Morning Report: Inflation rises

Vital Statistics:

Stocks are higher this morning despite a pick up in inflation. Bonds and MBS are down.

The headline consumer price index rose 0.2% MOM in October, according to the BLS. Shelter rose 0.4% and accounted for half the increase. Energy was flat after a big decline in September.

On a year-over-year basis, the headline CPI rose 2.6%. If you strip out food and energy, the CPI rose 0.3% month over month and 3.3% YOY.

I graphed the CPI shelter index (blue line) versus the FHFA House Price Index (red line). You can see that the FHFA house price index leads the CPI shelter index, and FHFA’s house price growth is returning to pre-2020 levels. This should drag down the shelter component of CPI and return inflation back to pre-pandemic levels.

Mortgage applications increased 0.5% last week as purchases rose 2% and refis fell 2%. “Mortgage rates continued to increase last week, driven by higher Treasury yields as financial markets digested the likely impacts of a Trump presidency. The Federal Reserve’s 25-basis-point rate cut was already anticipated and did little to move the markets,” said Joel Kan, MBA’s Vice President and Deputy Chief Economist. “The 30-year fixed rate was at 6.86 percent last week, its highest since July 2024. However, despite the increase in rates, applications increased for the first time in seven weeks.”

Added Kan, “Purchase applications picked up and remained close to levels from a year ago. FHA and VA purchase applications drove the stronger overall purchase activity, increasing 3 percent and 9 percent, respectively. FHA mortgage rates bucked the overall trend and were lower over the week, which likely helped some borrowers. Conventional purchase applications were also up slightly. Meanwhile, the upward climb in rates led to refinance activity falling to its lowest level since May 2024.”  

99 Responses

  1. What’s your take on the “Trump Trade”?

    Like

  2. Interesting take, the Democratic party from Obama on as a national machine based political organization:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/13/opinion/obama-ezra-klein-podcast-michael-lind.html

    Like

  3. The Matt Gaetz pick for AG are gonna freak some people out. Wait till they put Kash Patel as head of FBI.

    Like

      • “Gaetz had been under investigation by the FBI, as well as the House Ethics Committee, for years for alleged child sex trafficking.”

        I don’t recall the specifics but isn’t the “years” thing made-up bullshit?

        Like

    • I can’t imagine him getting confirmed.

      Like

      • You’re right but I also can’t wait for the debate and vote. Anybody who voted to confirm Garland and won’t vote for Trump will be primaried hard I think. Its burn everything down time.

        What an exquisite spectacle and sublime Fuck You Trump has provided us!

        Like

      • I was dubious about Gaetz when he was first announced, but the reaction from Vox, Slate, etc is starting to win me over.

        Also, this is a good piece about his actual record:

        https://www.leefang.com/p/the-populist-progressive-case-for

        Like

        • Gaetz is really smart and articulate. He’s also a shameless self promoter, I need to fetch my smelling salts.

          Like

        • He called a really super-fat woman “fat”and she found that offensive. So he isn’t qualified according to Fatty McEatsALot.

          Like

        • Another interesting piece about Gaetz:

          When the spotlight is on, most people do not want to appear craven. But when the spotlight is not on, when it’s 3 am and the only people who are paying attention are powerful lobbyists from organized money, well, that’s when someone tells you what their priorities are. And in that case, Gaetz said he’d fight for every inch, even if he would get no credit, even if everyone was tired, and even if he was going to lose, and in losing, upset several corporations worth a trillion dollars apiece.

          https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/trump-nominates-khanservative-matt

          Like

      • Brent:

        I can’t imagine him getting confirmed.

        I agree it would seem to be a tough ask, but apparently he has already resigned his seat in the house, so he must either be very confident of getting confirmed or he’s been promised another job if he doesn’t.

        Like

        • He

          Like

        • He may have resigned for either of two other reasons:

          First, to avoid the release of the House Ethics Committee Report:

          Second, to give FL time to get an R replacement for him before the new Congress convenes.

          IDK anything in particular, I am just speculating.

