Current Events Write-Up: 4/15/20

Here is a Current Events Write-Up for today. There will be four categories of articles in this post. First, there will be right-wing articles. I have had to watch CNN and MSNBC in the lunchroom at work this week, and I have gotten tired of the one-sided anti-Trump rhetoric. I have had an appetite for reasonable right-wing analysis of current events. Second, there will be a specific category of right-wing article: ones critiquing the FX/Hulu Mrs. America hatchet-job about the late Phyllis Schlafly.  Third, there will be one left-wing article. Fourth, there will be articles I have been sitting on for a while but have not yet posted because the sites are controversial. Still, the articles make some valuable points. Not all of these articles are strictly about “current events,” for some are more historical.

Right-Wing Articles

Federalist: “Why Trump Is Right Not To Cede Power Over The Lockdowns,” by David Marcus.

“So why at this juncture would Trump concede that he has no authority over the lockdowns? Does he get any advantage from it? Do we even know that it’s true? This is completely uncharted territory. Who knows how interstate commerce plays into a state-by-state national lockdown? Trump can force companies to switch to making medical supplies, but he can’t tell dentists or restaurants to open? Are we sure? Do we have any basis upon which to know with certainty?

“It is entirely appropriate for the Trump administration to want some leverage here. The president has been clear day after day and week after week that he prefers the heavy lifting to be done by governors closest to the situation, with his help from Washington. But that is not inconsistent with maintaining a position that the executive branch has some cards to play. That it is not some powerless dispassionate observer.”

American Thinker: “Yes, Trump Can Open America,” by Frank Friday.

“Trump is also right on his authority to override the various governors and their public health orders. Under the Supremacy clause, federal law beats state laws, and boy, is the Defense Production Act a law. By the terms of 50 USC 55, Sect. 4533, there is a general power to ‘create, maintain, protect, expand, or restore domestic industrial base capabilities essential for the national defense…’  and by which ‘…the President may make provision — for the development of production capabilities.'”

Daily Caller: “Cuomo: ‘We Don’t Need Any Additional Ventilators,” by Mary Margaret Olohan.

I didn’t care for Governor Cuomo’s grandstanding.

Daily Signal: “The Left Is Calling for Mail-In Voting. Here’s Why It’s a Bad Idea.”

I live in a state that uses mail-in voting rather than polling sites, and I like that system. It bypasses the problem of people not being able to go to the polls because they have to work on Election Day. It also may be apropos amidst the Corona-virus pandemic, when people cannot gather at polling locations in large numbers. Still, this interview raises thoughtful considerations against the idea. First, there is the question of where the ballots will end up. Are some of them going to dead voters? Can voters be more easily intimidated outside of the voting booth? If political organizations can mail people’s ballots for them, is that not a conflict-of-interest, since they can dispense with ballots that do not fit their agenda? Second, the article argues that absentee ballots can address the problem of people needing to vote from home due to the Corona-virus. The article also discusses how a mail-in system could work well, provided there are safeguards. And it critiques early voting, since, were the results to be leaked, that could impact party strategy, the options before the voters, and how voters will vote.

Reason: “WHO Cares?”, by Brian Doherty.

This is actually a libertarian article and is from 2002, but it is relevant to the President’s recent call for the U.S. to defund WHO. According to this article, WHO initially had a decent track record in eradicating diseases, but it has shifted its focus towards First World concerns, socio-political engineering, and reinforcing its plush bureaucracy. It is also rife with cronyism.


Right-Wing Mrs. America Articles

Federalist: “Elites Hate Phyllis Schlafly Because She Defeated Them From Home With Six Kids In Tow,” by Colleen Holcomb.

“‘Mrs. America’ portrays Schlafly as the consummate victim, persecuted by her own conservative ideology and even by God, as she desperately inquires of her priest why God ‘put this fire in her’ to fight a political battle — as if it were wrong to do so. They show her belittled by the chauvinist men in the conservative movement, and oppressed, scolded, and even raped by her own husband.

“The characterization is intentionally false and would be laughable if it weren’t so patently offensive. Schlafly biographer Don Critchlow — who, in addition to interviewing Schlafly, her family, and associates, had full access to her archives, financial records, correspondence, and family letters — called the series’ depiction of Schlafly’s marriage, ‘So inaccurate, it’s absolutely shocking.’

