JustOneMinute

The Supreme Court Takes A Second Amendment Case

The Supreme Court has taken up a 2nd Amendment case and the NY Times editors are worried that Brett Kavanaugh leans towards gun owner's rights more than his predecessor, Anthony Kennedy.

Here's hoping!

The arrival of Justice Brett Kavanaugh last year may have shifted the balance on the court in Justice Thomas’s favor. Replacing Justice Anthony Kennedy, who was more willing to accept limits on gun rights, and who may have played a role in moderating Justice Antonin Scalia’s 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, Justice Kavanaugh joins other justices who have expressed absolutist views on the Second Amendment — Justice Thomas, Justice Neil Gorsuch and Justice Samuel Alito Jr. In 2011, then-Judge Kavanaugh, serving on an appellate court, wrote a dissent in a follow-up case to Heller that signals his views. That ruling upheld a ban by Washington, D.C., on semiautomatic rifles and a separate gun registration requirement — in Judge Kavanaugh’s view, those provisions were unconstitutional and should not have been enforced.

Last week the court agreed to hear a case from New York City that would, for the first time in a decade, allow the justices to decide whether the right to bear arms is, as Justice Thomas complained last year, a “constitutional orphan.”

With a guest appearance in the LA Times, John Yoo and James Phillips are ready to lock and load:

Finally, the Supreme Court is taking up gun rights again

...

With its overdue decision to hear another 2nd Amendment case, the court can finally elevate the right to keep and bear arms to the same level as the others in the Bill of Rights. Often, the Supreme Court provides in its rulings a test lower courts can apply to determine whether a constitutional right has been infringed.

Up to now, the court has failed to articulate any test to protect gun rights, allowing lower courts to do as they please. So they have upheld 10-day waiting periods before a firearm purchase, bans on semiautomatic rifles and large-capacity magazines, and prohibitions on carrying a firearm, either openly, concealed, or both. Hence, courts have allowed governments to trample gun rights with only superficial justification, in ways inconceivable if the right at issue was speech or privacy. And for the last decade, the Supreme Court has only looked the other way.

...

Resolving the conflict between reasonable regulations and the constitutional right to bear arms, when brought forward in cases with real facts, will allow the Roberts Court to finally construct a framework for the protection of the 2nd Amendment, and compel the lower courts and state governments to follow it.

AS AN ASIDE: Put this 2nd Amendment stuff in the "RBG Will Never Retire And If She Dies They'll Keep It A Secret" file. My theory: even if ill and unable to perform her duties, while Trump is in power RBG will ignore requests to step down ("For the sake of the appearance of the Court"). Democrats will defy Republicans to impeach her, an effort that would die in Pelosi's House before it had a chance to fail in the Senate. We are nowhere near Maximum Partisan Breakdown.

Build The Compromise!

Jonah Goldberg contemplates the next government shutdown and makes a seemingly obvious point about Pelosi's power position:

Pelosi might be the first political adversary who is invulnerable to Trump’s attacks. Trump is dangerous to his preferred targets — other Republicans — precisely because he can sway his supporters, voters and MAGA media figures alike, to turn on those disloyal to him. He can’t do that with Pelosi.

Indeed, in an era of negative partisanship, Trump’s attacks make Pelosi stronger with her base and with many independents, who split evenly for Clinton and Trump in 2016, and who have largely turned against him and tuned out his appeals.

And because Pelosi controls a Democratic House, she is free to use her institutional powers against Trump in ways that Paul Ryan never could have, even if he had wanted to.

Well, yeah - Nancy is worried about tweets from Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, not Trump.

This does not bode well for a compromise, especially given Congress's long history of passing the buck on tough issues:

And while there are some Democrats and Republicans who would like to reach a compromise, both Pelosi and Trump have few incentives to do anything that will seem like capitulation. Many Republicans have already made peace with the idea of an emergency declaration, because it would let them off the hook for failing to pass wall funding.

Meanwhile, Trump is clearly enamored with the idea, believing it would convey strength and a willingness to fight. Yes, some court somewhere would instantly stay the order, but that would simply give everyone an issue to bleat about.

Trump would save face with his base and have a convenient bogeyman — runaway liberal judges! — to rail against. The move would divide the larger conservative movement while unifying Democrats, who’d scream “Dictator!” while quietly noodling about how a Democratic president could use the same powers for a “Green New Deal” or some other fantasy.

AllahPundit is on a similar page - the basis for a deal just isn't here:

Corralling Republicans is comparatively easy for Jared, though. All he needs to do is convince Trump and a critical mass of GOPers in Congress will surely follow. They live in fear for their political lives from him. Once Trump gave them cover by supporting the reform package, Jared knew he had the leverage to make a deal happen.

It’s conceivable that he’d duplicate that feat on immigration reform with Republicans. Get Trump to support a grand bargain and enough Senate GOPers will follow his lead to make passage viable. His problem is Democrats. And not just Democrats but Democrats who recently fought a month-long high-stakes political battle with Trump — and won. They’re less inclined to give him money for the wall right now than they would have been before the shutdown began. If either side is going to need extra concessions to make a deal, it’s Pelosi’s party, not Trump’s.

