own MUD with their own water and sewage facilities. The MUDs took out bonds to pay for the infrastructure and the tax they levy goes directly to paying off the bonds and operating expenses. That sounds good EXCEPT when a subdivision has problems growing or the periodic economic downturns in Texas when the price of oil gets too low and people are laid off. In any event for the most part, the design was practical and kept the governing local. The members of a MUD can keep an eye on the tax rate. Then, the greens stepped in and the legislators agreed that all water must be surface water. Wells were forbidden. So, take a look at a map of Texas. All the surface water was owned by the cities. The MUDs had to go hat in hand to them for their water. A good deal for Houston. Not so good for all the suburbs and unincorporated areas. For one thing, the MUDs now have to pay for their water; it doesn’t come from a well. AND they still have to pay off their bonds so tax rates have had to go UP. Unexpectedly!!! And all of that is completely ignored by this reporter. Either he is ignorant or he is a liar. Either way, this reporting is vile.; 6/1/19, 9:45 PM
Tim Wright said...: Book recommendation.....Against the Grain, Deep History of the Earliest States, by James Scott, fellow who wrote Seeing Like a State. Very good history so far, excellent writer. People were gathering in sedentary communities in the Mesopotamian area millennia before states appeared. Disease may have been a big factor....any largest gathering of people, plants and animals became a hot zone for illness. Likely, a base of people with genetic resistance had to develop before any largish community could persist. Scott goes against a lot of the accepted views of human development...Tim; 6/1/19, 9:49 PM
Gahrie said...: Likely, a base of people with genetic resistance had to develop before any largish community could persist.

Actually, cities remained death sinks until the 20th century and modern medicine and sanitation. The cities persisted because new people were constantly moving there from the countryside.; 6/1/19, 9:54 PM
StephenFearby said...: In last night's Cafe, Bruce Hayden usefully linked to the NRO article below ("[McCarthy's] theory is somewhat similar to the one I have been pushing..."). McCarthy's complex, logical analysis eventually gets summed up as follows:

The Mueller Investigation Was Always an Impeachment Probe
ANDREW C. MCCARTHY MAY 31, 2019

'...If the special counsel had told Barr that the OLC guidance was his rationale for not deciding, Barr would likely have told him, “Don’t worry about the OLC guidance, that’s not your job. The OLC guidance only says we can’t return an indictment now. We still need to know whether there is a prosecutable case. Just make a recommendation on that, one way or the other.”

If that had happened, Mueller would have been cornered. If he recommended in favor of indictment, he would have ended up in the confrontation with Barr over obstruction law that he was trying to avoid. If he recommended against an indictment, he would have undermined the impeachment effort.

So he punted. And it worked.

Mueller told Barr he was still formulating his rationale for not deciding the issue. Maybe the staff really was still trying to come up with a coherent explanation; or maybe in the back (or front) of their minds, they figured “we’re still formulating” was vague enough that they could ultimately rely on the OLC guidance, even if Mueller had said it was not his rationale.

Whatever the calculation was, two and a half weeks later, when Mueller delivered his final report to Barr on March 22, Mueller and his staff expressly invoked the OLC guidance.

Does that mean Mueller was being dishonest on March 5? Does it mean his thinking truly was still evolving?

What difference does it make?

What matters is that Mueller’s shrewd staffers accomplished exactly what they hoped to accomplish: Make sure the report was disclosed to Congress intact, with 200 pages of obstruction evidence, a legal analysis that tends toward a finding of obstruction, and an express assertion by the special counsel that if he had found Trump did not commit a crime, he would have said so.

And now, for good measure, Mueller took pains on Wednesday to stress that, in our system, it is Congress’s duty to address presidential misconduct.

For partisan lawyers who saw their special-counsel gig as an opportunity to play congressional impeachment counsel, it is Mission Accomplished.'

https://outline.com/BfEUyn

BTW, I posted a link to the full transcript of Barr's lengthy (almost an hour) interview with Jan Crawford last night:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/william-barr-interview-full-transcript-cbs-this-morning-jan-crawford-exclusive-2019-05-31/

It ALSO contains an audio podcast of Crawford's unsuccessful grilling, which adds considerably to the satisfaction.; 6/1/19, 9:54 PM
wild chicken said...: Ooh that sounds good Tim. I've lately gotten interested in early ancient history.; 6/1/19, 9:56 PM
Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...: hey is the VA Beach shooter white? if not, will that complicate things?; 6/1/19, 10:14 PM
Churchy LaFemme: said...: Jonah Goldberg has left National Review.

At one time, I would have cared.; 6/1/19, 10:17 PM
bagoh20 said...: Hitler was to Jews as Trump is to ?; 6/1/19, 10:19 PM
Kathryn51 said...: Blogger Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

hey is the VA Beach shooter white? if not, will that complicate things?

