Althouse |
- An Afternoon Café...
- "Greene Gains Popularity With Republican Voters Following Committee Fight/Georgia freshman is now as prominent nationwide as House GOP leaders."
- "Surprising words from the country that gave us Derrida and Foucault :)"
- The second-oldest person in the world just survived covid 19.
- "If Donald Trump directly caused the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, then Democrats need to prove it...."
- "Meandering Performance by Defense Lawyers Enrages Trump/The former president was particularly angry at Bruce L. Castor Jr., one of his lawyers, for acknowledging the effectiveness of the House Democrats’ presentation."
- It was at precisely the 9-minute mark that I turned off the Bruce Castor opening statement, because I didn't need to watch someone else's nightmare.
- At the Tuesday Night Cafe...
| Posted: 10 Feb 2021 01:18 PM PST ... in case you need to talk. I can see that the impeachment trial is back, but I am not watching. Feel free to talk about it or anything else.  |
| Posted: 10 Feb 2021 09:34 AM PST "30% of GOP voters view Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene favorably, up 11 points since last week/Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the No. 3 House Republican, is liked by 22% of Republicans, up 7 points during that time/59% of voters nationwide have an opinion of Greene, matching prominence of Cheney and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.)."  |
| "Surprising words from the country that gave us Derrida and Foucault :)" Posted: 10 Feb 2021 07:27 AM PST Tweets Jordan Peterson, looking at "'Out-of-control woke leftism and cancel culture' from the U.S is a threat to FRANCE because it 'attacks' the nation's heritage and identity, French politicians and intellectuals say" (Daily Mail). This is a good nudge to think deeply about how the "woke leftism and cancel culture" has used and distorted the grand French philosophers beyond recognition. The French don't recognize what we've done to the philosophy we appropriated. Our lefties are doing Frenchface... badly. From the Daily Mail article: The collection of intellectuals arguing that France is being contaminated by the leftism of America was buoyed on last year after French President Emmanuel Macron appeared to side with them. In a speech in October on the 'Fight against Separatism', Macron warned against leaving 'the intellectual debate to others' as he cautioned of the 'certain social science theories entirely imported from the United States'.... Entirely! This month also saw the publication of a book by social scientists Stéphane Beaud and Gérard Noiriel in which they claimed that race is a 'bulldozer' that destroys other subjects.... Historian Pierre-André Taguieff argued... that the 'American-style black question' was a 'totally artificial importation' to France. He said that it was all driven by 'hatred of the West, as a white civilization'.... James Lindsay — author of "Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity―and Why This Harms Everybody" — has a response at Peterson's tweet: "They have a complicated relationship with those thinkers, who were wrong, yes, but who were also bastardized by American Critical Theory frauds the French would certainly not respect in the least."  |
| The second-oldest person in the world just survived covid 19. Posted: 10 Feb 2021 07:51 AM PST "A 116-year-old French nun who is believed to be the world's second-oldest person has survived COVID-19 and is looking forward to celebrating her 117th birthday on Thursday" (Fox32). "She didn't ask me about her health, but about her habits," David Tavella, the communications manager for the [nun's] care home.... "For example, she wanted to know if meal or bedtime schedules would change. She showed no fear of the disease. On the other hand, she was very concerned about the other residents."  |
| Posted: 10 Feb 2021 06:42 AM PST "Americans need to see all the evidence. And I'm worried that Democrats won't supply enough of it. Citizens need testimony and documentation that painstakingly lays out the theory of the case: how Trump planned to claim fraud well before the election and how he followed through afterward, using false statements and frivolous lawsuits to deceive his followers into believing that he hadn't really lost; how his political team helped bring the angriest and most extreme of those followers to D.C. on the day the results were being certified and whipped the crowd into a rage; how Trump himself then pointed that mob at Congress; and how the president both demonstrated and magnified his complicity by refusing to intervene for long hours as his supporters rampaged through the U.S. Capitol. Yet as I write, opening arguments have begun in Trump's Senate trial, and Democrats aren't even sure whether they're going to call witnesses.... [E]ven the most meticulous case is unlikely to sway the 17 Republican senators that Democrats would need to convict Trump.... [But it is] important is to lay out the entire case before the large number of Americans who haven't understood exactly how the events of Jan. 6 unfolded or how much Trump and his allies did to foment that insurrection.... And what America needs most right now is some politicians who demonstrate what it looks like to do the right thing for the nation even at some personal political cost." I would add that we need to see a fair trial. It doesn't matter that the outcome is already obvious. The Democrats have brought us this far, and they need to follow through in a way that impresses us with its legitimacy. It's hard to do that