Censorship for Thee but not for Me

These are the opinions of the left, as I've surmised them. Not all of the left believes all of them, but I have heard or deduced each of these arguments from them.

1. The social media moderators try to reduce racist, hateful, and misinformation on their platforms.
2. The social media moderators, while mostly left-leaning, apply their standards blindly and without regard to politics.
3a. The right is more likely to generate content that fits into #1, and so gets suppressed more.
3b. There is no disparity between moderation of the left and right.
4. There is no moderation of the right. (Because right-leaning users have high engagement)
5. The word "suppress" is too polemical.

#3 is split into two, because both can't be true, but I've heard both arguments. #4 is a remarkably terrible argument. There are many reasons why the right can have high engagement despite an effort to reduce it. Making this argument is like saying masks have no effect on Covid spread because countries with mask mandates are seeing Covid spread. There is no way to infer the effect of a deterrent by observing the final amount of anactivity. The only thing that high engagement tells you is that any moderation isn't 100%, which no one is arguing.

This is what the right believes, as I understand it:

1. The social media moderators try to suppress racist, hateful, and misinformation, and that's ok.
2. The social media moderators, mostly left-leaning, apply their standards inconsistently and overzealously because of their own views.

Recent events are substantial evidence that #2 is true. 

The NY Post story. First, Twitter banned the links altogether because the story was based on hacked e-mails or it contained private information, so they said. First, there was no evidence that the e-mails were hacked. Recovered under dubious circumstances, to be sure, but no indication they were obtained illegally. On the other hand, the NYTimes story about Trump's taxes was very likely based on tax returns obtained illegally. There's clearly a double-standard. Twitter has also never acted to suppress a political story that contained private information. Again the NYT story about Trump's taxes would seem to fit into this definition. 

On the overzealous application of their "standards," the recent post from U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan is illustrative. Twitter suspended him for a post about the border wall. The text of the post: "[Customs Border Protection and US Army Corp of Engineers Headquarters] continue to build new wall every day. Every mile helps us stop gang members, murderers, sexual predators, and drugs from entering our country. It's a fact, walls work."

The explanation from Twitter: "You may not promote violence against, threaten, or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease."

If we first remove everything that Twitter can't possibly be referring to: "You may not promote violence against, threaten, or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin....". Since there's no threat here, there's no promotion of violence, so it must be that Twitter believes this harasses other people. But still this doesn't seem to relate in anyway to the offending post.

In truth, Twitter blocked this because a moderator, representative of the left, inferred that Morgan is saying 100% of the people (who are overwhelmingly Latino) are "gang members, murderers, sexual predators, and drug [transporters]." Firstly, this is not what Morgan said, this is what Twitter inferred. Second, even if he had said exactly this, it still wouldn't fit the reason they cited, since it's not harassment. It would be an extremely egregious and racist form of stereotyping, but Twitter should have a policy for that explicitly.

The problem for the right with this episode, is Twitter is acting, call it suppressing or moderating or censoring, based on how they are interpreting a statement, not based on the literal words being used and that there's no clear policy. Taken as it is, I don't think it's disputable that there are some gang members, murderers, sexual predators, and drugs that cross the border, and if a wall is effective it'll stop them.

The left has a real problem separating text as written from their own inferences. Because their inferences are highly correlated with their political biases, it leads them to over-moderate the right. Morgan should not have been suspended for making a factual statement that didn't obviously violate Twitter's policy. Instead, Twitter should have, at most, slapped on a "Potentially racist implication" tag, and allowed Morgan to modify his language if he wanted it removed.

The Definitive Case for the Filibuster

Democrats are salivating. At the moment, Democrats are set to win the presidency, a Senate majority, and retain a majority of the House. For the first time since 2010 they’ll have full control of the two branches of government needed to pass their agenda. Knowing, however, that their agenda is too left-leaning to garner 60 votes in the Senate, it’s of course time to change the rules so they can pass as much as they want with a simple majority.

The Democrats’ designated ideological pinch-hitter, Ezra Klein, right on cue, has assembled the “definitive case for ending the filibuster.” Mr. Klein is a master of weaving together de-contextualized talking points magnified through a partisan lens into a grand, indisputable argument. Take, for example his argument that Donald Trump definitely colluded with Russia or that Republicans govern poorly because they hate government. In both cases, Mr. Klein took isolated examples that supported his argument while ignoring all counter-evidence to reach the inexorable truth, that just happens to always fit within Democratic politics.

The United States, Mr. Klein argues, cannot get anything done, and it’s the fault of the filibuster, despite the filibuster being technically possible since 1806. United States Congresses have in fact passed several laws in the years between 1806 and 2020. The filibuster has expanded in use rapidly in the past 30 years. Democrats weaponized filibusters to stop Republican Supreme Court nominees—William Rehnquist twice and Samuel Alito. They also relied on the filibuster to prevent Miguel Estrada’s elevation to the DC Court of Appeals in 2003 as well as many other Bush nominees. Senate Republicans followed suit with Obama’s nominees, and then the Democrats went nuclear and forbade filibusters on lower court nominees. (Republicans have never attempted a filibuster of a Democrat’s Supreme Court nominee, it should be noted).

Democrats have already weakened the filibuster twice, in its history, when it suited them. Now that it can’t possibly get any weaker, and the Democrats have their eye on control of the Executive and Legislative branches, it’s time to eliminate it altogether.

Klein begins his case by pointing out that the US system of governance has four veto-points, more than any other western democracy. By veto-points, he means that for legislation to pass, it must pass the House, the Senate, the President, and also the states. Since no one’s really talking about amending the Constitution, the states are not a veto point for every day legislation, which seems to be the primary concern. Other countries, he claims typically have two, maybe three.

Perhaps this analysis is correct, at least on the number of veto points. But bear in mind, his treatment of the United States’ system isn’t even accurate. In general, legislative systems are more complex than Civics 101 suggests. Beyond curiously counting the states as a veto point, consider that he has ignored Congressional committees. Shouldn’t that count as a veto point? Is Klein in favor of eliminating this veto point as well? Do other countries have similar institutions? I believe that most agree that the Committee system is beneficial. It cleans up legislation and filters out bad legislation as well.