In fact, the big fight over the wall has made that particular plank of immigration enforcement a fetish for both sides. After going to the mat on it, Trump simply can’t accept a deal that lacks wall funding now. It doesn’t matter what else is in there — comprehensive e-Verify, some new limits to legal immigration (which Democrats will never agree to), etc. If he doesn’t get the wall, he loses, period. I don’t think the wall’s power as a fetish is *quite* as strong for Democrats, but it’s plenty strong. There are, I think, concessions that Trump might make that they’d seriously consider, like a permanent DREAM amnesty that includes a path to citizenship. But as I say, their “ask” now will be steeper than it was six weeks ago. It will take a major concession to make this happen.

So tell me: Is there any major concession Trump might make that the populist right would tolerate in the name of securing wall funding?

I can't elevate this to a Bold Prediction but do let me note that DC has a time-honored technique for resolving this sort of impasse - appoint a bipartisan commission to study the obvious and come back with a report telling us what we already knew, but let business continue as usual while we pretend we are learning something. As a recent example, the Simpson-Bowles deficit commission of 2010 was slated to report back after the 2010 elections. The commission was proposed in January 2010 as a fig leaf to break a debt-ceiling jam.

A Commission on Border Security could puzzle over all sorts of ideas to strengthen the border and in a calm debate there is no doubt in my mind that physical barriers would be a part of the solution for some parts of the border. The bigger problem is that the next real deadline past which both parties might want to kick this is the 2020 election. I don't see how Democrats on the panel could report favorably on physical barriers prior to the election.

Complicating the barrier question is the legal environment in the US. This Heritage report from 2009 sets the stage:

In some areas, erecting fences is the best way to tackle the illegal-entry problem. But the cost makes it important to use fencing only in areas with a low "melting point." The melting point is the time it takes for an individual to cross the border and "melt" into a landscape unnoticed. In urban border communities, spending money on physical barriers makes sense because individuals can easily cross the border and sneak quickly into the urban landscape (for example, one can hide in a building or steal a car and drive away). But in other areas, like the middle of the desert, the barren landscape makes it easy for Border Patrol agents to detect border crossers.

Well, yes but... Today, immigrants with children are happy to be detained in the US because they understand they won't be held for more than 20 days and our courts can't process their dubious asylum claims in that time frame. The Trump Administration is dealing with that by trying to keep asylum applicants on the Mexican side of the border.

Elizabeth Warren's Wealth Tax Contains The Germ Of A Decent Idea

Elizabeth Warren is trying to crowd the left lane of the Democratic primary race with her recently unveiled wealth tax. Some soundbites of my thinking:

As one of her proponents explains, the US tax code allows unrealized capital gains to go untaxed. This has been a big driver of the recent wealth surge, as Bezos, Gates and Zuckerberg can attest. But if untaxed capital gains is "the problem" why not address that? Change tax rules to force recognition of unrealized capital gains above some wealth threshold. Taxing wealth has dubious Constitutional validity (although John Roberts is smart enough to rationalize whatever he wants). Taxing income has a longer history and mark to market on capital gains is already used by financial institutions and individuals trading futures and index options (see tax straddles).

A high threshold and deferred payment of the tax liability will prevent the sort of cash flow crunch also addressed in the estate tax for closely held businesses - we don't want Ma and Pa Kent to be forced to sell the farm because they have a big unrecognized gain on the value of their land. Many of us also don't want Jeff Bezos to lose control of Amazon just to pay his taxes. A mechanism to allow deferred payment over, eg, ten years (the estate tax deferral is fourteen years) should leave folks plenty of time to work out the financing. Another benefit to the deferred payment idea: if a household has a mark to market gain of $20 million this year but a loss next year of $10 million, there is no need to write them a refund check; just adjust their deferred taxes due.

Of course, some folks out there DO want Bezos to lose control of Amazon, after which they would like to decide on a public flogging. The idea of taxing the rich is not exactly novel. The battle lines were drawn centuries ago between those who think wealth is attributable to the exploitation of others and those who believe in free markets and free people. For better or (mostly) worse, a lot of tired old arguments by unreconstructed Marxists and Socialists who believe that Wealth Is Evil will be trotted out yet again, and yet again they will persuade only the already-convinced.

Greg Mankiw pushes back, wondering who Taylor Swift exploited en route to her $300 million. Same question about JK Rowling of Harry Potter fame and fortune. Then again, if Warren could have stopped George Lucas in his tracks after "Return of the Jedi", she might have had my vote. Bygones.

On to some details. Here are proponents of a wealth tax explaining the problem with the deferred recognition, often forever (stepped-up basis at death), of capital gains:

ITEP

The U.S. Needs a Federal Wealth Tax

Another, closely related problem with relying on income taxes is that much of the income received by the richest Americans is “unrealized capital gains” which are not taxed. When the value of an asset rises, for all practical purposes that increase in value is income for the owner of the asset, but our current laws do not tax this income until the asset is sold. (In other words, capital gains on an asset are not “realized” until the asset is sold.)

