RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
July 30 to August 5, 2023 In RealClearInvestigations, Paul Sperry reports that efforts to mislead a federal court in order to spy on the Trump campaign were more extensive than previously reported: The FBI tried to hide its misconduct by redacting supposed evidence – actually a bogus Washington Post story ‒ under the guise that it involved sensitive intelligence information. Sperry reports: The FBI tried to justify continuing to spy on ex-Trump adviser Carter Page in early 2017 by indicating to the secret FISA court that it had verified a rumor about Page receiving dirt on Hillary Clinton from Russia. But the bureau had corroborated no such thing. Its source was a report in the Washington Post wrongly implicating a Belarusian-American businessman named Sergei Millian – one the newspaper later retracted after determining it was false. The embarrassing revelation hasn’t been previously reported thanks to redactions blacking out references to the Post article in the still partially classified applications. But Sperry uncovered the subterfuge through two former U.S. officials who have seen the original, unredacted FISA applications and described the passages to RCI. FBI Director Christopher Wray recently told Congress he has instituted reforms in response to the FISA surveillance abuses, yet at the same time he appears to have tried to hide the full extent of those abuses under redactions. This is not the only instance in which the FBI misrepresented unconfirmed news reports to secure authorization to spy on the Trump campaign. In RealClearInvestigations and on leefang.com, Lee Fang reports that sustained opposition to a planned Atlanta police academy – derisively dubbed “Cop City” – is now among the most popular protest causes of self-styled radicals, despite the clear need for more and better police training: Organizers ignore the academy’s training curriculum and say it’s aimed at advancing “white supremacy” and “militarization.” But the center has significant black support. It’s backed by the present mayor and was spearheaded by his predecessor -- both of whom are black, as are most city council members backing the project. Activists have called their protest an attempt to “link intensive policing [and] undemocratic land use processes with the issue of climate change,” and “a global struggle against fascism” to “disrupt the machinery of capitalism.” Leftists around the nation and abroad have come to Atlanta to protest. In recent violent clashes, only two of 23 arrested were from Georgia. In January, state troopers killed an armed protester in an exchange of gunfire, adding fuel to what one commentator called the “activist Lollapalooza.” The protest movement is well-funded and gets glowing coverage in prestige media. James “Fergie” Chambers, anarchist heir to a media fortune, promised $600,000 to the campaign. A liberal foundation funded by Mark Zuckerberg advises activists on how to derail the training center. Highly trained police officers, studies consistently show, are better at defusing violent confrontations and less likely to engage in racial bias. Georgia’s cops are among the least trained in the country. Waste of the Day
by Adam Andrzejewski, Open the Books Justice Sotomayor’s Staff Book-Flogging, RCI
NYC Pays Big Over 'Biased' Teaching Test, RCI
U.S. Debt Up $1T After Debt-Ceiling Deal, RCI
The College Job Machine That Wasn't RCI
Funding Junior Space Cadets in India, RCI Biden, Trump and the Beltway Transcript: Devon Archer Under Oath Spilling on Bidens, House Oversight Committee
Joe's Role in Hunter’s Deals With Chinese, Russians, Ukrainians, New York Post
Devon Archer: Joe Came to Dinner, and Hunter Got Sportscar, Daily Mail
Ex-Hunter Biden Partner: Joe On Business Calls ‘for the Brand’, New York Post
Burisma Pressed Hunter to Remove Prosecutor Joe Later Fired, Just the News
Biden DOJ Indicts Trump for 'Role' in Jan. 6 Capitol Riot, Fox News
Ousted DeSantis Campaign Aides on State Payroll, Axios
Rand Paul Asks DOJ to Indict Fauci for Perjury, Fox News Other Noteworthy Articles and Series First Solar is having a banner year, thanks to Uncle Sam -- or perhaps more precisely Grandpa Joe. The Arizona-based solar panel manufacturer expects to receive as much as $710 million this year, nearly 90% of forecast operating profit, from U.S. subsidies rolled out a year ago to encourage domestic renewables production. One analyst estimates the incentives could be worth more than $10 billion for the company over the next decade. The company’s shares have more than doubled to $208.40 in Friday trade since the beginning of 2022, despite a string of earnings disappointments during that period. Since the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act last August, First Solar has promised so far to plow more than $2.8 billion into new manufacturing and research facilities in the U.S., including a new factory announced on Thursday. … The Biden administration’s signature climate legislation could ultimately provide $1 trillion in support for clean-energy projects, largely through tax credits tied to benchmarks such as the amount of wind power generated or solar panels produced. So far, it has helped spur around $110 billion in announcements for factories and other facilities to make everything from wind turbines to battery components, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal. The article reports that First Solar also stands out because it is an American company. Much of Biden’s subsidies “involve overseas clean-energy giants; many won’t be finished for years. First Solar is one of a handful of big U.S.