Althouse: At the Monday Night Café...

August 28, 2023

At the Monday Night Café...

... still no sunrise! Once again, you'll have to talk about what you want without the help of a sunrise.

36 comments:

Narr said...: While my wife was out of town my son and I had dinner at an old-fashioned Italian place that she doesn't much like.

He's 37, a college dropout, single, and is now doing OK in a high-end custom woodshop after a series of crap jobs. It never occurred to me to ask him about "Rich Men North of Richmond."

And I have literally no idea what he might say if I did.; 8/28/23, 7:55 PM
William50 said...: "The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance."

Thomas Paine; 8/28/23, 8:04 PM
Original Mike said...: VICTOR SHOKIN DEMANDED BIDEN PROBE IN 2020: You didn’t hear about it because the Mainstream Media was busy protecting and promoting the Biden presidential campaign. But, as The Lid reports, “the former Ukrainian Prosecutor General filed a complaint with Ukraine’s National Bureau of Investigation demanding an investigation of then VP Joe Biden for ‘illegal influence on him as the prosecutor general of Ukraine.’”

"Former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin: “Owing to my firm position on the above-mentioned cases regarding their prompt and objective investigation, which should have resulted in the arrest and the indictment of the guilty parties, Joseph Biden developed a firmly hostile attitude towards me which led him to express in private conversations with senior Ukrainian officials, as well as in his public speeches, a categorical request for my immediate dismissal from the post of Attorney General of Ukraine in exchange for the sum of US $1 billion in as a financial guarantee from the United States for the benefit of Ukraine."

It's well over $1 billion now. How much has the US provided to Ukraine since the start of the war? Zelesky has Joe Biden by the short hairs.

"New evidence alleges Hunter’s business partner and Burisma board member Devon Archer met with then-Secretary of State John Kerry weeks before Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin was fired while investigating Burisma in 2016. Shokin was fired less than a month after Kerry met with Archer at the State Department, Fox News reported.". Why would Devon Archer be meeting with the Secretary of State?; 8/28/23, 8:20 PM
rehajm said...: Black people are the battleground, or so both sides think. GOP peels of a percent or two and it gets hard to fraud it again…; 8/28/23, 8:20 PM
JK Brown said...: Ricochet had Henry Olsen, some conservative journalist on. He opined that Joe might run the primary season to collect the delegates and thus own the convention. Then Biden bows out ala Johnson but uses his delegates to anoint someone like Newsome. The wildcard is if Kamala could finally find some traction between now and then. Since obviously Biden would like to anoint a black woman. Unlikely.

I'm thinking Scott Adams is right that Biden isn't in charge and that's why we've got the scattershot indictments as these Democrat prosecutors, etc. take their shot at Trump even as it seems to create a defiance vote for Trump. That is, don't really like Trump, but no way they can be permitted to succeed in taking him out.; 8/28/23, 8:44 PM
Gahrie said...: Black people are the battleground, or so both sides think. GOP peels of a percent or two and it gets hard to fraud it again…

Which is why people are getting so pissed at Cornel West saying he will run for president as a Green. He could get up to 10% of the Black vote himself.; 8/28/23, 8:56 PM
rcocean said...: Dragnet "The BIg Cast" with Lee Marvin is on youtube. Pretty good example of the "Old Dragnet".; 8/28/23, 9:01 PM
Lem the artificially intelligent said...: From my X: Kids say the darndest things

I never saw that coming. Bush was able to duck the shoe, but this kid made sure everybody heard him loud and clear. My goodness gracious.; 8/28/23, 9:13 PM
roger said...: Mr Cook: Accordingly, there is no reason for them to reference their religious beliefs in public statements other than to grandstand or to blow dog whistles. It's special pleading, saying, "Vote for me because I believe in your god, too."

Mr. Klemperer: More restrictions are placed upon Jews; they are no longer allowed to enjoy public parks or lending libraries. They are also subject to a curfew of eight o'clock, after which they must remain in their ghetto apartments.

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/students/modules/hi31z/bibliography/klemperer.pdf; 8/28/23, 9:23 PM
wildswan said...: Instead of taking up space with "X, formerly Twitter" as they say now, why not "X, ex-Twitter."; 8/28/23, 10:30 PM
gadfly said...: "New evidence alleges Hunter’s business partner and Burisma board member Devon Archer met with then-Secretary of State John Kerry weeks before Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin was fired while investigating Burisma in 2016. Shokin was fired less than a month after Kerry met with Archer at the State Department, Fox News reported."

Victor Shokin ceased investigating Burisma in 2012. Hunter was a board member at Burisma from 2014-2019. The prosecutor general was soon voted out by the Ukrainian Parliament.

Mr. Shokin was not aggressively pursuing investigations into Mykola Zlochevsky or Burisma. But the oligarch’s allies say Mr. Shokin was using the threat of prosecution to try to solicit bribes from Mr. Zlochevsky and his team, and that left the oligarch’s team leery of dealing with the prosecutor.

Shokin's dismissal had been sought not just by Mr. Biden, but also by others in the Obama administration, (perhaps including John Kerry) other Western governments, and international lenders. Mr. Shokin had been repeatedly accused of turning a blind eye to corruption in his office and among the Ukrainian political elite and criticized for failing to bring corruption cases.

