RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
May 22 to May 28, 2022 To support the claim that a mentally disturbed racist’s massacre in Buffalo reflects a growing threat of white supremacy, many news outlets trumpeted an Anti-Defamation League study holding that over the past 10 years “white supremacists were responsible for more murders than any other type of extremist.” But in RealClearInvestigations, James Varney uncovers shortcomings in the analysis, and it was further undercut by a new calamity this week pushing against the white-extremist the narrative: an especially deadly massacre by a member of a heavily Latino community in Texas -- again a mentally disturbed young man. Varney finds: No context: The report cites 244 murders by white supremacists over a period when there were at least 165,000 murders in the U.S. That’s .001% of such murders. Many white-on-white crimes: The ADL’s tally includes a New Jersey neo-Nazi who strangled his wife; and two men arrested in Springfield, Mo., for the alleged fatal shooting of “a member of the Southwest Honkeys, a white supremacist prison gang.” Most murders “non-ideological”: “Over the past 10 years, only 86 of the 244 white supremacist killings (35%) were ideological murders,” the ADL report found. Distorted white extremist stats: The ADL report omits mass murders perpetrated by non-white actors including the carnage in Waukesha, Wisc., last November when a racist black drove into a mostly white crowd in a Christmas parade, killing six and injuring 62. Expert view: “Death by extremist is an incredibly rare event. It is absurd to try to generalize from such tiny numbers.” Publicly, big solar developers are sounding the alarm over a U.S. probe of trade abuses by Chinese manufacturers, but they’re bullishly conveying much the opposite to investors, Steve Miller reports for RealClearInvestigations. Why the disconnect? Miller writes that an industry that presents itself as on a progressive mission to save the planet is actually behaving more like a traditional big business: "Solar Inc." is managing expectations in the political and business arenas through messaging geared to those separate audiences. Behind the words is a highly competitive business climate focused on keeping costs low -- even if that means sourcing cheaper materials from Chinese companies, some of which are accused of relying on highly polluting coal power, using slave labor, or violating trade agreements. Hence the alarm of industry over a Commerce Department probe into a complaint that China’s avoiding tariffs by routing production through four Southeast Asian countries. The solar industry association says investigating the complaint will “make it impossible to meet President Biden’s climate goals,” which include making 40% of the U.S. power supply solar-powered by 2035. U.S. companies produced a record number of panels in 2020 – and it did so with roughly 80% of the components and equipment coming from Chinese-linked operations. Xinjiang, a top hub for solar production, is a major area of concern. It’s accused of using forced labor and coal-fired plants. “The discourse of cheapness dominates everything now in solar,” says an academic focused on the industry. Biden, Trump and the Beltway From the Annals of I Already Knew This but It’s Still Good to Know, this article reports that a forensic analysis of a copy of Hunter Biden’s hard drive reveals that it is “indisputably authentic” and shows no evidence of any hacking or file manipulation. The Washington Examiner commissioned [former Secret Service agent] Konstantinos "Gus" Dimitrelos to conduct a full forensic examination to determine the drive's authenticity and whether there were any signs of tampering. Using a technique he developed called "digital sandwiching," Dimitrelos cross-referenced thousands of emails, documents, business records, text messages, Apple Notes, photos, geolocation data, travel records, and other information on the drive to conclude that Biden is the only person capable of producing the data. "My analysis revealed there is a 100% certainty that Robert Hunter Biden was the only person responsible for the activity on this hard drive and all of its stored data," Dimitrelos said, noting that his forensic techniques are reproducible and are the same that he frequently uses as an expert when working on criminal and civil cases. Since the New York Post broke the story of the laptop's existence in October 2020, there has been little doubt about its authenticity – revealing Hunter’s dissolute lifestyle and shady business dealings that may have involved his father, President Biden. The Examiner has done a public service by providing what appears to be unassailable verification. The larger question yet remains: Will newsrooms flush with talent and resources follow the laptop’s leads? Other Biden, Trump and the Beltway Hillary OK’d Sharing Alfa ‘Data,’ Mook Testifies New York Post
FBI Wrongly Sourced Alfa Bank Claims to DoJ New York Post
Kushner, Mnuchin Raised $3B From Mideast New York Times
Betsy DeVos Alleges ‘Gross’ Biden Harassment Washington Examiner
New Files Shine Light on Secret Wartime Executive Orders New York Times