This means that wealthy individuals who own a disproportionate share of all assets can defer paying tax on much of their income for years, allowing their wealth to grow much more rapidly. Meanwhile, most income of working Americans (income like wages or interest on a savings account) is taxed annually.[7]

While this may seem like an arcane matter, it allows the net worth of the wealthiest to build up much more rapidly and substantially. For example, one tax expert estimated in 2015 that Warren Buffett, whose net worth was then nearly $70 billion, would have been worth $9.5 billion if his capital gains had been taxed each year regardless of whether assets were sold.[8]

Well, OK - if the problem is that we are not recognizing that capital gains income, the obvious solution would be to recognize it, rather than taxing a bunch of other stuff.

I understand that fairness and logic will find no traction with the "Wealth Is evil" crowd, but the rest of us might look at this upcoming example and see some problems:

Imagine Susan and John are co-founders of HotTech Inc. They each hold founder's shares worth $100 MM. The shares don't pay a dividend so there taxable income is basically their salary, which is small.

So far, we see two people who had an idea, took some risks that paid off, created jobs and value, and are doing very well. Or, they're evil because they underpaid their workers and relied on basic research financed by the US government. Not important right now, because their paths are about to diverge.

Susan sells her $100 MM, pays $20MM in capital gains taxes and puts the remaining $80MM in a money market fund yielding 2%. Her annual taxable interest income is now $1.6MM, so put her down for another $0.6MM in Federal taxes on that.

John holds his shares, so his taxes remain tiny.

Now, hit them both with the Warren Wealth Tax. Susan, having already paid $20MM and owing $0.6 per annum, will pay an additional 2% on $30MM, or another $0.6MM per year. Over ten years that sums to $32MM.

John will pay 2% on $50MM, or $1MM per year. Over ten years that sums to - no calculators, please - $10MM.

Susan pays $32MM, John pays $10MM. This is fair, logical or desirable why? If the 20% capital gains tax is Susan's "fair share" and she has paid it, why keep taxing her on her wealth? If the income from her investments is an issue, well, she is paying tax on that too. Why keep taxing the poor woman?

Well, because Wealth Is Evil, sure. But other reasons?

Well, maybe that 20% capital gains rate is "too low". It does represent some compromise between our desire to encourage capital formation and risk taking on the one hand without allowing absurd concentrations of wealth on the other. And maybe we have tipped too far in one direction. All debatable, but that is not likely to be the debate we get.

On the other hand, this debate may not be hopeless! Here is just what we did NOT expect - common sense from a Matt Yglesias Voxsplainer:

Warren’s proposal, of course, is for a progressive wealth tax in which the 2 percent rate does not apply to the first $50 million and the 3 percent rate only kicks in when you have more than $1 billion, so nobody would actually be taxed that much. The operation of the tax would, however, exert a dramatic gravitational pull on large fortunes and tend to pull them down to the tax thresholds.

That’s especially true because the mere existence of the wealth tax would, on the margin, encourage wealthy individuals to dissipate their fortunes on charitable giving and lavish consumption. If you try to horde wealth the government is going to tax it, so you might as well spend it.

This is, in turn, exactly the standard economic case against wealth taxes. In a very basic, stripped-down view, the accumulation of capital (buildings, machinery, business equipment, etc.) leads to higher wages and living standards. A wealth tax, by discouraging the accumulation of financial capital, could also discourage the accumulation of physical capital and thus lead to lower wages and living standards.

Most everyone agrees that a highly simplified two-factor model of how the economy works is not accurate, but the extent to which a wealth tax appears even remotely attractive will hinge on whether you think it’s a decent approximation of the real world or a wild fantasy cooked-up to serve the self-interest of plutocrats.

Wait, what? Capital formation is a Good Thing and deferring taxes on capital gains might encourage it? Fortunately, I was sitting down when I read this.

Let's segue to macroeconomics briefly, with Paul Krugman as a launching pad. I mostly agree with his point on individual incentives, subject to some jeering in which I will later engage:

Wouldn’t it hurt incentives? Probably not much. Think about it: How much would entrepreneurs be deterred by the prospect that, if their big ideas pan out, they’d have to pay additional taxes on their second $50 million?

Fair enough, but what about the overall economy? I will guess that whatever wealth tax is paid will come exclusively out of savings. *IF* the government uses the tax revenue to reduce the deficit (under President Howard "Half Caf Venti" Schultz) then private savings has gone down, national savings has gone up, and not much else will happen.

But let's suppose President Warren gets that tax revenue. She will surely spend it on new programs, as per her mandate from the voters. Standard economics will describe that as a fiscal stimulus.

Now, in 2009 the conversion of savings to spending would have been a great idea. But in 2019? Well, the unemployment rate is low (as is labor force participation, so where are we really?) and the Fed is worried that the US economy is near full throttle. They may choose to offset fiscal stimulus with monetary tightening. The effect of higher interest rates will be to discourage investment and consumption.

