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September 15, 2018



Okay ....


"ideological left and the authoritarian right"

Bass-ackwards IMO.

Obama was the authoritarian left. NeverTrumpers are the ideological right.

Trump and followers are neither. More Tea-Party than anything else.

None of Trump's successes have been the result of dictator commands. Trump has deferred to even the most ridiculous rulings, except for twittering his side for the public.

matt - deplore me if you must



So smoking dope does not make you more intelligent. Thanks Andy for providing another example.


"ugly, racist nationalism"

Sheee ... it.

I love it when they call me names.


Yes you blew your wad 10 years ago, this is why you got trump,


"When he's good he's excellent - "

Hope that was sarcasm TM.

Captain Hate

Sod off, Sully.

Captain Hate

NeverTrumpers are the ideological right.

What ideology do they adhere to other than anti Drumpf?

Miss Marple (the real one)

I don't see what is so hard to understand about President Trump.


The authoritarian left attempts to bully us every day, yet we never get the slightest whiff of this so-called "authoritarian right," which is a figment of his imagination.

(TM, if you're reading, you can eliminate the trolls with a simple change to require logging in.)


"What ideology do they adhere to ... ?"

When one of them says "That's not who we are" ... the answer to your question is also the answer to "Who the fnck are you then?"


Apparently elections only have consequences when a prog wins.


"change to require logging in"

I'm okay with that, but TM did put it to a vote a year or two ago.

The Infamous Ignatz

Do you think maybe dumbass Ben ever stops and wonders why the architects of and biggest cheerleaders for the Iraq misadventure are just as rabid Trump haters as his demented self?
Nah, me neither.


Ext, 9:55 Hear! Hear!
TM is not reading, I believe. And trolls would not be eliminated but slowed to a glacial pace. An excellent suggestion nonetheless.

Fake ad (4 chan?)


I thought I vaguely remembered that, boris. Was it voted down with the thinking that new posters would be less likely to delurk?

The Infamous Ignatz

Randy Andy is precisely 50% more rational than his fellow sodomite Barry.
Whereas Barry constantly proposes two utter strawmen and sagely pretends to choose the rational middle, Sullivan posits only one totally false characterization and sagely poses himself, at least on the map of reality, but still in an indefensible spot of false moderation.
That's what gives him the conceit of ever calling himself a conservative.



True. They'd need to create multiple Typepad IDs by using multiple real email IDs, each of which could be banned or easily killfiled.


boris: "TM did put it to a vote a year or two ago."

Interesting. I've been a semi regular since the '16 election and don't recall it.
Could be aging memory ...

Captain Hate

I don't remember it either. It's TM's blog, not a democracy.

Miss Marple (the real one)

It’s the National Day of Action, & this team is ready to #LeadRight! #IBackBraun

— Indiana GOP (@indgop) September 15, 2018

Photo at link. Posting this because I noticed how young a lot of his volunteers are.

JM Hanes

Picked up at the Volokh Conspireacy:

Logicians photo Logic_zpss2xlvhil.png

Beasts of England

'NeverTrumpers are the ideological right.'

I'd say that they pretend to be, boris. I've never seen much in terms of actions to back up that statement. Kasich voted for the assault weapons ban. Nothing ideological about that. They're simply con men...

Miss Marple (the real one)

This should not be a surprise, but apparently it is, and food execs are attributing this to their genius revamping and marketing.

I wold say the likely reasons include the following:

1. Retirees tired of always cooking and wanting something quick.
2. Singles tired and not wanting to spend the money to ear out after a long workday.
3. Teens looking for something hot to eat after school.
4. Almost every home having a microwave.

The Infamous Ignatz

--or if you replace a healthy, self-critical patriotism with an ugly, racist nationalism that aims to restore the very worst of this country’s past, rather than preserve its extraordinary and near-unique achievements--

Surely TM doesn't see that as a reasonable description of Trump or Trump voters.
The nation has moved so far left, Trump's policies are not even as far right nor as nationalistic as the vast majority of FDR's or JFK's policies and they are certainly less racist.