The answer to how many veto points are appropriate, for one, depends on the country but also on balancing doing too much with too little. Democrats, like Mr. Klein, are extremely activist, wanting to pass multitudinous laws and regulations. They default to the position of “There’s something wrong; we need more laws.” In reality, though, the market fixes many of the perceived problems. Many other “problems” they see aren’t problems at all. Sometimes it is better to see how thing evolve before legislation because legislation exacerbates the problem. For example, increasing cost of housing is largely caused by over-active Democrats restricting the usage of land for high density housing, mandating larger and larger apartments, and regulating construction practices. All of which decrease supply and increase rents. These also lead developers to prioritize luxury apartments. Then, they enact more regulations—rent controls—lowering the quality of what housing remains. Is it not odd that no matter how much legislation we have, how many regulations on the books, they claim we still have the same problems and need more regulations?

In addition to slowing bad legislation down, veto points have another advantage, unique to the U.S. system. In his podcast, Klein decries the nationalized media as a reason things have broken, but yet he wants to make it easier to pass legislation at the national level. He doesn’t recognize that these two are related. Preventing legislation at the national level compels states to solve problems on their own. Beyond the “laboratories of Democracy” benefit, this also means that problems that California perceives but Ohio disagrees with leads to solutions that don’t hurt Ohioans. If California wants to legalize marijuana, provide universal healthcare coverage, and micromanage the water pressure of your showerhead they should do so. Why is it necessary that they bring Ohio, kicking and screaming along with them? If California makes that work and starts attracting Ohioans to California because of their great healthcare at affordable prices, I’m 100% certain that Ohio will adopt it as well.

The other big argument that Klein makes is that the filibuster is anti-democratic because it prevents a simple majority from enacting its policies. In particular, it’s being used to stop voting rights expansions, the admission of Puerto Rico as a state, and giving DC representation in Congress.

The suggestion that Klein and the Democrats are really concerned about democracy is laughable. Over and over, the Democrats pass legislation that cannot garner 50% public approval. Notably, the ACA, despite years of Democrats saying the healthcare system was broken, and that the uninsured needed to be insured, and then two years of Democrat-wrangling legislation to do so, that they had difficulty convincing even Democrats to go along with, then a year of media cheerleading for how amazing the bill was, still, its popularity bounced between favorable and unfavorable. Its unpopularity caused Democrats to lose the supermajority in the Senate, and then the Senate itself. Is that what Klein means by the U.S. needing more democracy? 

Giving DC Congressional voting rights would require a Constitutional amendment, which already exceeds the filibuster minimum. On Puerto Rico, state entry should surely not be subject to political calculations and excluding this use of a filibuster should be considered.

The reason things have broken down is not the filibuster. It is the diminishment of politicians and the media. Politicians on both sides have abandoned seeking compromise in favor of signaling ideological purity. The media have abetted this evolution, including Mr. Klein. Perhaps polarization has reached a point where the filibuster does make legislating untenable. That is a debate worth having, but that’s not Klein’s argument. Since the left never bemoans Democrats’ use of the filibuster by, for example, preventing a Republican majority from passing a Covid relief bill for political reasons, we are left to assume that their current stance is not for the good of the country, but for the good of their cause.

Audit of FISA Applications Provide More Evidence of Political Motivation for Carter Page Warrants

In the aftermath of the DOJ's Inspector General finding material finding "apparent errors or inadequately supported facts" in the DOJ's FISA applications to surveil Carter Page, the DOJ undertook a comprehensive review of practices to determine whether those errors were common or uncommon.

The answer to that question would help determine whether the Carter Page warrants were politically motivated or not. If those errors are common, for example, then the FBI is systematically riding roughshod over Americans' rights so that they can get secret warrants issued and surveil anyone and everyone they possibly can.

If, on the other hand, those errors were unique to Carter Page, then the FBI is generally by the book, but for some reason, in this case, they broke the rules so that they could procure a warrant. Conservatives will argue that the reason was politically motivated.

Benjamin Wittes from the Lawfare Blog put it well: "If the FBI botched its applications for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants against Mr. Page because of political bias, after all, problems of the sort Mr. Horowitz identified are most likely unique to this case."

In the first phase of the review, the Horowitz audited 29 FBI applications to the FISA court and found "widespread problems" including deficient documentation in 4 of the 29 and "apparent errors or inadequately supported facts" in the remaining 25. The discovery that every one of the reviewed applications had problems (an average of 20 issues/application) supports the position that the FBI's application process is awful and the Carter Page warrants were not politically biased but just business as usual.

The next phase of the investigation would look more closely at the errors and determine if they were material or not--if they resulted in warrants that should not have been granted. They determined that "nearly all of the inaccuracies" were minor. 

This supports the argument that the FISA warrants against Page and the errors committed to guarantee them were politically motivated.

Furthermore, it is worthwhile to compare the errors found in the comprehensive audit to those in the Carter Page warrants. 

From the audit:

"The FBI stressed in its new filing that many of the apparent mistakes it identified were minor, involving typographical errors, agents using the wrong dates for underlying documents or misidentifying underlying documents."

From the original review of the Carter Page warrants:

"The errors in the FISA applications on Carter Page were significant and serious. They were not, in my experience, the kind of errors you would expect to find in every case. ... It’s not acceptable to rely on a Confidential Human Source and then not check with his FBI handler in describing his bona fides to the FISA Court. It’s not acceptable to omit some potentially exculpatory recorded statements made by the FISA target to a source. It’s not acceptable to leave unresolved credibility and perhaps factual disputes between a key source and his primary subsource. It’s not acceptable, after closing the key source, to continue to get information from him through an Office of the Deputy Attorney General (ODAG) staffer, thereby effectively treating him as a subsource of the ODAG staffer. And it’s certainly not acceptable for an FBI attorney to alter an email from another intelligence community agency as to whether the other agency had contact with the FISA target or treated him as a source. (Internal citations omitted.)"

I will leave it to the reader to decide for themselves if the errors in the Carter Page applications were similar to those found in the subsequent audit, and if not, what was the driving force that led to the errors in the former.

Nike is Becoming a Corporate Karen

Without an accompanying announcement, on the evening of July 2^nd, Nike has memory-holed Washington Redskins merchandise. The instigating factor seems to be that “87 investment firms sent” a letter to Nike (and three other corporate sponsors). But the woke activists have been clamoring for this change for a decade, and they finally have a triggering an event to make the final push.

There’s no question that the term “redskins” is a racial slur and is unacceptable to use in any context other than the football team, but what has changed in the past week that makes the term more offensive or the situation worse than it was a month ago? The murder of George Floyd has nothing to do with the name of an NFL team in Washington. There is no connection to police brutality; George Floyd was not a Native American; his murderer has no relationship to the football team. Changing the name of a football team will not improve a single black life.

