Equality – First Person Plural

Fox News evalutates the opinions of all American students on SCOTUS pick by interviewing five of them

Fox News might as well be renamed TrumpTV.

Clip by Fox News in YouTube on July 8, 2018

“Every person I spoke to all assumed Trump was going to pick a man.”

This clip is Fox News at its best. Well, I really should say ‘worst’ but since they get such good ratings I suppose you could spin it as a positive.

In what is quite possibly the most unscientific vox pop ever put on the airwaves, a young guy goes on the streets of New York (probably not far from Fox News studio) and clearly gets the answers he wants from random people, with the ‘Students hate the SCOTUS pick that Trump hasn’t made yet’ narrative more than likely determined before he ever set foot on the sidewalk.

The premise of the narrative, of course, is highly disingenuous. It is widely known that the shortlist for Trump’s Supreme Court choice was taken from a longer list drawn up by the ultra conservative Federalist Society (think Iona Institute and you’re in the ballpark) so no matter which judge Trump goes for, anyone of a progressive or ‘liberal’ mindset would be inclined to oppose the nomination. For example, there isn’t a single judge on that list which would fail the ‘I will help abolish Roe vs Wade’ litmus test.

But why ruin a good narrative with the facts? The already-brainwashed Fox News viewership don’t need much of a push to support the stereotype they have already been fed of ‘students’. Once the answers from the vox-pop are selectively chosen and they spend more time in the studio mansplaining the responses than actually airing them (assuming the overall sample was actually bigger than the one they put on air that is), it only takes a clip of less than three minutes to get the ‘job’ done.

As I always say about entities like Fox News, it’s not its existence that is downright scary, it’s the fact that so many people actually believe content that is so blatantly skewed towards the Republican agenda. And it has only gotten more blatant under this president. JLP

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Shortage of water but no shortage of blame in Irish discourse

THE ISSUE

As the Irish heat wave continues, arguably the most contentious ‘establishment v majority’ issues in recent memory is anything but water under the bridge.

THE MEDIA

Article by Sarah Burns, Vivienne Clarke in Irish Times on July 3, 2018

‘Irish Water warns ‘nightmare scenario’ if no big rainfall in autumn‘

“We need sustained rain. Unless there is torrential rain we’re looking at a very dry autumn,” Irish Water managing director Jerry Grant said on Tuesday.

Article by The Green Party in GreenParty.ie on June 30, 2018

‘Greens: Heat-wave exposes the short-sightedness of Water Charge abolition‘

“Government capitulated to populism and now communities are paying the price…The reality is that as our climate changes, these water shocks will continue and we don’t have a plan to conserve, harvest or levy for the use of our most precious resource.”

Article by The Workers Party in WorkersParty.ie on July 2, 2018

‘Dublin water restrictions show up failure of Irish Water to tackle infrastructure‘

“The government wanted to use water charges to squeeze yet more money out of the same group of people – low- and middle-income workers. Once it became clear that was not going to be possible, the issue of upgrading our water infrastructure was conveniently dropped from the table.”

THE COMMENT

We normally base these posts on one piece of content but this time we have three to compare and contrast, and it’s on that old chestnut of Water Charges which was bound to rear its head with the spell of hot weather we’ve been having.

Given the Irish establishment was committed to toeing the EU line of introducing water charges for regular citizens, you’d imagine a water shortage followed by a heatwave would be the perfect opportunity for them to point the finger at the #Right2Water campaign.

But why should the government and/or mainstream media do this when they’ve the Green Party to do it for them?

As you can see by the above quote in the IT, they chose to simply report on a statement from Irish Water. No comment, no pushback, no challenging questions, just your basic stenography article.

Now in fairness, you can see why the Greens would be in favour of charges, though I’d suspect that if they were the ones setting up Irish Water it would look much different and would tend to levy more responsibility on business than private users. That said, I can’t say I’m happy with their ‘giving in to populism’ angle.

The #Right2Water campaign, as far as I’m concerned anyway, was about way more than water. It was a bridge (pun half-intended) too far in a continuing government policy of austerity, and in the end public pressure won the day. For now.

If Irish Water wasn’t set up to benefit the people instead of simply being another corporation for the government to cash in on down the line, there would still have been opposition to it but I reckon it would have been much more difficult to get such widespread support.

