RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week July 16 to July 22, 2023 The future of humanity is becoming ever less human, Joel Kotkin and Samuel J. Abrams report for RealClearInvestigations -- and not just because of ChatGPT and other forms of artificial intelligence. Drawing on a wide range of research and social developments, the authors explore global cultural forces behind rising anti-humanism, which taken together suggest human beings have lost faith in themselves and connections with humanity in general: Many climate change activists argue that humanity’s extinction could be a net plus for planet earth. Stigmas against euthanasia and abortion are withering away. Social science research reveals that people are increasingly cutting themselves off from one another. Traditional pillars of community and connection ‒ family, friends, children, church, neighborhood ‒ have been crumbling, fostering an everyday existence defined for many people by loneliness. Widespread pornography consumption is harming relationships and marriage. Morbid obesity is accepted and even celebrated. The idea of human beings as constituting a larger, collective project is being replaced by “self-love” that negates classical liberal values of self-determination and personal freedoms. These trends, which have been studied largely in isolation, could be amplified by the ascendance of artificial intelligence, the authors write. A more fundamental question may be whether human beings are willing to defend their position in the new world order. Featured Investigations: The Growing Annals of Alleged Biden Family Corruption (Cont.)
Beltway news this week was dominated, in some quarters, by two developments in probes of alleged Biden family corruption: 1) explosive House testimony from two IRS whistleblowers who said Justice Department officials stymied their investigation of presidential son Hunter for unpaid taxes; and 2) the release of an FBI informant file describing a $10 million bribery allegation against President Biden and Hunter, featuring a Ukrainian oligarch claiming he was “coerced” into making the payoff. But damning as these developments for the Bidens might seem -- suggesting even impeachable offenses -- you might not get that impression from liberal news outlets' grudging coverage. For example, Axios reported the House whistleblower hearings dismissively: The GOP-led hearing gave Republicans a welcome distraction from news that [former President] Trump soon could be charged for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. But it fell short of producing any evidence of wrongdoing by [President] Biden himself. Oh, you mean the evidence lacking because of ... the Biden DOJ's evident epic stonewalling and obstruction? Elsewhere, the Washington Free Beacon listed the veteran IRS investigators' revelations: Hunter Biden "should have been charged" with tax felonies, not the misdemeanor wrist slap he got. The Hunter Biden tax probe began with discovery of his payments to prostitutes. IRS agents were warned against interviewing Hunter Biden’s adult children. Prosecutors blocked agents from investigating Hunter Biden’s threatening WhatsApp messages invoking his father to intimidate a Chinese Communist associate. Foreign entities made seven-figure payments to the Biden family. That hearing also produced some striking ironies: the left vilifying formerly anonymous "Whistleblower X," Joseph Ziegler, a self-described gay Democrat; and House Democrats being shocked, shocked by GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's display of lurid (but largely blacked out) images from Hunter's laptop -- outrage coming from the same camp OK with explicit sexual instruction for very young children and gender-transition treatment of minors without parental consent. A sampler of reading to recap the week's developments: Revelations From Hunter Biden IRS Whistleblower Hearing Free Beacon Gay Dem 'Whistleblower X': Hunter Probe Was Stifled Axios Exhibit XXX: Hunter Biden Hooker Sex Shown at House Hearing Daily Mail FBI Told Biden Prober to Duck House Questions New York Post FBI File Released on Burisma Bribery Allegations vs. Bidens New York Post FBI File: Burisma Exec Thought Hunter More 'Stupid' Than His Dog Daily Caller FBI Document Boosts Case for Biden Impeachment Inquiry Breitbart Waste of the Day by Adam Andrzejewski, Open the Books Biden’s $42B 'Equity' Broadband Program NYC's Cash for Surveys Tossed in Trash $5B for an Ill-Defined Vaccine Program Study of GOP and Dem Faces Rushing Out $400B for 'Green' Energy Biden, Trump and the Beltway The government has released nearly 2,500 children with latent tuberculosis infections into 44 states over the past year, according to a court-ordered report on how the Health and Human Services Department is treating the children. From the Washington Times: The government says it can’t treat the children because they are in custody for a short time and treatment requires three to nine months. HHS releases infected children to sponsors and notifies local health authorities in the hope that they can