Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktVital Statistics:
Stocks are flattish this morning as investors return from the Juneteenth holiday. Bonds and MBS are down.
As expected the Fed maintained interest rates at current levels, and cut its forecast for the number of rate cuts in 2025 again. If you look at the consensus dot plot, it seems there are two major groups: those that think the Fed won’t cut rates at all this year, and those that think the Fed will deliver two cuts:
In the table of economic projections, they took down their estimate for GDP growth from 1.7% to 1.4%, and bumped up their estimate for end-of-year core PCE growth from 2.8% to 3.1%. The estimate for unemployment was raised from 4.4% to 4.5%. In the press conference, Jerome Powell said the Fed expects a “meaningful” amount of inflation in the coming months.
Meanwhile Trump expressed his disappointment in Powell, saying: “What I’m going to do is, you know, he gets out in about nine months, he has to, he gets fortunately terminated … I would have never reappointed him, (President Joe) Biden reappointed him. I don’t know why that is, but I guess maybe he was a Democrat… he’s done a poor job,” Trump said. FHFA Director Bill Pulte said that Powell should resign.
Powell cites the strength of the labor market as his justification for keeping policy tight. Fair enough. That said, if you focus solely on one data point in the labor market – the unemployment rate – the labor market looks strong. But if you peek behind the curtain, the internals paint a different picture. Job growth has been driven by demographic statistical adjustments and not paychecks, while previous months have been quietly revised downward. The declining unemployment rate is being driven by a decrease in the labor force, which is not the way you want to do it. It isn’t job growth that is driving it – it is discouraged unemployed workers throwing in the towel.
I think the Fed has gone from its role of reacting to data to one where it is making bets, and that really isn’t their bailiwick. It would be one thing if the Fed Funds rate was at r* or the neutral rate, but it isn’t. The Fed is 100 basis points over r* when the current economic data says they should be neutral. At this point the Fed needs inflation to spike or else they will be making a major policy mistake. Powell is essentially drawing into an inside straight.
Bayview Asset Management is buying Guild Mortgage for an equity value of $1.3 billion. In the latest 10-Q, Guild is valuing the servicing portfolio for the same amount, so Bayview is paying little for the retail origination arm.
“Expanding the Guild relationship with Lakeview creates one of the strongest and most compelling mortgage origination and servicing ecosystems in the nation,” said Guild Chief Executive Terry Schmidt. “Our expertise in distributed retail origination, retained servicing, and the customer-for-life balanced business model makes this a complementary partnership that has powerful potential for growth and innovation.”
“We are pleased to forge a stronger strategic partnership between Lakeview and Guild through this transaction, and look forward to expanding opportunities and delivering exceptional service to our customers,” said Juan Gonzalez, Managing Director and CEO of Lakeview Originations. “With each company’s different strengths and areas of expertise, this collaboration will form one of the most dynamic mortgage origination and servicing platforms in the industry.”
“We are excited for this next chapter of the Guild story,” said Guild Holdings Chairman Patrick Duffy. “The entire board of directors is confident that Bayview will be an excellent steward of this exceptional company and a great platform for continued growth.”
Filed under: Economy |
All Things in Moderation 
Breathtaking article.
You know, the world that is systemically racist, sexist and awful in every way shape and form.
https://archive.is/3puJY
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You’ve retreated — not into malice, but into something softer and harder all at once: Avoidance. Exhaustion. Disrepair.
Some might call it blessed solitude.
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lol
And you can still come back. Not by becoming someone else, but by remembering what connection feels like when it’s honest and slow. When it’s earned and messy and sacred.
This broad really knows what dudes want!
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Lady, this is what you wanted. The Longhouse has been engineering men for half a century.
This is the result.
It also demonstrates why matriarchies always fail. Men have no reason to stick around a bunch of entitled women. Turns out the bicycle doesn’t need a fish either.
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Not once does she say what’s in it for the male that doesn’t align with what her and her female cohorts want. Her supposition is that men want the same thing as woke women, it seems never to occur to her to ask why men might not want the same thing, like listening to the never ending complaining that constitute’s many lefty women’s idea of a good time.