So, hmm - even though John and other would-be entrepreneurs still have that gold-rush gleam in their eyes, the Fed is making the pursuit of their dreams more difficult, and total investment is falling. Is that a Good Thing? Debatable!

That is my stab at the macroeconomics, anyway - a tax that discourages capital formation, however slightly, reduces capital formation. Or so I think. The pundit with a Nobel doesn't address that. And yes, I'm with you - I too would rather know what he thinks. And he may be thinking what I am wondering - maybe the world has too much savings and fiscal stimulus in the US can create jobs here or elsewhere.

Or one might argue that the wealth tax can't be timed - it will be a long term feature of the US economy. We will be just a mite less friendly to capital formation and it won't hurt us.

I did promise some jeering. An obvious guess is that the $50MM threshold is just an opening bid. Once the principal is established, that threshold will be moving down, not up. It may even reach the point where Warren (net worth variously estimated at $8MM to $18MM) is paying it. Even Prof. Krugman of the lucrative book deals may be asked to pay up! Keep in mind - unless you're talking to Jeff Bezos, the definition of wealth is "more than I've got". The Wealth Is Evil crowd will never lack for ideas on how to spend Other People's Money, and they will never believe that if you can pluck one feather from the goose laying the golden eggs you shouldn't push your luck and pluck ten.

As to the level of compliance with a wealth tax, the discussion seems optimistic. Matt Yglesias does note that the OECD countries have been scaling back their wealth taxes. Paul Krugman offers this:

Would such a plan be feasible? Wouldn’t the rich just find ways around it? Saez and Zucman argue, based on evidence from Denmark and Sweden, both of which used to have significant wealth taxes, that it wouldn’t lead to large-scale evasion if the tax applied to all assets and was adequately enforced.

That is actually pretty comical. Saez and Zucman are both French and have focused on the economics of wealth so the odds are pretty good they are familiar with the debacle of the French wealth tax. Let's say, compliance was less than hoped for, as many of the targeted rich simply left the country. The tax has now been scaled back to include real estate (harder to relocate abroad) but not financial assets. Why is the French experience not talked up by wealth tax advocates? Well, I have my guess.

And I have to clip these stories: first, from 2014 the French stab at a top income bracket of 75%:

France forced to drop 75% supertax after meagre returns

François Hollande’s unpopular tax changes that imposed a 75% rate on earnings above €1m (£780,000) will quietly disappear into the history books from Thursday.

...

Although supported by the left, the reform sparked accusations of an anti-business agenda. After the “supertax” was announced in September 2012 the government was accused of shooting itself in the foot by risking an exodus of high-profile personalities. Business leaders expressed fears that investors would pull out of France.

France’s richest man, Bernard Arnault, the chief executive of luxury group LVMH, took out Belgian nationality, and the actor Gérard Depardieu also moved across the border to Belgium before obtaining Russian citizenship.

High-earning French footballers threatened strike action, while league bosses warned they would no longer be able to attract world class players.

Why can't the US be more like France?

And from 2017, their wealth tax:

Exodus of the richest: Wealth tax is forcing 12,000 millionaires PER YEAR out of France, says Prime Minister as he lowers tariffs for the better off

• Prime Minister Edouard Philippe says change in tax on wealth is necessary
• In 2016 alone, some 12,000 millionaires left France - highest in the world
• French wealth tax currently applies to personal assets over 1.3 million euros
• President Macron's new tariffs will only apply to real eastate over 1.3m euros 

Per this story, more tax exiles were fleeing France than China. Again, why can't the US be more like France and stop with the stupid ideas?

EXHORTATION: Don't dump on Warren because of her faux Native heritage scam; dump on her because of her faux medical bankruptcy scam. Gail Heriot, Todd Zywicki and Megan McArdle cast light into this darkness years ago.

Sunday Morning

Away we go!

I'm Still Stuck In Covington

Tucker Carlson and Caitlin Flanagan wrote n the media meltdown over the Covington HS kids. Mr. Carlson claims the incident shows that the media hates a lot of the oppressive, privileged whites with whom they are forced to share a country:

Tucker Carlson: There's no sympathy for Covington Catholic teens in America's newsrooms

...

For a few overheated hours on Saturday, a group of boys from a Catholic high school in Kentucky became the most hated figures in America.

Television anchors denounced them as bigots. Journalists with Harvard degrees called them “privileged.” Republican commentators scolded them as bad Christians. Famous actors suggested they should be hunted down and punched in the face. Some on social media called for them to be killed.

...

You’d think somebody, at some point, in media land, would wonder how all this misreporting is affecting the kids who were falsely accused. But no. There’s no sympathy for Covington Catholic in America’s newsrooms. In the mind of your average reporter in Washington, these kids are from a different country. Less than that, actually. They’re from hostile country, a place we must subdue for our own safety.

Ms. Flanagan provides an excellent recap but does not take as alarmist a tone:

The Media Botched the Covington Catholic Story

And the damage to their credibility will be lasting.