          Like

        • Mark, you’ve dealt with the Feds and with politicians – you know better than any of us that there are no secrets in Washington. Do you really think that the Kevin McCarthy selected Ethics committee sat on damaging information all this time? That the corrupt FBI sat on damaging information? Really?

          Like

        • I would say that it’s not impossible that there is damning stuff that house ethics or FBI knows (keeping their powder dry; also he might know things they don’t want coming out in a public airing of grievances).

          But I don’t believe there is any reason for him to believe the ethics report won’t even up being released just because he resigned, given he’s up for a cabinet appointment. He would know it will either be leaked or circulated to the senate.

          Like

        • Could be, but I am with McWing. If there was anything that damaging in the ethics report, we would most probably already know about it.

          Replacing him quickly seems more likely. I suppose they could get a special election done by Feb if they started the process now.

          Like

        • Commentary podcast suggested that there is no way he can be replaced any faster, just because he went ahead and resigned. Something about absentee ballots or mail-in ballots. The argument didn’t make sense to me.

          Like

        • You guys both know that it doesn’t have to be true to be damaging. Prosecution was not forthcoming so the allegations are not sufficiently evident to be “criminal”. Just as a matter of course, when Gaetz knew he was a nominee and when Johnson was likely to say that the report could be deep sixed if Gaetz was not sitting in the House, why not resign the seat? And it is a safe R seat, so that isn’t an issue.

          But IDK. I am not actually disagreeing with you.

          Like

        • My point is that he would not have received the nomination nor would he have accepted it if the allegations were true. We are beyond any sort of situation now where mere allegations are deal breakers, for Republicans at least. If anything, they have become proof of perceived threat to the Uniparty. Gaetz’s lack of a future in the House is more a reflection of McCarthy’s revenge than anything else.

          Like

        • Well, you are correct! The leak hit the fan today.

          Like

        • I’m not sure that he would not have received or accepted the nomination if the allegations were true. But if rumors of his lack of popularity with many of his peers are true, that’s probably a bigger problem. I guess we will find out.

          Like

        • To get ahead of the ethics report seems the consensus among the cognoscenti, which I feel like is a thing he would definitely do if it would work. But there is no way the ethics report would not at least be leaked or made available to the senate given he’s been nominated, so I doubt he expected to avoid the ethics report going public by resigning.

          He would not be my first choice, just based on the baggage. I expect there are a lot of people who could do a good job at deconstructing the DOJ that have less baggage that Gaetz, although the media and the DC elite will hate anyone Trump nominates. He would be a better AG than Garland, IMO.

          Like

        • I bet he will get a gig as Justice Czar if he isn’t confirmed. As unliked as he apparently is, I think he might make for a good evangelist for DoJ/FBI reform.

          Like

  4. Gabbard should be an interesting choice for DNI. First time some one placed on the watch list ends up overseeing the intelligence community.

    https://www.racket.news/p/american-stasi-tulsi-gabbard-confirms

    Like

    • Kind of want to see the meeting when Gabbard, in all her MILF glory, confronts him in her office.

      Like

      • Speaking of MILF glory, you know RFK Jr will be all over it.

        Like

        • Since I never see Tulsi’s husband, my guess is he already is.

          Like

        • Does Senate have to advise and consent to DNI? If so and they don’t I am sure she could be a physical fitness czar like JFK had. Probably better than the one JFK had -I think her name was Bonnie Prudden. Really.

          I did not agree with her take that Putin invaded Ukraine because NATO threatened Russia so I am not happy with the choice. I think her view is naive, but I surely do not think she is unpatriotic. I think naive is wrong for the job. Back when her view would have been typical of the far left I thought it was naive, as well. I am consistent.

          If I were a Republican President I would pick John Cornyn for AG. He was a good Texas AG and good Texas Supreme Court Justice. Also, I did some work for him once and he thanked me semi-publicly, so yeah, I would be biased.

          Like

        • Mark:

          If I were a Republican President I would pick John Cornyn for AG.

          If you were a Republican president who just spent the last four years being victimized by DOJ lawfare, your priorities would probably be different, and might call for someone less…establishment.