The very worst of this country's past has already been restored by a foul Democratic party, that when faced with millions of escaped slaves who no longer did Dem bidding instituted Jim Crow to get them back on the plantation and when they were freed from Dem segregationists enticed them voluntarily back onto the Dem plantation of compliance and servitude with the family and independence destroying welfare state. Supposedly one of their own, Barry, proudly boasted of how many of his brothers and sisters he had enrolled in food stamps and medicaid. The supposedly racist Trump proudly boasts about how many have been freed from the grips of dependency and are now independent and in control of their own lives and are gainfully employed.

Newspeak and the suspension and denial of reality through prog propaganda was an evil Orwell was warning us about, not a template for how to look at politics.


"They're simply con men...":

Maybe not all, but most ideologies really are just cons.



#APEdited: AP loves editorial adjectives--@realDonaldTrump tweets PR officials told him 16 people died in Maria. Hours later AP repeats an earlier tweet, “Trump cast doubt on the storm's *widely accepted* death toll” as if popular makes it fact, not opinion.


I may have posted this one earlier but I’m too lazy to look:


#APEdited: When @AP writes, “It is unclear ...”, they editorialize. Cheap speculation. Today they hijacked the #Manafort case. “It is unclear what information Manafort is prepared to offer investigators about the president.” None? They pull the ploy w/ @Potus pardons, too. Sad!


The above are me. Typus had logged me out.

Miss Marple (the real one)

I posted this thread link on the previous thread. This is the wrapped version, which details all of Dianne Feinstein's husband's connections to China.

Man Tran

Mad Jack, from previous thread, what boat were you competing in? We used to sail out of West River Yacht Club every year when they hosted their annual 505 Regatta. The smart ones tied empty milk jugs to the top of their masts so when (not if) they capsized, their mainsail wouldn’t turn black from the muck lining the Chesapeake. Great memories there.

The Infamous Ignatz

Concur boris.
Marx, Hitler, Chomsky, Alinsky, et al are the flim flam men.
Their marks are not the rest of us normals but the insipid monkeys that gobble up the scam and swank about like they aren't the repulsive fools the rest of us see. Puffed up imbeciles like Roderick Spode...and Ben.



She casted ballots under the name of Angie Yadira Zamora in 2004 and 2012, according to the Chronicle. She also voted in the 2016 presidential election.

In August, 19 foreign nationals were indicted for voting in North Carolina. One of the indicted individuals allegedly voted in 16 elections in a period of nearly two decades, The Daily Caller News Foundation previously reported.

All but one of the 19 indicted voters registered to vote through the Department of Motor Vehicles through the 1993 National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).

Beasts of England

Heck, sbw - the '3,000' figure in not even a death toll, it's an estimate. And it was estimated using a ridiculous methodology...

Buford Gooch

MM, perhaps the fact that quality and variety have gone up tremendously over the years would help explain the rise in the sales of frozen microwaveable meals.

Public Interest Legal Foundation wrote in its study, “Safe Spaces,” that the NVRA made it easier for anybody to register to vote because there was no verification process in place.

Ohio Republican Rep. Bob Gibbs introduced a bill on Sept. 6 that would require people nationwide to show proof of citizenship, like a valid U.S. passport or birth certificate, when registering to vote.


Clarice Feldman


"regular since the '16 election"

It was before the election so the log-in vote (well, opinion survey) was at least 2 years ago.

Clarice Feldman

10:31 is about Michelle's new book and tour. (I keep forgetting TP cuts off AT headers.)


There is one particular spasm that Typepad has, when it throws a fit, where the default avatars disappear and are replaced with the commenter's name.

If Typepad could offer that as a fulltime feature instead of a random bug, the SOB deficient can killfile at the top of the wasted space instead of the bottom.

Maybe that will help restrain them from having to talk to someone that they would ignore anyways in their real lives.


