RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
October 27 to November 2 Featured Investigation: Her Father’s Daughter: Donald Harris’ Hidden Influence on Kamala Donald Harris has been all but invisible as his daughter Kamala seeks the nation’s highest office. Although the New York Times reports that the two have been “estranged” for years, an examination of their six-decade relationship by Paul Sperry of RealClearInvestigations shows that Donald Harris - a well-known economist whose writings have been strongly influenced by Karl Marx and social justice theory - has been more of a factor in her life and intellectual development than is commonly understood. In 1961, Donald Jasper Harris immigrated to America from Jamaica and eventually earned a PhD from the University of California at Berkeley- where he joined a radical black Marxist group on campus known as the Afro American Association and gave lectures on “social inequality.” The group’s other members included Huey Newton, who would help found the Black Panther Party, and black nationalist Aubrey LaBrie. When Kamala was sworn in to the Senate, she placed her hand on an old Bible that belonged to LaBrie’s aunt. In 1972, Harris penned a 33-page paper, “The Black Ghetto as Colony,” that examined Karl Marx’s analysis of “super-exploitation” of black workers. He advanced the Marxist conspiracy theory that capitalists keep blacks in a chronic state of unemployment as a “reserve army” of labor they can tap into when factories reach full capacity. This way, he claimed, they are able to suppress black workers’ wages. Forty years later, when he was advising the Jamaican government, Harris argued that, “The issue of how to achieve sustainable economic growth with social equity remains a matter of primary concern.” Kamala followed in her father’s footsteps, majoring in economics at Howard University. During her long career she has shown unwavering support for government welfare programs and race-based preferences, and the redistribution of income to pay for them. In a 2021 interview with Forbes, Kamala argued capitalism is based on the “false assumption” of equal opportunity. “What we have to do is recognize the disparities that have long existed,” between whites and blacks and rich and poor, and close them through socioeconomic programs, such as affordable housing, guaranteed minimum wage, universal health care and industrial policy initiatives. She also announced that she would enact “the first ever federal ban on price gouging — setting clear rules to make clear that big corporations can’t unfairly exploit consumers to run up excessive corporate profits on food and groceries.” She said the pricing rules would be enforced by the Federal Trade Commission. Sperry reports that Donald Harris has long been a part of her life. In early 2019, when she announced her bid for the White House, her father offered to give her and her campaign economic policy advice. The next year, her father sent a letter to Kamala congratulating her on her nomination to the Democratic ticket as Joe Biden’s running mate. After her 2020 election, Kamala invited her father to the inauguration festivities. Property records show that the 86-year-old lives in a condo less than two miles from the vice presidential mansion where Kamala Harris lives with her husband. on the grounds of the Naval Observatory. Her father has lived in Washington since Kamala was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2016; and back then, they lived right down the street from each other. Featured Investigation: As Liz Cheney Slams Trump’s Character, Her Integrity Comes Under Fire As former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney is warning attendees at Kamala Harris rallies that Donald Trump does not respect the “rule of law” or the U.S. Constitution, new evidence has surfaced suggesting Cheney may have unethically influenced crucial anti-Trump testimony while serving as vice chairman of the January 6 Committee. Julie Kelly reports for RealClearInvestigations that Cheney had contact with star anti-Trump witness, Cassidy Hutchinson, without the consent of Hutchinson’s lawyer. On June 6, 2020, Hutchinson texted Cheney using Signal asking “to have a private conversation with you,” according to information released by the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight. The texts appear to indicate Cheney and Hutchinson spoke on the phone shortly after that initial outreach. A few days later Hutchinson dismissed her attorney at the time, former Trump deputy general counsel Stefan Passantino. Two Cheney-recommended lawyers, Jody Hunt and William Jordan, soon agreed to represent Hutchinson pro bono. But Hutchinson did more than just change lawyers; in several instances, she changed her story from her previous testimony she had given to the Committee. In one of the more explosive moments of the nationally televised testimony Hutchinson gave two weeks later, Cheney held up the handwritten draft of a tweet for President Donald Trump to post instructing protestors to disperse from the