arrange for treatment before the latent infection becomes active. Those hopes are often dashed. Local health officials say the notifications are infrequent and the child has often already arrived when they are told about a case in their jurisdiction. “We do not know how often the sponsors follow through on treatment,” the Virginia Department of Health told The Washington Times in a statement. “By the time outreach takes place, the child has sometimes moved to another area or state.” Tuberculosis isn’t the only disease that’s challenging. The government had to create protocols to handle chlamydia and gonorrhea, according to the court report, written by Aurora Miranda-Maese, the monitor ordered by the court to keep tabs on how the government is treating children in its custody. Related: Biden Let In 500K+ Legals on Top of All the Illegals CBS News This story about a young female military recruit forced to shower with biological males highlights the limited choices facing objectors to the Biden administration's transgender policies who set their sights on a career in the U.S. armed forces: The report was first raised at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday. The girl is afraid to speak out of fear it will harm her career, Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) told Fox News Digital in an interview. Her options were slim and included resigning from her early-career position. ... According to Rounds, the military recruit, 18, is complaining about being forced to sleep in between "two individuals who were supposedly changing from male to female." The girl also has to shower with the individuals and reported significant distress about the matter. The individuals housed with the 18-year-old had initiated chemical interventions to change genders, but without having reassignment surgery, their genitalia were fully intact. Rounds said heard about the matter from the attorney general of the South Dakota National Guard. "He had contacted our office very concerned about the information he had received from the recruit," Rounds said. "The respect that this young recruit should have received and the privacy that she should have had, she was being deprived of." Other Noteworthy Articles A housing boom in one area of Honduras, rooted in migration to the U.S., is being fueled by drug sales in San Francisco, the Chronicle reports after an 18-month investigation: In a nearby town square, a skinny child in a Steph Curry T-shirt climbs a tree. A few blocks away, a three-wheeled mototaxi whizzes by, a San Francisco Giants sticker affixed to its bumper. More extravagant emblems of San Francisco appear unexpectedly and often, alongside crumbling adobe huts, stray roosters and heaps of singed garbage. Handsome new homes, some mansions by local standards, some mansions by any standard, rise behind customized iron gates emblazoned with San Francisco 49ers or Golden State Warriors logos. One mango-colored mansion is an homage to the city: a Golden Gate Bridge sculpture on the garage door, a San Francisco Giants logo on the balcony’s ceiling, two 49ers logos on the front gate and “Civic Center” splayed across its security bars. This is the Siria Valley, a cluster of villages about 80 miles north of the capital, Tegucigalpa, in the Francisco Morazan department of central Honduras. A typical resident here earns $8 a day doing farmwork and scoops buckets of water for showering, washing dishes and flushing toilets out of a tub known as a pila. The valley is also the hometown of a high concentration of people who, fleeing poverty and a country with one of the world’s highest murder rates, migrate to San Francisco, where they ultimately sell drugs. ... Talk about slipping off your pedestal. Investor, art collector and philanthropist Shelby White has given New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art generous gifts, much of it with her late investor husband Leon Levy, and won 33 years of social prominence in upper-echelon Manhattan as a Met trustee. But investigators recently seized many of her ancient artifacts, including 17 that were on loan to the Met: Investigators from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office have carted away 71 looted artifacts from White’s home in the past two years, though they have not suggested that she or her husband knowingly bought stolen antiquities. In fact, investigators would later thank White, 84, for her cooperation, as artifacts were returned to multiple countries, including Yemen, Turkey and Italy. But in June 2021 they showed up, unannounced, with a search warrant at her spacious Sutton Place apartment in Manhattan at 6 a.m. The rooms inside were filled with antiquities, some of which had been purchased from dealers who would later be accused of trafficking in illicit artifacts. Many were displayed in their own nooks or cabinets, and set off by lighting that enhanced their appeal. “It is literally a museum,” said Matthew Bogdanos, the head of the district attorney’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit, which visited the apartment several times. |