I don't know anymore what was the correct attitude to Iraq, let the sanctions run down, let the succession go to uday and qusay. Were there wmds in Iraq probably, what condition were they in, the Salafi trend was proceeding space, this is something Silva admits sheepishly after 350 pages, they did have contacts with Sunni and Shia militants.


Many of the classic books were meant to be spoken rather than read.

Outstanding spoken books would be a nice list. T.H. White’s “Once and Future King” fits into that list.

The Infamous Ignatz

So far Florence seems to have not quite lived up to expectations.
Anyone looked at the prog sites to note how great their disappointment more people aren't dead or suffering?

Buford Gooch

Clarice, I tried to read the article on Michelle Obama, but got disgusted so quickly I couldn't finish it.

Captain Hate

Continuing with that Wexner tantrum from the last thread, high roller turds like him continue to illustrate what Mike Huckabee said on Life, Liberty and Levin: that by having a self financed campaign, DJT owes nothing to the Uniparty money men who are responsible for getting tools like Ryan to toe the line and MYSTERIOUSLY back away from honoring the campaign promises that got them elected.

So take a hike, Wexner; and spend your filthy jack on some equally filthy whores.


Most of us probably remember the tv show Spenser For Hire, but it was based on a very readable group of books by the now deceased Robert B Parker.
I always thought avery brooks captured the essence of hawk superbly.
Posted by: rse | September 14, 2018 at 05:52 PM

rse - Here's another vote for the Spenser series. They are very readable, but with substance, as opposed to the readable fluff of John Grisham.
I thought Brooks was nearly perfect as Hawk, too. I enjoyed almost every book in the series.

I'm guessing most of us probably know Parker as the author of the Jesse Stone series of books that were made into some enjoyable TV movies starring Tom Selleck.

btw, the Spenser angle makes me a wholehearted supporter of the use of 'Judas Goat' as the appropriate name for one who is used to lead others to their demise.

- - - - - -

I've read 18 on the list - and started another eight to ten that I just could not force myself to suffer through, or simply waste the time to finish.
What strikes me as odd is the purported nature of the list - "the list of America's 100 most-loved books" - given the greatly-loved books by some of our greatest authors who are *not* on the list.
The list strikes me as having been filtered through an NPR-approved PC list of authors.

Miss Marple (the real one)


If she comes near here my dem sister will go see her. She went to see her when she came for a "conversation" after he left office.

I had to endure how well-spoken, beautiful, and interesting she was. Someone should give me an award for diplomacy.


The comments at the Q-das Goat thread are many and are getting ugly:

BTW did I say Q-das Goat enough? I think I will say it 100 more times until the twitterverse hashtags it.


Just rolls off the tongue.

The Infamous Ignatz

I've noticed the same thing, TK, and been sorely disappointed when that temporary state disappears.


Sullivan concedes that there is reason for concern, but then he goes to procrustean lengths to craft a reasonable response which is a straw man.

If we saw what we wanted to see with chalabi, the left and some of the unchastened right saw wael as their standard bearer, the fact Kirkpatrick still doesn't any better perspective, well that's on him.

Man Tran


Probably one of the worst bathhouse billionaires. As was discussed here awhile back, that slime ball, Epstein, made most of his money investing for Wexner and ended up with Werner’s beater 727 that became the Lolita Express. Buckeye has stories of O$U insemination sessions because ol Wex couldn’t stand touching his beard.

The Infamous Ignatz

Referring to avatars not goats at 10:41.

Captain Hate

Katshit vetoed a relatively market based health care plan in order to impose Medicaid expansion in Ohio. He's ideologically aligned with the Pearly Gates theory of whatever casuistry makes that goof feel righteous at any time.


Referring to avatars not goats at 10:41.


Beasts of England

Wexner owns a damned fine Lürrsen yacht, so he's got that going for him...