          Like

        • I feel like there are much better choices with less baggage that Gaetz. And the same time I’m not going to underestimate Trump’s intuitive genius and crazy-like-a-foxness.

          In addition to the baggage I’m not sure about Gaetz’s ability to do what is necessary. No doubt he has the will, but sure that he has the experience. I also suspect there is no way he can be confirmed. If for no other reason that there don’t seem to be enough people in congress that like or trust him to get him over the finish line.

          Like

        • KW:

          He probably can’t get confirmed. I don’t know how “qualified” he is, but I suppose that will depend on what the mission is. If the mission is to root out and rid the DOJ of its leftist political careerists, that requires a different skill set than just carrying on with the status quo.

          Like

        • I suspect there are people who can get rid of the career leftist that aren’t Matt Gaetz.

          That said just heard that two super leftist judges just got lifetime appointments to the federal bench because Rubio and Vance and two others could not be bothered to show up and vote. Which does not augur well for the new administration out of the gate, IMO. Apparently the Biden admin is going to try to get like 40 lefty judges through before January 20, so I hope they can show up for some of those votes.

          Like

        • KW:

          I suspect there are people who can get rid of the career leftist that aren’t Matt Gaetz.

          Replace “Matt Gaetz” with literally any other name you can think of, and it would be equally true. There is always more than one “qualified” person for pretty much any job. But again, my point wasn’t that Gaetz himself is qualified, even to get rid of the career leftists. My point was that whether or not any particular person is qualified depends entirely on how the mission they are being hired to accomplish is defined.

          That said just heard that two super leftist judges just got lifetime appointments to the federal bench because Rubio and Vance and two others could not be bothered to show up and vote.

          I saw Vance tweet about this. The Dems had the 50 votes (plus the tie breaker in Harris) to do this no matter how many R’s show up. The reason the D’s only got 49 votes was because John Fetterman also didn’t show up, knowing the judges would get confirmed without him as a result of the absence of the 5 R’s. If the 5 R’s had been there, then Fetterman would also have voted, and the judges would have been confirmed anyway. There is nothing that the R’s can do to stop this until they take control of the Senate in January.

          The real scandal is the type of radical nominees the D’s are appointing, not the R’s failure to make a vain effort to stop the unstoppable.

          Like

        • Interesting. As reported, Fetterman did not vote and Manchin voted no, so yays would have been at 48 and nays would have been at 49 or 50–one R was trying to get back for vote but flight delay prevented. But Vance, Rubio and the guy who won the Indiana(?) governor’s race would have all shown up. Even if for some reason he’s right, they can’t be sure a Fetterman isn’t going to not vote or not or if a Dem’s flight might not be delayed. Just not showing up for stuff like that remains inauspicious for me. And short-sighted because no doubt some of these new judges will be issuing injunctions against the Trump admin in the next 4 years.

          Oh well. Would feel better if they had made the effort. I can understand not showing up to vote on renaming a post office or something, but lifetime judicial appointments I would like to see them making the effort. Especially given that at least one of the judges will now be adjudicating cases brought by or against Rubio’s constituents. You think he would have shown up for the folks he’s ostensibly representing.

          Like

        • KW:

          Of course we can imagine scenarios in which there weren’t enough votes present to approve the nominations, but the fact is that the D’s, knowing they have enough votes with a full Senate, would not have brought the nominees up for a vote unless and until they knew they had enough votes present to pass them. This is all much ado about nothing, I think.

          Like

        • Manchin voted against and Fetterman didn’t vote, so unless that was fake news, that doesn’t seem to be the case. At the very least if all the missing Republicans had shown up, the nomination could have been defeated. They bring stuff up for votes that don’t win. They think they are probably going to win, but they don’t. It’s a thing that happens.

          And optically it speaks to the seriousness with which these folks take their project. Not even bothering to show up to speak against or vote against radical leftist judges getting lifetime appointments is, at the very least, not great optics. It contradicts the messaging, IMO.

          I may be in the minority but I would have preferred at least Rubio and Vance had shown up to do their current job that they were hired to do. It would have been demonstrative of the seriousness with which they take the jobs the voters hire them to do as long as they have them, and don’t just consider them stepping stones to the Next Big Thing. Which is overly optimistic, I know, but would be nice.

