RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
June 20 to June 26, 2021 Georgia’s Secretary of State has been conducting a secret review of contested ballots from the 2020 election, Paul Sperry reports in an exclusive article for RealClearInvestigations. In addition, a whistleblower told Sperry that officials pressured her to recant her testimony that many ballots for Joe Biden looked like they had been run through a photocopy machine. Sperry also reports: - Although the Fulton County ballots are in dispute in the Georgia presidential race, which Biden won by just 12,000 votes, the state never disclosed its probe to the public or to election watchdogs suing to inspect the ballots themselves.
- State officials did not inform Superior Court Judge Brian Amero in an amicus brief encouraging the judge to deny petitioners’ requests to inspect the ballots, calling them a “fishing expedition.”
- The chief investigator for the office of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, told RCI she sent investigators to inspect the sealed ballots after poll workers signed sworn affidavits saying many of the ballots had no creases or folds and featured identically bubbled-in marks for Biden.
- But the state said it could not find any ballots matching that description, though its probe is still ongoing.
- The election watchdogs fear state officials may have “tampered” with the sealed ballots.
- Suzi Voyles, a poll manager whose sworn affidavits have been used by watchdogs to sue the county for access to the ballots, said agents from the Georgia Bureau of Investigations pressured her to recant her testimony.
Amid outrage over police abuses, consent decrees are making a comeback under President Biden. But does giving the feds control over local cops actually make communities safer, and drive the reforms they demand? Seattle, the focus of Eric Felten’s latest report for RealClearInvestigations, illustrates the mixed record and unwelcome consequences of a policy that might be coming to a city near you: - During George Floyd unrest last year, Seattle voted to defund its police -- but the move was rejected by a federal judge named nearly a decade ago as de facto police commissioner after a police killing.
- This judge admitted his lack of police expertise.
- Yet following the decree’s guidance, the cops deployed and used tear gas and “blast balls” last year, appalling local officials.
- Seattle has seen a marked increase in violent crime since 2013, the first full year under the decree.
- Other Obama-era consent decrees get bad reviews too. “The homicide rate is up crazy,” Cleveland’s police union president says. “[H]ow about let the police do their job and maybe some of these numbers go down?”
- Biden Attorney General Merrick Garland has signaled that Minneapolis is the next candidate for a decree.
- Critics say the court-governed agreements undermine elected officials -- and accountability.
- Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan found this out the hard way -- ironically getting a taste of her own medicine. Years ago, as a U.S. Attorney, she was a prime mover behind Seattle’s consent decree. Now she’s on her way out as a mayoral lame duck.
Biden, Trump and the Beltway New York: Most Riot Cases Dropped NBC4
Durham, Mueller and FBI's Framing of Four Innocents Reactionary
New Affidavits Raise Questions on Trump Probe Origins Epoch Times
Nepotism for Relatives of Biden Aides Washington Post
Hunter Biden Still Invested in Chinese Gov't-Tied Firm Washington Examiner
Did Joe Biden Fund Hunter's Night of Debauchery? New York Post Other Noteworthy Articles and Series Wisc.: Ex-Clerk Says Zuckerberg Group Ran '20 Vote
Just the News
Information is continuing to emerge detailing how Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg used $400 million in private money to control public elections in 2020. This article reports that the now-retired Republican elections clerk in a key Wisconsin county says political activists working for a group funded by Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, took control of the November elections in Green Bay and other cities, sidelining career experts and making last-minute changes that may have violated state law. Ex-Brown County Clerk Sandy Juno told Just the News: As we got closer to the November election we found out that this outside group had come in and was basically trying to redo our forms and documents that we use statewide. And these people were from out of state and had no business doing that. … So they were beginning to get involved with things that they didn't have the expertise. They were working primarily with our five major Democratic base cities. So they were breaking the consistency of documents and processes and procedures used statewide. How Autocrats Use London to Strike Foes Worldwide
New York Times