Beasts of England

I forgot about that act of ideological purity, Captain! No wonder an idiot like Kristol in infatuated with him.

Captain Hate


With the availability of BLUE CHIP TALENT like Katshit, Ryan, Flake and Corker, Egg McMuffin will have to strive mightily to get the Rear Admiral's valued endorsement reflecting the rock ribbed conservative values of the Shuffleboard Army on the Lido Deck of the Sea Cuck.

Man Tran

Yeah, and he uses it to park off his private Greek Island where all his boy toys lounge around. Maybe he’s spooning for barky to join in.

Captain Hate

Ugh, MT, that goes a long way to explaining Portman's "evolution" on homo marriage that he had to breathlessly announce on that conservative beacon, MessNBC.


I understand catcher in the rye, a little better that a know what Salinger was going through during the wat I recall when I first entered middle school they offered another teen angst tale, the chocolate war, what purpose waa that about.


Kent State approves 2nd Amendment rally with no open carry

The northeast Ohio school last month told recent graduate Kaitlin Bennett to stop advertising an open-carry rally because she lacked permission and was no longer a student.

Kent State officials on Friday approved a no-gun rally scheduled for Sept. 29 that’s being sponsored by a conservative student organization called Liberty Hangout.

Bennett attracted attention this spring when she posted a photo on social media of her carrying a rifle on campus.

The Akron Beacon Journal reports that Bennett posted on Facebook Friday that she plans to open carry at the event because “it’s legally allowed.”

(Click to open.)

Beasts of England

I'm not sure how Trump could possibly withstand that juggernaut of rock-ribbed conservatism, Captain!! ;)

Old Lurker

"NeverTrumpers are the ideological right."

Sorry about leaving out the asterisk, but

that is total absolute bullshit.

I support Trump. I am the ideological right.

Dr. Weevil

People eating more frozen dinners is a natural effect of a booming economy. Those who have joined or rejoined the workforce in the last year and a half obviously have less free time and more available money than they did under Obama. That means they can splurge on Eggo waffles and real maple syrup for breakfast instead of pinching pennies by eating oatmeal or toast, and the same goes for dinner.


Seems that TM cleaned up the place!


What do you know:

You find these tomes, are at pains, to describe how any decision from the immigration pause to the response to north Korea came about, to anyone's satisfaction.


Trump and supporters, as a group, in general are not ideological. NeverTrumpers, whatever their motives, cloak there Neverism in ideology, and call it true conservatism.

That's all I meant.

Never meant to imply all supporters are devoid of any individual ideology or that they wouldn't claims truth, justice, and the American way for their.


Also, I have seen it written that while leftism IS an ideology, conservatism is not.

Beasts of England

William Jacobson of LI has started to clearly see the light. He's thoughtful and cautious in his opinions, and to have him pen this should help peel the scales from some eyes...

'You have seen the ugly face of #TheResistance, and if you think it’s just about a judicial nomination, you haven’t been paying attention. They treated Kavanaugh the way they treat conservatives, Republicans and the deplorables. This isn’t about Brett Kavanaugh.'


The thing is in part neocons habe forgotten their own history, direct military intervention is the last response after all others,have failed, political, economic then proxy support all underlay a successful strategy for steering a target country,

Reagan didn't threaten to invade Nicaragua or cross the fulda ago, quite the opposite, the response to Libya was instructive.


Coast Guard Removes Service Member From Hurricane Response After He Was Seen Making ‘OK’ Hand Sign on MSNBC

We are aware of the offensive video on twitter - the Coast Guard has identified the member and removed him from the response. His actions do not reflect those of the United States Coast Guard.

— U.S. Coast Guard (@USCG) September 15, 2018
Tom Maguire

OK, the Spenser series? I'm triggered now.
The early books were excellent genre pieces. However, as the series progressed the late great Robert Parker fell in love with his characters, who stood around swapping salad recipes, flexing their muscles, and ruminating on what it meant to be a man and whether they were superb specimens of manhood or awesome specimens of manhood.
Got kind of tiresome.
Go with Jack Reacher (Lee Child) or Davenport, Flowers (John Sandford).