          The smacks to me a sometimes typical Republican “ah, we can’t win, let’s give up” on what will probably end up being non-trivial issue. As I see it, these kind of lifetime appointments for radical judges to the federal bench are just the kind of deep state destructiveness that they are supposed to be fighting against. So I maintain my point that it makes for an inauspicious start to what will hopefully be a positively transformative administration. I would have liked to see a win here–or at least a serious fight.

          Like

        • I like Tulsi. I hope she does get the position; I suspect she is naive about some things but I find her thoughtful and honest and I’d like more new blood and outside the box picks for the administration.

          Your dismissal may prove to be correct, however, and I’ll end up eating crow regarding my own naïveté.

          I do not think Gaetz is a remotely good choice for AG. I think the DoJ needs an enema and a ton of declassification, lots of transparency, etc, etc. I think Gaetz has the will but I’m not sure he’s the best blunt force instrument for that job. But I don’t have a preferred alternative.

          I like Pete Hegseth for SecDef. They are really after him, though.

          Like

    • Left Twitter is all abuzz about her being a supposed Russian asset.

      Like

      • I absolutely love that! Everything I don’t like is a Russian asset!

        Like

      • NYT had to use their special doom graphics for the Editorial. Joe Biden Philadelphia special edition.

        https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/14/opinion/editorials/matt-gaetz-nomination-senate.html

        Like

        • They did. Given that it’s more partisan “literallyHitler” stuff, I’m sure it was make their remaining readers feel both terrified and angelically virtuous.

          I have a hard time taking the idea that they don’t want Trump seriously when this remains their approach. They would have so much more influence (and dare I say readership) if they took an impartial and informational tone. I’d be interest in a breakdown of Trump’s nominations from a neutral-ish source that could tackle them seriously, but that clearly isn’t The Paper of Record. Massive loss (for the current era) and significant swings to the right for even the New York electorate—would think they NYT would look at their waning influence and perhaps try to change it up, but no.

          Like

      • Because she’s been to Russia, yes? Nothing about how Tim Walz was Chinese asset. Or Swalwell. Or about how Biden was a Ukrainian and Chinese asset. Weird how any time a Republican goes anywhere they immediately become an asset of a hostile government, but when Democrats sleep with Chinese spies, that’s fine. Or when the Dem VP candidate had an ongoing relationship with the daughter of a Chinese party official and spent months upon months in China … no, that’s fine, he’s just a humble high school football coach. It gets to the point where you hear that and even if it was true, unless you’re in the cult the normal human instinct would be to treat it as static. Because they simply aren’t serious. Not even serious enough to come up with original and credible lies, preferably ones that don’t reveal them to be massive partisan hypocrites.

        Like

  5. Interesting piece linking housing policy to redistricting in 2030.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/11/democrat-states-population-stagnation/680641/

    Like

  6. Good piece:

    Dear Journalists: Stop Trying to Save Democracy

    Journalists who turn themselves into political activists inadvertently undermine democratic institutions.

    Yascha Mounk
    Nov 14, 2024

    https://yaschamounk.substack.com/p/dear-journalists-stop-trying-to-save

    Like

    • There is such a hive mind in journalism

      Like

    • In retrospect, the cost of these lies layered upon delusions is painfully clear. If the Harris campaign had reckoned with the fact that she was not on the way to winning the election, they could have taken some rhetorical risks and encouraged her to appear on a much wider range of shows and podcasts. Instead, lulled into a false sense of complacency, they played it “safe.”

      I’m guessing this is a kind of unavoidable bias, but it’s clear Kamala could not have improved her chances by appearing more and answering more questions, and was incapable of taking coherent “rhetorical risks” that would have done anything but lose her even more votes

      Like

    • First comment on that story is great:

      “I remember the days when journalists would tell you what happened and you had to figure out for yourself what to actually think. We currently live in days when the journalists will tell you what to think and you have to figure out for yourself what actually happened.”

