RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
July 2 to July 8, 2023 In RealClearInvestigations, John Murawski reports that while some see the Supreme Court's rejection of racial preferences in college admissions as a death knell for slavery reparations, advocates think otherwise – advancing a legal argument that reparations wouldn't be race-based. The head of the California task force at the forefront of the reparations movement said restitution would instead be “based on lineal descent” -- meaning not skin color per se but damages suffered by descendants as a result of slavery. That eligibility criterion will exclude several hundred thousand Caribbean, African and South American black immigrants who arrived in this country in the 20th century. The approach is compared to Japanese-American reparations after World War II, when payments were for people who had suffered a specific injury, not for being generally harmed by racial discrimination. But the reparations movement is sharply divided over this approach: “Europe and the United States concocted this thing called race to define and control us,” one dissenter says, “and now we find ourselves being restricted from using the very thing they concocted to liberate ourselves from the legacy of the systems of oppression that they created.” Others disagree: “We know very well in the state of California, because of Proposition 209, which has not been repealed, you cannot have race-based activities and legislation.” California’s reparations agenda -- intended as a blueprint for the nation – could cost the state $800 billion. It is now before the Democrat-controlled state legislature. Waste of the Day
by Adam Andrzejewski, Open the Books Favored Housing Nonprofit Highly Profligate, RCI
Recapping AP on $403B COVID Aid Loss, RCI
$4.5M to Fight Latin Wildlife Trafficking, RCI
When FAA Airport Land Misuse Took Off, RCI
$247B in Improper Payments in 2022, RCI Biden, Trump and the Beltway We’ve seen plenty of smoking guns showing President Biden is lying when he claims he never discussed his son Hunter’s foreign business deals with him – but this article also provides strong evidence that they colluded on those deals while Joe was in office: A White House scheduling email sent to then-Vice President Biden ahead of a call with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko was also sent to his son, Hunter, who was serving on the board of a Ukrainian energy firm looking to escape a corruption probe. In the call, the elder Mr. Biden urged Mr. Poroshenko to continue reforming Ukraine’s prosecutor general office. It’s unclear whether Hunter Biden was involved in the call outside of getting an email alert about it. The timing of the call, however, coincides with Hunter Biden’s $1 million-a-year job on the board for Burisma, which allegedly hired him to help dodge charges from the Ukraine prosecutor general. Censorship has a new name: fighting disinformation! And the Biden White House has been using this high-minded-sounding euphemism to clamp down on speech it does not like. This article reports that while issuing an injunction preventing the Biden administration officials from pressuring tech companies away from inconvenient content, U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty concluded that Facebook had coordinated with the White House to censor posts that did not violate its content policy, including a video by former Fox News host and Daily Caller co-founder Tucker Carlson. This article reports that the judge found this effort began just after Biden’s election. Facebook sent an email in February to [Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Digital Strategy Rob ] Flaherty and White House Digital Director of the COVID-19 Response Team Clarke Humphrey about how the platform “expanded its COVID-19 censorship policy to promote authoritative COVID-19 vaccine information and expanded its efforts to remove false claims on Facebook and Instagram about COVID-19, COVID-19 vaccines, and vaccines in general,” Doughty said. “Facebook also informed Flaherty that it was working to censor content that does not violate Facebook’s policy in other ways by ‘preventing posts discouraging vaccines from going viral on our platform’ and by using information labels and preventing recommendations for Groups, Pages, and Instagram accounts pushing content discouraging vaccines,” Doughty added. “Facebook also informed Flaherty that it was relying on the advice of ‘public health authorities’ to determine its COVID-19 censorship policies.” Judge Doughty also found that on April 14, 2021, Flaherty emailed Facebook demanding censorship of Carlson and then-Fox News host Tomi Lahren. He claimed the top post about vaccines that day was “Tucker Carlson saying vaccines don’t work and Tomi Lahren stating she won’t take a vaccine.” Facebook promised Flaherty a report by the end of the week. The same day, then-White House advisor Andy Slavitt emailed Facebook executive Nick Clegg about Tucker Carlson’s “anti-vax message” and complained about Facebook’s lack of action, Doughty found. Facebook later informed Flaherty that Carlson’s video did not violate Facebook’s policy. Nevertheless, Facebook demoted the video by 50% for seven days and would continue demoting it, according to Doughty. Other Biden, Trump and the Beltway UN Plans Global ‘Emergency’ Powers With Biden Support, Federalist
Joe Biden Pulled Ivy Strings for Granddaughter, Washington Free Beacon
Who Brought Cocaine into the White House? National Review
Hunter Biden Filmed Himself Smoking Crack, Driving 172 mph, New York Post
Defending Dissipated Dad Hunter, Team Biden Points at Trump, New York Times
