From the right: Venezuelan Dictator’s Wall St. Lifeline
Wall Street continues to trade Venezuelan oil bonds issued in 2014, helping to get the country out of debt, writes Jeff Jacoby for Townhall. The problem: These “hunger bonds” line the pockets of investors while “Maduro’s access to cash and his grip on power remain intact.” Though Jacoby is uneasy with the free world’s role in boosting an oppressive regime, he admits there are no easy answers: “Cutting off Maduro’s access to cash might lead to even worse repression and hunger. Propping up his regime by buying Venezuelan debt could have the same effect.”
Political theorist: Americans’ Real Health-Care Fears
Nathanael Blake at The Federalist argues that the real health-care debate is “not whether masses of people will die from readily treatable conditions because they can’t get health insurance (they won’t). The real issues are middle-class anxiety and welfare.” Blake writes that middle-class Americans fear poverty as a result of their climbing insurance costs — “not of dying from a complete lack of treatment, but of financial hardship, dependence, and a declining quality of care.” Blake clues readers into the hard realities of health-insurance economics. One conclusion: “ObamaCare is welfare for the unhealthy in the American middle class, which loves government benefits but tends to look down on welfare.”
Baseball writer: Pitcher’s Woes Shine Light on Anxiety
“In no other sport,” writes Eric Koreen at The Athletic, “does thinking have more to do with wins and losses than baseball.” So what happens when thinking is the problem? Koreen is talking about Blue Jays closer Roberto Osuna, unable to pitch Friday night while dealing with a bout of anxiety, shining a light on a rarely discussed subject — but one with which many of Osuna’s fans can likely sympathize. Koreen talks about his own struggles with anxiety, which made it almost impossible to think clearly: “That is the cruelest facet of any mental health issue: The thing that you have always used to guide your decision-making is preyed upon.” Logically, Koreen says, Osuna — a 22-year-old star athlete — should be feeling great. But that’s “meaningless to a mind in which logic no longer is calling the shots.”
Latino activist: Why Trump Won More Hispanic Votes
President Trump’s portion of the Latino vote — 28 percent — improved upon the GOP’s 2012 numbers, and Steve Cortes explains why. At Real Clear Politics, he credits a rejection of the “relentless mainstream media narrative that Trump is an anti-Mexican racist” and the fact that “twice as many Hispanic voters regarded immigration enforcement as too lax instead of too stringent.” He also defends Trump’s protection of “800,000 ‘DREAMers’ who were brought here illegally, but as children.” Sadly the media and “left-leaning Latino activists” would “rather grandstand against Trump than pursue real growth policies for Hispanic citizens.” Cortes also praises the Trump administration for cracking down on illegal immigration: “Allowing our immigration system to continue to operate lawlessly and haphazardly represents not only bad economic and security policy, but also an affront to the millions of immigrants, like my father, who became Americans the right way.”
Foreign desk: The Invisible Famine
You probably haven’t heard about what might be the largest humanitarian crisis since 1945, posits Jackson Diehl at The Washington Post. According to the United Nations, 20 million people in four African countries — South Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and Nigeria — are at risk of famine in the next four months. And the UN has only received about 40 percent of its fund-raising target for the crisis. “That resource gap could be attributed to donor fatigue, or to the sheer size of the need,” Diehl writes. “But, in part, it’s a simple lack of awareness.” The United States isn’t the problem: “By early June Washington had pledged nearly $1.2 billion in relief to the four countries, including a supplement of $329 million announced on May 24.” And there’s more coming. But Persian Gulf countries, which are partially responsible for the crisis, especially in Yemen, are MIA. “Famines used to attract broad interest in the West.” Now, “Millions of lives may depend on whether they can find a way to command attention” once again.
— Compiled by Brendan Clarey & Seth Mandel