      Like

  7. My guess is there is nothing to this investigation.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/14/trump-matt-gaetz-house-sex-drug-probe-attorney-general.html

    I write this for a couple of reasons. The first is that Gaetz knows it would be leaked regardless because of his nomination. Second, McArthy and his allies utterly despise Gaetz so anything uncovered would have been published long ago, let alone leaked. Third, the FBI didn’t find anything because if they did it would have been leaked by them a long time ago.

    I’m looking forward to the hearing though I suspect Gaetz will be denied one. I don’t think Republicans want to parry with Gaetz in committee, Ollie North and Clarence Thomas taught everybody a lesson.

    Like

  8. Rufo weighs in on the election

    https://christopherrufo.com/p/a-repudiation-of-woke

    Like

  9. What a time to be in DC

    Hey boys — the IRL stuff just took over. Mom and wife with cancer, dad’s got heart problems. But doing better. Hope all is well.

    And whatever you think the freak out has been? It bigger.

    Like

    • So sorry about the family! You had mentioned your wife but I didn’t know about your parents- I’m praying for them.

      Re the freakout – I admit to being surprised at the victory but I wouldn’t say I was blindsided by it. Is that what is going on? If so, how could they be so unprepared? Or, have they bought fully into the Literal Hitler propaganda?

      Like

      • “Re the freakout – I admit to being surprised at the victory but I wouldn’t say I was blindsided by it.”

        If I recall correctly, your position was that there was no way he would be allowed to win.

        Now, he’s not inaugurated yet, so we’ll see what happens between now and then.

        Like

        • I heard a lot of “no way he can win” talk from the right up until about election night. I argued all along that a solid ground game (and no longer ceding so much ground to the Democrats on things like ballot harvesting) and motivating sufficient voters could overcome any election theft efforts.

          I kept my eye on the People’s Pundit so I suspected Trump would win, but granted it was possible he could lose. But rigging an election requires on the ground cooperation. Why would Shapiro want to do that? Why would Whitmer? For that matter why would Newsom (re: popular vote). I don’t think any of them wanted Harris to win. The you had a lot of very active Republican poll watchers. And it was clear Biden didn’t want her to win. And still don’t want her to succeed given all the material being released about her campaign’s bankruptcy and bribes to Oprah, Sharpton, Beyoncé and others for “endorsements”. I don’t think there was much of any pro-Harris election fraud out there because there was nobody who wanted to do it, and since the Harris campaign couldn’t even pay union door knockers to get the vote out, I don’t think they could have paid for any “get out the dead-people vote operations”.

          She was too entitled, I expect, to even think her campaign would need to rig the election, and likely most people on her campaign didn’t like her enough to think the risk would be worth it.

          But anyway, Rasmussen Reports and People’s Pundit basically called it. So I was thinking a Trump win was likely. And so it was.

          Like

        • Love People’s Pundit.

          Like

        • Rich is the fucking best. I love it when he starts ripping other pollsters. I start shaking my fist and yelling: “Yeah! Fuck Nate Silver!”

          Like

        • “I argued all along that a solid ground game”

          What’s interesting is that the Trump campaign ditched/outsourced the ground game. They didn’t believe it was effective enough to be worth the money.

          There was this funny quip I read that the Democrats spend $500 million+ on the field offices and ground game, just so the volunteers could post selfies of themselves and go see the acoustic set of the various celebrity artists who endorsed the campaign.

          I tend to suspect that’s correct. I don’t think door knockers persuade/motivate anyone other than in the opposite direction.

          Trump’s campaign viewed micro-targeted social media ads as much more worthwhile.

          Sometimes when you have no budget, you have to make smarter choices.

          Like

        • Not even sure they outsourced their ground game as much as others stepped in to do it. But someone got Trump to support early and mail-in voting, and then there were other folks (Rich Barris, previously mentioned) doing things like 10x Votes:

          https://www.10xvotes.com/

          Which likely helped in the swing states. Certainly didn’t hurt.

          Like

    • Sorry to hear that NoVA. I just got done with chemo and surgery for Stage IV colon cancer with metastasis to liver. Message me if I can be of any assistance.