Capitol. Hutchinson, a former aide to then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, said the note had been dictated to her by her boss, and that the handwriting was hers. But a certified handwriting analyst retained by Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga), chairman of the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight, determined that Hutchinson did not write the note. The handwriting, according to the expert, belongs to Eric Herschmann, a Trump White House lawyer who had immediately contradicted Hutchinson’s testimony in 2022 and later provided several samples of his own handwriting to Loudermilk’s analyst. Hutchinson went on to testify twice more behind closed doors in September 2022 as her stories continued to change. In fact, her attorneys filed a 15- page errata sheet that same month to significantly revise her earlier testimony. Waste of the Day by Jeremy Portnoy, Open the Books $22 Million For Radical Professors, RCI Miss. Lawmaker Brings Pork Spending Home, RCI $275,000 Not To Work In Orange County, RCI Aviation Officials Threw Expensive Party, RCI TX Official Paid $942,000 to Resign, RCI Election 2024 and the Beltway Why Ivanka Trump Isn't Campaigning for Her Dad, New York Times AS S.F. D.A. Harris Raised Bar for Murder Charges, National Review Biden-Harris DOJ Fighting Election Integrity Efforts, Just The News Mich: Noncitizen Vote Counts, Detroit News Michigan: One Resident Has Allegedly Voted 29 Times, PJ Media Is There a Plot to Use Migrants to Turn America Blue?, Free Press Will Laken Riley’s Murder Tip Georgia?, New Yorker Harris Campaign Manipulating X To Censor Criticism, Federalist How Harris Campaign Manipulates Reddit, Federalist Other Noteworthy Articles and Series Brutal Russian Repression in Occupied Ukraine New York Times Russia has imposed a system of repression reminiscent of the worst Soviet excesses in the territories of Ukraine – comprising about one-fifth of that country’s land mass – that it occupies. This article reports that the system includes a “a gulag of more than 100 prisons, detention facilities, informal camps and basements.” The abuses almost always occur unseen and unheard by the outside world, as Russia-controlled areas are largely inaccessible to independent journalists and human rights investigators. But human rights organizations and Ukrainian prosecutors and government officials have managed to monitor the situation closely, drawing on accounts from civilians who are either still living there or who have found a way to leave. The ultimate aim of Moscow’s efforts, rights advocates said, is to extinguish Ukrainian identity through such tactics as propaganda, re-education, torture, forced Russian citizenship and sending children to live in Russia. This article reports that “Ukrainian prosecutors and a United Nations special rapporteur have documented hundreds of abuses occurring under Russian occupation from enforced disappearances, summary executions of civilians, unlawful detention, torture and sexual violence.” New York’s Plague of Youth Crime Hannah E. Meyers, City Journal Even as New York City officials tout a decrease in overall crime, this article reports that teen crime – and victimization – is exploding across the Big Apple. In 2023, 4,798 youths were arrested for infractions encompassing the seven index crimes, a 42 percent jump over 2022. Nearly 100 of these episodes occurred in public housing and 113 in the transit system. Over a quarter more of the crimes took place within domestic settings than in the previous year. Youth arrests for rape were up 84 percent last year over 2020, and they’re up nearly another 10 percent in 2024, year-to-date. Almost 250 more felony assault youth arrests occurred last year than just the year before, a 27 percent escalation. Children are, increasingly victims of crime as well. Last year, 4,843 New Yorkers under 18 were victims of the seven major crimes – a 15 percent increase over 2022, or 631 more incidents, including 254 more qualifying as domestic crimes. Worse, the numbers mark a rise of greater than 60 percent since 2020, or 1,823 more victims. … Youths are also getting slashed and stabbed at rates 116 percent higher than in 2021. … A telling indicator of unsafe lives, instances of children running away or going missing have risen by a third over the past few years – 1,522 more disappeared last year than in 2021, and that number has grown again in 2024. This article reports that journalists, and even citizens have mostly ignored the problem. “Their ignorance is made easier by the increasing difficulty of obtaining accurate data, thanks to the widespread concern among city leaders that collecting and sharing such information could stigmatize young blacks and Hispanics, disproportionately represented in the ranks of the offenders.” Wave of Drugs and Violence Catching Germany Off Guard Der Spiegel Drug gangs are operating with impunity in Northen Europe, unleashing waves of violence and lawlessness. This article focuses on Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium where law enforcement is battling Central American and Eastern European cartels who have managed to smuggle tons of cocaine into the country. In 2013, German officials managed to confiscate one ton of cocaine, five in 2016, another 10 in 2019 and then 20 in 2022. Last year it was 43 tons. Investigators presume that in the best-case scenario, they are only able to intercept 30 percent of the deliveries, but it could be as low as 10 percent. … It is no longer the drug of high society. Rather, at six to seven euros per line, blow has become an everyday drug of the masses, for all those looking to dial back their anxieties or dial up their performance. … The real wake-up call that has changed everything is the brutality of the cocaine gangs, particularly in Belgium and the Netherlands, including contract killings, bombings, drive-by shootings and more. A Belgian justice minister who the cocaine mafia wanted to kidnap. The daughter of a Dutch king who had to abandon her studies in Amsterdam out of fear of the drug gangs. A famous television journalist who was murdered by a shot to the head. All the blood on the streets, spilled by the criminals themselves, but also by passersby who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. And behind all the attacks, the pure disdain for the police, the judiciary and the state. All that has shaken Europe out of its slumber and made clear that while cocaine might be in the foreground, this battle is for something much bigger: the rise of the dark power of organized criminality, referred to by German investigators by its initials. OC. In a separate article, the Wall Street Journal reports that a new conflict is playing out on the border of Syria and Jordan: a war against captagon, an amphetamine-like drug that’s taken off across the region. “It’s all added up to a multibillion-dollar drug trade that is fueling more conflict in the region. Money from drug smuggling has lined the pockets of Iran-backed militias, including Hezbollah, which has spent vast amounts of its proceeds on weapons to fight Israel. The drug props up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose regime has become one of the world’s biggest drug syndicates, helping it offset years of punishing Western economic sanctions.” Supreme Court Sparks Lawsuits Against Federal Regulations Washington Post For roughly four decades, the Supreme Court’s ruling in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council essentially instructed judges to defer to federal agencies’ interpretations of the law, on the grounds that those regulators could best divine the intentions of an imprecise Congress. In June, though, the court threw out that framework, known as the Chevron doctrine, sending immediate shock waves through the judicial system. This article reports that that decision, along with two others that sharply limit the government’s regulatory powers, have inspired more than 150 new or ongoing legal challenges from major businesses and their lobbying groups that could invalidate a vast array of federal climate, education, health and labor rules. Major companies including Amazon and SpaceX, and leading lobbying groups for restaurants and other industries, have incorporated elements of the new Supreme Court decisions into a range of lawsuits against regulations on wages, overtime pay, whistleblower protections or union organizing, court records show. … Lobbying groups for AT&T and Verizon have cited the opinions in their campaign to thwart federal regulations that would prevent them from interfering with internet traffic. Airlines including American, Delta and United have referenced one of the cases to keep the government from requiring them to disclose baggage fees. … Similar arguments have been deployed at times against federal efforts to promote energy-efficient home appliances. The article does not report that the Court’s decision did not quibble with the substance of such rules, but addressed who has the authority to make them. In its view, that is up to democratically elected leaders, not unelected bureaucrats. Japan: Depopulated Village Uses Puppets for Sense of Life NBC News Loneliness is an epidemic across much of the developed world. In America technology has often stepped into the breach as many people’s closest confidant is named Siri. One remote village in Japan has taken a different approach - replacing people with puppets. Fewer than 60 people live in Ichinono, and most of them are past retirement age as younger people have moved away for jobs or education. So, using old clothes, fabrics and mannequins, residents have stitched together their own population of puppets to keep them company. Some of puppets ride swings, others push firewood carts, smiling eerily at visitors. “We’re probably outnumbered by puppets,” Hisayo Yamazaki, an 88-year-old widow, told the Agence France-Presse news agency. The idea may catch on in Japan, where the total population declined for the 15th consecutive year in 2023, with a record low of 730,000 newborns but an all-time high of 1.58 million deaths. |