Jack is Back!

Dr. Weevil,

I was just about to post a similar comment. I alson believe it is result of a booming economy. Be interesting to see if companies like Blue Apron have picked up more customers.

Jack is Back!


art in newport

Agree that the later Spenser books became formulaic, as noted.

For me, the best of them was 'Pale Kings and Princes'


New? That was quick

Clarice Feldman

Iggy, they must already be in sackcloth and ashes when they finally learn the Manafort deal was about Podesta et al, not Trump.

Another Bob

Jimnj’s repo post...

Shadow banking







So those bonds, if they’re securitization bonds, asset-backed securities, they are linked to what were portfolios of bank loans. Because of this link, traditional banking and shadow banking are integrated. They’re part of the same system. Traditional banking funds itself in large part by selling loans to firms that use those loans for collateral for this other category of loans.

Stepping back in time, before we had federal money, banks printed up their own dollars. Bring them to a merchant who knows the bank and he/she will accept them at face value. Bring in dollars from an out of state bank and the merchant is going to go off and consult some valuation book to see what they're worth, maybe he only offers a "haircut" of 95 cents on the dollar.

So you've got an inefficient system of money that is information sensitive. If you know more than the other guy what that dollar is really worth you gain from the transaction. The old phrase "bad money drive out good money" holds. You spend bad money, hang onto the good money and eventually only bad money is in circulation. Federal money changed that.

US government bonds had a known value. Corporate bonds had known values and were rated by rating agencies that pored over the company's books. New classes of securitized bonds had known values and were rated by the same agencies.
Until, all of a sudden, they didn't. And we're back to asymetrical information. I might know more about a particular bond than you do. We can no longer accept the fiction that these bonds are all AAA.

"Gorton: Yes, the house price decline had the biggest impact on subprime mortgages, and that’s the information that was revealed by trading the ABX index, although I think it was widely known and understood, probably, beforehand. But the question is, again: How could that shock lead to such a big crisis?

Remember: At the time, subprime mortgages outstanding totaled about $1.5 trillion. If all of that had defaulted with zero recovery, that would not have been a global financial crisis. That would have been a problem, because poor and minority people received a disproportionate share of these subprime mortgages. And surely there were problems with all sorts of other things—underwriting standards, broker incentives—but they didn’t constitute or cause a global financial crisis. So what happened?

What happened, I think, is that the depositors in the repo market got nervous to the extent that the only way to protect themselves against agents producing private information was to ask for a buffer. Let’s go back to the repo market. In the repo market, I give you $100 million; you give me $100 million worth of bonds. Let’s say those bonds are AAA, credit-card-linked bonds, an asset-backed security. The only way I can lose as a depositor is if you fail. I am then allowed to unilaterally terminate the agreement, and I go to sell my bonds and I fetch less than $100 million.

Now, if the shock causes me to worry that when I sell my bonds somebody will have produced private information (because now, unlike before, it’s profitable to do that), then I can protect myself by saying, “I’m not going to give you $100 million. I’m only going to give you $80 million, and you give me $100 million of bonds as collateral.”

So that gives me a 20 percent buffer against that possible loss. For you, however, that’s a big problem because you were financing $100 million with me before and now you’re only financing $80 million, and so now you have to finance the other $20 million somewhere else.

Gorton: Right. This was the increase in haircuts. An increase in haircuts is a withdrawal from this banking system. There are several studies that allow us to put some numbers on this. With Andrew Metrick, I’ve estimated the size of the repo market; two economists at the BIS [Bank for International Settlements] have estimated the size of the repo market independently and in a separate way; and there’s an IMF [International Monetary Fund] economist who has also estimated the size of the repo market, again, with a third method. And we have another important piece of information, a very good survey of the European repo market, which is widely viewed as being much smaller than the U.S. market. So, if you look at all of this information, the size of the repo market, conservatively, was $10 trillion.

