Krauthammer: Obama vs. Putin - The mismatch

Charles Krauthammer

Opinion Writer

Obama vs. Putin: The mismatch

“The United States does not view Europe as a battleground between East and West, nor do we see the situation in Ukraine as a zero-sum game. That’s the kind of thinking that should have ended with the Cold War.”

— Barack Obama, March 24

Should. Lovely sentiment. As lovely as what Obama said five years ago to the United Nations: “No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation.”

That’s the kind of sentiment you expect from a Miss America contestant asked to name her fondest wish, not from the leader of the free world explaining his foreign policy.

The East Europeans know they inhabit the battleground between the West and a Russia that wants to return them to its sphere of influence. Ukrainians see tens of thousands of Russian troops across their border and know they are looking down the barrel of quite a zero-sum game.

Obama thinks otherwise. He says that Vladimir Putin’s kind of neo-imperialist thinking is a relic of the past — and advises Putin to transcend the Cold War.

Good God. Putin hasn’t transcended the Russian revolution. Did no one give Obama a copy of Putin’s speech last week upon the annexation of Crimea? Putin railed not only at Russia’s loss of empire in the 1990s. He went back to the 1920s: “After the revolution, the Bolsheviks . . . may God judge them, added large sections of the historical South of Russia to the Republic of Ukraine.” Putin was referring not to Crimea (which came two sentences later) but to his next potential target: Kharkiv and Donetsk and the rest of southeastern Ukraine.

Putin’s irredentist grievances go very deep. Obama seems unable to fathom them. Asked whether he’d misjudged Russia, whether it really is our greatest geopolitical foe, he disdainfully replied that Russia is nothing but “a regional power” acting “out of weakness.”

Where does one begin? Hitler’s Germany and Tojo’s Japan were also regional powers, yet managed to leave behind at least 50 million dead. And yes, Russia should be no match for the American superpower. Yet under this president, Russia has run rings around America, from the attempted ingratiation of the “reset” to America’s empty threats of “consequences” were Russia to annex Crimea.

Annex Crimea it did. For which the “consequences” have been risible. Numberless 19th- and 20th-century European soldiers died for Crimea. Putin conquered it in a swift and stealthy campaign that took three weeks and cost his forces not a sprained ankle. That’s “weakness”?

Indeed, Obama’s dismissal of Russia as a regional power makes his own leadership of the one superpower all the more embarrassing. For seven decades since the Japanese surrender, our role under 11 presidents had been as offshore balancer protecting smaller allies from potential regional hegemons.

What are the allies thinking now? Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines and other Pacific Rim friends are wondering where this America will be as China expands its reach and claims. The Gulf states are near panic as they see the United States playacting nuclear negotiations with Iran that, at best, will leave their mortal Shiite enemy just weeks away from the bomb.

America never sought the role that history gave it after World War II to bear unbidden burdens “to assure the survival and the success of liberty,” as movingly described by John Kennedy. We have an appropriate aversion to the stark fact that the alternative to U.S. leadership is either global chaos or dominance by the likes of China, Russia and Iran.

But Obama doesn’t even seem to recognize this truth. In his major Brussels address Wednesday, the very day Russia seized the last Ukrainian naval vessel in Crimea, Obama made vague references to further measures should Russia march deeper into Ukraine, while still emphasizing the centrality of international law, international norms and international institutions such as the United Nations.

Such fanciful thinking will leave our allies with two choices: bend a knee — or arm to the teeth. Either acquiesce to the regional bully or gird your loins, i.e., go nuclear. As surely will the Gulf states. As will, in time, Japan and South Korea.

Even Ukrainians are expressing regret at having given up their nukes in return for paper guarantees of territorial integrity. The 1994 Budapest Memorandum was ahead of its time — the perfect example of the kind of advanced 21st-century thinking so cherished by our president. Perhaps the captain of that last Ukrainian vessel should have waved the document at the Russian fleet that took his ship.

Yes, Debt Matters

Kevin Glass | Mar 27, 2014

Federal debt held by the public has exploded in the Obama Era. The 2008 recession necessitated a policy response, and the Obama Administration's response was to institute a massive stimulus program on top of cratering federal revenues, which ballooned the federal deficit and added a huge amount of federal debt.

.