I was wondering why my usual FB friends weren't posting about this - it usually starts with something anti-gun and then progresses to "as usual, angry White Man" stuff.

S**t - there goes that narrative (the one about WHITE, Christian MALES causing most deaths from mass shootings.; 6/1/19, 10:24 PM
Francisco D said...: Jonah Goldberg has left National Review. At one time, I would have cared.

It makes you wonder about people who portray themselves as (liberal or conservative) intellectuals. They seem to have curried the favor of their college professors, but never entered the real world.

To their credit, they are useless people who have learned how to make a good living.; 6/1/19, 10:24 PM
effinayright said...: Unknown said...
Jonah Goldberg has left National Review.

At one time, I would have cared.

************

Me, too.

I glommed onto him back in the mid-90's when blogs were first replacing Usenet.

He went to Vassar, and now 30 years later, you can really tell.

Cuck Central.; 6/1/19, 10:31 PM
rcocean said...: All the talk in the other thread about J. Edgar Hoover, caused to free associate about Historical myths and propaganda. Basically, once the left puts out enough books, #fakenews, movies, etc. about a historical person or event its almost impossible to get people to let go of it. Especially if you get Fake-History when you're young.

For example, as a teenager I saw a TV movie - in US History Class - about Truman and MacArthur meeting at Wake Island during the Korean War. I thought it was the truth for some reason. Anyway, it was really a "Docudrama".

The film had Truman and MacArthur planes both arriving over Wake Island at the same time, and MacArthur refusing to land first, so Truman would have to great HIM, not the other way round! Later, I read read history, I was shocked to discovered that MacArthur had actually landed the night before and he and Truman got along like old lost friends.; 6/1/19, 10:33 PM
Quaestor said...: Book recommendation...

Looking for Against the Grain I blundered into Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion by Paul Bloom, which immediately won my curiosity and my cash. As some may have noticed I've reacted — shall we say, strongly — when that fashionable word is used here as a synonym for sympathy, particularly by our hostess who uses it to spite me, I'm sure. Let us say I loathe that absurd neologism as much as Althouse detests garner. It reminds me of the arch-mountebank campaigning against Bush 1 with his "I feel your pain" bullshit.

So do Althouse a service and buy both books through her portal.; 6/1/19, 10:34 PM
rcocean said...: "Jonah Goldberg has left National Review."

IRC, he's going to start a new magazine with some ex-Weekly standard Guy. Possible magazine Names: "The Weekly Cuck" "Trump haters review" "Reasonable Conservative Magazine"; 6/1/19, 10:37 PM
Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...: maybe Jonah and Moby can hang out. at Seaworld; 6/1/19, 10:38 PM
Automatic_Wing said...: They're going to have to out-cuck The Bulwark. That'll take some doing.; 6/1/19, 10:39 PM
Quaestor said...: hey is the VA Beach shooter white? if not, will that complicate things?

His name was DeWayne Craddock, and he was black. Craddock killed twelve and wounded four using a .45-caliber pistol with a suppressor and extended magazines.; 6/1/19, 10:40 PM
rcocean said...: Jonah Goldberg was OK, but his rise to prominence at National Review was an indicator of the magazines decline. When he first joined in the lat 90s, he was the pop culture guy who said silly things like "Lets invade Africa and rediscover a national purpose".

Then by the mid-2000s he was National Review's deep thinker. When Jonah is your leading intellectual you got a problem. I remember he was pretty A-OK with McCain picking Liebermann as his VP, which shocked me. Looking back, I should have expected it.; 6/1/19, 10:41 PM
effinayright said...: Muller's feckless decision *not* to decide whether Trump obstructed justice reminds me of an old FEDEX (?) ad, where an exec is trying to understand why things were not going well. A drone employee answered:

"I dunno. Nobody knows." Apparently that was good enough for Mueller.

