RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
April 3 to April 9, 2022 Health research is moving beyond woke virtue-signaling to a concerted effort to turn “anti-racism” into hard science, John Murawski reports for RealClearInvestigations. Dissenters view the approach as unscientific and ideological, but moves are afoot to “prove” that policing and denying felons the right to vote are bad for black community health, as shown by rates of black smoking, stress, obesity, domestic violence and other factors. Murawski reports: - This effort is being advanced by top medical journals, including Washington-based Health Affairs, dubbed the “bible of health policy”; the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and Scientific American.
- But the effort faces major challenges. Science demands verification, testability, and replicability, whereas “systemic racism” derives from academic theories.
- In Health Affairs, researchers argue that depriving black felons of the right to vote harms the health of the entire community.
- Others link urban policing, specifically stop-and-frisk encounters, to domestic violence and violent crime, as well as to poorer community health.
- One thing that proponents are not doing: studying whether or not racism actually affects health outcomes. “They believe that this fundamental question has already been answered,” an article states.
- Dissenters argue that “anti-racism” can be hard to distinguish from anti-science when it fixates on a single variable (race), selectively seeks out data to prove a hypothesis (confirmation bias), ignores plausible alternative explanations and – worst of all – silences criticism.
Are proposed new American SEC regulations practical in seeking to bend the global economy to the green agenda? Unpacking the question in RealClearInvestigations, Vince Bielski finds ample reasons for doubt. That’s primarily because companies would now have to calculate not only their own carbon footprints but those of everyone in the world they work with. It’s a tall and very expensive order, Bielski reports: - For a box of Cocoa Puffs cereal, General Mills would have to determine the emissions of thousands of cocoa farms in Africa, corn fields in the U.S. and sugar plantations in Latin America.
- Then it would have to add in the carbon footprints of thousands of processors, transporters, packagers, distributors, office workers, retailers, and end consumers – the kid at the breakfast table who’s Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.
- Even proponents of the rules concede companies face big obstacles in complying, given the complexity of tallying emissions and the lack of data.
- If the SEC rules pass, many companies would have to spend hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars on consultants to perform the calculations.
- Those calculations will still rely on computer models and be, at best, ballpark estimates.
- Much of President Biden’s ambitious climate agenda is riding on these rules, since he’s having trouble in Congress coming to terms with coal-state moderate Joe Manchin in the evenly divided Senate.
While many government leaders sound the all-clear message on the pandemic, dropping vaccine restrictions and mask mandates, some states and municipalities are clinging to the emergency powers that allowed them to govern people’s behavior in unprecedented ways, Steve Miller reports for RealClearInvestigations. In response, critics are challenging the power to keep such sweeping measures in place indefinitely, saying pandemic lockdowns exposed political leaders’ unduly stringent authoritarian impulses. Miller reports: - Twelve states, seven of them with a Democratic governor and legislature, have emergency orders still in place.
- Dozens of lawsuits challenging emergency authority have been filed against governors of both political stripes.
- In Nevada, the state of emergency has been declared in perpetuity despite lawmakers’ efforts to curb Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak.
- In Kansas, the emergency authority of Gov. Laura Kelly, also a Democrat, extends to January 2023, in the face of dissent from the state’s director of public health – a former political ally.
- The struggle over emergency powers is also happening within states. In Texas, cities and counties have ignored Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s COVID-19 rules, insisting they have the right to impose masking and other measures.
- Ruling by decree over during the pandemic “is part of a broader move to condense power to the executive branch,” says a conservative analyst.