Matt Yglesias of the new Ezra Klein-helmed Vox News has a "Vox Explains" videoout making the claim that this chart doesn't matter.

The U.S. government can never run out of dollars. Unlike you, or the company you work for, or the town you live in, the federal government prints dollars. Or actually, the Federal Reserve mostly makes it with computers. The only thing to worry about is inflation... If inflation gets out of control, the Fed will slow down the economy by raising interest rates... but interest rates are at the lowest they've been in 30 years, and inflation is also at record lows.

We could reduce debt with higher taxes, or by cutting benefits, but that would take money out of people's pockets. That means fewer jobs, it means lower incomes. By trying to reduce debt we could actually make the debt situation worse. So let's think of something else to worry about. Debt just isn't a problem right now.

There's an element of truth here: federal debt is especially bad in an era when inflation and interest rates are higher than they currently are. The Federal Reserve has a large cushion in those areas right now, and there's a good case that the Fed could be doing more to aid the economy. But that's not the only reason to worry about debt.

The Congressional Budget Office's recent report gives us the arguments against carrying high levels of public debt:

In the past few years, debt held by the public has been significantly greater relative to GDP than at any time since just after World War II, and under current law it will continue to be quite high by historical standards during the next decade. With debt so large, federal spending on interest payments will increase substantially as interest rates rise to more typical levels. Moreover, because federal borrowing generally reduces national saving, the capital stock and wages will be smaller than if debt was lower. In addition, lawmakers would have less flexibility than they otherwise would to use tax and spending policies to respond to unanticipated challenges. Finally, such a large debt poses a greater risk of precipitating a fiscal crisis, during which investors would lose so much confidence in the government’s ability to manage its budget that the government would be unable to borrow at affordable rates.

All things being equal, less debt is better than more debt, no matter what else is going on in the economy. There may be no magic number that precipitates a financial crisis, or inhibits growth, but that underlying principle remains.

Ah, but all things are not equal. It's not simply a trade-off between less debt and more debt. The federal government could, for example, issue $25 billion of debt every year for the next ten years (and beyond) and do things with that $25 billion other than toss it into a hole. It could, say, fund universal pre-K education. At that point, we could debate the merits of that policy, but it should be noted that for whatever speculative upside any debt-financed public policy might have, the debt-financing is in and of itself a downside.

A more direct effect on the federal budget will be seen as interest rates begin to rise. The cost of more debt is very low right now, but in the next few years - potentially next year - the cost of servicing more debt grows. Indeed, the cost of servicing debt itself, at the current levels that Yglesias is unworried about, is the single fastest-growing portion of the federal budget over the next decade:

The House Committee on Financial Services recently held a hearing called "Why Debt Matters," in which budget experts like Alice Rivlin, Douglas Holtz-Eakin and Jared Bernstein testified. Rivlin, of the Brookings Institution, made the case that debt matters especially because lawmakers can't agree on how to tackle it.

It is not the inherent difficulty of the problems that is preventing us from getting our budget on a sustainable path toward higher growth and lower debt. It is the current state of partisan politics that is preventing hammering out compromise solutions to these quite manageable problems.

Debt has plateaued as we've tamed our medium-term deficit problem, but beginning in 2015 debt is projected to rise to over 80% of GDP over the next ten years, and our mandatory spending obligations will accelerate that after the next decade. Policymakers can't agree on how to reform the budget, so it's going to take time and effort to actually hammer out solutions to those problems. Basically, any meaningful policy to reduce the debt is going to have significant lag time due to partisan intransigence nad political feasibility.

For the reasons the CBO laid out, debt is a problem right now, even if it's not a crisis. The crisis that America's growing debt is precipitating, however, is worth worrying about right now - and worth telling policymakers that they've got to get their act together to actually address it. In a world where policymakers moved quickly and the American people readily accepted large shifts in redistributionary policy, debt might not be a problem. We don't live in that world.

6 Ridiculous Arguments Offered During Yesterday’s Hobby Lobby Hearing

6 Ridiculous Arguments Offered During Yesterday’s Hobby Lobby Hearing

By Sean Davis

MARCH 26, 2014hare on email

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Yesterday morning, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. The case centers around the question of whether companies run by people of faith should be forced to violate their religious beliefs — specifically, whether Hobby Lobby and its owners should be required to provide coverage for several different types of abortifacients or face stiff penalties.