...

How could the elite media—The New York Times, let’s say—have protected themselves from this event, which has served to reinforce millions of Americans’ belief that traditional journalistic outlets are purveyors of “fake news”? They might have hewed to a concept that once went by the quaint term “journalistic ethics.” Among other things, journalistic ethics held that if you didn’t have the reporting to support a story, and if that story had the potential to hurt its subjects, and if those subjects were private citizens, and if they were moreover minors, you didn’t run the story. You kept reporting it; you let yourself get scooped; and you accepted that speed is not the highest value. Otherwise, you were the trash press.

I don't think the problem is simply that some news is "Fake", as in wrong and not credible. And its not even simply that the liberal press routinely slants to the left. The problem is as Tucker described it: they hate us.

OK, not all of them, and hopefully, not all of us. But our divisions are deeper and certain forms of bigotry have moved from common to fashionable. As an example, I had a friend tell me twenty years ago that Catholic-bashing was the last acceptable bigotry. However true that was then, today it seems to have moved from "acceptable" to required out on the left.

Or, think about how folks on the left spent Martin Luther King weekend calling for teenagers to be hunted down and punched in the face. Uhh, non-violence is no longer the answer? I guess not. To Be Fair, after The Nation wrote some Resistance Porn glorifying the antifa and their use of violence they felt obliged to auto-rebut. And when the NY Times ran a faux-balanced piece on the antifa and the ethics of punching Nazis their readers revolted in the comments. The bradly shared view was that questions about the appropriate use of political violence are much simpler than the Times seemed to think. My fave "Questions were raised" passage, from the story:

In the past, antifa activists have engaged with people who were clearly something less than outright neo-Nazis, raising questions about who, if anyone, deserves to be punched and whether there is such a thing as legitimate political violence.

I want to beleive that punching high school boys remains a fringe pre-occupation on the left. However, the idea that this attitude of "I love America, its just the damn people in flyover country that I can't stand" did not start with Trump. It didn't start with Obama, either, but in recent years his 'bitter-clinger' pop sociology remains a high water mark:

And it’s not surprising then they get bitter,they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Hillary's "basket of deplorables" comes from the same bi-coastal elitism:

"I know there are only 60 days left to make our case -- and don't get complacent, don't see the latest outrageous, offensive, inappropriate comment and think, well, he's done this time. We are living in a volatile political environment. You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic -- you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people -- now 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks -- they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America."

Obviously, once you start looking more examples are easy to find. A few losers, presumably mostly white and male, harrassed Sarah Jeong, so that makes it OK for her to work on the Times editorial desk while hating white people. Well, because the "hate" is really just a fun way to display her Wokeness. Har de har. But let's have a second "To be Fair" moment - back in a NY Times column on this topic the readers actually seemed to hold stale, bourgeoisie values about casual displays of hateful rhetoric.

I remain hopeful that most people would be appalled by the prevalence of sewer rats polluting Twitter. But our news media has taken up residence there and is starting to embrace the values, and the stench.

MORE ON COVINGTON: Times pundits fear for the media and the country.

Frank Bruni: Covington and the Pundit Apocalypse /  Our hasty condemnation of these teenagers reveals the cold truth about hot takes.

Ross Douthat: The Covington Scissor /  Welcome to another controversy algorithmically designed to tear America apart.

David Brooks: How We Destroy Lives Today / Will the Covington Catholic High School fiasco change social media?

Farhad Manjoo: Never Tweet/  The controversy over the Covington students shows why American journalism should disengage from Twitter.

I will let Frank Bruni speak for all:

But will we [in the media] pause next time to make sure that we understand what we’re reacting to and whom we’re condemning? Even if that means fewer retweets? Will we filter our responses through a mature acknowledgment of what, in real time, we can and cannot take for granted?

Only if we're honest about what we’ve been doing and why we’ve been doing it.

With everything from Twitter followers to television bookings, we’re rewarded for fierce conviction, for utter certainty, for emphatically taking sides and staying unconditionally faithful to what we’ve pushed for and against in the past. We each have our brand, and the narrower and more unyielding it is, the more currency it has and the more loyal our consumers. Instead of bucking the political tribalism in America, we ride it.

We react to news by trying to fit it into the argument that we routinely make, the grievance that we usually raise, the fury or angst or sorrow that we typically peddle. We have our narrative, and we’re on the lookout for comments and developments that back it up. The response to the initial footage of the Covington boys — and, in particular, to the one who wore a red MAGA cap as he stood before and stared at the drumming veteran — adhered to this dynamic.

We have an economically troubled media world where journalists and pundits are trying to secure their brands (and paychecks) by appealing to the folks who buy books, orovide clicks and likes, retweet stories, tune in to see them on television, and so on.

By and large, that means they are trying to appeal to the passionate and engaged. Folks from the political fringes tend to be over-represented among those who care. That reality has made Rush, Sean, Rachel and Paul plenty of money. Back in the day, appealing to the fringes would NOT have helpful for broadcasters, who needed to appeal to a... wait for it... broad audience. In the new internet world of narrowcasting cable, websites, downloadable books and so on, a narrow but enthusiastic audience is suitably rewarding, emotionally and financially.