* said drone employee was the sad-faced patient in "Cuckoo's Nest". Died recently. RIP.; 6/1/19, 10:43 PM
rcocean said...: Yes, Jonah is a whale of a man.; 6/1/19, 10:44 PM
narciso said...: Close he went to goucher, his father was part of the north American newspaper alliance a strongly anti communist organization; 6/1/19, 10:47 PM
narciso said...: And his mother was doing opposition research for nixon,; 6/1/19, 10:53 PM
madAsHell said...: I love me some Bill Barr. Man....I only wish I could do contempt for stupid questions like he does.; 6/1/19, 10:58 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: Goldberg has some interesting things to say, as long as the topic is not Trump (I listen to his podcast). His new venture is subtitled "Trump skeptical," which shows where the money is coming from -- #nevertrump conservatives.
He has yet to come to grips the fact that if anyone else had gotten the nomination, we would have President Hillary (meaning his nemesis Bill Clinton (and hated henchman Sydney Blumenthal) would be running the White House, and we'd have two lefties on the SC.; 6/1/19, 10:59 PM
William said...: Byron's publisher famously consigned the poet's memoirs to the fireplace. Too many racy stories about too many well known people. A gentleman doesn't speak of such things.....G.M. Trevelyan was one of the most respected and best selling historians of the early 20th century. He was born into an aristocratic family and was given carte blanche to look through the letters and diaries of various Whig nobles while writing his histories. Trevelyan took it upon himself to destroy those letters and journal entries that detailed love affairs of gambling debts. He only wrote about their official acts. The things that made them human are lost to history, and the things that made them human were the cause of their official acts.......It would be nice if some copy of Hoover's files had escaped destruction. A lot of history would have to be rewritten.; 6/1/19, 11:01 PM
Yancey Ward said...: I didn't have to see the picture to know the ethnicity of Virginia Beach shooter- all I had to do was read the story as reported this morning at CNN.com, CBSNews.com, ABCNews.com, AP, Reuters, etc. I actually scanned the story as reported on every single one of them, and not a single one as of 11 a.m Saturday morning had a photograph of the shooter, nor any description outside of gender and his job with the city. Had he been a white guy, you would have known about it in all those new agencies stories on Friday night.; 6/1/19, 11:05 PM
effinayright said...: Still, Jonah's "Liberal Fascism" is a great book, a seminal book.

The Left hates it with white-hot intensity, because he shows how modern liberalism is really no different than Nazi-ism aside from its anti-semitism --except it's now embracing even that.; 6/1/19, 11:07 PM
narciso said...: There was a two part episode of bones that indicates this narrative, apparently there was a secret organization dedicated how Hoover's mission, which has been influencing events since the 70s, they are like the knight templars of Hoover's files, and they has arranged to hide them in an u interesting place; 6/1/19, 11:08 PM
walter said...: Quaestor said... "hey is the VA Beach shooter white? if not, will that complicate things?"

His name was DeWayne Craddock, and he was black.
--
Whelp. Story must disappear.; 6/1/19, 11:15 PM
traditionalguy said...: June 6 comes Friday. We listened to the D-Day radio broadcast replay. Them were very serious days. The spiritual mood comes through. That mood was similar to the night Trump crushed Hillary and her Broadcast Media Army.; 6/1/19, 11:23 PM
walter said...: rcocean said...
IRC, Possible magazine Names: "The Weekly Cuck" "Trump haters review" "Reasonable Conservative Magazine"
--
"Losing with dignity"; 6/1/19, 11:24 PM
RK said...: "Angry Black Man Kills 12 In Virginia Beach Massacre"; 6/1/19, 11:30 PM
Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...: "Trump's Racist Rhetoric Causes Man To Become Black, Kill 12"; 6/1/19, 11:36 PM
mockturtle said...: "Angry Black Man Kills 12 In Virginia Beach Massacre"

Not one of the MSM web sites had a picture of the guy. If he'd been white, it would've been plastered all over the page. Only Heavy.com had a photo.; 6/2/19, 12:13 AM
Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...: @walter
"Losing with dignity"

"Defeat With Honor" was the snark re:Nixon; 6/2/19, 12:16 AM
Crazy World said...: I do believe my President is going to visit the Queen next week. How nice.; 6/2/19, 12:25 AM
RK said...: I say let's draft our new Mesoamerican "refugees" into the Army so they can go fight the Chinese in our next war.; 6/2/19, 12:30 AM
Milwaukie guy said...: Book recommendation:
Got the Rick Atkinson "The British are Coming!" Since I'm still only halfway through with the new Churchill bio, I just perused all the maps before loaning it to my brother. If the quality of the maps is any indication, it's gonna be great!; 6/2/19, 12:33 AM
RK said...: Not one of the MSM web sites had a picture of the guy. If he'd been white, it would've been plastered all over the page.

One the one hand, I think there might be discussions in the MSM about not sensationalizing mass killers because the next killer feeds on that. On the other hand, I trust the MSM to do it on case-by-case basis depending on how the shooter fits their narrative.

Kind of like the states voting to assign their electoral votes to the winner of the national vote total. It'll only apply if a Dem wins the popular vote.; 6/2/19, 12:35 AM
Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...: Joking aside, prayers go out to the injured and families of the deceased; 6/2/19, 12:46 AM
n.n said...: Quaestor said... "hey is the VA Beach shooter white? if not, will that complicate things?"

His name was DeWayne Craddock, and he was black.

No diversity, no color judgments. He acted on his own monotonically divergent principles.; 6/2/19, 12:47 AM
n.n said...: how modern liberalism is really no different than Nazi-ism aside from its anti-semitism --except it's now embracing even that.