      Like

      • Geez, J! That’s awful! Praying for you as well!!

        Like

        • I’m fine. They had to burn off 10% of my liver but I’m back at the gym.

          Like

        • Are you clear of cancer then? How often do you need an MRI?

          Like

        • Prayers for you, too! Sorry to hear about your cancer, but it’s good to hear your back in the gym. May you stay clean and clear!

          Like

        • I go in for CT scans every 3 – 6 months. This is the second round of cancer. Initial diagnosis was Stage III colon cancer back in 2021. That resulting in surgery to remove 1′ of my sigmoid colon followed by 6 weeks of chemo.

          Cancer returned in 2023 and metastasized to my liver. They caught that early with the follow up scans. This time was 7 months of chemo followed by liver surgery.

          I recommend everyone get their colonoscopy early. I had mine under the old guidelines for 50+. If I had gotten it done at 45 (under the new guidelines) it would have been a polyp that would have been removed during the colonoscopy and I would have avoided all the cancer.

          On the plus side, Stage IV cancer and the associate chemotherapy is a great weight loss program.

          Like

        • Man, that’s rough but it sounds like you’re keeping your spirits up.

          Fuck cancer.

          Like

        • It could have been a lot worse. Going to the chemo infusion center and seeing people with worse cancer than you puts things in perspective.

          During my first chemo treatment in 2021 I didn’t lose any hair, just got cold sensitivity, and weight loss. I was able to control the nausea without drugs by keeping something in my stomach at all times (saltine crackers, etc.)

          Second go round hair thinned out by 30% but grew back. Treatment was three days infusion followed by 11 days off (two week cycles). Same thing with being able to control the nausea. They changed the drugs so I didn’t have cold sensitivity too, which helped a lot being able to drink cold drinks.

          Compared to the people who were so sick that they were vomiting during the treatments, I was fine. Mostly did stock trading/web browsing on the iPad then I’d go get Chik-Fil-A on the way home before I lost my appetite for the rest of the week.

          Other thing is I didn’t have to go on short term disability. I did work from home while getting infused and then was usually able to go back to the office the following week.

          One thing that makes a huge difference is starting the chemo treatment in good shape and healthy vs already sick. I was weight lifting with my trainer right up until the day I started treatment.

          Like

        • Still, tough going from my perspective. I sold biosimilar oncolytics and it profoundly changed how I view oncology doctors and how they function from a business perspective. I’m pretty cynical about the practice of medicine overall but Oncology is fundamentally different. Just out of curiosity which onc practice did you go too? I’m familiar, from a business standpoint, with most of the larger practices across the country.

          Like

        • Virginia Cancer Institute.

          https://www.vacancer.com/

          You are correct that oncology is fundamentally different from other medical practices. My take is that the insurance companies have less sway over it, and they can still do things like mix the drugs on site and do the scans on site.

          Care level was very good at VCI. They would always strive to be efficient, i.e. if you where there for one reason and they decided they needed extra blood work or a scan, they would fit it in the existing appointment vs making you come back a second time. They also made sure to schedule me for follow up scans which is how the return of the cancer was found.

          VCU Massey was much worse in my opinion.

          https://www.masseycancercenter.org/

          My dad was diagnosed with esophageal cancer last year and went to VCU, and the tests were dragged out to the point that by the time they started treatment it was too late. No single doctor was at fault, but the system as a whole failed.

          My ultimate Google review:

          “Go to VCI, not VCU. I’m alive, my dad’s dead.”

          Like

        • My take is that the insurance companies have less sway over it, and they can still do things like mix the drugs on site and do the scans on site.

          Buy and bill and infusion are crucial to Oncology practice profitability, and oncology doctors are some of the best doctors for business sense, figuring the spread on the fly and negotiating rebates above and beyond what their GPO has already provided for them. Plastic surgeons and derms are good but nowhere near Oncologists ability. All this is prologue to say that most oncology practices treat a lot of indigent patients for free, including chemo drugs which can be VERY expensive. Their payer contracts are all value-based so they’re incentivized to care for the patient holistically and to keep them out of the hospital.