And here we are. A divided country with media coverage provided by journalists riding those divisions for their own relevance and paycheck. Not to mention a current President who barely pretends to be trying to appeal to everyone (unlike our recent "Uniter, not a Divider" and "Not a Red America and a Blue America but a Purple America", where there was at least a pretense of appealing to unity.)

I don't see this ending well. But have a great day!

OK, SERIOUSLY, SMILE: If -IF - these guys really have found a cause and cure for Alzheimer's, current patients may be stabilized or reversed and aging Boomers and their families will be spared a long, difficult demise. Of course, the founder may become a billionaire and President Ocasio-Cortez will feel obliged to denounce his shameless exploitation of the rest of us, but on balance, good news.

 

Trump Moves To Deferred Victory Status

This shutdown compromise and three-week reopening of the government does not seem to be the victory Trump was hoping for.

Rain In January?!?

The traditional "Rain, rain, go away" open thread.

Clickbait Journalism

The economics of journalism, especially print, have gone to hell but newsies will take us all with them as they go. Jill Lepore of The New Yorker describes the journey. Her piece could have been titled "This One Weird Trick Will Save Your Newspaper" but she went with the comparably click-baity "Does Journalism Have A Future?".

Since you ask, yes, I am still fuming that the NY Times business model now embraces rushing to the front of the left-wing Twitter mobs and joining in. I'd like to pretend that in happier days they would try to provide perspective and facts but of course, twelve years ago they were dead-enders clinging to their favored Duke lacrosse narrative long after reality had come home to most others. Agenda-driven crusading has been a Times staple for years (who else remembers their crusade to include women at Augusta National from, hmm, I don't remember. "Flood the zone" was the key phrase and it came from Howell Raines in 2002.)

Feel Great, Feel The Hate

The legacy media and the Twitter mob never stood a chance of processing accurately this incident involving Covington High School kids and a Native American Elder.

Let's see: in one corner, or anyway, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial waiting for their school buses, we have some (mostly) white Catholic high school boys with a scattering of MAGA hats in DC for the March for Life events. In the other, a Native American there for an Indigenous People's March.

To belabor the obvious, how will the media come out in a showdown between Evil White Christian Trump-loving Anti-Abortions Sons of the Oppressive Patriarchy and a beloved minority? My goodness, those high schoolers might even include a young Brett Kavanaugh!

The narrative writes itself (aided by Nathan Phillips, the Native Elder, activist and provocateur), as anyone familiar with the Duke lacrosse or UVA rape fantasies has learned.

Well. Just to pick out one "journalist" as an example, Sarah Mervosh of the flailing NY Times had a choice to throw in with the Feel Great, Feel the Hate viral mob, or actually dig for some facts and perspective. Her choice was utterly predictable; her original fan fiction submission was headlined "Viral Video Shows Boys in ‘Make America Great Again’ Hats Mob Native Elder". 

That was walked back slightly to "Viral Video Shows Boys in ‘Make America Great Again’ Hats Surrounding Native Elder". Closer! Even the original video suggested something that longer video makes obvious - these students "surrounded" Phillips by the clever tactic of standing around while he pushed into the center of their group. We all know corrections are emotionally challenging at the Times so there were a few hours of suspense while we wondered if Times would fly even closer to reality or simply Move On. Somwhat surprisingly, cooler heads prevailed.

The Walkback of Shame continued with this follow-up piece:

Fuller Picture Emerges of Viral Video Between Native American Man and Catholic Students

A fuller and more complicated picture emerged on Sunday of the videotaped encounter between a Native American man and a throng of high school boys wearing “Make America Great Again” gear outside the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.

Interviews and additional video footage suggest that an explosive convergence of race, religion and ideological beliefs — against a national backdrop of political tension — set the stage for the viral moment. Early video excerpts from the encounter obscured the larger context, inflaming outrage.

So actual reporting, fact-gathering and interviewing led to a new perspective? Looking at two minutes of video and asking a longtime activist for his take on events is not reliable? Who could have guessed?

Robby Soave of Reason stared at the replays and delivered an invaluable booth review (Spoiler: the ruling on the field was overturned). CNN and USA Today are rethinking their reflexive response. As to Truth and Justice? We'll have to wait and see.

As to Lessons Learned, it's hardly news that certain stories, especially with Trump bashing, male-bashing, and Christian bashing themes, are catnip to the media and, like cats, they lose their minds. Sometimes they manage to sober up in a day or two, so giving these outrages time to breathe is a good idea. Of course, sometimes they simply move on without owning up to their deplorable instincts. Will anyone "journalist" lose their job over this? Don't be silly.

Secondly, the media behavior is symptomatic of a larger problem. It is all very well for folks at cocktail parties to chit-chat about Washington dysfunction and bemoan the child-like behavior of Trump, Pelosi et al.