Nike has become especially activist in the past few years, most notably cancelling a shoe that celebrated Betsy Ross and the American flag because a handful of white supremacists used it as their symbol. (There is no evidence that this was a popular or common symbol among these people.) Now, it seems, they are taking it upon themselves to “fix” the Redskins offensiveness.

Recently, the term Karen has been growing in usage, and it refers to a person who thinks they’re being considerate but are “demanding [their] own way at the expense of others.” This is exactly what Nike is doing.

The only people who can legitimately be offended by the Redskins’ name are Native Americans. If they demand to retire the team name, then the NFL should take those demands seriously. Even Nike could take them seriously, but hiding merchandise and refusing to sell it for a single team in order to exact capitulation is not the right approach. Nike is hurting itself and the fans and the team, all in an effort to demonstrate their cultural awareness and that they believe the Redskins name is offensive to others (who heretofore have not been the prominent actors in this situation).

If Nike actually cared about the effects on Native Americans, they should first provide evidence that this matters, in a significant way, to Native Americans, and isn’t just a cause celebre for its white activists. Secondly, if Nike felt really strongly, they could discontinue all business with the NFL, but that would be a big loss, bigger than they’re willing to lose for this cause. More reasonably, Nike should commit to donating all profits from Redskin merchandise to Native American groups or hire more Native Americans. These actions would represent a win-win for all involved and avoid the brinksmanship culture that the warriors on both sides seem to want.

If Nike insists on an arms race, the NFL, though, should respond in kind. This is the NFL’s decision, not Nike’s. The NFL should not give in to pressure from Nike as they do not represent the potential victims. Corporations and states are both expanding the business of boycotting against entities they disagree with. Both corporations and state governments have stopped doing business with states that pass laws that they disagree with even though a majority of the people in those states are in agreement with the laws. Letting these companies and states bully everyone else around is anti-democratic.

The NFL should raise the stakes by telling Nike that if they don’t sell apparel for one team, they can’t sell it for any other team. They should, in private, suggest Nike take the more constructive actions listed above. If Nike insists, then the NFL should exclude Nike from consideration of being a partner in the future.

NFL fans should also step into the fray by boycotting Nike. If Nike wants to show how much it cares about this issue by foregoing some profits, then NFL fans should oblige them. For twenty years, activists have been making demands and bullying society to get their own way. Even though these activists make up a tiny slice of the population, they claim they speak for an oppressed majority, and the actual majority are sympathetic and don’t want to offend anyone, so they relent. But the activists are never satiated, they just move on to the next cause and claim new victims and decry anyone who disagrees.

It is time for the sensible majority to stop standing astride and muttering, “OK, you feel more strongly than I do.” And instead stand between them and their objective and yell “Stop! We will no longer listen to culture warriors claiming to represent actual victims.” The activist bullying process has repeated itself enough times to understand that it will only end when they have remade society to fit their naïve notion of perfect harmony where no one offends anyone else because the only way that society exists is with Big Brother monitoring every action we take.

Google's Glaring Hypocrisy on Section 230

A debate has been active in Washington for months over Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, passed in 1996. In essence, Section 230 protects internet companies who host comments or any user-created content from being held liable for what the users post. In the past six months, some Republicans, annoyed with the perceived political bias from media companies such as Twitter and Google, most notably, have been threatening to rescind that immunity claiming that the companies treating conservatives differently makes them ineligible for the protection.

While there is evidence that the media companies are biased against conservatives (considering the proportion of conservative content that is removed), arguing that their 230 protections should be removed is a stretch.

While Google argues that they should be protected from private lawsuits based on comments, however, it seems they believe that de-platforming other sites for user-generated comments is right and proper.

NBC News reported The Federalist to Google (side note: several stories and tweets (1, 2, 3) provide the quote "Google blocked The Federalist from its advertising platform after the NBC News Verification Unit brought the project to its attention" but that does not appear in the story...anymore.) based on some media "watchdog" group, and then reported that Google was demonetizing The Federalist. Google then clarified that it was just warning The Federalist about some comments (that have not been listed) and it had three days until "a ban goes into effect."

So, in a nutshell, Google is threatening to punish The Federalist for comments left on one of its stories, at the same time it is telling the government that it shouldn't be held responsible for comments left on their many sites.

Many tech journalists are arguing that it's not inconsistent at all, that Google is not the government and Google has a right to do this. This is missing the point of the inconsistency. Of course Google is not the government, and Google has this right. The point is that Google wants a power (punishing other companies for comments on their site) that they don't want used against them. Other claims are that Google wants protection from the government, not private parties. Private parties are free to do as they choose. But that's not correct either. Section 230 also protects Google from lawsuits from other private parties based on the comments.

Granted, they're not the exact same situations. No one is claiming that they are. If you look at the specifics and details then you can argue that these aren't the same situation. However, if you look more broadly at the underlying action "punishing other platforms for comments", then there is definitely an inconsistency. Everyone should acknowledge that there is some inconsistency here, even if there are countervailing details that reconcile them.

Doom and Gloom Media Wrong Again

When the April jobs report came out, most of the media were talking about however bad it was, the reality was even worse.

LA Times - May 8 "The Unemployment rate may be even worse than it looks"
Associated Press, May 8 - "[The Jobs Report is] Even Worse than it looks. Really."
Vox.com, May 8 - "20.5 million job losses recorded - and the real situation is even worse"
Politico.com, May 11 - "The jobs situation is worse than it looks"
Bloomberg Opinion, May 8 - "This Ugly Jobs Report is Just the Beginning"

CNBC - May 21 "May Unemployment looks worse than expected"

The print media were more balanced, but the internet and televised media all took the glass-half-empty view. Because 18.1 million people, 78%, expected their layoffs would be temporary, there was the possibility of better results in May, if things began to re-open. All of these media outlets, however, chose to expect worse.

What interests me most in this episode, is that again the media were all taking an unprecedented situation and were unable to envision what would eventually transpire. How is it that the media predictions can all be so certain of events that never come to be?

Arguing with Strawmen; Avoiding the Issues

On the evening of May 27th and the following morning, TheHill.com featured prominently, this opinion piece by Marik Von Rennenkampff. While you disclaim that his views do not represent your own, by publishing it and featuring it you are promulgating an opinion untethered to good journalism or productive opinions. Mr. Von Rennenkampff’s piece is a one-sided, distorted interpretation of the facts of the Flynn case that is more propaganda than informed opinion and is more suited for a website like Slate.com than what I would expect from The Hill.