The Obama administration has argued that the government has a greater interest in requiring contraceptive coverage than it does in protecting religious liberty. A full transcript of yesterday’s arguments can be found here.

During the hearing, the Obama administration’s top appellate attorney, Donald Verrilli, and two of the Supreme Court’s most liberal justices made numerous specious arguments in favor of Obamacare’s contraceptive and abortifacient mandate. Here are the six most ridiculous arguments.

1) A Government Surtax On Religious Exercise Is Totally Acceptable

During her questioning of Hobby Lobby’s lead attorney, Justice Sonia Sotomayor appeared to endorse the concept of a religion surtax. Sotomayor’s rationale was that rather than providing health coverage that included abortifacient coverage, companies could refuse outright to provide any health insurance at all, thereby getting around the mandate.

But isn’t there another choice nobody talks about, which is paying the tax, which is a lot less than a penalty and a lot less than — than the cost of health insurance at all? These employers could choose not to give health insurance and pay not that high a penalty ­­– not that high a tax.

Given that the American Revolution started in large part due to a tax on stamps, it seems odd that the Founders would have agreed that citizens should be forced to pay a tax for the privilege of not doing things that might lead to the eternal damnation of their souls. At any rate, Chief Justice John Roberts interjected, and noted that Hobby Lobby’s owners believed they had a religious duty to provide health coverage to their employees. As a result, they would be forced to violate their beliefs no matter what: providing abortifacient coverage would be a violation, as would a failure to provide any health insurance coverage at all.

2) The Mandate Isn’t Really A Mandate

Sotomayor’s endorsement of a religion surtax led directly to the next point, which was made by Justice Elena Kagan. According to Kagan, Obamacare does not say “you must do something that violates your religion”:

It’s giving you a choice. You can do this thing or if this thing violates your religion you can do another thing.

The “other thing,” in her opinion, was to just pay a stiff tax to retain your right to not violate your religious principles.

Justice Nebuchadnezzar could not be reached for comment, but he would surely agree with Kagan’s reasoning. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, after all, weren’t forced to bow down and worship the golden idol constructed by Nebuchadnezzar. He gave them a choice. They could do this thing which violated their religion or they could do another thing. Thankfully, the Supreme Creator intervened on behalf of the three men and issued an injunction that stayed the mandatory furnace penalty.

3) This Is Just A Sneaky Way To Undo The Civil Rights Act

Arguing on behalf of the Obama administration, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli argued that if Hobby Lobby could avoid compliance with the law under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), then there would be no way to prevent a KKK-run company from saying that employing minorities violated its religious beliefs:

[W]ith respect to this issue of whether there are exemptions that defeat a compelling interest, that I submit would be a very dangerous principle for this Court to adopt in the form that my friends on the other side have offered it, because not only would you then be in a position where it would be very hard to see how Title VII [Civil Rights Act employment anti-discrimination] enforcement could be justified by compelling interest in response to a RFRA objection, ADA enforcement, FMLA, all kinds of things.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was unimpressed by this argument.

“Title VII was passed before 1993, so it wouldn’t apply, she retorted. “RFRA wouldn’t apply to Title VII.”

Nor was Justice Antonin Scalia impressed.

“Except that they passed RFRA after that. That made a lot of sense.  But the question is they passed RFRA after that.”

4) Corporations Can Have A Racial Identity, Just Not A Religious One

Corporations are people, my friend, just as long as they’re not religious people. That’s the essence of one argument offered by Verrilli. A major issue in the case is whether a for-profit company or corporation even has standing to sue under RFRA, or whether that right is granted only to individuals or non-profits. The Obama administration has argued that for-profit companies do not have standing. That argument led Roberts to ask the following:

“So the person — the corporation can bring as a person a claim of racial discrimination[?]” Roberts asked.

“That’s correct, but not exercise of religion,” Verrilli replied.

5) Don’t Start A Business If You Want The Government To Respect Your Religious Rights

In response to arguments that the mandate wasn’t really a big deal since the company could just pay a stiff tax to avoid it, Hobby Lobby’s attorney noted that it wasn’t that simple, and that there would be significant negative consequences to the company if it dropped health coverage altogether. The Obama administration’s attorney was unmoved:

[O]nce you make a choice to go into the commercial sphere, which you certainly do when you incorporate as a for­-profit corporation, you are making a choice to live by the rules that govern you and your competitors in the commercial sphere.

