RealClearInvestigations'
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Nov. 17 to Nov. 23, 2024 In RealClearInvestigations and on LeeFang.com, Lee Fang reports that Donald Trump’s populist McDonald’s photo ops aside, the next President has galvanized the fast food industry to thwart the reform agenda of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the former consumer rights attorney he has chosen to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Fang reports: Even before the election, Invariant, a powerful government relations firm that advises many food companies on how to shape policies in Washington, D.C., warned clients of Kennedy’s growing sway over Trump and the Republican Party Now representatives of companies that make snack foods, sugary beverages and cooking oils are strategizing how to undermine RFK Jr.’s anti-obesity crusade, dubbed MAHA, for Make American Healthy Again. In a Zoom meeting last Friday, lobbyists discussed their sway over Congress, including the Senate confirmation process, where one top lobbyist said "serious conversations and commitments can be made to secure those votes that might end up resulting in some shifts in RFK’s overall agenda." Similar strategy sessions have percolated across Beltway lobbying shops representing food, beverage and drug industries. The farm and processed food lobby must contend with a sea change within the Republican Party, which now relies on populist vigor increasingly focused on reforming the way American food is produced and sold. Joe Rogan, the most popular podcaster in the country, has emphasized the dangers posed by high fructose corn syrup, seed oils, and sugary, processed foods. He has hosted many of the most vocal activists aligned with the MAHA movement. Waste of the Day
by Jeremy Portnoy, Open the Books Las Vegas 'Forgot' to Budget for Raises, RCI
Nuclear Commission Flies First Class, RCI
NYC Mayor Gave Friends Raises, RCI
'Leftover' Money Spent on Art Project, RCI
RFK Jr.'s New Department Went All-In on DEI, RCI Election 2024 and the Beltway The Lobbying Career of Trump’s New Chief of Staff, New York Times
Hegseth Paid Accuser but Denies Sexual Assault, Washington Post
Musk-Ramaswamy DOGE Plan: 7 Takeaways, Biz Insider
Musk Seeks 'Super High-IQ' No-Pay Staff for DOGE, Center Square
2.3 Million Jobs: The Federal Workforce, in Charts, Wall Street Journal
Pentagon Fails 7th Audit in a Row for $824B Budget, Fox News
Poll: Half of Gen Z Suffers From ‘Eco-Anxiety', College Fix
How Kamala Burned Through $1.5 Billion in 15 Weeks, New York Times
Trump's Plan to Resuscitate the Keystone XL Pipeline, Politico
Donald Trump Jr. Goes All-In on the Anti-Woke Economy, WSJ
Pentagon Grumbles Over Military Role in Migrant Deportations, Intercept
Biden Equity Agenda Is a Cash Cow for Consultants, City Journal
Trump Resistance Encounters Fatigue, New York Times Other Noteworthy Articles and Series In a series of articles, RealClearInvestigations has reported that FBI’s crime statistics seem more like Swiss cheese than authoritative portraits of mayhem in the U.S. This article reports on a new discrepancy in the bureau’s official counts regarding homicides – the widening gap between the death certificates collected by the states and compiled by the CDC and reports by local law enforcement agencies compiled by the states and aggregated by the FBI, which also generates estimates for agencies that don’t report: Death certificates have always provided broader and more accurate data than the FBI’s figures, but the gap between them has grown sharply under the Biden administration. This may indicate that local law enforcement agencies, states, and/or the FBI are undercounting murders. Furthermore, the Biden administration FBI inexplicably revised its pre-Biden murder data all the way back to 2003, elevating the counts in certain years by up to 7%. The FBI made these unprecedented alterations without so much as a footnote to inform the public. As a result of those factors and others, the gap between murders reported by the FBI and the number of homicides recorded on death certificates has grown from a low of 16 killings in 2003 to an average of 3,711 killings per year during Biden’s presidency. School officials at Oregon’s St. Helens High School received complaints of possible sexual abuse by two teachers as early as 2019, but failed to notify authorities and even allowed one of the instructors to stay in the classroom even after police launched their investigation, this article reports: The investigation started after Doug Weaver, 36, an artist and teacher in St. Louis who graduated from St. Helens High School, aired his concerns about predatory staff members at the school during his time there in a TikTok video on Sept. 6. Shortly after posting his video, current and former students came forward accusing Mr. Stearns and Mr. Collins of abuse, Mr. Weaver said. He filed a tip with Oregon law enforcement, and investigators contacted him to learn more about those reaching out to him. “I think that so many people in that community grew up there and they know that these problems exist,” Mr. Weaver said. “But it’s hard to be the first person that speaks out.” The two teachers were charged last week with sexually abusing students. In a separate investigative series, RealClearInvestigations reported on the epidemic of sexual abuse at the nation’s K-12 schools. Given the