Government 5G Fiasco That Nearly Shut U.S. Air System ProPublica Other Noteworthy Articles and Series In the wake of the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting, details have started to emerge about what some contend was a haphazard response by law enforcement. This article reports on a new timeline released by police revealing that the now-deceased gunman entered the building unobstructed after lingering outside for 12 minutes firing shots. Victor Escalon, a regional director for the Texas Department of Public Safety ... ... couldn’t say why no one stopped Ramos from entering the school during that time Tuesday. Most of the shots Ramos fired came during the first several minutes after he entered the school, Mr. Escalon said. People who arrived at the school while Ramos locked himself in a classroom, or saw videos of police waiting outside, were furious. “The police were doing nothing,” said Angeli Rose Gomez, who after learning about the shooting drove 40 miles to Robb Elementary, where her children are in second and third grade. “They were just standing outside the fence. They weren’t going in there or running anywhere.” Mr. Escalon said officers inside the school were evacuating students and school employees from the premises, as well as calling for backup. “There’s a lot going on,” he said. The new details contradict previous reports that an armed school officer had confronted the shooter as he arrived at Uvalde’s Robb Elementary. “There was not an officer readily available and armed,” Mr. Escalon said. In a separate article, the Associated Press reports that: Frustrated onlookers urged police officers to charge into the Texas elementary school where a gunman’s rampage killed 19 children and two teachers, witnesses said Wednesday, as investigators worked to track the massacre that lasted upwards of 40 minutes and ended when the 18-year-old shooter was killed by a Border Patrol team. “Go in there! Go in there!” nearby women shouted at the officers soon after the attack began, said Juan Carranza, 24, who saw the scene from outside his house, across the street from Robb Elementary School in the close-knit town of Uvalde. Carranza said the officers did not go in. A father who lost his daughter during the attack said that after racing to the school when news broke of the shooting, and encountering police gathered outside the building, he raised the idea of charging into the building with other bystanders. “They were unprepared,” he said, of the officers. For their part, authorities contend they responded appropriately. Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw told reporters that “The bottom line is law enforcement was there,” adding “They did engage immediately. They did contain [the shooter] in the classroom.” Twenty-one years after Haiti’s enslaved population rose up against their French oppressors in 1804, France blockaded the newly free nation and demanded reparations for losses suffered by the slaveholders. This New York Times investigation reports that these payments help explain – along with corruption and natural disasters – why Haiti has long been one of the poorest nations on earth, even as the country that shares the same island, the Dominican Republic, has enjoyed relative prosperity. The amount was far beyond Haiti’s meager means. Even the first installment was about six times the government’s income that year, based on official receipts documented by the 19th-century Haitian historian Beaubrun Ardouin. But that was the point, and part of the plan. The French king had given the baron a second mission: to ensure the former colony took out a loan from young French banks to make the payments. This became known as Haiti’s “double debt” – the ransom and the loan to pay it – a stunning load that boosted the fledgling Parisian international banking system and helped cement Haiti’s path into poverty and underdevelopment. The Times investigation found that Haitians paid about $560 million in today’s dollars. But that doesn’t nearly capture the true loss. If that money had simply stayed in the Haitian economy and grown at the nation’s actual pace over the last two centuries — rather than being shipped off to France, without any goods or services being provided in return — it would have added a staggering $21 billion to Haiti over time, even accounting for its notorious corruption and waste. For perspective, that’s much bigger than Haiti’s entire economy in 2020. Yohana Perdomo knows there’s trouble when she does not see a long line in front of her local bodega in Havana. It means, she said, “there’s no milk.” This article reports that Cuba’s communist revolution continues to fail as the nation careens through its worst economic crisis in 30 years. Cubans have been hit by mass shortages of dairy and other basic goods, reflecting a confluence of setbacks: The coronavirus pandemic crippled the vital tourism industry. Then-President Donald Trump squeezed the island with extra sanctions, and President Biden held off on reversing them. Socialist ally Venezuela reduced aid and investment. The result: A nation that imports 70 percent of its food has run desperately short of the cash to buy it. The United States may again be serving as a pressure valve for the communist regime. Instead of fomenting another revolution, many Cubans are just leaving. “Young people are fueling the biggest exodus to the United States since the 1980 Mariel boatlift. U.S. border agents have logged more than 114,000 apprehensions of Cubans since October.” Southern Baptist leaders long had a list of more than 700 abusive pastors, but for perhaps two decades they chose to protect the denomination from lawsuits rather than protect the people in their churches from further abuse, according to a new report. ... Working closely with their lawyers, they maligned the people who wanted to do something about abuse and repeatedly rejected pleas for help and reform. “Behind the curtain, the lawyers were advising to say nothing and do nothing, even when the callers were identifying predators still in SBC pulpits,” according to a massive third-party investigative report released Sunday. This article reports that at their annual meeting in Anaheim, California, next month, one year after they voted to launch the investigation, thousands of Southern Baptists will decide if they are ready to make the dramatic and costly changes the report recommends for the sake of survivors and church safety. Coronavirus Investigations How Big Is the New Covid Wave? No One Knows Intelligencer
Feds, Universities Allegedly Hiding COVID Origin Evidence Daily Caller
Where Have Restaurant Workers Gone After COVID? Los Angeles Times
Post-COVID, Parents Reject Child Immunizations New York Times | 