Basically, if you can’t handle those additional costs incurred as a result of the government taxing you for adhering to certain religious beliefs, oh well.

6) Abortifacients Aren’t Really Abortifacients

The most bizarre argument offered by Verrilli was that Hobby Lobby shouldn’t really care about being forced to pay for abortifacients since some people don’t think life begins at conception. If you just arbitrarily decided when life begins — for example, by declaring that it begins at implantation rather than conception — then you can also declare that an abortion can’t happen up until that point.

Roberts teed up Verrilli’s argument when he said, “One of the religious beliefs is that they have to pay for these four methods of contraception that they believe provide abortions. I thought that’s what we had before us.”

Verrilli disagreed:

It is their sincere belief and we don’t question that.  But I will say, and I do think this is important and I say it with all  respect, that that is how they that is the judgment that they make.  It is not the judgment that Federal law  or State law reflects.  Federal law and State law which does ­­ which do preclude funding for abortions don’t consider these particular forms of contraception to be abortion.

In short, since there’s no law stating that life begins at conception, it’s kind of ridiculous for anyone to believe and act as though life begins at conception.

Should Unborn Babies Be Used To Heat Hospitals?

Should Unborn Babies Be Used To Heat Hospitals?

MARCH 24, 2014 By Mollie Hemingway

The Telegraph (UK) reports today:

Aborted babies incinerated to heat UK hospitals

The remains of more than 15,000 babies were incinerated as ‘clinical waste’ by hospitals in Britain with some used in ‘waste to energy’ plants 

The bodies of thousands of aborted and miscarried babies were incinerated as clinical waste, with some even used to heat hospitals, an investigation has found.

Ten NHS trusts have admitted burning foetal remains alongside other rubbish while two others used the bodies in ‘waste-to-energy’ plants which generate power for heat.

People are reacting to this story with the natural revulsion one feels for such callous treatment of humans, whether it’s evoking memories of crematoriums at concentration camps or promises made to mothers who miscarry about the treatment of their children who died.

But why are we in any way surprised? Once supposedly enlightened societies have decided that unborn children can be dismembered in the womb for any reason — in some particularly barbaric lands, this is permitted no matter how many months old the baby is — why should their bodies be treated with any respect whatsoever once they are removed from where they were gestating?

Of course people who think it’s wrong to kill innocent human beings via abortion are going to be sickened by this story. We’re sickened by most things about abortion and how it makes people view human life as disposable.

But do prominent pro-choice politicians and leaders share our revulsion? Do they think it’s in any way wrong to use unborn children for heating fuel? And, if so, could they explain why? I’d be interested in their answer.

Could a reporter please ask President Barack Obama, the country’s most prominent defender of abortion rights, whether he thinks that Obamacare should ban the use of humans for fuel and, if so, why? Could a reporter ask Rep. Nancy Pelosi why it’s totally OK to kill an unborn baby but not OK to use her body for fuel? How about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid? Perhaps the media’s most beloved political candidate of the moment — I speak of Texas gubernatorial candidate and late-term abortion filibusterer Wendy Davis — can discuss whether Texas should save money by burning the victims of abortion for heating fuel.

What about pro-choice leaders such as Planned Parenthood head Cecile Richards? She loves to talk to the media every day. Have her weigh in.

Reporters and editors, you’ve struggled to cover American serial murderer abortionist Kermit Gosnell. Even Gosnell didn’t use his victims’ bodies for fuel, though he did keep trophies of them around. You’ve claimed you would do a better job of being on top of abortion news after your failures with the Gosnell coverage. And you never fail to ask pro-life politicians about whether babies should be killed if they’re produced via rape — and get days of coverage out of whatever their answer.

It’s not just that reporters and editors are tenacious with pro-life politicians compared to pro-choice politicians. It’s also that even when there’s a crazy serious hook, pro-choicers skate without questions, much less tough questions. Was any pro-choice politician grilled about Gosnell? None. Were any pro-choice activists grilled about fighting health standards for abortion clinics? No. When was the last time you saw a reporter ask a pro-choice politician why they think it should be legal to kill an unborn baby for the crime of being a little girl? (Abortion is the major means of gendercide in some countries.) Oh you have never heard that question? That’s interesting.

