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RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
August 13 to August 19, 2023 In RealClearInvestigations, Ben Weingarten reports that a growing chorus of critics, including some Democrats, are warning that the Biden administration's pursuit of ambitious climate goals is empowering the U.S.'s foremost global rival, China, at a time of dangerously high tensions between the superpowers. -
Energy experts believe that China's dominance will become more entrenched in the years ahead because of domestic U.S. environmentalist opposition to perceived “dirty” mining, and the Biden administration’s “clean energy” spending blitz – which could provide Chinese companies billions in subsidies. -
China’s alternative energy clout comes from its command over supply chains that culminate in the production of the wind turbines, solar panels, and lithium-ion batteries on which the net-zero transition depends. -
China demonstrated its clout on the eve of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s visit last month, when it imposed export restrictions on rare earth metals not only critical to semiconductors, but also to electric vehicles and solar panels. -
Critics see China as an unreliable partner that will leverage the Biden administration’s desire for Beijing to go green to its own advantage. -
Republican Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming: "China is playing us for suckers.”
In RealClearInvestigations, Vince Bielski reports that conservative Christian education is being born again. It's rebounding not just because of parental anger over the pandemic’s public-school shutdowns, but after lessons learned from a prolonged period of plunging enrollment and closures beginning in the mid-2000s. Bielski reports: -
The new Christian school movement -- with about 700,000 students in 8,000 schools – wants to leave behind its reclusive evangelical roots and reinvent itself for today, with STEM programs, AP classes and classical “great books” curriculums. -
Dozens of Christian micro schools are popping up across the country, offering a hybrid religious-secular education to keep costs down and the odds of survival up in an increasingly competitive K-12 sector. -
The resurgence, demanded by millennial parents and embraced by leaders of accreditation associations, is propelled by a combination of push and pull forces. -
Push: Public schools lost an estimated 1.2 million students during the pandemic, when parents became alarmed observing firsthand what schools were teaching their kids remotely at home: that gender is a fluid concept and that America is an inherently racist nation. -
Pull: A major expansion of school choice programs is now adding to the appeal of Christian schools. These state-funded scholarships typically cover most if not all tuition, providing a powerful incentive for families that’s boosting enrollment.
Waste of the Day
by Adam Andrzejewski, Open the Books Biden, Trump and the Beltway Other Noteworthy Articles and Series The essence of a good scam is that the victims don’t realize they are being taken for a ride. This raises wider questions when the mark is an elderly person, like octogenarian Paul Borik, who was living in an unkempt house that, an Illinois social worker reported, had become “a magnet for people running a con game.” For five years, state officials “filed report after report” about Borik’s condition, but did little to intervene as the unmarried man was swindled out of more than $340,000, the bulk of his life savings. This article reports that he is not alone: Dozens of cases like Borik’s examined by Injustice Watch during a four-month investigation reveal a failed system to protect older adults from financial exploitation, even as a “silver tsunami” of aging baby boomers are increasingly living alone without the support of family nearby. Last year alone, Illinois seniors were swindled out of a record $75.9 million, up from $5 million in 2014, according to FBI reports. Experts say those figures are a vast undercount. Yet the numbers of arrests and prosecutions for elder financial abuse are falling. Holes in banking regulations, loose state watchdog laws, and cost-cutting ripple through almost every level of Illinois government. In a separate article, the Associated Press reports that scammers are tricking Americans out of more money than ever before. In 2022, reported consumer losses to fraud totaled $8.8 billion – a 30 percent increase from 2021, according to the most recent data. The Federal Trade Commission found the biggest losses involved investment scams and cryptocurrency schemes. Perhaps the most surprising finding involved the age of the victims. “Younger adults ages 20-29 reported losing money more often than older adults ages 70-79, the FTC found. But when older adults did lose money, they lost more. Many retirees have assets like savings, pensions, life insurance policies or property for scammers to target.” The shift from paper to electronic processing in health care, which began in the early 2000s and accelerated after Obamacare went into effect, was intended to increase efficiency and save money. Instead, this article reports, it has become a lucrative way for health insurance companies to gouge physicians – and, by extension, their patients: Insurance companies routinely require doctors to kick back as much as 5% if they want to be paid electronically. Even when physicians ask to be