While I tend to lean more on the side of those who believe that the FBI and the highest levels of government over-stepped the boundaries of civil justice, I also recognize that this story is extremely complicated and nuanced, and I don’t begrudge those who believe the opposite. In many circumstances, the facts can be read in different ways and both sides have good arguments.

Mr. Von Rennenkampff’s arguments, however, ignore all of that. He takes the strongest arguments from the prosecution’s side puts them up against the weakest (and even non-existent) arguments from defense’s side all while twisting and pulling the facts of the case to suit his opinion.

For example, he twice points to the DOJ’s finding no evidence of political bias after an “exhaustive review.” By saying it was the DOJ finding no evidence and not mentioning it was a review by an independent watchdog within the DOJ he falsely gives the impression that even a politically-motivated organization found no evidence of bias. Additionally, he omits the fact that the DOJ explicitly did not try to determine whether there was political motivation. Their conclusion was basically that “the reasons given to us, pass a minimum threshold to support their decision to investigate.” This is similar to believing that even though a robber broke into your house and stole your jewelry, he said he was actually just looking for flour to make cookies.

If this was the only example of this abandonment of objectivity and sticking close to the facts instead of straying deep into partisan interpretation, it wouldn’t be worth discussing. He claims the Trump-Russia investigation was not based on “bogus information”, omitting any mention of the Steele Dossier and how the actual basis of the investigation – Papadapoulos’s claim to the Australian was fed to him from an untrackable source and the content of the discussion was not true.

He claims that Obama/FBI did not spy on Trump even though the FBI clearly listened in to Flynn’s phone calls, illegally surveilled Carter Page in an effort to investigate Russian collusion even if Carter Page wasn’t an official part of the campaign and completely omits the existence of the confidential informants. Given the facts, a normal person, not trying to spin the facts to suit his biases would not completely dismiss the allegation of spying.

He also tries to knock down a straw man that the FBI Investigation into Flynn was bogus. Only the most extreme are claiming that the investigation was totally bogus. The claims in support of Flynn are that the investigation was properly predicated but politically motivated (jury’s still out), that the FBI had investigated and found nothing for months and then pushed him in a corner where he lied and threw the book at him, and that the FBI bended or broke its own rules to prosecute him. The latter three charges are harder to tackle so Mr. Von Rennenkampff ignores them. He also assigns nefarious motives to an incoming administration official working in an official capacity (albeit before he officially should) to prevent the outgoing administration from blowing up an international relationship.

It is not my intent to condemn opinions that I disagree with, but only to point out unrestrained opinions that do more to activate their own side than to inform. Opinions such as these do nothing to persuade the other side but only strengthen the resolve of the most partisan. The Hill should be more deliberate in choosing what it publishes to inform and challenge instead of instigate.

Compare and Contrast: Flynn Edition

On Friday, the transcripts of Flynn's discussion with Kislyak at the center of the entire Flynn story were declassified. This is the conversation that Flynn was accused of and admitted to lying about the contents and was not provided to Flynn's defense team despite numerous requests.

The New York Times says it proves Flynn "discussed sanctions at length" during conversation. Conversely, Margot Cleveland of The Federalist says the transcripts show the opposite.

I encourage everyone to read both, but start with Ms. Cleveland's take. Then, compare and decide which is the stronger case.

It is surprising to me that Cleveland's relies much more on facts and explanations than does the New York Times. The latter, for example, does not mention the difference between sanctions and expulsions. This question seems to be the crux of the discussion. Was Flynn talking about one but not the other, as Cleveland suggests, and are they actually distinct issues where the distinction matters. At least Cleveland points out this difference and makes the case; the Times story doesn't broach it at all.

Notice, too, how the New York Times, while claiming Flynn discussed sanctions, they never quote Flynn as ever saying sanctions, they just imply that Flynn's statements regarded the sanctions, not the expulsions (or both).

It is definitely possible that the Times authors believe them to be the same thing. It's also possible that Mueller's team believed them to be the same thing. But again, Cleveland makes a strong case that they are different, and her case is definitely strong enough that it should be a point of discussion and not omitted entirely.

"The First Casualty of Hyperpartisanship is Nuance"

Democrats and the media are over-reacting to Flynn case. There's a legitimate case they can make, but instead are jumping to the extreme argument of Barr being corrupt while completely ignoring the questionable facts about the investigation. When news media completely ignore salient facts that go against their narrative and instead double-down on a simplistic narrative like 'Barr only did what he did because he's corrupt and a loyal Trump soldier', readers should be on their guard.

The May 8, 2020 episode of Left, Right, and Center had an enlightening exchange that highlights that the pundits who are criticizing Flynn are avoiding conservatives' valid arguments.

The Flynn discussion is the first topic they discuss, but the most maddening and instructive dialogue starts at 3:25. Rich Lowry lays out point after point about why he accepts the DoJ's actions:

• There was no predicate for investigation.
• The Logan Act has never been prosecuted, the last attempt to prosecute was in the 1850s.
• It is a Constitutionally dubious law.
• Incoming National Security advisor talking to Russian ambassador does not show he might be Russian agent.
• The FBI interview was an ambush interview; Comey bragged about going around normal procedures. They deliberately kept Flynn off his guard.
• Flynn thought he was having conversation with a peer in government.
• FBI knows what was said in conversation
• There is a dispute over whether agents thought Flynn lied.
• FBI does nothing for 10 months. Then Mueller squeezes Flynn gets him to plead guilty.
• Flynn under financial pressure, possibly personal pressure.
• This is a travesty and the Justice Department deserves credit for undoing it.

The "Center" host, asks the guest if that's a fair characterization. The guest, Ken White, a former federal prosecutor says, "Not at all. None of that is true."

Ken White claims none of the details Lowry spoke are true. This is obviously incorrect. It is demonstrably false that everything Rich Lowry said is untrue. Logan Act has never resulted in a conviction. Last indictment was 1852.  "Comey bragged to MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace in 2018 that he flouted the usual protocols for interviewing a top White House official." FBI knows what was said in conversation." Andrew McCabe: "The two people who interviewed [Flynn] didn't think he was lying." Flynn's interrogation is January 24th, is fired on February 14th, and the next action against him is November 5th, so not 10 months but around 8. Does "Flynn pleads guilty" really need corroboration? Flynn under financial pressure, possibly personal pressure.