So let’s add queries about whether unborn children who are victims of abortion should be used for building heat to the list of questions we ask pro-choice politicians and activists. I’m really curious to read their answer and I’m sure millions of others are as well.

We overhauled U.S. health care — to insure 4.2 million people?

By Joseph Curl

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The Washington Times

The number bounced around for years — 46 million.

President Obama said it in August 2009: "I don't have to explain to you that nearly 46 million Americans don't have health insurance coverage today. In the wealthiest nation on Earth, 46 million of our fellow citizens have no coverage."

He said it dozens more times, including in June 2013: "We are not a nation that accepts nearly 46 million uninsured men, women and children."

The Obama administration pumped the number with official reports. The White House Council of Economic Advisers said, "Perhaps the most visible sign of the need for health care reform is the 46 million Americans currently without health insurance." The Census Bureau got in on the act, too, saying some 48 million Americans lacked health insurance.

It was official: Nearly 15 percent of America's 313 million citizens had no coverage and were, as Mr. Obama loved to say over and over to hype the fear, "one illness away from financial ruin."

So, he created Obamacare. The crux of the biscuit: The United States would completely change its entire health care system to make sure those 46 million got insured. Well, at least that's what every rational American thought. If there are 46 million uninsured, and the president and Congress are overhauling the system, it must be to solve the whole problem — not just part of it.

But last week came word that with just 15 days left for people to enroll for federal coverage, just 4.2 million had. The math is simple: That's just 9 percent of the supposedly 46 million uninsured.

"It will be a larger number than that by the end of March," Mr. Obama promised in an interview with WebMD. "At this point, enough people are signing up that the Affordable Care Act is going to work."

Still, the obvious question is: We changed the $2.7 trillion health care system to sign up 4.2 million people?

While the president has opted to press class warfare and income inequality in the weeks leading up to the Obamacare sign-up cutoff date of March 31, he has made an effort to enroll the people most needed to make the federal program work: the young.

He did an ask-me-anything on Reddit.com, popped up on "Between Two Ferns" with Zach Galifianakis, introduced a segment on the popular show "Cosmos," even invited 'N Sync singer Lance Bass to the White House to "discuss" health care.

But the young have not flocked to the Web page to sign up for insurance that, even with a hefty federal subsidy, will still cost them more than not paying anything. And anyone with teenagers or 20-somethings knows that they don't do anything unless they're absolutely forced to (Zach didn't actually tell them to go sign up, just the pushy president, again).

What's more, it turns out many of those signing up to the program already had insurance. "Few uninsured Americans are gaining coverage under Obamacare," CNN reported in early March. Just 27 percent of the enrollees were previously uninsured, according to a survey conducted in February by McKinsey & Co.

To top it all off, reports have emerged that many of the enrollees are more elderly and more unhealthy, which is likely to tax the system heavily just as it gets started.

What's surprising is how little the mainstream media cares. The White House now says it was hoping to enroll 8 million in the first year — but does anyone remember that being a big selling point as the president crisscrossed the country scaring Americans? And no one in the MSM blinked an eye when the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said that in 2023, Obamacare will still have left 31 million people without health insurance while adding more than $1.7 trillion in federal spending.

In a wonderfully timed plea, Mr. Obama is asking Americans to give him money so that he can push his signature policy.

"Chip in before it's too late. What we do right now determines how aggressive we can make our final push for health care this month." You can give $15 or $5,000. But your president is begging: "Make a donation — and let's finish what we started."

With just 4.2 million of the 46 million uninsured Americans enrolled, it seems Obamacare is already finished before it started.

Do You Like to Be Nudged?

I completely agree that "nudging" is just a nice way of saying "forcing".  Now, I take some issue with Gonzalez's portrayal of the global warming debate quote.  Not all views need to receive equal time (e.g. the earth is not flat), but saying an argument is "settled" is not an argument, especially when legitimate and factual points can be made on both sides.    

Do You Like to Be Nudged?