So Giuliani was inside Ukraine forever looking for somebody to bring down Biden and he brought back a liar looking for love and cash.; 8/29/23, 2:37 AM
wendybar said...: Nicole Malliotakis
@NMalliotakis
·
Follow
.@NYCMayor says “let them work” but if granted work authorization, migrants could ALSO vote in NYC elections under city’s new non-citizen voting law. We sued. Court struck down law. @NYCMayorsOffice appealed.

Everyone see what’s going on here??; 8/29/23, 3:22 AM
wendybar said...: somebody to bring down Biden and he brought back a liar looking for love and cash.

8/29/23, 2:37 AM

You just described Hunter Biden to a T!!!; 8/29/23, 3:28 AM
wendybar said...: "Xi Van Fleet escaped from communist China, but not before witnessing the horrors of life under Mao Zedong, who was responsible for the deaths of millions of people, mostly by starvation.

When she looks at what the left is doing to Trump, she has a warning for America. She says this is just what China’s ‘Cultural Revolution’ looked like.

She accuses the left of being Marxists and says that no one is safe because they will eventually come for everyone.
XI VAN FLEET: I lived through the most brutal communist regime in China and I witnessed a lot, and now I recount one of the darkest moments I witnessed is the day when the former president of the United States was indicted and mugshot in Georgia prison. I have to say I think America is quickly becoming a communist country and our rule of law has been turned into what Marxists call proletarian dictatorship. The party in power is after its political opposition and it is not just the president, but people like activists are now in jail, as political prisoners in the free country of the United States."

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/08/woman-who-escaped-communist-china-under-mao-reacts/; 8/29/23, 4:06 AM
wendybar said...: SRSrocco Report
@SRSroccoReport
·

WIND TURBINE BLADE GRAVEYARD: The Darkside Of Green Energy

Down in lil ole Sweetwater, Texas, they have their own wind blade graveyard with more than a thousand blades sitting plum next to the town cemetery.

"For anyone who doesn’t already know, wind turbine blades at this point in time, can’t be recycled, so ordinarily, these expired blades wind up in landfills. According to a study published in June of this year in the Scientific Reports journal, around 2.4% of turbine blades must be decommissioned every year, and per the United States Geological Survey, there are more than 70,800 wind turbines registered in the country. So, assuming each turbine has three blades on it, that means that roughly 5,100 blades every year, just in the U.S., become literal garbage (although arguably, they always were). Blades can weigh anywhere from 5,200 pounds each, to as much as 27,000 — that makes for between 27 million and 138 million pounds of trash bound for landfills annually."

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/08/modest_texas_town_repurposed_into_a_dumping_ground_for_expired_wind_turbine_blades.html; 8/29/23, 4:15 AM
wendybar said...: American Thinker did an article about your column about Ronan Farrow, and mentioned some of your commenters!!

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/08/smackdown_ronan_farrow_takes_on_elon_musk_gets_scored_for_not_understanding_his_subject.html; 8/29/23, 4:27 AM
wendybar said...: Nothing to see here...Nope, Nothing, nada. But look...TRRRRUUUUUUMMMMMMPPPPPPPPPP!!!
Go back to sleep because NOBODY is going to do anything to stop what is coming...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12455387/National-Archives-reveals-5-400-Biden-emails-president-potentially-used-FAKE-NAMES-forward-government-information-discuss-business-son-Hunter-American-public-deserves-know-them.html; 8/29/23, 4:37 AM
tim in vermont said...: The funny thing is that it was official State Department policy that Ukraine had made sufficient progress on corruption to receive the billon dollars, I will provide the link to the memo, if you like, but Joe Biden unilaterally overruled the State Department, just weeks after his son received an email from Burisma asking that Hunter, somehow, through his power as a crackhead, or through his relationship with his father, make the investigation go away. The email is published in the New York Post. Oh yeah, and shell companies controlled by Joe and Jill Biden received 30 million dollars, per bank records, from Burisma. BTW, when Biden released his tax return, he did not include these shell companies, through which he received the bulk of his income.

Please call bullshit on any of these assertions, if you want me to back them up with links.

I have to wonder sometimes if certain commenters here are being paid by the extremely wealthy men that they shill for here… Naah!; 8/29/23, 6:27 AM
Jersey Fled said...: It’s getting more and more obvious that the Left is determined to whip up hysteria over Covid again this fall. I counted almost a dozen stories on my news feeds this morning predicting school closures and mask mandates.

I refuse to participate.; 8/29/23, 6:46 AM
Big Mike said...: Victor Shokin ceased investigating Burisma in 2012.

@gadfly, you can, of course, provide proof for this assertion?; 8/29/23, 7:09 AM
Gahrie said...: It’s getting more and more obvious that the Left is determined to whip up hysteria over Covid again this fall. I counted almost a dozen stories on my news feeds this morning predicting school closures and mask mandates.

I refuse to participate.