I've avoided the obvious opinions which can't be verified. But the fact that FBI was ready to close the case on Flynn before this phone call and interview speaks to whether there was a predicate. There's definitely support that the Logan Act is constitutionally dubious.

So, given all this, the strong corroboration that Lowry has for everything he says, why would the other guest, the former federal prosecutor, throw that all away and say "none of that is true." It is because something about thy Flynn case and Bill Barr and Trump turns a switch that obscures the facts that don't align with their dislike and prevents them from seeing nuance.

The debate continued, and White followed up his ludicrous statement about Lowry with the argument that the DoJ isn't being sincere, that if they were sincere, they would act to put an end to those "ambush tactics" the FBI used. "I would be thrilled if those values were reflected in the future in the way investigations are conducted. This doesn't reflect policy, it reflects politics."


The Left's official representative, Christine Emba, adds, "He had a constitutional right to remain silent. He didn't. He talked, and he lied. That lie came to light." But this argument is inapt. The FBI didn't read him his rights before hand, they, actually suggested he not have a lawyer. For a normal American, if the police or the FBI comes knocking on your door, your going to be on your guard and be very careful with what you say. If you're the incoming National Security Advisor, these are your coworkers, and you have an expectation that they're going to be helping you not interrogating you. I would like to live in Christine Emba's vision of the world. Where the FBI tries to talk to other government officials, at the White House, in Congress, and no one will talk to them because if they misspeak at anytime, the FBI can send them to prison. I suppose Christine Emba is doing the Left proud and pushing us towards a police state.

But then White reveals his actual position. He agrees with Lowry that Flynn shouldn't have been prosecuted! "I'm not fervent about prosecuting him. I think it's a bogus prosecution. I think this type of 1001 is a bogus prosecution." Of course, this wasn't his thesis. He started by talking about how the DoJ was in the wrong. How does he reconcile those positions? "I think that the hypocritical bogus justifications being given are transparent and a corruption of the justice department. We both know that these arguments are not going to be brought to bear again for anyone's benefit. They're only being brought to bear for Flynn."

This is an absolutely legitimate position to hold, and in fact, he made me question the DoJ's motivations for its actions. But this wasn't where he started. He started by implying he disagreed with Barr, but in reality he agrees with the action they took but is unhappy that they only selectively applied that standard to a Trump supporter.

Alan Dershowitz said "The first casualty of hyperpartisanship is nuance." This is unfortunately true and hyperpartisanship is winning.

The New York Times's House of Cards

What has happened to journalism? Am I overly idealistic? Has it always been this bad, and I just didn't realize it. Have most Americans already accepted the truth of journalism?

Imagine this hypothetical: Corrupt law enforcement agents break the law to punish people of the opposition party. They fail in their endeavor, the cases are dropped, and the targets are exonerated. Then the media pronounces that the government who freed them is corrupt and ignores the problematic process.

This situation does not occur with an independent and legitimate press. This is sensationalist, activist press, the kind you'd expect in dystopian fiction or countries where a dictatorship controls the media.

This was a hypothetical case, but it could be true, and many Americans believe that the FBI agents behind the Flynn case and the Carter Page FISA warrant let their politics override their faith to justice. Maybe those Americans are wrong; maybe the FBI agents were acting in good faith. The facts are, however, that they bent and broke many laws to get what they wanted. With the FISA application and then with the Flynn case.

There are three possibilities:
1. The FBI agents involved were extremely biased and believed punishing their enemies was more important than rule of law, and Bill Barr righted those wrongs.
2. The FBI agents involved were slightly biased and bent the rules a bit too far in pursuit of legitimate investigations, and Bill Barr undid the damage.
3. The FBI agents involved were completely professional, did everything by the book, got a bad guy, and Bill Barr let him off because he's Trump's lackey.

Do we have enough information to know for sure which is true? Does any journalist?

A responsible journalist has an obligation to report these facts. A responsible journalist should recognize that this is a complicated situation and doesn't have an easy answer. An irresponsible journalist jumps to possibility 1 or possibility 3 and tosses around over-generalizations like "Barr is corrupt and he doesn't that you know it." or "The attorney general is turning the Justice Department into a political weapon for the president."

The second quote is written by the editorial board of The New York Times, and is deeply, deeply irresponsible. They are taking a complicated situation, one that's clearly in the gray where there's not enough information to make a real determination as to everyone's motives and deeds, and deciding that William Barr, the attorney general is corrupt. The left's opinion writers are expert at taking many stories, over-interpreting them, and then putting them together to create the illusion of a strong case. This opinion piece is a terrific example.

The thesis is that Bill Barr is a political actor and has politicized the Justice Department. They start with a piece of a statement Barr made in response to a question, that without the full Barr statement makes him sound like he's be happy as long as he wins. Then they talk about Watergate and the reforms that followed it. "To Mr. Barr, these reforms were obstacles to a vision of a virtually unbound executive." This is followed by a statement Barr made about the power of the executive. Instead of arguing against that statement, they simply compare him to England's King George III. Barr said "the president 'alone is the Executive branch', in whom 'the Constitution vests all Federal law enforcement power, and hence prosecutorial discretion." Is that wrong? Isn't this a question for constitutional scholars to debate? Maybe it is wrong. Is it clearly wrong? If Obama's attorney general had said it, would The New York Times proclaim it as indisputable?

Whether it's right or wrong, it's a reasonable interpretation, and Bill Barr is not the only person who thinks so. Many, many legal scholars, who believe in civil rights and want an independent justice system, believe this is true. But, The New York Times throws it in, interprets it as "Bill Barr believes the president is king" and then moves to its next point.

"Bill Barr's America...is a banana republic where all are subject to the whims of a dictatorial president and his henchmen." These are the words of Donald Ayer, that the Times goes on to agree with. This is such an egregious exaggeration of the facts, it has no place in The New York Times. The United States is not a "banana republic" and the actions of Bill Barr do not come close to being "whims of a dictatorial president and his henchmen." Donald Ayer was likely playing up his opinion to get press coverage and headlines. This is not a statement that was meant to accurately portray the state of the country. It is another irresponsible statement that sensationalizes instead of informs.

Next, the Times says Barr "misrepresented the contents" of the Mueller report. A "federal judge called Mr. Barr's characterization of the report 'distorted' and 'misleading.' Both of those come complete with links to back up their take. If you follow the "misrepresented the contents" link, and you read the whole story, you find that what they mean by "misrepresented the contents" was "didn't include all of the context with your accurate summary." There is no argument that Barr said anything untrue or misleading. The complaint is that Barr's summary didn't include context. How ironic that The New York Times calls it "misleading" when the full context is excluded. By that standard what should we call this editorial that doesn't mention a single one of the rationales given by the Justice Department in dropping the Flynn case?