-based manufacturers with sizable U.S. factories that are already eligible for the incentives.” The Age of the Robocop is drawing closer. For instance, if you call 911 to report an emergency, the odds are increasing that a drone will be the first unit sent to respond. Just this week, this article reports, police departments in Salem, New Hampshire; Gresham, Oregon; and Luverne, Alabama announced the purchase of drones. Generally, police drones – which can arrive much faster than human cops – don’t carry weapons and are used primarily for video surveillance. It is possible, however, for small drones to deliver chemical irritants like tear gas, a technology that police in Israel have used against Palestinians. More than 1,500 departments across the country now use them, “mostly for search and rescue as well as to document crime scenes and chase suspects,” according to a February report in the MIT Technology Review. Some agencies, like the New York Police Department, are experimenting with other uses, like public safety warnings during emergencies. It’s a new space where regulations and safeguards appear to be lagging behind adoption. … Many of the cities using drones in policing are doing so from so-called “real-time crime centers,” which are growing in popularity as well. These units function as centralized hubs to connect the various bits of surveillance and data that police collect from things like stationary cameras, drones, license plate readers and technology that listens for possible gunshots. Some centers can even integrate police body cameras and video from Ring doorbells at the homes of people who sign up. The use of drones is raising concerns. This article reports that in a recent report, the American Civil Liberties Union warns that these kinds of drone programs may normalize usage and “usher in an era of pervasive, suspicion-less, mass aerial surveillance.” From the Annals of Ideology, the Biden Administration plans to spend $3 billion replicating California’s failed approach to homelessness: President Joe Biden's Department of Housing and Urban Development in July announced its investment in so-called Housing First programs, which subsidize rent costs for those living on the street but do not impose drug or mental health treatment requirements. California adopted those programs in 2016 and has since seen its homeless population steadily grow. Last year, for example, California was home to 30 percent of the nation's homeless people, despite Californians making up less than 12 percent of the U.S. population. From 2020 to 2022, California's homeless population increased by roughly 6 percent, a rate 15 times higher than the rest of the country. Housing First programs have failed the Golden State, experts told the Washington Free Beacon, because they exclude treatment requirements for issues that commonly plague the homeless, such as substance abuse and mental illness. As a result, homeless people who receive housing subsidies often continue using drugs and fail to become independent, Manhattan Institute senior fellow Stephen Eide argued. In 2021, the New York Times published an ambitious series about climate change titled, “Postcards from a World on Fire.” The recent Canadian wildfires that have choked parts of the U.S. this summer would only seem to confirm the news paper’s narrative. In fact, the scientists Bjorn Lomborg reports in this piece, the narrative is false: For more than two decades, satellites have recorded fires across the planet’s surface. The data are unequivocal: Since the early 2000s, when 3% of the world’s land caught fire, the area burned annually has trended downward. In 2022, the last year for which there are complete data, the world hit a new record-low of 2.2% burned area. Yet you’ll struggle to find that reported anywhere. Lomborg notes that both Canada’s prime minister and the White House have attributed Canada’s wildfires to climate change. “Yet the latest report by the United Nations’ climate panel doesn’t attribute the area burned globally by wildfires to climate change. Instead, it vaguely suggests the weather conditions that promote wildfires are becoming more common in some places. Still, the report finds that the change in these weather conditions won’t be detectable above the natural noise even by the end of the century.” For centuries, eating dog meat has been an antidote to the dog days of summer for many Koreans, who see it as a source of stamina. That tradition may be coming to an end, this article reports, thanks to increasing public awareness of animal rights and worries about South Korea’s international image: The anti-dog meat campaign recently received a big boost when the country’s first lady expressed her support for a ban and two lawmakers submitted bills to eliminate the dog meat trade. “Foreigners think South Korea is a cultural powerhouse. But the more K-culture increases its international standing, the bigger shock foreigners experience over our dog meat consumption,” said Han Jeoungae, an opposition lawmaker who submitted legislation to outlaw the dog meat industry last month. This article reports on a visit to one of the country’s largest dog farms, which raises more than 7,000 animals. “All dogs are kept in elevated cages and are fed with food waste and ground chicken. They are rarely released for exercise and typically are sold for meat one year after they are born.” Dogs are also eaten in China, Vietnam, Indonesia, North Korea and some African countries, including Ghana, Cameroon, Congo and Nigeria. | 