I talked with my 12th grade Government students about this yesterday. None of them want masks and shots to return (at least that would admit it) but most will probably comply.; 8/29/23, 8:00 AM
Original Mike said...: "Shokin's dismissal had been sought not just by Mr. Biden, but also by others in the Obama administration, (perhaps including John Kerry) other Western governments, and international lenders."

Bullshit.; 8/29/23, 8:45 AM
planetgeo said...: Go easy on those "rumors" about the likely coming mandates on masking and closures for "electoricron COVID". They're triggering Inga. She wants links. Just like she wanted links for the Russian dossier conspiracy. And when she got them from even the NY Times, she just ignored it. And still does.; 8/29/23, 8:50 AM
Original Mike said...: "Victor Shokin ceased investigating Burisma in 2012. "

Bullshit on stilts. It's right there in Shokin's own statement in the link I provided:

Shokin: “Throughout the last months of 2015 and the first months of 2016 Joseph Biden, taking advantage of his position, came several times on official visits to Ukraine in order to negotiate with the leaders of the country my eviction and, consequently, the closing of the objective investigation into the offenses committed by persons associated with the company ‘Burisma Holding Limited’ (Cyprus), including the son of the aforementioned US official.”; 8/29/23, 9:02 AM
Gospace said...: Gahrie said...
...
I talked with my 12th grade Government students about this yesterday. None of them want masks and shots to return (at least that would admit it) but most will probably comply.

Then they haven't been brought up properly. Civil disobedience is an American tradition. If it's not already in the curriculum I suggest you taalk about it again and recommend to your students a little extra reading on their own- Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau. It was recommended reading when I was in HS.; 8/29/23, 10:54 AM
Jersey Fled said...: Fun fact of the day:

If all of the electric energy you consumed in your entire life was generated by a nuclear plant, the radioactive waste would fill up one soda can.

Reference: https://news.mit.edu/2023/winning-over-nuclear-skeptics-0829; 8/29/23, 11:04 AM
Rich said...: What makes a system of laws work is its time-tested capacity to deliver order which allows the flourishing of other social and private goods. The Democratic party's tolerance of municipal anarchy challenges this Hobbesian fundamental.

What makes democracy work is to subject governance to the commonsense tests of majority approval, preferably articulated through slow-moving deliberative institutions over time and successive elections. The majority cannot be tyrannized by its minorities.

There is widespread angst across the American public created and fed by the perception that Washington is a Republic of Money and that elites have gamed the process of majority voting to their insider benefit. In particular, the party of the people — the Democratic party — doesn't quite seem to work for the people.

(What I mean by the "Democratic party's tolerance of municipal anarchy" — San Francisco. New York. Los Angeles); 8/29/23, 12:44 PM
Michael K said...: Rich, were you struck by lightning recently? Since your last comment?; 8/29/23, 1:32 PM
Rusty said...: wendybar said...

"SRSrocco Report
@SRSroccoReport
·

WIND TURBINE BLADE GRAVEYARD: The Darkside Of Green Energy."
Most people don't know this, but wind turbines a hooked up to the grid which goes both ways. The bearings that all those rotating parts rely on are very high precision bearings. Consequently they must be maintained at a constant temp. Even when the blades aren't turning those bearings are heated. And, of course, the bearings are heated electronically.
They also run in a bath of very pure oil. Lot's of oil. About 60 gallons.
Yep. Green energy needs fossil fuels.; 8/29/23, 1:58 PM
Narr said...: In Memphis public schools, two years of Junior ROTC were required of the boys, and I recall a dreary day in '68-69-70 when we stayed inside and watched a cheesy Army film about-- Henry David Thoreau!

It was a little documentary focusing on his refusal to pay taxes as a protest against the Mexican-American War. It was all about the fundamental American right to stand against the tide, even against the government (and take the licks--in his case, pretty mild).

The thing was probably ten years old at the time, and of course we junior hippies jeered and guffawed at the fake beards and hammy acting, and felt sophisticated to notice parallels to current events that we were sure didn't occur to the instructors. (Did I mention that we were teenagers?)

It was a strange time, the late 60s-early 70s.; 8/29/23, 2:31 PM
Jupiter said...: Just a little update on Philip Bump.; 8/29/23, 2:58 PM
Jupiter said...: Just a little update on Philip Bump.; 8/29/23, 2:58 PM
Rusty said...: Narr.
We didn't get that one. What we did learn was that if you dissassemble the M60 machine gun recoil spring retainer nut just right you can shoot the operating rod straight up into the cieling tiles. Then the janitor had to come in with a ladder and you got an hour on the guard path.; 8/30/23, 7:19 AM
Rusty said...: Thanks Jupiter.
It is the moraly weak minds of our usual suspects who keep promoting falsehoods that they get from reporters like Bump.; 8/30/23, 7:23 AM
Rusty said...: Thanks Jupiter.
It is the moraly weak minds of our usual suspects who keep promoting falsehoods that they get from reporters like Bump.; 8/30/23, 7:24 AM
Narr said...: We had a study M60 but not everybody got to handle it. We did, however, learn to field-strip and reassemble our M1 rifles in the dark in less than a minute.

Just like in the movies.; 8/30/23, 10:46 AM