By Mike Gonzalez

MARCH 13, 2014Share on emShare on pri

Do you want society’s so-called best and brightest “nudging” your decisions about what to consume – whether it’s for news, soft drinks or light bulbs?

If so, chances are you call yourself progressive. If you snort at the mere notion, however, you are almost certainly a conservative.

In fact, throw out all the other Rorschach tests. This is the one that separates one side from the other.

This difference is at the heart of a spat I find myself in with colleagues Darrell West and Beth Stone of the Brookings Institution. West and Stone contended in a paper in early February that our media organizations need to “nudge” Americans to consume “more thoughtful information.” I argued in a piece in The Federalist that their manuscript was a veiled attempt at putting the media revolution genie back in the bottle and returning us to the age when the likes of Walter Cronkite, NPR and The New York Times told us what was news. Not to be outdone, West and Stone returned the favor and scolded me this week for being anti-thoughtful.

Our little debate is actually a microcosm of a larger one. Progressives like a centralized state composed of luminaries making enlightened decisions for the rest of society. Conservatives fear that this state will treat the individual less like an adult and more like an infant — and, more importantly, tear his family and community apart.

In this wonk spat between West, Stone and me, the operative word is “thoughtful” — the quality I supposedly lack and a word they use no fewer than nine times in their response. To be thoughtful is indeed a fine quality, but I posit that the term here can be wielded to quash dissenting voices. Tin pot dictators don’t have laws that say “whatever Tin Pot doesn’t like is banned.” No, they ban actions, speech or even thought deemed “hateful,” “anti-social,” “against social conviviality,” and so on.

West and Stone are not totalitarians or even authoritarians. I am sure they view themselves as broad-minded, tolerant and urbane. They protest that “we are not ultra-liberals and we actually have voted for Republicans and Democrats” (though I would point out to Mr. West that a former professor at Brown University pulling the lever for Lincoln Chaffee doesn’t count).

They do, however, make clear that “thoughtful reporting” would be what Ezra Klein, Andrew Sullivan, Jill Abramson, Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez — journalists ranging from liberal to very liberal — think is thoughtful, as these are the names they cite. One doesn’t find Brit Hume, George Will, Rich Lowry or Paul Gigot among their arbiters of thoughtfulness.

Even if they had included Charles Krauthammer, the idea of nudging consumers only toward what an elite of either side deems appropriate is frightening. Consider West’s interview on Bloomberg radio this past weekend on what he considers thoughtful.

Interviewer Bill Frezza asked West how he thought the media should deal with issues of settled science. West answered that “good scientists never resolve anything permanently because there’s always new information that comes around,” which is right. But then Frezza asked, “So would you be in favor of equal time for both global warming alarmists and climate change deniers?”

West: “I would not in that situation, just because you’re talking about a situation where, you know, 98 percent of scientists believe that the world is getting warmer and that human activities are part of the reason it is getting warmer. It is a very small number of people—many of them don’t have good credentials—who are challenging that viewpoint. So I think it’s a mistake when journalists equate those two perspectives when in reality, you know, scientists overwhelmingly believe in global warming.”

Frezza: “Fascinating.”

Indeed. I think we all get the point.

After I wrote my piece in The Federalist, it emerged that the Federal Communications Commission was launching a study on whether news outlets were covering “critical information needs.” Among these were the “environment” and “economic opportunities.”

This study would be an instance where the government uses its full might to force media outlets to cover what it wants, and the FCC’s actions led to a huge outcry. West and Stone don’t come armed with the power to take TV licenses away, and would only “nudge” us toward the “right” consumption patterns.

But caution is in order. Nudging is a term popularized in the policy context by former Obama official Cass Sunstein, by which he meant using public policy to persuade people subconsciously to make certain choices and not others. In media consumption, people click much more often on items that are higher on a search engine’s queue.

West and Stone observe approvingly that Facebook already gives priority to what it considers high-quality content. Conservatives need to be watchful of this. Facebook, Google and Twitter — all so essential to our new-found, post-Cronkite media freedom — are basically monopolies.

West and Stone complain that I denigrated their paper. I didn’t. I respect their work and also that of Brookings. I believe society benefits from a collegial, Socratic dialogue in which we probe each other’s thinking in policy and moral matters, in order to stimulate critical thinking. But to do that, you need to present more than one point of view. And no nudging allowed.