But Washington is a mirror. We elected these people and they are empowered by the reality that this is a country where a huge part of the commentariat is delighted to, just as a random example, condemn a group of high school boys on the basis of thirty seconds reflection. Those "reporters" are paid to generate clicks and likes, and there is no money in the middle - the audience appetite at the Times is for Trump-bashing and conservative-bashing 24/7, and that is what is delivered. THAT is the key reality for the "Reality-Based" community.

The same could be said about certain right-wing outlets, but only fools imagine that the combined power of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and Breitbart can rival MSNBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, USA Today, the NY Times, the WaPo, et al.

We're divided because the energized fringes write checks for subscriptions, books, sponsored products and political campaigns. Media can't support itself on the old model where the advertising revenue subsidizes the news division, so what can they do? Well, this. They draw an audience by feeding the hate and its hard to see that changing.

I do wish the NY Times still had a budget (and an appetite) for the Public Editor position. I would love to see the Q&A with the no-doubt-delightful Sarah Mervosh, who had a solo byline on the original "Mobbed" fantasy and shares a byline on the Walkback of Shame piece. I imagine this:

 "Did you report on Covington High?"

 "I report on everything high".

Yeah, I'll be here all week. Try the veal.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up. Unless You Do.

Jason Leopold, now performing at Buzzfeed, had Trump in handcuffs, with a story that garnered huge attention and sparked a denial from Mueller.

Those with hearts of stone will remember Jason Leopold from his days as a "Rove to be indicted" fantasist back in May 2006. Yeah, it all went to hell for Leopold and the only detail I remember was their changing of Rove's imminent arrest from "24 hours" to "24 business hours". I've never seen that term before or since, but it was a fun marker in the "Is there anything a hopeless partisan won't believe?" debate.

I actually have a laughably simple explanation for how we arrived at this train wreck that does not involve wilful lying by anyone. Suppose Cohen imagined the ongoing Moscow project as a big payday for himself and was Keeping Hope Alive while Trump, who had been chasing this for decades, had mentally written it off.

Then, somewhere in the course of a two hour meeting on other things, or during an elevator ride, Cohen gets two minutes on Moscow, which Trump tunes out.

Now, months later, Cohen has to testify to Congress. He has a clear memory of discussing Moscow with Trump, so he asks Trump what he should say. Trump has a clear non-memory (if that is even possible) of the topic being raised, so he instructs Cohen to say it was never discussed after January.

Trump is sincere but wrong-ish. Is it a "discussion" if he is not listening and gives utterly distracted answers such as "Yeah, yeah, sounds great"? Is there other evidence of his engagement, such as emails he clearly wrote or approved?. However, Cohen sincerely believes Trump was engaged in these discussions, so he interprets Trump's directive as an order to lie and testifies to that effect to Mueller.

Obviously, the theory that this is a misunderstanding rests in large part on the actual emails. Is Trump crazy enough to have written an email to Cohen with something like "It is important that you lie in your testimony to Congress"? That would be harder to spin.

But if Trump wrote "You should testify that I don't remember any discussions about Moscow after January", is that an order to lie? Cohen may think so since he believed it to be false. However it would take more evidence to prove that Trump was aware that his statement was false (or made in reckless disregard of the truth) rather than simply an example of a memory lapse.

BTW, I blame sports talk radio for this word usage problem - callers, reporters, players and coaches routinely use "lie" when "misremember" would be more appropriate.

Why Not The Best?

If Washington is really committed to becoming a full time Snooki & Company DC Shore reality show, let's dial it up!

Obviously progressive It-girl Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez is too young to be Constitutionally eligible for the Presidency in 2020. So what?!? And some hidebound traditionalist states may have ballot rules for the Democratic primaries that require a primary candidate to be eligible for the office they seek - change the rules!

Democratic strategists should make a real push to get her on the primary ballots and give her a chance to accumulate delegates prior to the Democratic convention. That will let her be a formal power-player and ought to energize Democratic efforts to register and rally the youth vote, the way Barack and Bernie did and Hillary did not.

If the DC governing class doesn't want or expect to be taken seriously, then embrace the new reality. If they're just going to give us a show, give us a good one. Run AOC!

Quite The Terror Plan

Attacking the White House with an anti-tank rocket? This was a bold terror plan from a guy who had never fired a weapon.

Feel Good Moment Du Jour

UCLA gymnast Katelyn Ohashi puts a smile on everyone's face.

Drinking The Haterade At The FBI

OK, wow - the NY Times tells us that after Comey was fired the FBI complemented their criminal investigation of Trump with a counterintelligence probe. No reporting on whether the FBI sought, or found probable cause for, FISA warrants for folks other than Carter Page.