          The problem with University IDN specialty clinic is bureaucracy. They’re large, slow moving and sclerotic. The level of waste is truly astounding. I remember dealing with the Univ of Arkansas IDN (UAMS Health) almost never appealed payer denials, to the tune of millions of dollar write offs. The single person that dealt with that quit and it took 6 months before she was replaced. A midsize oncology practice would have 5 or 6 full time employees dealing full time with payers.

          Sorry about your dad, it’s not right. I had a young co-worker in WV who was having some GI issues and it took 4 months for a WVU doctor to order a CT Scan of the abdomen, only to discover stage 4 ovarian cancer. Imagine if they’d done the CT scan during the first week?

          Like

      • Wow, I had no idea. Glad you are feeling better

        Like

      • Jnc and nova:

        Sorry to hear all the bad news. Will be thinking about you both.

        Like

      • JFC .. glad to hear you’re doing ok, JNC. and second the colonoscopy advice. I got mine at 45 (and came back clean)

        My wife’s care at at Inova here in Northern VA. It’s nice to have the guy who runs the place in your phone’s favorites.

        Re: the freakout — Oh, I had lunch with a bunch of D staffers, lobbyists, etc. It’ll calm down after a bit. I think they were believing their own BS.

        In even worse news, Charlie Palmer is closing after 22 years on the Senate side.

        Like

    • I know you are busy with the many struggles of real life (and I’m praying for you; that has to be so difficult, and way too much at one time). But if you do have any time, I’d love to hear about how the freak out is bigger. What is happening in the belly of the beast?

      Like

  10. Considering there have been no leaks or charges against Gaetz, only innuendo, this looks true, in hindsight.

    Resistance to Gaetz is entirely political, not helped by his abrasive attention seeking and toppling of McCarthy.

    Like

    • It will be interesting if these accusations play a role in the confirmation. I’m persuaded by the complaint that Gaetz lacks the experience/knowledge to deconstruct the DoJ. But he almost certainly has the will, and where there’s a will there’s a way.

      Like

  11. Suddenly Lefties embrace jury nullification.

     Judges and juries have the power to throw out cases or find defendants innocent if they deem prosecutions to be baseless.

    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/doj-fbi-officials-reach-lawyers-potential-trump-revenge-prosecutions-l-rcna179737

    Like

    • For the last four years, Garland has argued that strictly following post-Watergate norms that require the Justice Department to work in a nonpartisan manner in criminal investigations would restore public trust in the Justice Department.

      Does the writer actually believe this? That the 2 Federal cases and the 3 state case all occurring simultaneously is mere coincidence?

      Like

      • He probably does believe it, despite the self-evident absurdity of the contention.

        Factcheck.org apparently recently asserted that there is NO EVIDENCE that Kamala Harris paid for endorsements. The FEC report apparently doesn’t count as evidence.

        Like

      • For the last four years, Garland has argued that strictly following post-Watergate norms that require the Justice Department to work in a nonpartisan manner in criminal investigations would restore public trust in the Justice Department.

        Pity they didn’t actually do that.

        But rather than engage in retaliatory prosecutions, Trump would be better served to clean house and simply expose all the internal correspondence.

        Like

        • Trump has said on multiple occasions his vengeance would be simply being successful. I expect that’s what he’s going for; if it’s what happens is another question.

          Like

      • “Does the writer actually believe this?”

        The writers:

        David Rohde is the senior executive editor for national security at NBC News. A Pulitzer Prize winner who previously worked at the New York Times and the New Yorker, his latest book is Where Tyranny Begins: The Justice Department, the FBI and the War on Democracy.

        Ken Dilanian is the justice and intelligence correspondent for NBC News, based in Washington.

        His book blurb:

        How Donald Trump used threats, co-option, and conspiracy theories to bend DOJ and FBI officials to his will to a greater extent than publicly known―and how Merrick Garland, other prosecutors, and judges failed to hold him accountable before the 2024 election.