Diversity, Pro-Choice, clinical cannibalism a la Mengele, Jew privilege, social justice without borders, PC, delusions of ideological supremacy.; 6/2/19, 12:52 AM
bwebster said...: A number of you beat me to the observation I was going to make here. I just did a last-scan-before-bed of several news sites and was struck that there were no photos of the Virginia Beach Shooter in any of the articles.

On the one hand, that doesn't inherently bother me -- I think that mass shooters should be kept nameless and faceless.

But, again as many of you have already noted, if the shooter had been white and if nine of the 12 people he had killed had been black, I am certain all the mainstream news media would be shrieking about the racial angle, that they would have lots of photos of the shooter, and someone would be claiming to have seen the Shooter in a MAGA hat or at a Trump rally.

Personally, I don't think there was a racial motive in what the Shooter did; it really does sound like an long-simmering employee "going postal" for slights real or imagined. But there's a reason I've given up on the mainstream media.; 6/2/19, 1:30 AM
Ty said...: I've been reading Jonah Goldberg basically since the beginning (1998). In the early years, he provided some 8th grade humor that conservatives sorely needed. Lately it's just been... not funny? I can only read about Edmond Burke and blah blah for so long. Trump should be a goldmine of jokes for his column, but I suspect maybe Trump got under his skin.; 6/2/19, 2:33 AM
Clyde said...: Did you see the video of the animal rights protester grabbing the microphone from Kamala Harris at the Democrat summit in San Francisco? The dude could have come from central casting: Bearded hipster with a man-bun. Definitely one of Nancy's constituents.; 6/2/19, 2:38 AM
Clyde said...: Also, did you see how Kamala fled the stage during the ruckus? Trump wouldn’t have fled the stage. I wonder how many of the other Democrats would have stood their ground against the hipster?; 6/2/19, 4:01 AM
Quaestor said...: Bearded hipster with a man-bun. Definitely one of Nancy's constituents.

That beta's beard represents the last of his testosterone reserves.

Kamala's reaction was legendary. If she had rolled her eyeballs only slightly more vigorously they would have rolled into the parking lot.; 6/2/19, 4:04 AM
Jaq said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/2/19, 4:20 AM
Jaq said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/2/19, 4:28 AM
stevew said...: Attended a wedding last night. 30 year old son of longtime friends. Turns out the bride grew up in the town my friend and I are from, and her mother was a year behind us in high school. The school had about 1600 kids across four high school grades. We didn't travel in the same circles but knew a lot of the same people. I'm not a FB participant and so don't know about the current status of these folks, but she is and does. I was surprised at how many of my HS classmates still live in my home town.

Great bunch of kids at the wedding having a great time. Lots of late 70's and 80's dance tunes. One guy with a man bun. One really notable thing is the obvious love, respect, and affection the happy couple have for each other. Great to see.

I'm very much enjoying seeing Mueller exposed for the partisan hack he is (and has always been). Barr is playing this perfectly to make that happen. Barr is the best cabinet selection Trump has made.; 6/2/19, 6:01 AM
iowantwo said...: Great bunch of kids at the wedding having a great time. Lots of late 70's and 80's dance tunes.

I lived through the golden age of music. The music at weddings when I got married, is still being played today. Not contemporary music. I just dont see todays new stuff being choosen for weddings 50 years from now. Nor will todays groups be packing venues when they are in their seventies.; 6/2/19, 6:11 AM
Narayanan said...: "Losing dignity"

More Edgy; 6/2/19, 7:20 AM
Jaq said...: BTW, I went to urgent care for the tick bite and they gave me a dose of antibiotics while I was there which they said more than likely would prevent lyme disease, so if you get a tick on you and you don’t notice it right away, doc said if it was on you 36 hours, and it’s been less than 72 hours since you removed it, one dose right there in the office should do the trick. If you have one on your arm or something that you can easily see, and it just bit you and you pulled it right off, don’t worry too much about it, and they won’t give you the antibiotics for that.

Information that’s hopefully not useless to you. Also, if you find the tick already bloated, don’t squeeze it as you are just injecting yourself with the contents of it’s gut, use tweezers to grab the head.

And that’s all I have to say about that.; 6/2/19, 7:25 AM
Narr said...: @iowantwo611a: what was "the" golden age of music?

Serious question; what do you think of the notion that most people's idea of the best music is whatever they listened to in college (or those years, anyway)?

Narr
sorta works for me; 6/2/19, 11:34 AM
Char Char Binks, Esq. said...: "I think there might be discussions in the MSM about not sensationalizing mass killers because the next killer feeds on that"

Yes, the way they won't shut up about Dylann Roof, but immediately forgot about Omar Thornton, Aaron Alexis, and Lee Boyd Malvo.; 6/2/19, 1:03 PM