Grasping Reality on TypePad, by Brad DeLong

Dan W.: "Alan Dershowitz is trying to figure out why Netflix keeps recommending Woody Allen movies for him after it started reading his private messages...

Encyclopedia of Chicago (1899): Mr. Dooley Explains Our "Common Hurtage": "In the late 1890s, Finley Peter Dunne's newspaper columns in Irish dialect brought to life a fictional Bridgeport bartender, Mr. Dooley...

Dedicated to celebrating the memory of two field commanders who may well have been the worst in history:

Drink a toast to John Bell Hood on the 7/28 anniversary of his defeat at Ezra Church1

Hood... moved his troops out to oppose the Union army... planned to intercept them and catch them completely by surprise.... Unfortunately for Hood... Howard had predicted such a maneuver based on his knowledge of Hood from their time together.... His troops were already waiting in their trenches when Hood reached them. The Confederate army also had not done enough reconnaisance... and made an uncoordinated attack.... In all, about 3,642 men were casualties; 3,000 on the Confederate side and 642 on the Union side

And drink a toast to Max von Gallwitz—perhaps the only Imperial German commander who could have turned the Somme into a draw!

This, from CEA Chair Kevin Hassett in 2010 has always seemed to me at if not over the edge of mental illness.

There are many tells. The reliance on a "brilliant review" by a UND law professor and on an Oxford philosopher with no particle physicists even named is one. The raising of "military action" as a response is a second. The plea for following his preferred course of action even though he does not understand the issues because "how can we know that things we do not understand will not kill us?" is a third.

Grandiosity and unmooring from rational inquiry to an extent that, it seemed and seems to me, might well clear the clinical diagnosis bar...

In its entirety:

Tim Carmody: The People’s History of Tattooine: "The Tusken People. 'Raiders' presumes some malevolent intent. They are trying to preserve the desert habitat and Luke wants to race through it in his speeder. The Tusken are just trying to keep parts of Tatooine wild and undeveloped by heavy industry..."

2017-12-08 16:02:15 PST Market Capitalization: 278 billion dollars.

Live from the Orange-Haired Baboon Cage: Karl Marx really loathed social classes that deviated from their proper societal role: Karl Marx on Napoleon III and his lumpenproletariat, from the 18th Brumaire: Napoleon III was his own Breitbart:

Live from the Orange-Haired Baboon Page In which I am pwned, decisively, on twitter:

Brad DeLong  @delong: Replying to @Crutnacker @Tengrain: My advice: let Trump live rent-free in your head from 8:00 to 8:15 PM. That's enough. At other hours, evict him...

Jesus HidalgoCristos  @JesusHCristos: Replying to @delong @Tengrain @Crutnacker: I've tried. But he continues screaming and banging on pans, & even after he's evicted, the stench of feces he's smeared on the walls lingers.

https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=%40delong&src=typd

ACLU National: _On Twitter: "LOL" https://t.co/yS0QtsE2vG https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/853672747851030529:

No. I do not know why John Cochrane decided to turn himself into a partisan Republican clown back in 2007—willing to say whatever, at that moment, he thinks will win applause from the current crop of Republican politicians; and claiming since, among other things, that:

Live from the Gamma Quadrant: Aaron Murray: On Twitter: "The Queen has announced she will delegate away some of her royal duties in exchange for a leading role in the new series of Star Trek..." https://t.co/bpazJkxyYr

Betty Cracker: Update on Faces vs. Leopards: "This is one of my favorite tweets from the post-election period:

...Via TPM, we now have a (metaphorically eaten) face and name to attach to that sentiment:

Live from Havana: Eddy Elfenbein: @EddyElfenbein: "Look, I'm not wild about how the Alderaan thing was handled but the Empire made great strides in literacy and public health..."

For all of our stooges searching for a Stalin, half-wits hailing a Hitler, morons marching for a Mussolini, and clowns craving a Castro this morning. A suitable epitaph for Fidel Castro, from Gabriel Garcia Marquez:

A vast bureaucratic incompetence affecting almost every realm of daily life, especially domestic happiness... has forced Fidel Castro himself, almost thirty years after victory, to involve himself personally in such extraordinary matters as how bread is made and the distribution of beer...

Jacobo Timmerman (1990): A Summer in the Revolution: 1987: "When I read one of Gabriel Carcia Marquez's essays on the Commandante [Fidel Castro], I was remind of paeans to Stalin...