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I was camping last weekend and you often can’t help but overhear conversations from nearby sites.
Lots of Millennial dads with their octave-too-high voices.
Feminism taught them to bitch like women.
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Probably wouldn’t even give their kids a little of their beer either.
Excuse me, a little of their pale ale.
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Turns out the bicycle doesn’t need a fish either.
Good line, I wish I’d written it!
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Entertaining piece on it:
https://chrisbray.substack.com/p/the-performativity-crisis
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That was funny!
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If this description is accurate, then it’s yet another thing the administration shouldn’t be doing:
https://www.vox.com/scotus/417583/supreme-court-convention-torture-deportation-south-sudan-dhs-dvd
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So, you think people who have ignored and flouted our immigration laws are entitled to endless due process? To my knowledge, those being sent to 3rd party countries already have an active deportation order and their home countries have either refused to accept them or it’s been adjudicated they should be deported, just not to their own country. If they have an active order for deportation, why can’t we deport them?
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This isn’t about “endless due process” or whether they can be deported at all.
The point is that if they can’t be deported back to their original home countries, then they should be sent to one of the countries that were presented as options during the actual deportation hearing.
Not Sudan or Libya which are being picked after the fact to deter future immigration by deporting them to the worst places possible.
Next up, Antarctica.
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We obviously have unreconcilable positions on this. If they cannot be deported to their home country, and they’re here illegally, then it’s the Executive branch’s decision on where they should go. The worse the better, frankly, so that they leave voluntarily to avoid it, or never come in fear of being deported to Sudan or some other third world shithole.
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“then it’s the Executive branch’s decision on where they should go.”
Except under federal law, it’s not.
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My understanding is that the State Department determines what countries are not in compliance with that particular statute. If Congress wants the power to do so they should pass another law doing so.
If the statute does list the torture countries,
Then I stand corrected.
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The State Department list is about countries that sponsor terrorism or are otherwise sanctioned.
Assuming the Vox reporting above is accurate, the torture limitation is determined on a case by case basis for each deportee in the hearing.
Point being, if the judge determines that the government can deport the person to any of countries A-K excluding G & H, the government doesn’t get to decide to send them to country Y after the hearing is over.
I get why they are doing it to dissuade illegal immigration in the first place and also to deter spurious claims about fear of torture, but it’s not an honest reading of the law.
It’s also being used to pick high profile media fights to distract from the fact that they aren’t meeting the deportation targets that they claimed they were going to achieve during the campaign.
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Assuming the Vox reporting above is accurate, the torture limitation is determined on a case by case basis for each deportee in the hearing.
Considering the left wing medias appalling track record for being correct and or honest, this is a huge caveat to take and one I’m reluctant to take, but for the sake of argument, I will accept it. Does that mean they have the right to a hearing in an Article III court or in only in the Immigration court?
It’s also being used to pick high profile media fights to distract from the fact that they aren’t meeting the deportation targets that they claimed they were going to achieve during the campaign.
Well, lawfare has certainly slowed down the deportation efforts, that’s undeniable. Also, they are pursuing aliens who have a already have a deportation order and/or are criminals or have a criminal history and historically, those people are often the least likely to allow themselves capture. Also, most blue states are not cooperating, which they did under Obama. Finally, Obama changed the term “turnback”, where they are turned around at the border, to deportations to make his numbers look higher than they were whereas Trump returned to the original definitions, thereby lowering his overall deportation numbers.
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“Does that mean they have the right to a hearing in an Article III court or in only in the Immigration court?”
Immigration as far as I can tell.
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I’m hoping Trump follows through with making ICE and BP agents also Immigration judges so they can do hearings in the vans on the way to the airport for deportations.
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jnc:
This isn’t about “endless due process” or whether they can be deported at all.
Actually, I think it is. If a person cannot be deported to their home country either because it won’t accept them or because an immigration judge has accepted the fear-of-torture claim, then the person can only be deported to a third party country. But the number of countries willing to accept deportees not their own, especially deportees that we are deporting precisely because we have deemed them to dangerous, are nearly non-existent. It isn’t like there is a buffet to choose from (you think Japan or the UK or Germany is accepting third world deportees from the US?) and those few that do exist are not going to be pleasant places for anyone.