        Over the course of his presidency, Donald Trump intimidated, silenced, and bent to his will Justice Department and FBI officials, from Attorneys General Jeff Sessions and William Barr to career public servants. He sowed public doubt in both agencies so successfully that when he tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election, he paid little political cost and, despite an unprecedented array of criminal indictments, easily won the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election.

        In Where Tyranny Begins, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist David Rohde investigates the strategies Trump systematically used to turn the country’s two most powerful law-enforcement agencies into his personal political weapons. Rohde also reveals how, during the Biden years, Justice Department non-partisan 1970s norms that Attorney General Merrick Garland reinforced inadvertently helped Trump, and could fail to deliver a trial and legal accountability by Election Day 2024.

        Where Tyranny Begins exposes how ill-suited both the DOJ and FBI are to serve as checks on abuses of presidential power. The rise of hyper-partisanship and the Trump and Biden presidencies have uncovered core flaws in American constitutional democracy that Trump would exploit in a second term. A round of historic reforms equivalent to the post-Watergate reforms that stabilized American democracy in the 1970s are immediately needed. A five-word warning coined by the English philosopher John Locke in 1689 captures the stakes in 2024: “Where-ever law ends, tyranny begins.”

        So yeah, he probably believes it. Or at least wrote a book claiming that he does.

        Like

        • I think the faithful in any religion mostly truly believe the tenets of said religion. The same would be true here, and a book like this should be considered Leftism Apologetics, fitting facts into and around their beliefs in Evil Orange Man and the Holy Generic Democrat.

          Like

  12. Interesting take that probably aligns with the Gen Z shift to Trump:

    Walter Kirn: And here’s what else is not going to work. And I think this is an underappreciated factor in the election and in this early formation of the new administration, very early formation, youth. Okay? I talked to a kid in his early 20s yesterday who I don’t think voted for Trump, and I said, “Did you have any idea what was going to happen?” He said, “Oh, of course I did.” If you hang out with 24-year-old guys and their girlfriends, you knew what was happening. You saw which way the wind was blowing. When you look at the Trump appointments, which I have declined to specifically criticize so far, because I just don’t know enough about the people, and most of what I do know is filtered through the attitudes of the people who are wrong about everything else. So I really have to “do my own research on them”. They’re young. They’re all in their 40s from Matt Gaetz to JD Vance to…

    Matt Taibbi: Tulsi.

    Walter Kirn: … Hegseth, to all these other people. You’re looking at a real generational shift and youth matter in media. The “demographic” runs from, what, I don’t know, 26 to 52 or whatever the desirable bracket in terms of age, because those are people who are spending money. Well, they don’t have the people who are spending money, and that’s even worse for them. That’s the real death knell. When you aren’t in the favor of those people who have to decorate their houses and apartments anymore and provide for children and so on, then you’re screwed if you’re an advertising based model.

    Walter Kirn: But you see my model for what’s going to happen and what’s going forward now is that it’s cultural change. And cultural change is not well understood by people unless they’ve lived through it. Unless you were alive in 1978 and then alive in 1982 and able to see the gradient between those two times, it was not due to Reagan administration directives. It was because everybody kind of runs for the exits when they see they’re on the losing side.

    You would never have thought at a certain point in the ‘80s that giant heavy metal bands wouldn’t be the biggest deal. But by 1993, after Nirvana and Pearl Jam and everything, you laughed when they reappeared. You would never thought that MTV would abandon the music video that killed the radio star for reality TV. But they did it. Cultural change is not continual. It’s not even not a straight line. It is asymptotic. It goes really slowly and then it goes really quickly.

    And I think the bankruptcy of this old culture will shock people because people are going to… Whatever they want to think about America, it’s still a market-based culture, and people try to position themselves.

    https://www.racket.news/p/transcript-america-this-week-november-144

    Like

  13. For you George:

    Speaker 3: Is it safe to say that based off of your comments, you’re suggesting that these women at these abortion rallies are ugly and overweight?

    Matt Gaetz: Yes.

    Speaker 3: What do you say to people who think that those comments are offensive?

    Matt Gaetz: Be offended.

    https://www.racket.news/p/transcript-america-this-week-november-144

    Like

Be kind, show respect, and all will be right with the world.