Why the revelation? Who knows? But a Trump-philic spin would be that Team Mueller is shifting the goalposts and trying to let The Resistance down gently. Note this deeply buried explanation of the two types of investigations:

The F.B.I. conducts two types of inquiries, criminal and counterintelligence investigations. Unlike criminal investigations, which are typically aimed at solving a crime and can result in arrests and convictions, counterintelligence inquiries are generally fact-finding missions to understand what a foreign power is doing and to stop any anti-American activity, like thefts of United States government secrets or covert efforts to influence policy. In most cases, the investigations are carried out quietly, sometimes for years. Often, they result in no arrests.

No arrests, no indictments, just a deeper understanding - well, that might cover the last two years. Hard news for The Resistance, if that is where this is headed.

PILING ON: Paul Mirengoff unloads.

OH, PLEASE: Benjamin Wittes of Lawfare is providing an example of the Power of Positive Rationalization. Or I am. Or both. His theme is that this investigation was about Russian interference in our election, not Trump per se. Supporting Congressional ass-covering testimony:

I have been authorized by the Department of Justice to confirm that the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia's efforts (emphasis added).

And for emphasis:

It was about Russia. Full stop. It was always about Russia. And it still is about Russia.

The "full stop" is important so the reader can catch his breath after laughing out loud. Just off-hand, we know Team Hillary paid Steele (through cutouts) for dirt on Trump peddled by Russian government officials, some of which hit the US press before the election. Were the Russians hoping to aid both sides with the idea that the eventual loser of the election would scream "Collusion" and undermine the winner? Crafty!

Now, some people know that could not have been happening because US intel concluded that the Russkies started out helping both sides and fomenting division but eventually threw in behind Trump. Of course, many of those same people believe the intel behind Saddam's WMDs was politicized, but they know that didn't happen here. Whatever.

So how hard has Mueller pushed the Steele/Fusion GPS people? How many Facebook folks have been brought in to determine whether Russian moles are operating from the inside there? How deep an understanding has he tried to develop?

As an alternative to the "Always about Russia" paradigm, let's imagine this was always about the (bipartisan) Washington establishment rejecting the Trump insurgency. In that model, Hillary gets a pass, Facebook gets a pass, and yes, the investigation is all about Trump.

LAST LAUGH: From the Times, the FBI knows best:

A vigorous debate has taken shape among some former law enforcement officials outside the case over whether F.B.I. investigators overreacted in opening the counterintelligence inquiry during a tumultuous period at the Justice Department. Other former officials noted that those critics were not privy to all of the evidence and argued that sitting on it would have been an abdication of duty.

So if we knew what the FBI knew we would be reassured. This, from the same folks who resisted many oversight subpoenas just to spare themselves embarrassment. Strangely unconvincing, and where is the trust?

Girding For Ginsburg

Per Politico:

Trump White House urging allies to prepare for possible RBG departure

After an ailing Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg missed oral arguments, the Trump team began early groundwork for another potential confirmation battle.

I like this detail in their lede:

The White House is reaching out to political allies and conservative activist groups to prepare for an ailing Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s possible death or departure from the Supreme Court — an event that would trigger the second bitter confirmation battle of President Donald Trump’s tenure.

"Second" bitter battle? OK, the Kavanaugh brawl dialed it up to Bork-Thomas levels, but the Gorsuch nomination was filibustered and the Republicans went nuclear. Critics later observed that Kavanaugh was sufficiently controversial that Republicans might not have chosen to go nuclear in his defense, but post-Gorsuch the die had been cast. Ah, well, water, bridge... We do have video of the Resistance brainstorming session that led to the Gorsuch filibuster.

Top Tax Rates Outside The Bubble

Progressives agree and no one else matters - sky-high tax rates on "the rich" are what's best for all of us! But not so fast.

THE ETERNAL CAVEAT: Who are "the rich"? Paul Krugman is always going n about billionaires and private jets until tax reform is on the table and then he wants to raise taxes on everyone earning more than $250,000 (which is roughly where Bill Clinton's "millionaire's tax" kicked in).

However, in the current Ocasio-Cortez version of the progressive fantasy, we will see dream rates on those earning above $10 million per annum. This WaPo howler barely notes the problem that much of that high-end income is capital gains, not tedious W-2 wages and salary. Sure, let's raise the capital gains rate to 70% and see whether people volunteer to sell assets and incur the taxes. Bet they don't!

The Wall Is Coming!

The Wall is coming, or anyway, Trump will head to the border to talk about it.

Slow-Walking Out of Syria

Trump's prompt withdrawal from Syria may be delayed.

Saturday Night Lights

Bring on the Cowboys!

And Here Comes The Boom!

From gloom to boom on Wall Street - Dow up 800 on a huge jobs report and placatory comment from Fed chair Powell.

How Do You Like Them Apples?

Apple reduces their revenue guidance and we are all doomed.

Mitt Is Back

Mitt Romney blasts Trump in a WaPo guest piece, gets blasted back.

I question this from the Mitt piece:

To a great degree, a presidency shapes the public character of the nation.

Shapes, or reflects?

Mitt Is Back

Mitt Romney blasts Trump in a WaPo guest piece, gets blasted back.

I question this from the Mitt piece:

To a great degree, a presidency shapes the public character of the nation.

Shapes, or reflects?