when the judges are lined up by party and they're all self-interested in the outcome and were involved in the incident at the heart of the case. But to cut matters short will make things worse and leave Trump supporters aggrieved and believing that a great injustice was perpetrated. ADDED: Rereading this post, I can see that a Trump antagonist might say: Since Trump is going to win, Trump supporters will have no occasion to cry injustice. That attitude could stoke confidence that the House Managers can conduct the trial in any manner that they find politically advantageous. I think that would be a terrible mistake. Once you take up the powerful weapons of government, you must demonstrate that you are circumspect and trustworthy. ALSO: I cut down the quote so I wouldn't copy too much, but one of the lines I left out is something that I thought would be too distracting. Now, I find, I'm still thinking about it, and it's nagging at me, so I need to include it. It's what comes right after the quote in my post title: To be clear, I believe Trump deserves to be convicted of grave crimes against the republic and barred from ever again running for office. You see the problem! McArdle hasn't seen the evidence that is needed to convince the public, and yet she is already convinced. And there's something about that "To be clear, I believe..." that seems like she feels pressure to assure WaPo readers that she's on the right side — Don't worry, I know he's guilty, it's those other people that I, like you, am worried about. I do give McArdle credit for saying "I believe" and not "I know." And I notice she says "deserves to be convicted of grave crimes" not "is guilty of grave crimes." That's rather sneaky, because you could say "deserves to be convicted of grave crimes" even if you think he may not actually be guilty of the crime charged. You may simply think Trump is horrible and has done so many things that are wrong that he deserves to have something pinned on him.  |
| Posted: 10 Feb 2021 04:19 AM PST Maggie Haberman reports (at the NYT).
It is painful to watch a legal proceeding where one side has far, far better legal representation than the other. Castor is a former prosecutor, so perhaps he's used to being on the side that is much better represented and has skills honed through encounters with overworked, underprepared criminal defense lawyers. I don't know if I want to feel sorry for Trump for his lack of representation, when there are so many people struggling with insufficient legal assistance. It's easy to ignore such people. They're not in the spotlight. ADDED: Trump is a conspicuous victim of poor representation. But I do feel bad about it. I want to see a fair fight. Yet perhaps it is his fault for trying to dictate what his lawyers must argue and leaving them in the position where their only alternative was to walk away, leaving Trump to scramble for someone, anyone who will represent him, and those are the characters who are struggling to hold up Trump's end of the fight. It's a grisly spectacle, but Trump has responsibility for it.  |
| Posted: 10 Feb 2021 03:19 AM PST He's revealed that he changed what he was going to say because the House Managers' presentation was so good and rambled about how we all feel emotional when we've witnessed violence and — seeming to want to discourse on the subject of the specialness of U.S. Senators — he takes us back to his childhood, when he used to listen to a record — an old-time LP on a record player, remember those things? — and his parents had a record of Senator Everett Dirksen, I bet some of you remember Everett Dirkson, oh, my, he had a deep, resonant, sonorous voice, he would intone, intone with such seriousness, about gallant men... that's what the record was called "Gallant Men," though of course, today, it would need to be "Gallant Men and Women" — chuckle, chuckle — because, you know, women, women are gallant too. Shall we talk about gallantry? Gallantry is important in this world, and Senators can be gallant! Some folks say ga-LANT, accent on the second syllable, but whether you say GAL-lant or ga-LANT, whether you be Democrat or Republican, male or female, Kansan or Nebraska — whoever, wherever, from whatever walk of life that may lead you here today to this great chamber, this chamber that was breached — breached! — on that horrible day, you know that violence is wrong, violence is terrible, and violence against the most gallant, most serious, resonant, sonorous-voiced chamber that has ever graced the face of this earth, from the great, gallant Everett Dirkson, through the ages, down to you, you most sonorous and gallant denizens of this sacred chamber, it was a most awful event that occurred that day, January 6th, and it made me think of that time when I was but a little boy, barely able to operate the record player, with its tone arm and its revolutions per minute setting, but I would work oh so hard to cue up that voice, that wonderful voice of Everett Dirkson, why that man, speaking of gallantness — gallantry — it reached me in the depth of my being — though I was but a little boy — and I thought someday, perhaps I too, could find my way to the Senate Chamber and I could stand before it and open my mouth and speak, speak in my voice, a voice that would perhaps have matured in the deep, warm, chilling depth of the deep voice of Everett Dirkson, and I would be standing there, speaking, and... oh, my God, please, let me wake from this nightmare!  |
| Posted: 09 Feb 2021 05:23 PM PST ... you can talk about whatever you want.  |
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