For all of our stooges searching for a Stalin, half-wits hailing a Hitler, morons marching for a Mussolini, and clowns craving a Castro this morning:

Jaybird: Vladimir, Joseph, and Zedong:

Has anybody here seen my old friend Vladimir?
Can you tell me where he’s gone?
He freed a lot of people,
But it seems the good they die young.
You know, I just looked around and he’s gone.

Reminded, once again, that one Starbucks scone has the mass of 27 London scones... (Live from Marylbone)

"How national pollsters are helping Hillary Clinton." IIRC, back when Glenn Hubbard hired Diana Furchgott-Roth for the CEA, I asked, "Why is Glenn hiring that wingnut?" Various people assured to me that she was not a wingnut.

Yes she is. This is highly, highly unprofessional. Any time your list of those putting their thumbs on the Democratic side of the scale includes Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, you have lost any standing to appear in polite society (Live from the Republicans' Self-Made Trump Hell):

Diana Furchtgott-Roth: How National Pollsters Are Helping Hillary Clinton: "National polls show wide variations... Clinton up by 9... essentially tied...

Josh Barro: @jbarro: "Republicans' impossible GOTV challenge, explained in two tweets:

Mitt Romney: @MittRomney: "Be sure to head to the polls for GOP Senate, House and statehouses; they are essential to defend and advance constitutional conservatism.

Mitt Romney: @MittRomney: "Hitting on married women? Condoning assault? Such vile degradations demean our wives and daughters and corrupt America's face to the world."

(Live from the Republicans' Self-Made Trump Hell)

Donald Trump has no working relationship with any Republicans currently in office, does he? (Live from the Republicans' Self-Made Hell)

Donald Trump: On Twitter:

Paul Ryan, a man who doesn't know how to win (including failed run four years ago), must start focusing on the budget, military, vets etc. The Democrats have a corrupt political machine pushing crooked Hillary Clinton. We have Paul Ryan, always fighting the Republican nominee!...

Justinian: New Rome on Twitter (Live from Byzantium):

@mmfa: Trump ally Alex Jones says high-level sources confirmed to him that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are demons: http://mm4a.org/2d7O2Pz

@tomtomorrow: Here's another very normal thing that is happening in this very normal electionTom Tomorrow added,

@delong: .@tomtomorrow Why Rnt U reading my timeline? There's precedent from 6th C AD! Many reliable people are saying Emperor Justinian a demon!

@The_New_Rome: {sigh...} Can we please get back to the issues? That was 15 centuries ago. ...okay perhaps some mistakes were made.... @delong @tomtomorrow

Live from Cleveland: Disney's "Mulan" is the sixth film version of the 1500 year old legend. And Andrew Kaczynski finds:

Mike Pence: Women in the "Mulan" Military: "Just spent a memorable Fathers Day...

...like so many other all American Hoosier dads, with my kids at the new Disney film entitled, ‘Mulan’. For those who have not yet been victimized by the McDonald’s induced hysteria over this film, Mulan is a fictional account of a delicate girl of the same name who surreptitiously takes her fathers place in the Chinese army in one of their ancient wars against the Huns. Despite her delicate features and voice, Disney expects us to believe that Mulan’s ingenuity and courage were enough to carry her to military success on an equal basis with her cloddish cohorts.

Obviously, this is Walt Disney’s attempt to add childhood expectation to the cultural debate over the role of women in the military.

Possibly it was parked here. The timing is right:

"Absolutely":

Live from the Republicans' Self-Made Gehenna:

George H.W. Bush: Voting for Hillary #I'mWithHer: not a moron.

George P. Bush: Not just voting for but working for Trump: a moron.

George W. Bush: Lied us into a stupid and destructive war: a moron.

But it is Jeb Bush who looks to be: the biggest moron:

Kristin Salaky: Jeb Bush Thinks It Would Be 'Powerful' Statement If Nobody Voted This Year:

Bush said that he's "at peace" with his decision on who to vote for, even though he refused to disclose who that would be. He did say that it would not be Clinton or Trump...

Refusing to take a stand on an important decision.

When reporters asked what would happen if everyone followed his lead, Bush took it a step further. "Well, if everybody didn't vote, that would be a pretty powerful political statement, wouldn't it?" Bush said...

Yes: it would be a statement that 240 years of the American Republic is at an end, wouldn't it?