The link to the second quote does more of the same. Claiming Barr misled the public by omitting context. The judge found it "misleading" that while Barr's statements were true, they were too narrow and left out many findings that would've cast doubt. Again, if this is a definition of "misleading" then The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR and every news outlet is misleading. It is not that they leave out any context, because providing all context would be impossible. They leave out necessary context. For Flynn, they leave out the fact that the edits went on longer and involved more people than was standard; for Ukraine, they always called Jonathan Turley, the "Republican scholar" because Republicans called him, but they always omitted the fact that he was a long-standing Democrat who disagreed with them; when they discuss Trump's Charlottesville comments, they ignore that he explicitly condemned neo-Nazis and White Nationalists'. Name the story, Kavanaugh, Ukraine, FISA warrant, Russia, and the media are always telling you one side and leaving out inconvenient facts for their narrative.

The next paragraph is a litany of decisions that Barr made and liberals disagree with. Each decision Barr made was a reasonable decision. Maybe the decisions were wrong, but enough fair-minded people agree with them, that it's unfair to paint them as evidence that he's corrupt. He believes that the Russia investigation was improperly started. Is that evidence of corruption? Is the attorney general disagreeing with an inspector general so nefarious? How hard would it be to find previous attorney generals disagreeing with inspectors general? Obama and Democratic representatives disagree with court decisions, does that make them corrupt, too?

He called the investigation "spying." In other words, he said that confidential informants who were reporting the actions of Trump affiliates spies to law enforcement and intelligence agencies "spying."

He reduced the DoJ's recommended sentence for Roger Stone. Every knowledgeable person who looked at that case thought the recommendation was too high. Even so, the recommendation was merely a recommendation, it was the judge's ultimate decision. And the recommendation, even amended, included several years of jail time. By any metric you consider this, it was not a perversion of power, and yet, The New York Times is heaping onto a pile of other flimsy arguments hoping the volume of criticisms amounts to a real case.

It doesn't, and it shouldn't. The New York Times is using their history and the reputation they've earned to peddle a house of cards. Each thin and flimsy, but arranged in such a way that projects an illusion of a substantial argument. It is not; and every American needs to realize that these opinions collapse with the gentlest of breaths.

Journalistic Malpractice - Coronavirus Edition

This NY Times report is receiving a lot of publicity. Without even searching, I've seen/heard about this story 4 times already today:

NPR: Updated coronavirus projections from a key data model show the death toll could nearly double the last estimate by August

WaPo: Draft report predicts covid-19 cases will reach 200,000 a day by June 1

NPR Fact Check: Trump Administration Document And Its 3,000 Deaths A Day Scenario

CNN: Trump downplays models projecting Covid-19 death increases

This whole episode demonstrates how much is wrong with the journalism today and how it has evolved into a machine that doesn't appropriately inform the public but pushes the sentiments of journalists, ratchets up the hysteria, and divides the country. Should responsible media really use the word "carnage" to describe the model results, or is that geared towards making it more dramatic?

Many questions arise for me when reading the story:
Why didn't the NPR fact-check actually provide context for the prediction?

• Why didn't the Washington Post, CNN, or even the original New York Times article provide context for the prediction?
• Where's the conjecture as to what might cause such a large increase?
• Who leaked it and did they have an agenda other than to inform?

On the first two questions, high-quality journalists could have and should have dug into the data to compare it to other models, assess the numbers' likelihood considering current conditions, pointed out that the model included in the slides under-counts actual deaths to date. This story did none of those things. The authors also did not consider the third question, even taking the projections as correct, what could cause them? They mention, relaxing the government orders, but did they scrutinize that idea at all by considering which states are relaxing their orders, by what degree, and what would public reaction be? Or did they just rely on their pre-existing pro-quarantine inclinations to conclude relaxation equals "carnage"?

Ask yourself, if the leaked presentation had actually shown an optimistic scenario, where deaths and cases per day plummet, would the authors have asked these questions within the story? Would the follow-up coverage ask them? Would the stories not even be published?

This episode also demonstrates other problems with our current media landscape. First, that the media tend to focus on worst-case scenarios. They emphasize the negative because it gets the most clicks. This is not new. Local news has for decades focused on crime, for example. But now this is occurring on the national level. In addition, in a case like this, it's much easier to be balanced, by questioning the negative projections and also pointing out that this is worse than most other models have projected. The media's incentive to accentuate the negative distorts public perception of reality, even though the media's primary job is to present it accurately.

Another way in which the media coverage leads to a public misperception is when every outlet repeats the original story without providing any additional value. When the 100 left-leaning media outlets see a story that fits with their view of the universe, they repeat it, but with different headlines. This indundates the public with the exact same story, the exact same take on the story, but the perception that these are different stories because they have different headlines. This exaggerates the importance and perceived reality of the story, even though the fact remains that someone in the administration leaked a presentation, one time. When you hear or see, multiple times in the day, different headlines all saying "Deaths are going to go up", you can't read each and every story, so you're not sure if it's based on the same or different information. Not knowing, you split the difference and interpret it, as possibly new, so the story has a larger impact than it should.

This is exactly what happened when BuzzFeed published their story about how the Mueller Report would show that Trump directed his attorney to lie. This also was based on anonymous sources and grew exponentially through media repetition. Like this recent episode, none of the outlets that repeated this "bombshell" provided any additional consideration of the facts but was happy to repeat information that fit their inclinations.  Look how that turned out.

Americans deserve a better media industry. As it is constituted, especially in political news, it is geared towards pushing the public in a certain direction instead of strictly informing them and providing context. 

Why We Don't Build

Ezra Klein is out with a characteristically one-sided take on 'Why We Don't Build'. A question that Marc Andreesen asked.

Klein's answer can be summed up with:

1. Too much agreement is needed for action
2. Local Interests have too much veto power.
2. Republicans want government to fail so build poorly.
4. Corporations are too short-term oriented.