Region: This is just repo?

Gorton: Right, just repos. Never mind about asset-backed commercial paper or the rest of it.

Region: So shadow banking is—or was—huge. Possibly even larger than standard, regulated banking.

Gorton: The total assets in the regulated banking sector in the U.S. are $10 trillion.

Above by me and from excerpts from the Gary Gorton interview referenced below. The next part from me and the Richmond Fed excerpts.

Shadow banking activities, on the other hand, faced no explicit government support and no safety and soundness regulation before the crisis. Runs on the system occurred in 2008 when “depositors” withdrew their funding from “banks.”
Because of the havoc that followed, the term “shadow banking” now has a generally negative connotation. Yet it remains a vital component of the financial system. The shadow banking system may have exceeded $20 trillion in liabilities at its peak, possibly doubling that of the traditional, regulated banking system. Today it stands somewhere around $15 trillion. Shadow banking is critical because it funds the traditional banking sector by purchasing loans from bank balance sheets. This allows banks to shed risk and extend additional credit. Without shadow banking, traditional banking likely would be much costlier for households and businesses."

"Banks found a way to finance themselves that was much more profitable than deposit taking and its associated costly regulatory requirements. They securitized the loans they made and sold them to eager investors, which shifted assets and associated risks off their balance sheets. Securitization was such a successful innovation that even nonbanks, like large corporations that issue credit cards or auto loans, used it."

So we've got more money willing to be invested in the "repo" market, more collateral and the market expands until it's as large, or larger than the combined assets of all US banks. In some ways it's like a checking account for institutions and corporations. And some companies used the short-term "repo" money to finance long-term bonds. The money was cheap, less than the cost of regular borrowing.

"Many borrowers were highly leveraged. Investment bank Lehman Brothers, for example, maintained $700 billion of assets and corresponding liabilities on capital of about $25 billion. A large portion of those assets were long-term investments that could not easily be sold if cash were needed, yet Lehman, like others, chose to fund them largely through short-term repo markets since copious demand for
short-term investments made that funding source cheap. In 2008 Lehman would sometimes roll over $200 billion of its balance sheet each day in repos."

That's a leverage ratio of 28:1.

"How was the breakdown of repo markets like a bank run?
Repo lenders face a daily decision to roll over the investment — that is, to not “withdraw” their funds from the shadow banking system. The more repo lenders withdraw, the more likely the borrower is to become insolvent and default, leaving lenders with the collateral. Yet if repo lenders begin to not want or trust the collateral, their version of deposit insurance, they’ll be more likely to withdraw their investment. If this self re-enforcing cycle escalates, lenders have no choice but to withdraw or risk being the last one standing and holding potentially devalued collateral.
Here’s how this played out during the fall of 2008: On rumors of severe housing exposure and potential failure, Lehman Brothers’ counterparties refused to roll over the investments that funded its operations. This created a panic. Investors were uncertain which large institutions — many of which they or their counterparties had extended loans to — could face a funding crisis next. Yet mounting subprime defaults also made investors doubt the value of the collateral that was supposed to make them whole. Repo lenders began requiring larger and larger haircuts as insurance. Repo borrowers were forced to sell other assets in order to provide the haircuts. As the panic wore on, more and more assets were sold and their prices dropped, requiring the borrowers to sell still more, dropping their prices further. Collateral became worth less and less until repo lenders stopped lending entirely. That took away a major ultimate funding source for virtually all types of economic activity, all within a matter of days."

Those decisions were taken out of the hands of the "repo" desk by the Risk Management Committees at all of the financial institutions. Nobody wanted to have "bad" collateral dumped on them and then not have it be repurchased. There just wasn't enough time available to set up the now required research to evaluate whole classes of securitized debt. If somebody knew the real value of a bond - and you didn't - it could take down the whole firm. Asymetrical information.


NEW thread.

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