“Producers never bothered to ask family members or any of the hundreds of living people who actually knew Schlafly about her real experiences, her true character, and her marriage. Instead of risking pushback by depicting any of Schlafly’s supporters who are still alive, producers went the cowardly route, choosing to create fictional characters bearing the names of only deceased ERA opponents.”

Federalist: “Phyllis Schlafly’s Daughter On Why ‘Mrs. America’ Gets Her Mother Wrong,” by Emily Jashinsky.

“Here’s one example of how that does a disservice to viewers. I asked Cori what it was like to see Blanchett play her mother in the trailers. ‘She has the hair, and the makeup, and the costuming correct,’ Cori said. ‘What she misses is the warmth in my mother’s eyes.’

“‘She plays her as a cold, calculating, power-hungry woman. My mother led a volunteer group of women, and I don’t think she could lead volunteer women unless she was warm and inspiring. And she was. She was encouraging, she got women to do things, and you can’t do it if you bark and order it around. You do it by building up leadership. And that’s what she did. She said, ‘Nobody is born a leader, leaders are made.’ And she made it her mission to make a multitude of leaders.'”

Left-Wing Article

The Nation: “No, Italy Is Not the Case Against Medicare for All,” by Vale Disamistade.

Subtitle: “The Americanization of Italian health care plays a part in the country’s disastrous coronavirus outbreak.” But the article also tries to argue that Italy’s response was more effective than is commonly thought.

Articles from Controversial Sites

National Justice: “Yes Rabbi, the Impossible Burger is a Conspiracy Against White Working People,” by Erik Striker.

“There is only an issue when technocratic ghouls begin pushing austerity through the back door by suggesting turning meat and dairy products into sin-taxxed luxury items in the name of fighting climate change.

“This is no conspiracy theory, it is documented in depth by Elaine Graham-Leigh in her 2015 book, A Diet of Austerity. Graham-Leigh, not a Nazi but a Marxist, meticulously documents why billionaires and neo-liberal think-tanks they fund would much rather place the blame for environmental degradation on ordinary people who have to drive to work and enjoy the simple pleasure of a hamburger instead of big business.

“Critics, in other words, believe the world’s robber barons are pouring billions into climate change think-tanks with the long-term goal of extracting more wealth upwards by lowering our living standards even further. The green figleaf is their cover.”

American Renaissance: “Brown v. Board: The Real Story,” by Jared Taylor.

Taylor talks about the back-door political machinations behind the decision, and the misleading usage of the “dolls” study. Particularly interesting is this:

“Today, even some of those who cheered the loudest for Brown have second thoughts. Derrick Bell is a black lawyer and former Harvard Law School professor. During the 1960s, he worked for the NAACP, trying to short circuit the legislative process, arguing dozens of school cases before dozens of judges. By 1976, he had concluded that integration was a false goal and that blacks should have instead petitioned for the ‘equal’ in the ‘separate but equal,’ established in 1896 in Plessy v. Ferguson. ‘Civil rights lawyers were misguided in requiring racial balance of each school’s student population as a measure of compliance and the guarantee of effective schooling,’ he wrote. ‘In short, while the rhetoric of integration promised much, court orders to ensure that black youngsters received the education they needed to progress would have achieved much more.’ This year, the 50th anniversary of Brown, Prof. Bell put the case even more bluntly. ‘From the standpoint of education,” he says, “we would have been better served had the court in Brown rejected the petitioners’ arguments to overrule Plessy v. Ferguson.'”

Mintpress: “How a Hidden Parliamentary Session Revealed Trump’s True Motives in Iraq,” by Whitney Webb.

Essentially: the Trump Administration promises to help Iraq rebuild its infrastructure in exchange for Iraq giving up 50 percent of its oil exports then fails to help adequately, Iraq receives a better offer from China, and the Trump Administration threatens to engineer an uprising against the Iraqi government.

Revolutionary Left Radio: “A Coup in Venezuela: Imperialism, Fascism, and Class War.”

A Marxist defends Marduro against the usual American talking-points.