RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
April 18 to April 24. 2021 Featured Investigation:
The Shaky Foundations
of LA's Housing 'Entitlement'
for the Homeless Political leaders, activists, and media promote a simple solution to homelessness: build more housing. But as Christopher F. Rufo reports for RealClearInvestigations, Los Angeles’s five-year-old, $1.2 billion “Housing First” program is proving proponents spectacularly wrong -- not only with construction delays, massive cost overruns, and accusations of corruption, but through neglect of underlying factors like addiction and mental illness. Rufo reports: - Unsheltered homelessness in Los Angeles has increased 41%, vastly outpacing the construction of new supportive housing units.
- Under the housing program, some studio and one-bedroom apartments cost taxpayers more than $700,000 each -- construction costs similar to luxury condos in the fashionable parts of Los Angeles. Forty percent of the Housing First money went to consultants, lawyers, fees, and permitting.
- Popular studies used to demonstrate the merits of Housing First have deceptively inflated the suggested social and economic benefits of the program while minimizing costs.
- Even in arrangements where the sheltered homeless get access to social workers and medical professionals, there is little to no reduction in substance abuse, psychiatric symptoms, and other maladies. Participants are housed, but remain broken.
- Despite these failures, state and local governments across America are planning to throw billions of dollars at similar plans.
Biden, Trump and the Beltway Biden Set to Push Critical Race Theory on U.S. Schools National Review
Hunter Biden's Big China Deal Ambitions Just the News
Justice Dept. Opens Broad Inquiry of Minneapolis Police New York Times
'Defund Police' Dem 'Squad' Spends Big on Security Fox News
The Long Fight to Cancel Student Loans New Republic
Leaked ATF File Details Biden ‘Ghost Gun’ Ban Reload Other Noteworthy Articles and Series Postal Service Covertly Monitoring Social Media Posts
Yahoo
The law enforcement arm of the U.S. Postal Service has been quietly running a program that tracks and collects Americans’ social media posts, including those about planned protests, according to a document obtained by Yahoo News. Analysts trawl through social media sites to look for what the document describes as “inflammatory” postings and then share that information across government agencies. Posts on platforms such as Facebook and Parler have allowed law enforcement to track down and arrest rioters who assaulted the Capitol on Jan. 6. But such efforts have also sparked concerns about the government surveillance of peaceful protesters or those engaged in protected First Amendment activities. It is still not known why the postal service did this or if it has the legal authority to do so. Resellers Funnel Oracle Tech to Chinese Military
The Intercept
This article challenges claims by the tech giant Oracle that software it sells to China is not part of the communist government’s growing surveillance state. Instead, Oracle it appears to work, wittingly or not, through resellers that have “deep and long-standing relationships” with Oracle as well as “brokers that sell surveillance technology to the Chinese government.” Quote: Oracle’s website names as a partner a subsidiary of CEC, a state-owned conglomerate that was listed last year by the Defense Department for its military ties. The website of that subsidiary, Great Wall Computer Software and Systems, describes extensive work with the Ministry of Public Security and provincial public security departments. The broker has helped with “anti-terrorism” work (a term generally used to connote the crackdown against Muslim minorities in Xinjiang), its site says. Great Wall has also worked on a border control and surveillance system that involves the use of Oracle databases, according to Chinese state news agency Xinhua. Growing Heat on Banks Over Fossil-Fuel Loans
Bloomberg
Investors managing $11 trillion in assets have called on the world’s biggest banks to phase out financing of fossil-fuel companies and throw their weight behind the goals of the Paris climate agreement, this article reports. The investor group, which also includes Fidelity International and Legal & General Investment Management, sent a letter to 27 lenders, including JPMorgan Chase, HSBC and UBS. The letter asks the banks to commit to a full phaseout by 2050, including lending, trading and underwriting. In a separate article published in January, RealClearInvestigations reported on similar pressure campaigns on banks by Democrat leaders. Less SAT Reliance, More Diverse Elite Colleges
New York Times
Many elite universities have admitted a higher proportion of traditionally underrepresented students this year, this article reports — blacks, Hispanics and those from lower-income communities or the first generation in their families to go to college. The article cites two main factors: the social justice movement sparked by George Floyd’s death and the movement away from standardized test scores. Only 46 percent of applications this year came from students who reported a test score, down from 77 percent last year. At Harvard, the proportion of black students admitted jumped to 18 percent from 14.8 percent last year. If all of them enrolled, there would be about 63 more black students in this year’s freshman class than if they were admitted at last year’s rate. Some admissions experts worry that making standardized tests optional will make it more difficult to select top students, especially at a time of widespread grade inflation. I've Witnessed the Anarchist Capture of Portland
UnHerd
Bret and Heather Weinstein moved to Portland three years ago after being spectacularly driven from their jobs by woke mobs at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. At the time, Bret writes, “there was little to suggest that municipal embrace of anarchy was on the horizon.” This first-person account details how wrong he was: The streets of downtown Portland, once a bustling home to independent boutiques, are now lined with boarded-over windows and closed businesses. No neighborhood is secure from the current wave of terror; the breaking of shop fronts, arson and harassment of sleeping citizens in their homes are all commonplace. … Negotiating with vandals has become an essential skill. Indeed, Portland is full of signs in windows and on lawns pleading with anarchists to move on and hurt someone else. Insider: Amazon Forces Staff to Admit Racism
Daily Wire
Amazon forces its executives to acknowledge their white privilege and confess their “unconscious racial bias” during regular meetings with other employees, according to a company insider. This article also reports that the e-commerce giant holds “town halls” about once a month where Amazon vice presidents are “forced to talk about how they grew up with unconscious biases” and discuss their white privilege. The town halls include live Q&A sessions during which employees have asked the senior executives to describe specific instances in which they experienced their own white privilege and say what they wish they could change about their actions in those moments. “The stories that they come back with are so obviously just false and fake, but it’s just stuff that they have to say during these meetings,” the insider said. |
