The Red Folder

Archived From October 7, 2024. 

Key stories for the week, brought to you by Lindsey Zhao and the Red Folder team.

Reading for the sake of reading sucks. Telling yourself to read to win a round is nice but ineffective. This condensed news brief helps you understand current domestic and international issues, analyze the news, and gives you opportunities to read more.

Publishing since January 2024. 

Domestic Stories

4 key domestic stories for the week:

1) Rebuilding After Helene Daniel Song

In late September 2024, Hurricane Helene hit the southeastern United States, bringing the full force of a Category 4 storm to millions of Americans. With economic losses of up to $35 billion and a death toll of at least 191, Hurricane Helene is one of the deadliest and most destructive hurricanes to hit the US in the past few years. With the destruction of thousands of homes, FEMA is racing to deliver critical aid to impacted regions. But in the long-term, FEMA has to contend with a more entrenched, structural problem: Helene will have a major impact on the flood insurance market as well. This is because hurricanes often cause massive flooding as well, which is extremely detrimental to houses.


Thankfully, the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) is the federal program that offers insurance for homeowners in flood-prone areas. Property owners with NFI  policies can get up to $250,000 for building repairs and $100,000 to repair or replace furniture, clothing and other personal property in the event of a destructive flood. On average, these policies are fairly affordable, costing $786 per year. However, the issue with the NFIP right now is two-fold: low income homeowners may not be able to afford the cost of insurance, and flood insurance actually encourages migration to dangerous flood-prone areas. 


First, the cost of flood insurance may be prohibitive for low income homeowners, especially in areas historically unlikely to see flooding. In fact, after Helene, less than 1% of households in dozens of flood-ravaged counties in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina have NFIP flood insurance. Now, as families try to rebuild, they will be left with essentially no financial help from the government. This has devastating consequences, as low-income homeowners who just had their biggest asset destroyed now have to contend with the tens of thousands needed to restore their homes. A growing body of research backs that up. A 2023 study of post-hurricane homeowners in North Carolina found that hurricanes led to $562 million in additional losses due to mortgage default and home abandonment. To address this issue, flood insurance should be heavily promoted and made more affordable in a targeted way for low-income households, which will save them money in the long run.


Second, and perhaps more problematically, flood insurance itself may exacerbate the death toll and economic cost of hurricanes by incentivising people to move to flood-prone coastal areas. A recent Brookings report found that only 14% of the $81 billion in FEMA funding since 2005 has gone to promoting climate resilience while the rest has funded home rebuilding and NFIP payouts, which essentially subsize homeowners who choose to build or buy a house in an area likely to flood. By protecting homeownership from facing the true cost of hurricane-related damage, it incentives more people to move to these attractive coastal regions knowing that the federal government will simply pay to rebuild their home if, and increasingly, when, it is destroyed by a hurricane. To stop these perverse incentives and protect American lives and property, the NFIP must reform its policies, discourage homebuilding in flooded areas, and charge wealthy homeowners higher insurance rates for choosing to live in a dangerous area. The viability of insurance is based on the premise that high risk must correlate to higher cost, and it’s high time for the NFIP to adopt this model as well.


Read more here:

2) The American Army is Still Very Much in the Middle East Rowan Seipp

Since the end of the Second World War, the United States has emerged as the predominant world power. For the last 80 years, the U.S. has prioritized extending its influence across the globe, with one region in particular becoming a hotspot for American involvement: the Middle East. Initially, the U.S. arrived in the region for oil, but over time, its mission evolved into a war on terror and later an effort to stabilize governments across the area. However, by 2021, this involvement came to a dramatic conclusion with the chaotic withdrawal from Kabul, Afghanistan, which many perceived as a definitive end to American military dominance. Or so it seemed.

Little more than three years later, American troop presence has surged again. The first area where the U.S. has reestablished its military presence is around Israel. Prior to October 7, 2023, U.S. Central Command maintained approximately 34,000 soldiers in bases across the Middle East. Following Hamas's attacks, the U.S. significantly increased its presence, dispatching an additional 10,000 troops primarily to Iraq and Syria. Recently, the Pentagon announced plans to send an unspecified number of troops along with weapons and supplies to the region. This unprecedented increase in troop deployment is noteworthy, especially considering we are not actively engaged in a war. The U.S. is reinforcing Israel's defenses, indicating that the Biden administration is not pursuing a ceasefire; rather, it is actively bolstering military support.