Unfortunately it’s all too easy to spin the ‘well we tried to do something, and the lefty public said no’ narrative, but while I’m hardly a fervent follower of the Workers Party, their quote seems to be the most accurate depiction of the situation.

Yes we need better water infrastructure, yes it has to be paid for, but until it’s done in such a way that the majority of citizens pay the bare minimum while the tab is taken up by citizens and companies that waste this valuable resource, I’m afraid the stalemate will remain. JLP

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Have the Republicans stolen another Supreme Court seat?

THE ISSUE

The resignation during the past week of SCOTUS justice Anthony Kennedy allows President Trump to appoint a young, healthy, cons replacement who could guarantee pro-corporate and anti-sivil rights rulings for decades to come.

THE MEDIA

Article by Adam Liptak and Maggie Haberman in New York Times on June 28, 2018

‘Inside the White House’s Quiet Campaign to Create a Supreme Court Opening‘

As he made his way out of the chamber, Mr. Trump paused to chat with the justice.

“Say hello to your boy,” Mr. Trump said. “Special guy.”

Mr. Trump was apparently referring to Justice Kennedy’s son, Justin.

THE COMMENT

A popular refrain whenever a new revelation emerges about ConManDon is : “What would he be saying if Obama did the same thing?” This could be the most important one of all.

To my question in the title, ‘another’ refers to the fact that when Justice Scalia passed away in February 2016, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to hold a vote on confirming Obama’s pick as successor on the grounds that it was ‘too close to the election and the American people should decide’. While this decision certainly did not break any laws, norms or protocols, it certainly established a new one.

Yet despite the fact that Kennedy has resigned much closer to a big election, namely the Midterms, it seems that Senator McConnell is suddenly much less concerned about whether or not the American people should weigh in. Trump plans to have Kennedy’s successor nominated by the end of the week.

As you can see by the NYT article, there is much evidence that the Trump administration has gone to great lengths to prepare for Kennedy’s resignation, like rewarding all the justice’s clerks with appointments to district courts, and indeed two of his most favoured clerks are front runners to succeed him.

But of all the revelations in the article, the one that takes the biscuit is the fact that Kennedy’s son runs a division of the only bank that would loan money to Trump for property deals after he was turned down by other financial institutions due to his many failed business practices.

Oh and did I mention that Deutsche Bank is considered to be one of the ‘go-to’ banks for Russian oligarchs for money-laundering?

But of course it’s the ‘Failing New York Times’ after all, so I must be all ‘Fake News’. To be fair though, the article itself doesn’t suggest that any seat has been ‘stolen’, those words are mine. I still stand by them though. JLP

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Amid doom and gloom amongst liberals, Rachel Maddow declares the fight for Kennedy’s SCOTUS seat as ‘winnable’ for Democrats

THE ISSUE

Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement from the US Supreme Court yesterday

THE MEDIA

Clip by The Rachel Maddow Show in YouTube on June 27, 2018

“No vote on a successor to Kennedy until after the November elections, same rules should apply now as applied when the Scalia seat came up…”

THE COMMENT

First things first…yes, we’re back!!! Things on the rugby site got a little crazy and busy so sadly we had to leave this one idle again, but we’re not giving up on it just yet.

We return on the day after the most important event of the Donald Trump presidency. Yes, it is that serious.

Justice Kennedy’s decision to retire now gives Trump the opportunity to replace him with a hard-line conservative which will leave a majority five of them on the court. That’s not to say Kennedy was liberal by a long shot, but at least his vote did go our way on occasion.

And it would seem that with a majority in the Senate, albeit the narrowest one of 51-49, there is nothing that can stop Trump and his ‘revamped’ Republican party to get the job done.

But as you can see from the video, Rachel Maddow isn’t so sure. She puts a lot of pressure on Republican senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski to prove their ‘pro-choice’ credentials by blocking any Trump nominee until after the midterm elections, but as always the MSNBC anchor definitely makes a compelling argument.

Again to be clear, this is an issue that supersedes the Wall, North Korea, Iran deal, Paris accord, Charlottesville, even child separation at the border and the Mueller investigation ,in terms of importance.