And SCOTUS has said both that indefinite detention of a person is unconstitutional, and that detention of an illegal immigrant who cannot be returned to his home country (for whatever reason) amounts to indefinite detention if a third-party country willing to take him cannot be found with X amount of time (I think it is 6 months). So, if the third-party country willing to take him can be deemed to be unacceptable to a judge due to the “dangerous” conditions in that country, then the executive will have no choice but to release the illegal immigrant back into the US.
So this really is an issue of being able to deport some illegals at all.
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“So this really is an issue of being able to deport some illegals at all.”
In this case, I don’t find the Trump administration credible as apparently there was a deportation hearing already and they had a list of potential countries but chose Sudan and Libya instead.
One of the justifications cited (from anonymous sources of course) was that they wanted to deport them as far from the United States as possible so as to make it as hard as possible for them to attempt to enter illegally again.
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One of the justifications cited (from anonymous sources of course) was that they wanted to deport them as far from the United States as possible so as to make it as hard as possible for them to attempt to enter illegally again.
What is not to like about this strategy?
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Thirty seven hours with only two crew members per plane. You have to really trust your copilot.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/24/us/politics/b2-pilots-iran.html
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Starting this as a separate but related thread George:
Do you think ICE/CBP agents should have to identify themselves while making arrests and/or be prevented from wearing masks or otherwise concealing their identity?
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jnc:
Do you think ICE/CBP agents should have to identify themselves while making arrests and/or be prevented from wearing masks or otherwise concealing their identity?
I do think they should have to identify themselves while making arrests. Are they not doing so?
I do not think they should be prevented from concealing their identity as ICE agents prior to actually making an arrest, for the same reason that we don’t prevent undercover policemen from concealing their identity.
I am torn on masks. I don’t like the idea of law enforcement concealing their faces as a general matter, but I do understand the reasons for it. It does, of course, out them as ICE agents pretty easily, though.
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“I do think they should have to identify themselves while making arrests. Are they not doing so?”
If the news reports are accurate, they are not doing so.
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Some sources. I’ll leave it to you to determine if they are credible:
https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/growing-calls-for-police-to-identify-and-uncover-face-amid-rise-in-ice-impersonators/3730630/
https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2025/06/20/pasadena-police-investigating-ice-raid-seeking-identity-affiliation-of-man-who-pointed-gun-at-bystanders/amp/
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/06/18/metro/ice-federal-agents-wear-masks/
https://reason.com/2025/06/13/masked-ice-agents-are-a-danger-to-both-the-public-and-themselves/
https://www.cato.org/blog/ice-agents-seizing-people-now-routinely-wear-masks-thats-wrong
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jnc:
According to at least one of those stories, they are required to identify themselves as ICE officers prior to making an arrest, and to show credentials provided it is “safe” to do so. In instances where they don’t do so, then whatever punishment there is for not following protocol should be meted out.
To be honest, I would think they would want to identify themselves as ICE officers prior to making an arrest just for their own safety. A person is much more likely to violently resist if they do not know that the persons confronting them are law enforcement officers.
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My understanding is that they do identify themselves to the detainee. I am not bothered by the masks given the risk re doxing and violence they and their family endure.
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A useful piece on the core issues in U.S. v. Skrmetti and with “gender affirming care” in general.
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/transgender-treatments-distort-the-purpose-of-medicine-ccd6e513
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Rogan cannot unsee what he has seen.
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David Ignatius concludes that Trump and Israel were right all along about Iran & Nuclear weapons:
Why Trump was confident that Iran was building a bomb
Israeli intelligence and IAEA reporting suggest earlier U.S. assessments might have been too cautious.
June 24, 2025 at 8:09 p.m. EDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/06/24/iran-israel-war-trump-nuclear-bomb-weaponization/
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Interesting interview:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/26/opinion/peter-thiel-antichrist-ross-douthat.html
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Money quote:
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The ethics of subscribing to Brent & Scott’s substacks:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/25/magazine/substack-newsletter-ethics.html
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For the record, I haven’t turned on paid subscriptions. All of my sage commentary is free!
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