Sunday, April 19, 2020

Current Events Write-Up: Oil Wars; Pro-WHO and Anti-Taiwan Articles; Unfair Criticisms of Conservative Christians; Wisconsin Voter Suppression…by Democrats!

Some links:

The Last American Vagabond: “Driven by the Dramatic Collapse of US Shale, the Trump Administration Takes Aim at Venezuela,” by Whitney Webb.

Webb argues that the Trump Administration is trying to link Venezuela in the public mind with the illicit drug trade, as a way to take over Venezuela’s oil. A comparison is made with George H.W. Bush’s invasion of Panama. Bush did so on the pretense that Noriega was involved in drug-trafficking, even though Noriega trafficked drugs on behalf of the U.S., and America’s lackeys and puppets themselves were tied with narco-gangs. Largely unreported in the mainstream media, Bush’s invasion of Panama killed numerous Panamanian civilians. Webb believes that the invasion had an economic motivation: the Panama Canal was about to belong to Panama, and the U.S. sought to eliminate Panama’s military ability to safeguard it for itself. Webb also questions the narrative that the U.S. has finally arrived at a state of energy independence.

Unz: “The Russia-Saudi Oil-Price War Is a Fraud and a Farce,” by Mike Whitney.

According to Whitney, the Russia-Saudi oil war was not about the Saudis trying to attack Russia economically. Rather, the Saudis sought to undermine the U.S., and for good reason. The U.S. relies on the Saudis to keep up the price of oil, while refusing to reduce oil production itself. Essentially, the U.S. piggybacks and freeloads off of the Saudi inflation of the oil price. The Saudis responded by dramatically decreasing the price of oil through flooding the market.

World Affairs: “Did the World Health Organization (WHO) Drop the Ball on Coronavirus?”

This article argues “no.” I know, I have been posting anti-WHO links for a few weeks. Now that the anti-WHO narrative is gaining prominence, I want to post an alternative voice. Same with the next link:

Digital Empire: “New Cambridge Research Puts Taiwan and Hong Kong to Shame.”

“A new research paper by Peter Forster and Lucy Forster reveals that the Corona Virus was successfully mitigated by Chinese Authorities, subsequently sparing HK and Taiwan from disastrous fatalities…The Ministry of foreign affairs of Taiwan will never admit to hubris, but you only need to take one look at the research to understand that Wuhan’s strict lockdown was what prevented Strain B from spreading much faster and at greater magnitude.”

Federalist: “4 Times LGBT Media Turned Coronavirus Coverage into Attacks on Christians,” by Chad Felix Greene.

Greene fact-checks the web site LGBTQ Nation, but what Greene says is relevant to what a lot of liberals have said online. You know that pastor who died of coronavirus after holding a church service, and the gloating that occurred after that? The pastor was not defying social distancing. To quote Greene: “What they left out, detailed by local news CBS 6 News Richmond, is that the March 22 sermon, regularly aired on the news channel, occurred a day before the state of Virginia officially banned gatherings of 10 or more people. The church has held drive-in sermons since.” You know how liberals say that Franklin Graham’s Samaritan’s Purse refuses to treat gay people? Wrong! It refuses to hire people in same-sex unions because that violates its religious beliefs. Regarding who gets help, let’s quote Franklin Graham: “We don’t discriminate against anybody we help. We provide our services to everyone regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation. We don’t discriminate. Period.”

Federalist: “What The MSM Won’t Tell You About Democrats’ Voter Suppression In The Wisconsin Election,” by Kylee Zempel.

We are hearing that the Republicans suppressed voting in Wisconsin. Zempel says it was the other way around. The Republicans were open to extending Election Day in light of the Coronavirus. The Democratic Governor was the one who delayed on this until the very last minute. In terms of how the Democrats suppressed voters, a conservative operative explains: “The early voting that went on in Madison and Milwaukee for a week and a half before any of the areas that typically vote more conservative — that is just a week and a half where liberal precincts get to turn out their voters in droves in their biggest strongholds. And then you get into the thick of the election itself, and you’ve got the voter ID stuff, and you’ve got the lawsuits, and … the shifting rules and the fighting over it and everything…And then you close it with the governor basically the day before the election doing nothing other than cause confusion and make it so that people in part of the state that haven’t had the chance to vote yet may think they can’t vote on election day — the people that disadvantages is conservatives because as is shown time and again election after election, conservatives turn out on Election Day.”