The second area of increased U.S. military presence is the Red Sea. The Houthi rebels, who are closely aligned with Hamas, harbor intense animosity toward Israel's military actions. In December of last year, the Houthis announced their intention to target any ships passing through the Red Sea that fly the flag of an Israeli ally, including those of the U.S. In response, two operations were launched: the EU initiated Operation Atalanta, while the U.S. launched Operation Prosperity Guardian, sending three warships into the Red Sea alongside three British vessels. These ships serve as a convoy to protect American trade vessels in the region. This substantial increase in naval presence sends a clear message from U.S. military command that the Middle East remains a vital area of American strategic interest.

While the withdrawal from Kabul may have signaled a turning point, emerging conflicts in the region have entangled U.S. forces in the Middle East for the foreseeable future.

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3) Abbott Scores Another SCOTUS Win Paul Robinson


The State of Texas is often cited as one of the quintessential Republican strongholds, as essential to the GOP as California is to Democrats. However, it’s probably safe to say that fact is not rooted in an extremely strong lead as one would assume; Texas is roughly evenly split politically, yet the policies enacted by its government are some of the most conservative in the nation.


Earlier today, the Supreme Court of the United States declined an appeal by the Biden administration to declaw the notoriously strict abortion laws in Texas. As is routine in cases the court declines to hear, no rationale was provided, and no dissenting opinions were filed.


Although abortion is illegal in Texas in nearly all cases, Mr. Biden hoped to get around by using the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act to direct hospitals which receive funding from Medicaid to perform abortions when it is the only treatment that will save the life of the woman or prevent serious medical damage. Of course, what exactly those conditions entail is up to the interpretation of doctors, or, as of late, prosecutors.


Mr. Abbott sued the government asserting that the federal law did not acutely address the issue, a fact of which he is correct, and that the Supremacy Clause that would normally require Texas to stand down thus did not apply. Texas also argued that, since the state’s abortion ban includes an exception in the case of a threat to the woman’s health, the precedent set earlier this year involving a similar law in Idaho also did not apply. The lower courts accepted both of these arguments, and the Supreme Court allowed that decision to stand.


Abortion rights activists believe the Texas law is far too vague to provide a proper exception to the ban in cases involving health, and thus many doctors may not be willing to perform abortions out of caution. Unfortunately for them, the courts in Texas did not agree, and the Supreme Court is not willing to correct them.


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4) Port Strikes Strike America Andy Choy

On October 5th, the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) —North America’s largest maritime workers’ union— announced its suspension of port strikes across America to pave the way for contract negotiations with the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) —an alliance of longshore companies. More than 45 thousand workers participated in the strike, threatening major supply chain disruptions. The strike was the first port strike along the East Coast since 1997, shutting down operations from the Port of Boston to the Port of Miami.


The strike’s root cause centered around port workers’ wages, with the ILA demanding a $5 per hour salary raise each year over workers’ next six year contracts. The USMX agreed to a pay raise, but refused to offer $5 per hour as the Longshoremen’s Association requested, opting for $2.5 per hour instead. Additionally, the Maritime Alliance refused the ILA’s demands to prevent port work automation. Negotiation attempts between the union and the alliance failed and halted in June.


Harold Daggett, President of the ILA, threatened USMX with a strike if the alliance refused to yield to union requirements. ILA members approved of the strike, which Daggett set to begin on October 1st. The union warned President Joe Biden against implementing executive action under the provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act, which permitted the government to temporarily force strikers back to work for 80 days. Biden agreed not to invoke the act, arguing it was the Maritime Alliance’s responsibility to walk to the negotiating table and settle fair wages.


Strikes started as planned on October 1st, following an unsuccessful USMX attempt to resolve the problem the day prior. The alliance had proposed a 50% wage increase over six years, which the ILA declared unacceptable. JPMorgan Chase projected the strike would lose the American economy US$3.8 to 4.5 billion per day, while the Michigan-based Anderson Economic Group offered a more moderate prediction of US$2.1 billion losses per week. The United States Chamber of Commerce requested President Biden conclude the strike because of supply chain threats, and Republican Party legislators pressured Biden to use the Taft-Hartley Act.


The dock strike received popular support outside of the Longshoremen’s Association, mainly from other labor unions and workers’ organizations. In a public statement, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations’ Transportation Trades Department (TTD) alleged longshore companies deliberately hindered ILA-USMX negotiations to damage the strike’s reputation. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters joined the TTD in declaring support and opposing government intervention under the Taft-Hartley Act. Meanwhile, the Port of Los Angeles offered assistance managing diverted East Coast cargo to protect consumers from harm. Despite reports concluding the strike was not affecting the availability of products such as paper towels, panic buying erupted and emptied store shelves along the East Coast.


After more than four days of strikes, the ILA agreed to resume port operations after the Maritime Alliance proposed a 62% wage increase over six years. The strike will be suspended until January 15th of next year while ILA–USMX negotiations resume.


Read more here:


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