Very interesting times ahead to say the least. JLP

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The first two quotes in Journal.ie article on ‘Pro-Life’ SaveThe8th launch are from men…

The No campaign in the upcoming #RepealThe8th referendum is definitely starting on the back foot and thus it will be interesting to watch it’s media strategy between now and May 25.

Article by Rónán Duffy in Journal.ie on Thursday, March 29, 2018

‘‘Abortion is a licence to kill’- Save the 8th launches its referendum campaign‘

Speaking at the launch at Dublin’s Gresham Hotel, Save the 8th spokesperson John McGuirk said that it was “an outright falsehood” that “the medical evidence in this debate is tilted in favour of repeal”.

McGuirk was speaking following an address by obstetrician Dr John Monaghan who has long opposed abortion…

I have to assume the Save The 8th campaign media people were delighted at the coverage they received from this article in The Journal…’Abortion is a license to kill’ was their main message and there it is, right in the headline.

But when you actually drill down a paragraph or two, you see a different story. I’m far from a PR expert, but given this is an issue that is to all intents and purposes one surrounding women’s health, I’d be surprised if having had all this time to prepare their campaign, the Save The 8th people would be happy that the first two people being quoted on their behalf were men named John?

McGuirk is well known on Irish twitter as a right-wing, shall we say, ‘antagonist’ and has been laying the groundwork via his account for quite a while, so it is no surprise to see him front and centre. You can be sure to find numerous tweets from his account between now and voting day which are designed to provoke vitriolic responses which will then be used as ‘evidence’ against the Yes camp. This is why my policy is #DoNotEngage.

But although I do feel strongly that men should be involved in this debate, I really think that pushing two of them forward at the very start of a campaign comes across as a massive own goal, once enough people draw attention to it, that is. JLP

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‘Inequality in America: A National Town Hall’ is required viewing all over the world

Apologies once more for the gap in posts – financial realities mean we have had to prioritise our monetised site in recent weeks as it has been a busy time for content over there.

However, even if we managed to post every day since we kicked off FPP in August 2016 we wouldn’t have been able to express our core beliefs more than this one and a half hour long video of the recent town hall hosted by Bernie Sanders. Please check it out if you haven’t already. It’s a shame it was only covered online.

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#Right2Water campaign’s victory over charges should at least earn them a right to reply on further water issues

THE ISSUE

The Irish establishment / government took quite a heavy beating on Water Charges, and the way this week’s shortages are being spun, it certainly looks like they haven’t let it go.

THE MEDIA

Article by Killian Woods [with reporting by Cormac Fitzgerald] in Fora.ie on March 5, 2018

‘Ireland’s ‘fragile’ water supply could make firms think twice about investing here‘

“Dublin Chamber chief executive Mary Rose Burke has said the restriction of water supply in the capital could make some companies looking to invest in Ireland reconsider their options.”

THE COMMENT

For full disclosure, I took part in #RightToWater marches and did not pay my charges so it’s pretty clear where I stand on the issue. But this particular post is more about media coverage than it is the water issue.

Check out the linked article on Fora.ie, a business site which is part of the Journal.ie network.

While I understand that the focus of this site is what is going on in the business community, does that mean it should only ever offer their point of view on particular issues?

This is an article in which the Dublin Chamber of Commerce is effectively being given free reign to offer it’s own take on the restrictions recently put in place by Irish Water. Forgive us for assuming a like-minded approach among the Chamber, the Government which took such a bad beating over water, and the jobs-for-the-boys private company which it created.

While they don’t actually state that water charges need to be reinstated, it’s not exactly well hidden between the lines. If there’s not enough money to fix the water infrastructure, they claim, then there won’t be investment which in turn means no more jobs. The implication is very clear.

All I want to do in this article is present a viewpoint from the other side, which I believe Killian Woods could have done. And he wouldn’t even need to ask for a quote either…he could have copy/pasted from the Facebook page of any anti-austerity TD such as Paul Murphy :

The water shortages we’re experiencing are a consequence of long-term under-investment in infrastructure. The predictable attempts to use them as a new argument for charges have to deal with fact that London, which has meters and charges, has the exact same problem. The solution is investment, which should be funded by progressive taxation of profits, high income and wealth.

No prizes for guessing which side I’m on, but at least I have presented you with more than one viewpoint in my article. JLP

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