RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
September 15 to September 21, 2024 In RealClearInvestigations, Julie Kelly reports that despite Attorney General Merrick Garland's professions of neutrality in applying the law, his words clearly belie the Justice Department's deeds, in the view of many, as it has repeatedly put its thumb on the scale of justice to defeat Donald Trump: In 2016, the DOJ and FBI began their pursuit of the Russia-gate collusion hoax lasting years. In 2020, the FBI duped the American public with its refusal to say it not only had possession of Hunter Biden’s incendiary laptop but it had verified it, even as Joe Biden claimed it was a Russian plant. Most recently, after being rebuffed by the Supreme Court, Special Counsel Jack Smith filed a new indictment against Trump regarding the 2020 election – with the 2024 campaign in full swing. In recent weeks, the DOJ, led by U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves, has accelerated arrests of those who protested at and breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Several new defendants live in swing states, which reintroduces January 6 in local and national headlines while bolstering key talking points of Democrat standard-bearer Kamala Harris and others in this year's campaign. She and other Trump antagonists regularly demonize the former president as a Hitlerian "threat to democracy." That’s the kind of rhetoric adopted by the second and latest alleged would-be Trump assassin to emerge in the campaign, before his arrest this past weekend. Waste of the Day
by Jeremy Portnoy, Open the Books NASA Rocket Launcher Price Takes Off, RCI
Military Buildings Wouldn't Pass Inspection, RCI
Trans Legal Bonanza Under Gov. Walz, RCI
Sky-High Costs at Low-Traffic Airports, RCI
Rich Get Richer Under Biden Tax Credits, RCI Election 2024 and the Beltway Here is a story that seems destined for the dominant media’s memory hole. It reports that an Alaska man was arrested after allegedly threatening to torture and assassinate six Supreme Court justices and their relatives, according to the Justice Department: Panos Anastasiou, 76, is accused of sending more than 465 messages through the Supreme Court’s public website — many of them violent, racist and homophobic, according to an indictment filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Alaska. … “WE NEED MASS ASSASSINATIONS. If you’re corrupt you’re corrupt,” the suspect allegedly wrote in an expletive-filled message to the Supreme Court that included an apparent reference to “official and unofficial” acts. “The internet is abuzz with Americans clamoring for your ASSASSINATIONS.” Although the six justices are not named, it seems clear from the indictment that Anastasiou was targeting the court’s six conservative members. Coming on the heels of the two attempts on Donald Trump’s life, along with the 2022 arrest of man with a knife and gun outside Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Maryland home, one might expect calls for a national reckoning about the left’s rhetoric demonizing Republicans. In March 2021, for example, Senate majority Leader Chuck Schumer warned at a pro-abortion rally: “I want to tell you, [Justice Neil] Gorsuch. I want to tell you, Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.” Our guess is this story will be all but forgotten by next week. Let’s hope we’re wrong. Other Election 2024 and the Beltway How Roberts Shaped Trump's High Court Win Streak, New York Times
Chief Justice Roberts Targeted by Leak to NYT, Washington Examiner
Suspect Held for New Trump Assassination Try in Florida, Daily Mail
A Visual Guide to the Latest Trump Assassination Attempt, Guardian
Secret Service's Many Failures at Trump Rally, New York Times
Feds Fail to Recover Hundreds of Billions in COVID Fraud, Center Square
Ex-Border Official Accuses Biden-Harris of Migrant Coverup, New York Post Other Noteworthy Articles and Series So much U.S. attention is focused on Gaza and Ukraine that the desperate, deadly plight of other people around the world gets little attention. Three recent articles catalogue some of this misery: In Congo, the Wall Street Journal reports on the brutal toll taken by the endless war between Congolese rebels backed by Rwanda and the Congolese army. “In the camps around Goma that host some 500,000 displaced people, an estimated 80% of the women have been raped, including girls as young as 8, according to psychologists, nurses and others working with survivors of sexual violence.” One reason the problem has gotten worse is that “funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development for its main sexual-violence prevention and response project in eastern Congo ended last year. A $100 million grant by the World Bank that financed medical and legal services for survivors, community outreach and initiatives that helped women in the region earn a living also expired in September 2023.” In Zimbabwe and Namibia, the Associated Press reports that severe drought is causing so