roughly 50 million students in U.S. K-12 schools each year, the number of students who have been victims of sexual misconduct by school employees is probably in the millions each decade, James Varney reported. Such numbers would far exceed the high-profile abuse scandals that rocked the Roman Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts of America. For a variety of reasons, ranging from embarrassment to eagerness to avoid liability, elected or appointed officials, along with unions or lobbying groups representing school employees, have fought to keep the truth hidden from the public. Donald Trump’s announcement that he will nominate longtime food industry critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, has sparked a wave of news stories about the dangers of highly-processed foods. This article reports that Big Pharma may end up playing a key role in dismantling Big Food: For decades, Big Food has been marketing products to people who can’t stop eating, and now, suddenly, they can. The active ingredient in [the anti-obesity drug] Ozempic, as in Wegovy, Zepbound and several other similar new drugs, mimics a natural hormone, called glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), that slows digestion and signals fullness to the brain. Around seven million Americans now take a GLP-1 drug, and Morgan Stanley estimates that by 2035 the number of U.S. users could expand to 24 million. … The prospect of tens of millions of people cutting their caloric intake down to roughly 1,000 per day, which is half the minimum amount recommended for men, is unsettling the industry. Late last year, Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen, the chief executive of Novo Nordisk, which makes Ozempic and Wegovy, told Bloomberg that food-industry executives had been calling him. “They are scared about it,” he said. Around the same time, Walmart’s chief executive in the United States, John Furner, said that customers on GLP-1s were putting less food into their carts. Sales are down in sweet baked goods and snacks, and the industry is weathering a downturn. By one market-research firm’s estimate, food-and-drink innovation in 2024 reached an all-time nadir, with fewer new products coming to market than ever before. It is no secret that China has become a major buyer of Iranian oil, helping Iran skirt sanctions imposed by the U.S. and other countries because of its support for terrorist groups. This article reports on a Bloomberg analysis of nearly five years of satellite images from a hotspot in Malaysia, showing the vast size of this shadow industry: Forty miles east of the Malaysian peninsula sits the world’s largest gathering point for dark fleet tankers. Aging ships, often operating under flags of convenience and without insurance, come here daily to transfer cargo away from prying eyes. It’s how billions of dollars of sanctioned Iranian oil finds its way to China annually – even though the country, officially, hasn’t imported a drop in more than two years. … Operators are likely transferring oil between ships in this area at least twice as often as they were in 2020, according to a Bloomberg News analysis of ship proximity on days with readily-available satellite images. On the busiest days, more than a dozen such separate rendezvous were spotted. It’s impossible to gauge precisely how much oil is moving via this channel. But even making conservative assumptions about tanker size, the data suggest some 350 million barrels of oil changed hands in this hotspot in the first nine months of this year. There has been plenty of sound and fury in the five and a half years since the Chicago Police Department agreed to extensive oversight from a federal judge because of its history of brutality and civil rights violations. There have been hundreds of court hearings and meetings, and hundreds of millions in Chicago taxpayer dollars spent to achieve the court-ordered reforms. But, this article reports, “the record of actual accomplishment is meager”: Chicago police haven’t crafted a system for officers to work with residents to address threats to public safety. They haven’t completed a mandatory study of where officers are assigned throughout the city and whether changes would help thwart crime. And they have failed to move forward with a plan to alert police brass about which officers have been accused of misconduct more than once and might need counseling, retraining or discipline. In fact, all told, police have fully complied with just 9% of the agreement’s requirements. And while excessive force complaints from citizens have dropped, complaints about all forms of misconduct have risen. This joint investigation found that “no one in a position of power or oversight has pushed forcefully or effectively to make the process move faster, WTTW News and ProPublica found. Six permanent and interim superintendents have led CPD since 2019 and the city has had three mayors, all of whom vowed to implement the consent decree but failed to make good on those promises with money and other resources. In addition, the Chicago City Council has repeatedly failed to exercise its authority to oversee CPD’s operations and demand quicker change. The council has approved $667 million to go toward implementing the decree since 2020, but at least a quarter of the city’s annual allotment goes unspent each year, a WTTW News analysis found.” |