In four of the past six years, litigants from Russia and Kazakhstan have been involved in more civil cases in England than have any other foreigners. This investigation reports that the cases often pit authoritarian governments, or related state entities, against wealthy tycoons who have fallen from favor and fled. “Neither side elicits much pity – but both pay generous legal fees.” Filing litigation in London can bring legitimacy for claims by autocratic governments, whose own legal systems are so tainted that their decisions carry little weight outside their borders. England offers advantages: Judges have broad latitude to examine evidence, even if it is produced by corrupt security services or compromised foreign legal systems. London’s own private intelligence firms are unregulated, largely unrestrained and sometimes willing to use borderline methods for deep-pocketed clients. Lawmakers in Britain are increasingly expressing alarm over Russian influence, warning in a parliamentary report last year that a growing industry of London professionals, including lawyers and private investigators, has emerged “to service the needs” of the Russian elite. Mississippi: A Shot in the Dark
Sun Herald (Biloxi, Mississippi)
Around 3 A.M. on Feb. 1, 2020, in a quiet neighborhood a few blocks from the beach, a drunken Leonard Parker died after being shot in the face by a police officer who feared the slow-moving truck Parker was driving might kill him. Since then, the Gulfport, Mississippi, Police Department has issued only three sentences about what happened that night. This series draws on interviews, documents and videotape to try to piece together the shooting. It raises questions about the officer’s failure to turn on his body cam and his decision to shoot at a moving vehicle, which is discouraged by the department’s use-of-force policy. One witness said: “I understand your life, police life is on the line. People run you down. You can’t be ran down for four and five miles an hour. He wasn’t driving fast. And … he didn’t have no weapon.” Rhode Island: Extra Credit for Kids to Testify vs. Anti-CRT Bill
The Federalist
A group of Rhode Island teachers offered extra credit to the students who agreed to testify on an anti-critical race theory state bill. This article reports that documents obtained by the group Parents Defending Education show that at least two educators at Barrington High School offered five extra points on their next exam to students who verbally testified or offered a written comment on the legislation. Emails also show the educators praised students who chose to submit testimony. (This echoes larger efforts by educators to transforms students into activists, as John Murawski has reported for RealClearInvestigations.) In a separate article, Legal Insurrection reports that Rhode Island School Superintendents Association was working with “our union friends” to modify public records laws, while demonizing parents who sought records of critical-Race and Gender teaching. The Deprogramming of a Jan. 6 Defendant
American Greatness
In a plea for leniency, some charged with crimes in connection with the Jan. 6 protests at the Capitol say they have become more woke. This article reports that Heather Shaner, a D.C.-based criminal defense attorney appointed to represent a handful of protesters, is having her clients “read books and watch movies highlighting dark chapters in U.S. history.” In her motion agreeing to a plea which carried only probation for a client named Anna Lloyd, Shaner told the court: I have had many political and ethical discussions with Anna Lloyd. I tendered a booklist to her. She has read “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee,” “Just Mercy,” and “Schindler’s List” to educate herself about "government policy" toward Native Americans, African Americans and European Jews. We have discussed the books and also about the responsibility of an individual when confronting "wrong.” Shaner also told the court that Lloyd watched the “Burning Tulsa” documentary on the History Channel as well as “Mudbound,” a story of two families, one black and one white, living on the same property after World War II. As reporter Julie Kelly observes: On the face of it, there’s nothing wrong with watching or reading any of Shaner’s "booklist." What is very wrong is a taxpayer-paid attorney – one who is supposed to fight the government’s charges related to January 6, not play along with its phony depiction that ‘white supremacists’ attacked the Capitol – using her authority to reprogram the political views of people she is supposed to be defending. The presumption of racist beliefs is automatic. Coronavirus Investigations NIH Nuked Covid Data at Chinese Scientist Request Wall Street Journal
Chinese Covid Vaccines Ineffective Around World New York Times
Brown Economist Fought to Open Schools, Faced Mob New York Times
Congress Probes '19 Wuhan Military Games as Superspreader Washington Post
Leaked '09 Cable: Sec'y Clinton on Wuhan Risk Human Events
U.S. Scientists Backed Soviet Denial of '79 Lab Leak Too New York Times
Excerpt: Fighting Trump's Covid Washington Post |