Biden, Trump and the Beltway Renewed media interest in Hunter Biden’s financial dealings as a Department of Justice probe of the first son heats up is raising ever more questions about the president. This article reports that Joe Biden has released only his personal income tax returns – leaving a black hole regarding “the source of most of his income, dollars that flowed to him and his wife Jill by way of S-corporations they set up shortly after his departure from the office of vice president": Those entities, CelticCapri Corp (his) and Giacoppa Corp (hers), contained more than $13 million of the $17 million the couple had reported in income after Biden left office, most of it in the first year (2017). In a separate article, the New York Post reports that current White House chief of staff Ron Klain approached Hunter Biden in September 2012 for help raising $20,000 for a foundation that looks after the vice president’s residence, where Joe lived at the time. It is not clear if Hunter’s company made the donation, but it suggests a potential tie between money Hunter’s influence-peddling and a direct benefit to his father. In another article the New York Post reports: A witness who testified before the Hunter Biden grand jury was asked to identify the “big guy” in the first son’s planned deal with a Chinese energy conglomerate — as calls ramped up to have President Biden included in a conspiracy probe. A bombshell email exclusively reported by The Post in October 2020 showed that one of Hunter Biden’s business partners, James Gilliar, outlined the proposed percentage distribution of equity in a company created for a joint venture with CEFC China Energy Co. The March 13, 2017, plan included “10 held by H[unter] for the big guy?” Former Biden associate Tony Bobulinski has identified Joe Biden as the “big guy.” Other Biden, Trump and the Beltway '14 Ukraine War: Hunter Biden's Play for Profit Just the News
Worried Spy Agency Sought Biden Laptop in 2020 Just the News
Secret Service Pays $30K/Mo. for Hunter Biden Malibu Pad ABC News
VP Biden Touted Son of Hunter's Chinese Business Partner Fox News
Hunter Biden Whistleblower Says He Has More Material Daily Mail
Durham: Smoking-Gun Text of Clinton Lawyer's Deception Just the News
Biden Support for Puberty Blockers Relies on Flawed Study Free Beacon
Biden Directs ICE To Drop 'Low-Priority' Immigration Cases New York Times Other Noteworthy Articles and Series LAPD officers – like police around the country – are trained to view people they’ve just shot as ongoing threats. The result is that officers routinely wait several minutes before approaching those suspects, then focus on handcuffing and searching them, often delaying medical attention or taking no steps to give any until paramedics arrive, a Times review of nearly 50 LAPD shootings and hours of associated video found: On average, 3 minutes and 40 seconds passed before officers reached the person they had shot in the 39 shootings in which it was possible to time their response, The Times found. The suspect appeared to be unconscious by the time police reached them in 22 of the shootings, and was at least partially incapacitated in the rest, the videos show. And in all but one of the shootings, the person was handcuffed after being turned over onto their chest or moved in other ways that experts say could have exacerbated their injuries, video showed. In some cases, they were then left facedown or simply held on their side for several more minutes as officers waited for paramedics, The Times found. The article also reports that officers who did not provide aid – pressure on the wound, CPR or other measures – were not punished, despite a department policy requiring them to assist those injured if they are able. LAPD officials determined instead that discussions about the lapses and retraining on the department’s policies were preferable. Inside her clapboard house in Cheyenne, Wyoming, 77-year-old Cyndy Jackson represents more than 350 companies operating in the United States and around the world. Her clients have included companies tied to a disbarred lawyer convicted in California of “pimping and pandering” at massage parlors, a felon who served time in New York for defrauding investors, and a Ukrainian tycoon accused of stealing billions of dollars from one of his nation’s largest banks. Drawing from thousands of files thousands of company records filed with the state of Wyoming, one of America’s most secretive tax havens, this article reports that the largely unregulated work of “representative agents” such as Jackson is a weak point in the U.S. financial system. While banks must vet customers, registered agents aren’t uniformly required to verify their identities. “If I were a criminal or ran a criminal enterprise, I would have a field day with registered agents, because I just need to find another adult with a pulse,” said Sarah Beth Felix, a former banking compliance executive. “Who’s going to make sure they are doing the right thing?” … Wyoming, Delaware and Nevada have been at the forefront of a national debate about whether to ramp up oversight of registered agents. Those states and a handful of others are havens for hidden wealth, prized by