1. While Klein begins by talking about how the branches of government need to be aligned and then on the filibuster, he eventually comes to the real reason: there is very little compromise between the parties. When one party has power, the other party doesn't deal with them. Both prefer to do nothing rather than let the other side have its way. He points out several, bipartisan examples: privatizing Social Security and funding vouchers for Republicans and the left can't increase the federal minimum wage or pass a climate bill. Neither side can pass immigration reform. (Side note: the closest Congress came was in the second term of George W. Bush. He had a compromise ready that Republicans would sign onto but Democrats poisoned the bill to prevent it). When both sides prefer complete obstruction in hopes that they'll eventually have power, the ability to progress is severely hampered.

2. There's too much resistance from locals to any sort of change and from special interests. Klein packs a lot into this and elides some of the other issues involved here. "This is representative democracy at its worst: A democracy that only represents those who know to show up at meetings most people never hear about, and so ends up handing power to special interests and aggrieved NIMBYs." The problem here is that the powers that be are too focused on making a narrow segment of the population happy. He cites both the Himalayan costs of the California high speed rail project and NYC subways to build. Both are famously outrageous. While he concentrates on their veto power, it isn't just the veto power at play. They also have the power to increase costs. Part of the reason the California rail project was so expensive was that local politicians wanted things to run through their area, which prevented the ideal rail line from being built. This increased costs. Environmental impact studies and preventions. Laws that required union labor at higher costs or American equipment. All of these increase costs without increasing the value of what's being built. Another problem here is that it's public money and everyone views it as an infinite resource that they deserve a piece of.

He's right though that this is fundamentally a product of too much democracy and. He says "government power is now spread so thin that places...cannot get good projects off the ground." It's not that power is spread too thin, it's that political pressure is coming from narrow interests and does not reflect the public interest and the government is too conciliatory to it. Klein speaks of Robert Moses, but the benefit of his style of government is that he could bypass the special interests and ignore them. The special interests are the groups damaging the system and need less stature in the public arena.

3. Unhappy that he has criticized the left as much as he has, he goes on to criticize Republicans in an act of moral equivalency. He claims that Republicans want government to fail so act to sabotage it. He gives one example, so I only need to give one example to counter him. While President Trump has been in office, the IRS has worked to make American's lives easier: they restructured the 1040 form so it would fit on one page and also restructured the Withholding forms. These were not attempts to make government work poorly. In fact, if Republicans really wanted bad governance to make people lose faith in government, there would be myriad examples and studies. Does Texas, the exemplar red state, really have worse governance than other states? Yet millions of people move there anyway? This is a canard that the left loves to throw out with anecdotal examples, of which there are probably examples of Democrats making government worse.

4. Finally, he bemoans capitalism. It is unclear what his point is here. First he points out that private interests don't build things they don't need like masks and ventilators pre-2020. Then, he discusses Obama's "wildly successful" loan program for renewable energy. It "turned a profit to taxpayers" despite its publicized busts. This example seems extraneous so he can talk about the government being a smart lender and Obama being a brilliant person. His point is that the government is too conservative an investor and therefore private industry is too. This is another anecdotal piece of information. Corporate investments fail all the time and are accepted as a part of doing business, while government investments fail and are typically ignored. Again, no study here, just a hand-picked example.

"Short-term shareholder capitalism acts as a kind of vetocracy on public companies." The fact that corporations are too short-term oriented is another canard put out there by the left. On hearing it, it's extremely easy to nod in agreement because it makes sense at a very superficial level, but when you really sit and think about it, there's no way it can be true. He even gives a great counter-example himself, maybe the best--Amazon. Amazon is famous for eschewing short-term profits in hopes of long-term growth. He dismisses this as an "exception that infuriates the rules." Amazon is not an "exception", it's an extreme. Most companies are looking long-term. Look at the Dow Jones Index components. How many of those companies have been there for a decade? Think of a corporation off the top of your head. Think of ten. Do you really believe that they put short-term growth over long-term growth? While you can think of examples of corporations making terrible, costly errors, it's doubtful you can think of examples that they put short-term growth ahead of long-term. Boeing made an enormous error recently. But the error they made was not that "We know this is unsafe and will lead to huge losses in a year, but, hey, we'll make money this quarter!" They made the error of thinking that their plane was safer than it actually was. There's no way they expected that the problematic plane was going to end up costing them billions of dollars. Imagine you could ask a Fortune 500 CEO (and get an honest answer) if they would fire a significant portion of their workforce in charge of developing new products so that they could focus on their current hot-product. I would venture that no CEO would sacrifice their long-term growth capability for the short-term boost. The left loves to believe otherwise.

Underlying these arguments from Klein and Andreesen, though, is the false assumption that America doesn't build anymore. There is no place in the world as innovative as the United States. A lot of that innovation is digital, but not all of it. Even if all of it was digital, though, what would be wrong with that? As far as physical goods, the US is manufacturing more than it ever has before. High quality, US-made clothing has found a large market selling online. While some goods have moved overseas, the argument that the US doesn't build anymore simply isn't true. Look at Tesla, just as one example.

Klein and his ilk think that insofar as the government or private industry don't build or invest in what they think we should, it's a market failure. Klein wants the US to spend more money on infrastructure and green energy. It's important to question whether Klein is unhappy because America doesn't build or because America doesn't build what he wants us to build. He ignores the issue that what he wants is costly. Neither high speed rail nor subway systems are market-driven. Their usage will never pay for their construction, but need to be subsidized even while in operation. Electric cars are subsidized; green energy is subsidized. Even with these subsidies, Klein believes there needs to be more. Where infrastructure makes economic sense--broadband and 5G networks--these things are being built, without government assistance. Klein should consider why this infrastructure gets built while other does not.

Finally Klein ignores one last important detail about infrastructure--the fact that politicians have expanded spending at all levels of government for items other than infrastructure, leaving less money for it. Infrastructure is built both at the federal level and state level. Another question he could ask is why aren't states building more infrastructure? The answer is likely because a growing portion of their budgets is going to Medicaid, and no state wants to raise taxes. At the federal level, more and more money goes to Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security. The federal debt increases every year. He has committed the same error that every Democrat commits-calling  for increased spending without considering the fact that without calling for tax increases, budgets are finite.

Upside Down Media Coverage

Of all the poor journalism exposed by the current novel coronavirus (the initial "Nothing to worry about stories", then the reactionary "Trump denies Governors' Requests for Ventilators Stories" which National Review's Rich Lowry reviewed), the current Media implications that Democratic governors who toe the line on shelter-in-place orders are the heroes of the pandemic while science-hating Republican governors (and those protesting) who want to move toward opening are evil are among the most bizarre.

The Guardian's Josh Wood published a story praising Kentucky's Democratic governor for acting so quickly, compared to Tennessee's Republican governor, and suggesting that the former's Beshear saved lives with his quick action.