Suspicions Top Hunter Biden Prosecutors Removed From Case, Daily Mail
Former Aide Says Trump Showed Classified Docs at Mar-a-Lago, Hill
Soros Son at White House at Least 20 Times, Fox News Other Noteworthy Articles and Series Turns out China isn’t the only country running police operations in foreign countries. In more than a dozen developing countries where the U.S. believes police agencies are so riddled with corruption that they can’t be trusted, this article reports, American embassy personnel handpick their own local law-enforcement units, screen them for misconduct and, to a large degree, assign them missions aligned with U.S. interests. The DEA pioneered the strategy during the cocaine wars in Colombia, Bolivia and Peru in the 1980s. Now the practice has become routine and global for law-enforcement agencies throughout the U.S. government: In Kenya, the FBI, Homeland Security, Drug Enforcement Administration and Fish and Wildlife Service each have their own vetted detectives from the Kenyan Directorate of Criminal Investigations. The units pursue matters ranging from heroin smuggling to passport and visa forgery to human trafficking and criminal abuse of American citizens. American agents stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi don’t have arrest powers in Kenya, but their local partners do. … In May, a vetted American embassy unit in the South American country of Guyana helped track down and arrest a man wanted in the U.S. for sexual assault of a child, according to the State Department. A Colombian unit dismantled a seven-city human-smuggling operation that was charging $4,000 to $5,000 a head to provide migrants with fake documents to secure U.S. visas, according to Colombian and U.S. authorities. At least 80 Afghan civilians were murdered by British Special Air Service (SAS) soldiers between 2010 and 2013, according to lawyers representing the families. This article reports: Elite British soldiers from the SAS routinely raided family compounds in search of Taliban fighters, often at night-time, in the latter stages of the UK’s long and bloody military deployment in Helmand province, which ended in 2014. … Between June 2011 and May 2013, 25 suspicious deaths were recorded by the lawyers, which included an allegation that in one SAS raid that “resulted in the deaths of 4/5 Afghans” only one grenade was found. The events of the operation were so violent that two Afghan children “had to be urgently evacuated for medical treatment.” The article reports that a document submitted by lawyers representing families of the deceased highlights concerns made by senior army officers in emails from the time, including a warning that “there appears to be a casual disregard for life.” But an internal review that took place in 2011 did not bring about a change in the pattern of killing. Full hearings on the allegations are expected to start in the fall. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has emboldened anti-abortion groups within the U.S. to limit abortion access in Africa – which has a high rate of unintended pregnancies and where 77% of abortions are considered unsafe. The article reveals the battle between organizations within African countries fighting for either the legalization or criminalization of abortions. In April, Family Watch International helped to develop a “family values and sovereignty” meeting at Uganda’s presidential offices with lawmakers and other delegates from more than 20 African countries. The organization’s Africa director also is advocating for his country, Ethiopia, to revoke a 2005 law that expanded abortion access and dramatically reduced maternal mortality. … After lobbying lawmakers in the southern African nation not to consider a bill that would have allowed abortion under certain circumstances, the U.S.-based Catholic group Human Life International told its supporters in March that “thanks to you, Malawi is safe from legal abortion.” “It’s kind of like the gloves are off,” Sarah Shaw, head of advocacy at U.K.-based MSI Reproductive Choices, an international provider of reproductive health services, said in an interview. School plays have become the latest battleground as Americans consider how race and sexuality should be taught to youngsters. For decades student productions have faced scrutiny over whether they are age-appropriate, and more recently left-leaning students and parents have pushed back, this article reports, against many shows over how they portray women and people of color. The latest wave of objections is coming largely from right-leaning parents and school officials: Drama teachers around the country say they are facing growing scrutiny of their show selections, and that titles that were acceptable just a few years ago can no longer be staged in some districts. The Educational Theater Association released a survey of teachers last month that found that 67 percent say censorship concerns are influencing their selections for the upcoming school year. In emails and phone calls over the last several weeks, teachers and parents cited a litany of examples. From the right there have been objections to homosexuality in the musical “The Prom” and the play “Almost, Maine” and other oft-staged shows; from the left there have been concerns about depictions of race in “South Pacific” and “Thoroughly Modern Millie” and gender in “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” and “Bye Bye Birdie” and “Grease.” And at individual schools there have been any number of unexpected complaints, about the presence of bullying in “Mean Girls” and the absence of white characters in “Fences,” about the words “damn” (in “Oklahoma”) and “bastards” (in “Newsies”) and “God” (in “The Little Mermaid”). | 