company owners for their low incorporation fees, scant regulation and offers of anonymity. Since the Great Recession, when millions of Americans lost their homes to foreclosure, large companies have been expanding their portfolios of tens of thousands of single-family suburban houses, a disproportionate number of them located in majority black neighborhoods. This has spawned complaints that the companies are pricing out first-time home buyers and renting to tenants who have not been properly screened. It has also sparked vigorous pushback in the North Carolina community featured in this article, which describes how residents are using the authority of the homeowners association – which can punish residents for failing to cut their grass and stop them from using odd paint colors – to prevent new buyers from renting out properties for at least two years. One current resident explains, “We didn’t want to become a renter’s paradise. We want people who are going to plant flowers and trees because it’s their home.” But the leader of the National Rental Home Council countered, “Preventing single-family rental home companies – of any size – from purchasing homes in a community does nothing but reduce the availability of affordably priced rental housing.” The 81-mile stretch from Tulum to Cancún, known as the Riviera Maya, draws 13 million visitors a year to its lush beaches, golf courses and all-inclusive luxury resorts. The area accounts for nearly half of Mexico’s tourism revenue. But, this article reports, it is also the scene of an alarming rise in murders, mostly fueled by demand for drugs from the vacationers themselves: It’s an ideal arrangement for the cartels. Rather than risk smuggling drugs to the U.S. and Europe, they cater to American and European tourists looking to buy Mexican-grown pot, Colombian cocaine, ecstasy from Europe or other drugs. The area has become increasingly known as a party destination. Tulum has an estimated 10 drug gangs, the majority linked to the country’s biggest drug cartels. … Most tourists are unaware of the violence, but it is increasingly intruding into the bubble of five-star hotels. In mid-March, tourists on the beach in Cancún’s hotel zone found what turned out to be human remains: a spinal cord, a femur and part of a pelvis. … In January, gunmen entered a beachside club in trendy Playa del Carmen during the day, grabbed the manager and executed him in the bathroom. Investigators believe the manager was killed over the mayor’s cancellation of a days long music rave there, a move that resulted in lost sales for drug traffickers. Fighting for social justice all day is exhausting, so it’s nice to have a comfy place to lay one’s head at night. This article reports that three main leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement have used donations to the cause to purchase a $6 million home in California whose 6,500 square feet feature more than half a dozen bedrooms and bathrooms, several fireplaces and a soundstage. The property also includes a pool, a bungalow and parking for more than 20 cars. The estate was not among the four homes the women were earlier reported to have purchased: The transaction has not been previously reported, and Black Lives Matter’s leadership had hoped to keep the house’s existence a secret. Documents, emails, and other communications I’ve seen about the luxury property’s purchase and day-to-day operation suggest that it has been handled in ways that blur, or cross, boundaries between the charity and private companies owned by some of its leaders. It creates the impression that money donated to the cause of racial justice has been spent in ways that benefit the leaders of Black Lives Matter personally. Coronavirus Investigations As health experts warned of millions of deaths from Covid, their public policy colleagues were predicting other apocalyptic fallouts: An “eviction tsunami” as renters were thrown on the street; a “she-cession” in which women left the workforce; a housing-market crash; the fiscal collapse of state and local governments. In each case, this article reports, expectations set by economists, policy makers, advocates, and businesses have not borne out. After documenting the errors, the article discusses four reasons why they occurred – including false assumptions, data overload, bias and a fundamental misunderstanding of economic behavior. But instead of asking the real question – do these so-called “experts” deserve the title and the authority it confers? – the article suggests that their failures are dangerous because they empower the right. In a crisis, credibility is extremely important to garnering policy change. And failed predictions may contribute to an unhealthy skepticism that much of the population has developed toward expertise. Panfil, the housing researcher, worries about exactly that: “We have this entire narrative from one side of the country that’s very anti-science and anti-data. … These sorts of things play right into that narrative, and that is damaging long-term.” Other Coronavirus Investigations Covid and Diabetes Colliding in Public Health Train Wreck New York Times
FDA's Experts Don't Know Why it Approved Another Booster Daily Caller |