Some outlets reported that Bush was privately supporting Johnson, and The New York Daily News reported he'd hinted at his support for Johnson publicly at a Manhattan Institute event this week, mouthing the Libertarian's name to someone who said he didn't want to vote for either Trump or Clinton. Bush denied that report, though. "I don't think so," Bush said when reporters asked if he had done that, according to CNN...

That's some non-denial denial we have here!

He also addressed a previous report that his father, former President George H.W. Bush, was going to support Clinton, saying that he found it "inappropriate" that someone would repeat what his "frail" father said at a private event...

George H.W. Bush--a lot smarter and wiser than JEB!!--shouldn't tell people who he is voting for? And people to whom George H.W. Bush has said smart things shouldn't repeat them to others? A very strange idea of "inappropriate" we have here...

Live from Trumpland: Another unhinged rabid Hillary-hater for Hillary:

Dorothy Rabinovitz: Hillary-Hatred Derangement Syndrome:

The end of the election is now in sight. Some among the anti-Hillary brigades have decided, in deference to their exquisite sensibilities, to stay at home on Election Day, rather than vote for Mrs. Clinton. But most Americans will soon make their choice. It will be either Mr. Trump or Mrs. Clinton—experienced, forward-looking, indomitably determined and eminently sane. Her election alone is what stands between the American nation and the reign of the most unstable, proudly uninformed, psychologically unfit president ever to enter the White House.

Live from Trumpland: Blind Squirrel:

(1) Erica Grieder (2011): The Trash Talker: Why Rick Perry Will Thrive:

On the issues where he has been motivated to mastery... [Perry] typically has a commanding grasp of the facts. When I’ve interviewed him, I’ve been most concerned about economic issues, and have found him to be an articulate and nimble advocate for the Texas model, controversial though his views may be. Perry also has a natural facility for language. Jonathan Martin, at Politico, excavated a brilliant comment that Perry made about Karl Rove back in 1994. “My brain is like a chicken pot pie,” said Perry, “His is like a refrigerator that is all very organized—pickles here, salad there.” A chicken pot pie, perhaps, but a lot of professional speechwriters would struggle to come up with an image so apt and evocative...

Cosma Shalizi:

I esteem DeLong's writings very highly, have learned much from them, and think he is on balance very much a force for good, but there are times when I simply cannot understand how his mind works, and do not particularly want to...

Monty Python: The Philosopher's Drinking Song Lyrics:

Immanuel Kant was a real piss-ant
who was very rarely stable.
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
who could think you under the table.

Live from Cyberspace: XKCD: Workflow:

Live from the Orion Arm: Kevin Marks: "How to talk...:

How to talk to a woman wearing headphones: Be a Kardashev Type II civilisation in HD164595 pic.twitter.com/ud5IcRYssj

— Kevin Marks (@kevinmarks) August 30, 2016

Live from Sarkozy-Le Pen Land: Yascha Mounk: [Via a Friend:][]:

Via a friend: "The French police were here." pic.twitter.com/BUT9LBW2kC

— Yascha Mounk (@Yascha_Mounk) August 27, 2016

Live from Trumpland: Josh Marshall: Turtles and BS All The Way Down:

The Trump camp, trying to right its ship, has now found itself either embracing President Obama's deportation policy or claiming that they're now just starting to deciding what their policy should be...

Live from Trumpland: Betsy Woodruff: Trump Tells Virginia Town It’s Failing, Cites the Wrong Place:

Loudoun is the richest county in America... replete with defense contractors, engineers, and rocket scientists. And it’s recession-proof...

Live from Trumpland: Jeet Heer: On Twitter:

I really thought they were going to keep the Holocaust denial for the last minute October push. https://t.co/hmzxfwexcd

— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) August 18, 2016

Trump advisor: "The ovens were too small to kill 6 million Jews" https://t.co/9fghfEPyDT

— Justin Miller (@justinjm1) August 18, 2016

Across the Wide Missouri: Claire McCaskill dishes the dirt on how she energized the Trumpists-before-Trump, and how they obliged her by turning the stomachs of independents and non-wingnut Republicans, and reelected her over the truly infamous Todd Akin:

Claire McCaskill: August 7, 2012....

Running for reelection... from Missouri....

Live from Team Bedwetting: I promised myself that I would abandon Team Bedwetting and CALM DOWN when HRC's 538 polls-plus probability crossed 80%:

Live from the Republicans' Self-Made Gehenna: Is Donald Trump trying actively to lose this election!?