"Combined with his quick pandemic response, his calm, empathetic daily briefings have seen his popularity explode in recent weeks." This is an example of mood-affiliated praise that the media piles on Democrats and never Republicans, even though these assessments of "calm and empathetic" might be considered subjective.

The story purports that Kentucky has fared much better as the number of cases in Kentucky didn't rise as quickly as in Tennessee, but the story doesn't really take into consideration a number of factors that may explain that. Other important factors to consider are the populations of the two states (Tennessee has about fifty percent more people than Kentucky), the population density (Tennessee's is approximately 50% higher), and the urban environment (Tennessee has two sizable cities). All of these would help explain, in part, why Tennessee's numbers are higher than Kentucky's even had they reacted at the same speed.

Secondly, the reliance on total cases may be misleading. As of yesterday, Tennessee had nearly twice as many cases as Kentucky, but as the story points out, this could potentially be because of disparities in testing capacity. The better number to look at is deaths.

Again, as of yesterday, there were 166 deaths in Tennessee and 171 deaths in Kentucky. So, even though Kentucky's governor reacted more quickly, and has the smaller population and population density, there are more reported deaths in Kentucky! In fact, when comparing the number of deaths per population to the population density, Tennessee ranks 10th for fewest deaths. Kentucky ranks 19th. So who's actually doing better?

Who's doing the worst? New York. Democrats and the Media are currently working on a Draft Cuomo movement so he can be the Democratic Presidential nominee because of how well he's handled the Coronavirus, which defies common sense. Most of the criticisms lobbied at Trump for poor performance can also be applied to Cuomo. Neither of them took January and February to prepare, to stockpile medical equipment, testing necessities, to prepare their populations for a coming pandemic. They actually performed very similarly to each other, and to most elected officials. Neither really expected the pandemic to have a large effect. Both were wrong. But Cuomo was more wrong, given the especially gruesome impact it has had on his state.

The fact that he receives as much praise for his handling, in fact, that all Democrats do, while Republicans receive only scorn despite the fact that their responses weren't all that different from each other and the data suggest that the outcomes are worse in Democrat-led areas shows how upside-down the coverage is.

Finding the Lead Lining

This morning, prior to the announcement of last week's initial unemployment claims, I was curious whether they'd be higher or lower than last week. Lower would be good news, obviously, and higher bad news. So, when I saw they were slightly lower, I thought, well that's good, at least things have stopped getting drastically worse.

Imagine my surprise when I saw the headline "22 Million Workers File for Unemployment Benefits in Just 4 Weeks". I thought, 'That's a negative way to put it.'

Then, I did a quick survey of other outlets, and they all report the four week total! It seems quite odd to me that every outlet reports the monthly total over the weekly total, and not a single one of them notes that this is down from last week's peak.

CNBC

CNN

Fox Business

New York Times

Wall Street Journal

Democrats have no Idea What to do with Strong Economy

The debate in South Carolina last week has received a healthy dose of criticism from media pundits because the moderators let the inmates run the asylum for a large portion of it. However, those criticisms elide some good questions from the moderators.

It's no secret that the economy has been doing extremely well since President Trump took office, and while the two sides like to debate how much responsibility Trump has for that success, serious people can't deny that the overwhelming majority of people are doing better economically than they were four years ago. The Democratic candidates, however, don't know how to handle this fact. Up to now, most just deny it. Democrats who aren't in the White House sweepstakes sometimes admit that the economy is doing well but it's only because President Obama set that train in motion and not even Trump could derail it.

At the South Carolina debate, the first question out of the gate was to Sanders. "How will you convince voters that a Democratic Socialist can do better than President Trump with the Economy?" Sanders took the tortuous and disingenuous tack of admitting the economy is doing well, but only for rich people. "Well, you're right. The economy is doing really great for people like Mr. Bloomberg and other billionaires." He then talked about how much money billionaires made, and followed that up with "For the ordinary American, things are not so good."

This is fundamentally untrue. Wages are up; as the question reminded him, unemployment is at historic lows; the labor participation rate has increased during his presidency, despite experts saying that the labor participation rate had entered a permanent trend of decline due to the baby boom swoon during President Obama's terms. By every standard economic metric, the economy is doing extremely well.

What Sanders, and others who further this trick, resort to, are random statistics that aren't publicized and so no context is available. "Half of our people are living paycheck to paycheck." Is that high or low? "87 million Americans have no health insurance or are underinsured." That's not really an economic metric. "45 million people are struggling with student debt." The fact that so many people have student loans doesn't tell you anything about the economy. How many people have mortgages? How many people currently have a credit card balance? How many have a car loan? And finally, as always, "500,000 people tonight are sleeping out on the street."

Now for some context. On "living paycheck to paycheck", a 2015 Nielsen study found that 25% of families earning $150,000 or more live paycheck to paycheck. And one year ago, 78% of US workers were living paycheck to paycheck. Trump has reduced that number by 28% percentage points! Sanders should be cheering.

On the homelessness stat, 0.17% of Americans were homeless in 2018. In Denmark, that number was 0.12% in 2017. If Sanders had claimed 400,000 people (the number of homeless if US had Denmark's rate) as a negative criticism of our economy, would anyone have noticed?

All of that is expected from Sanders, and actually, that should have been one of three standard answers from Democrats (along with it's Obama's economy or it's good but I'd do better). What wasn't expected was the immediate conversion into Russian conspiracies. Bloomberg followed up Sanders's answer by saying he was a Russian puppet. Buttigieg followed that with a comment about Russians wanting chaos (which the Democrats went on to provide in spades that evening). Then Warren talked about progressive objectives generally and how she fought banks and built coalitions. Buttigieg then again said Russians want chaos.

Next, Steyer, seemingly oblivious to what was going on around him, answered the original question again with some Democratic bromides: "unchecked capitalism has failed." Do we have unchecked capitalism? Didn't the DOJ block some mergers since Trump was made President? Isn't the Federal Register of regulations still thousands of pages long? Finally, he says Donald Trump is "incompetent as a steward of the American economy." Wasn't the premise of the question that the economy is doing well?

Finally, Biden took us off the rails again, talking about hate crimes, Sanders's previous opposition to both gun control laws and Obama running unopposed in 2012.

The responses to this first question, a good question from the moderators, puts on full display how inflexible these candidates are, and the difficult time they'll have later in the year when Trump will surely exaggerate his own accomplishments.