much hunger that authorities “have announced plans to slaughter hundreds of wild elephants and other animals” for food. The Namibian government last month approved the culling of 723 animals, including 83 elephants, 30 hippos, 60 buffalos, 50 impalas, 300 zebras and 100 elands, among others. The animals will be sourced from five of Namibia’s national parks, where it is also looking to reduce its elephant numbers amid conflicts between people and wildlife. “This is necessary and is in line with our constitutional mandate where our natural resources are used for the benefit of Namibian citizens,” environment department spokesman Romeo Muyunda said. “This is also a prime example that conservation of game is really beneficial.” In Afghanistan, the Washington Post reports that the Taliban has begun enforcing new draconian laws regarding women. “The new religious code issued late last month bans women from raising their voices, reciting the Quran in public and looking at men other than their husbands or relatives. It requires women to cover the lower half of their faces in addition to donning a head covering they were already expected to wear, among other rules.” Federal law requires emergency rooms to stabilize patients in medical distress before discharging or transferring them. This article reports that many hospitals violate this rule with impunity. Just a dozen hospitals have been fined for refusing to treat patients over the past two years, an AP analysis of civil monetary penalties issued by the U.S. Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General found. It took years for the government to decide those penalties. This article focuses on pregnant women who were denied care: Emergency rooms denied care to pregnant women, sometimes leaving them to miscarry in bathrooms, deliver babies in cars or develop risky infections. Some repeatedly flouted the mandate without consequence, including one Tennessee emergency room with such long wait times that a pregnant woman had to be hospitalized for a week after an 8-hour wait and a man with chest pain collapsed in the lobby, then died. … Not one of the more than 100 emergency rooms that mistreated or turned away pregnant women since 2022, when the Biden administration pledged to toughen enforcement of the law, has been fined. “What little we know about the investigations have yielded very rare results,” said Sara Rosenbaum, a George Washington University health law and policy professor. From the Annals of Biased Reporting, this New York Times reports that Sweden is doing an about-face on immigration. Instead of opening its arms to new migrants the government is offering to pay those who have already arrived to go back home: On Thursday, the Scandinavian country’s right-wing government announced that it would raise the existing benefit — 10,000 krona (or about $978) per adult— to 350,000 krona per person, and reduce the red tape involved in applying for the grant in a bid to create more awareness about the incentive and attract more takers. The existing benefit includes a cap for families of 40,000 krona, or about $3717; no cap was announced for the increased grant. Why is Sweden doing this? The Times tells readers it is because of the rise of the “rise in right-wing and populist parties.” What will be the impact? “Promoting repatriation [will] hinder migrants’ integration into Swedish society.” Absent is any discussion of crime, especially the soaring rate of gun crimes, and social tensions contributed to by the influx of migrants. Crime is mentioned just once, to slam the government: “Sweden’s stricter immigration and asylum policies create an environment of uncertainty for migrants, which makes it harder for them to find formal work, and more vulnerable to crime.” For the Times a broad discussion of the reasons behind the new migrant policy – fueled by growing concerns of the nation’s citizens – is apparently beyond the pale and unworthy of mention. When it comes to prostitution, justice is not so blind in Massachusetts, this article suggests. Court data on more than 200 criminal clerk-magistrate hearings from 2020 to 2022 in the Bay State shows that clerks were nearly twice as likely to dismiss cases against men as compared with women. People who hired a lawyer – mostly men – were also twice as likely to avoid charges: The court data obtained by WBUR shows a majority of the proposed charges brought by police for prostitution at the hearings were against men. But clerks approved only 42% of the charges against men — compared to 70% of the cases against women. In most cases, men are buying sex, while women are selling it, said [Desiree] Demos, [executive director at the EVA Center, a Boston nonprofit that wants to end prostitution and help people leave the sex trade]. "You are both engaging in sexual acts, right?" Demos said. "But for some reason, a woman is considered a criminal." She said the difference in treatment is unfair: “We continue to prioritize the livelihood of a man over the rights of women.” | 