Nicholas Huba: Trump Taj Mahal announces it will close:

ATLANTIC CITY – Trump Taj Mahal is set to close its doors after Labor Day weekend...

Live from the Republicans' Self-Made Gehenna: Calling Noah Smith! Calling Noah Smith! Drive down to Stanford's Hoover Institution this afternoon and make Niall Ferguson put his money where is mouth is: make him bet you even odds on Trump vs. Clinton. Then lay off your risk by hedging with a normal person. The arbitrage profits will keep you in Lagunitas IPA for the rest of your life...

As a fly to a wanton boy is Niall Ferguson to Josh Barro...

Niall Ferguson, bored of writing that inflation statistics are cooked, is now doing low-quality election punditry. https://t.co/TmRhMl3iJn

— Josh Barro (@jbarro) August 3, 2016

@jbarro It was very nice of you Americans to take him in. We were quite sick of him back here.

— Borners (@Borners1) August 3, 2016

@jbarro you know what we need? America to take up the mantle of Empire! o sorry, it's About Trump now...

— The Creek (@Ithancreek) August 3, 2016

Live from the Texas That Never Was: Brian Cronin: Comic Book Legends Revealed #329: "E. Nelson Bridwell, longtime assistant editor to Mort Weisinger at DC Comics!

Aceto: Review of: Cynthia Ozick: Critics, Monsters, Fanatics, and Other Lit...: I am the Problem:

Cynthia Ozick has written a collection of essays centered on criticism. Criticizing criticism is a thankless job. One gets oneself into all sorts of quagmire. She posits 'nothing is worth doing unless it has never been done before...', as one mode, then the other as '...the sweet value of ripeness.'

Live from the Cleveland Dumpster Fire: Well, well, well: a Ted Cruz endorsement of Hillary does not look totally impossible any more:

Ted Cruz: "We deserve leaders who stand for principle, who unite us all behind shared values, who cast aside anger for love...

...That is the standard we should expect from everybody. And, to those listening, please don't stay home in November. If you love our country, and love our children as much as you do, stand, and speak, and vote your conscience, vote for candidates up and down the ticket who you trust to defend our freedom, and to be faithful to the constitution...

Live from the Cleveland Dumpster Fire: Matthew Yglesias: While We Wait: Here’s Donald Trump on Barack Obama: "In November of 2008, I was interviewed... about the election and I was honest about it...

Live from the Cleveland Dumpster Fire: Matthew Yglesias says "ECONOMIC ANXIETY!!" and sends us to Julia Ioffe: Melania’s Fan Club: "She just needed to get up there and speak to them...

Live from the Cleveland Dumpster Fire: Is there any reason that anybody should believe that the latest Meredith McIver story from the Trumpists is the one true tree in the large and dense forest of implausible lies?

Live from the Cleveland Dumpster Fire: No. No Trump knows how to play this game:

Donald Trump, Jr. (July 19, 2016): "Our schools used to be an elevator to the middle class. Now they are stalled on the ground floor. They are like Soviet-era department stores, run for the benefit of the clerks and not the customers..."

F.H. Buckley (May 2, 2016): "What should be an elevator to the upper class is stalled on the ground floor. Part of the fault for this may be laid at the system's entrenched interests: the teachers' unions and the higher-education professoriate. Our schools and universities are like the old Soviet department stores whose mission was to serve the interests of the sales clerks and not the customers..."

Merdedith McCaw (July 19, 2016): "I just got off the phone with Buckley: 'I was one of the principal speechwriters. It's not a problem..."

So F.H. Buckley is the grifter here, and Donald Trump, Jr., is the mark. F.H. Buckley couldn't be bothered to ghostwrite an original speech. Trump, Jr., was too naive to check.hire a speechwriter willing to do bespoke work rather than recycle, and was too naive to check.

CASE NIGHTMARE BLOND: Patrick Wintour: Boris Johnson Grilled Over Past ‘Outright Lies’: "[Foreign Secretary Boris] Johnson twice referred to the crisis in Egypt, but was believed to be referring to Turkey...

Live from the Cleveland Dumpster Fire: Jay Newton-Small: Donald Trump Misses Meeting With Corporate Donors in Cleveland: "The Trump Leadership Council gathered... for their second official meeting...

Live from the Cleveland Dumpster Fire:

Melania Trump: "We want our children in this nation to know that the only limit to your achievements is the strength of your dreams and your willingness to work for them…"