paid by check, doctors say, insurers often resume the electronic payments – and the fees – against their wishes. Despite protests from doctors and hospitals, the insurers and their middlemen refuse to back down. … Almost 60% of medical practices said they were compelled to pay fees for electronic payment at least some of the time, according to a 2021 survey. And the frequency has increased since then, according to medical clinics. With more than $2 trillion in medical claims being paid electronically each year, these fees likely add up to billions of dollars annually. The result, this article reports, is that huge sums that could be spent on care are instead being siphoned off to insurers and middlemen. To manage one of the nasty side effects of its famous logistics operation – a steady flow of injured workers – Amazon offers onsite first aid care through a program called AmCare. But, this article reports, federal reviews have validated the complaints of some employees who say the system can put them at risk of further injury by keeping them working instead of referring them to appropriate medical care: In April, OSHA issued Amazon the third citation in the agency’s 53-year history for medical mismanagement, finding that it seriously endangered employees’ health. That put the online retailer in the company of employers found to operate first aid clinics that put workers at risk of infection, scarring, or long-lasting injuries. Amazon had already received at least three warnings about AmCare from OSHA dating back to 2016, The Intercept reported. OSHA now found that over a six-month period, Amazon staff at a warehouse outside Albany, New York, sent at least six employees with serious injuries back to work instead of referring them to doctors, worsening their pain and potentially leading to “prolonged injuries and lifelong suffering.” … In one instance, according to OSHA, an employee was hit in the head with a box, and blood began dripping out of their ear, a sign of a skull fracture. The employee later developed a headache, yet staff sent them back to work without calling a doctor. A week later, a 28-pound bench press bar collided with an employee’s head, causing a concussion, but staff returned the worker to their job operating heavy machinery. This article reports that Amazon is appealing OSHA’s findings: “We disagree with the claims in this citation, and will continue our long-standing efforts to improve safety at our sites.” Stop AAPI Hate brands itself as the leading authority on “anti-Asian hate crimes.” But this article by conservative activist Kenny Xu reports the organization’s data are flawed: For one, it is self-reported to the group through surveys that it administers, via its website. The alleged increase in hate crimes comes from more people reporting to Stop AAPI Hate about hate crimes. A self-reinforcing bias could be at work here: the more attention that Stop AAPI Hate and others draw to racism narratives, the more incentive people have to characterize threats against them as racist. The scale of “hate incidents” in the database is also suspect. Out of the 9,081 incidents reported, 63.7 percent fall under the category of “verbal harassment.” While unpleasant, verbal harassment is hardly comparable, say, to racially motivated physical or sexual assault. Another 19.5 percent of incidents reported to Stop AAPI Hate are “shunning.” This includes scenarios in which the individual believes that he or she was excluded from work opportunities or social functions because of race. Such allegations are necessarily complicated to adjudicate. But what’s perhaps most significant is that only 13.7 percent of the database’s self-reported incidents are classified as physical assaults. The article reports that Stop AAPI and similar groups have an incentive to create a narrative of surging anti-Asian hate crimes: the higher the perceived threat, the greater the amount of donations they receive. The company formerly known as Twitter has been slowing the speed for access to news organizations and online competitors that have drawn the ire of owner Elon Musk, this article reports: Users who clicked a link on Musk’s website, now called X, for one of the targeted websites were made to wait about five seconds before seeing the page, according to tests conducted Tuesday by The Washington Post. The delayed websites included X’s online rivals Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky and Substack, as well as the Reuters wire service and the Times. All of them have previously been singled out by Musk for ridicule or attack. This story, however, may have a happy ending. The Post reports that just hours this article was first published, X began reversing the throttling on some of the sites, dropping the delay times back to virtually zero. It was unknown if all the throttled websites had normal service restored. |
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| February 03, 2023 Included in the $1.7 trillion omnibus package supported by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) was a provision to give $200 million to the Appalachian Regional Commission, an agency headed by Manchin’s wife, Gayle. The... |
| February 02, 2023 In 1986, the U.S. Air Force spent $600,000 — over $1.6 million in 2023 dollars — to operate a luxurious private jet exclusively for top generals in the Strategic Air Command. Sen. William Proxmire, a... |
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