RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
August 30 to September 5, 2020 Revolutionary upheavals seem to burst upon society all at once, but their ideologies are typically decades in the making. The liberal "woking" of America is no exception. Reporting for RealClearInvestigations, John Murawski unpacks the intellectual roots of this ferment - a movement that most have likely never heard of: It's called "critical race theory." And it's a force behind current urban unrest,Black Lives Matter, identity politics, attacks on free speech, the New York Times' historically revisionist "1619 Project" - and more. Murawski writes: - Critical race theory was born in American law schools in the 1970s, influenced by Marxists, the Black Power cause, radical feminists and other disaffected leftist scholars.
- Initially dismissed as an academic sideshow, it quickly spread throughout the humanities and social sciences.
- It shaped a generation of students who now hold sway in academia, the workplace, the media, and, of course, Black Lives Matter.
- Key precepts - on hate speech, white privilege and implicit bias - are already widely accepted in schools and workplaces.
- Critical race theory rejects the idea of significant racial progress. It says white racism against blacks is permanent.
- It generates ever-new theories of discrimination and demands for reparations.
- People cite its principles often without awareness that this uprising has a name and a history behind it.
- Pushback against critical race theory is considerable. A new book, "Cynical Theories," warns that it is a surefire formula for tearing society apart.
Trump-Russia/2020 Election News In '75, Biden Joined Ex-KKK Sen. Byrd on Barring 'Boat People' Free Beacon
Biden-Tied Ford Foundation Funding Leftist Agitators Federalist
Hackers Test Trump Campaign Websites Ahead of Election Reuters
Freelance Journalists Ensnared in Russian Disinformation Reuters Other Noteworthy Articles and Series Political Insider Explains Voter Fraud With Mail-In Ballots
New York Post
This article reports revelations from an anonymous Democratic operative who says voter fraud, especially with mail-in ballots, is common. The New Jersey resident says he has fixed municipal and federal elections in Paterson, Atlantic City, Camden, Newark, Hoboken and Hudson County. He told the Post how he did it. The key, he said, is ballot-harvesting, which is legal in California and something Democrats have been pushing to legalize across the country. He would have his operatives fan out house to house, convincing voters to let them mail completed ballots on their behalf as a public service. The fraudster and his minions would then take the sealed envelopes home and hold them over boiling water to loosen the glue. He would then replace the voter's ballot with one reflecting the desired choices, and reseal the envelope. He said postal employees were also useful as the more partisan ones would agree to throw ballots of GOP voters into the trash. Amazon Spies on Worker Facebook Groups
Vice
Amazon has a sophisticated, secret program to spy on its drivers in closed Facebook groups. Corporate employees are getting regular reports about the social media posts of the drivers on nominally private pages, and are using these reports to diagnose problems as well as monitor drivers who may be "planning for any strike or protest against Amazon." The reports have the full names and posts of drivers who post anything noteworthy in one of dozens of closed Facebook pages intended for use by the company's so-called Flex Drivers. With some remarkable spin, Amazon explained: "We have a variety of ways to gather driver feedback and we have teams who work every day to ensure we're advocating to improve the driver experience, particularly through hearing from drivers directly." Using Latin American Churches to Launder Cash
Columbia Journalism Investigations and CLIP
Churches are often used to launder money across Latin America, according to this cross border investigation by 12 media organizations from nine countries. It reports that the practice is widespread "as religious organizations often escape scrutiny due to their respected role within communities and the lack of regulation governing their affairs." Because churches are often tax-exempt, they don't have to report the source of their funds or their expenditures - "a black box arrangement that is attractive to criminals." The PBA Cards That Win Many a Pass With the Cops
Vice
The small, plastic "courtesy" cards issued by the Police Benevolent Association are designed to be presented in a low-stakes police encounter, like a traffic stop, as a laminated wink-and-nudge between officers that says, "Hey, would you mind going a little easy on this one?" When a cop is handed a PBA card, he or she can call the phone number on the back, from the police officer who handed it out, to verify the relationship between the cardholder and the issuer, then decide whether it means they should give the cardholder a break. Quote: It may seem inconsequential when that choice means a police officer's 19-year-old nephew walks away with a warning for running a stop sign in his suburban neighborhood. … [But] the existence of these cards is a concrete example of a larger, often more insidious problem in American policing: Discretionary decision-making allows police to pick and choose who the law really applies to—and who gets a pass. New York: The Eco-Yogi Slumlords of Brooklyn
New York Magazine
It takes plenty of cabbage to be a Brooklyn hipster -- and not the farmers' market kind. This article profiles "two yogic, environmentally conscious, vegan brownstoners" who became objects of anger in July when they tried to evict their unemployed tenants who wouldn't cough up the rent because of the pandemic. In framing the story, the reporter describes the couple, Gennaro Brooks-Church (who runs a blog called Eco Brooklyn) and his ex-partner, Loretta Gendville (who owns a local chain of yoga studios, spas and children's stores), as engaging in "public cruelty." But it turns out this couple has financial problems of their own, which prevents them from becoming philanthropist landlords. "Even those who staked a claim in the Brooklyn boom are finding themselves unable to survive the bust," the article reports. "Though they own two businesses and six properties in one of the country's most expensive real-estate markets, the landlords were apparently homeless." Coronavirus Investigations CDC: 94% of COVID Deaths Have Contributing Health Conditions
Epoch Times
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 94 percent of Americans who have died while suffering from COVID-19 had other contributing health conditions. Out of all the deaths recorded from Feb. 1 to Aug. 22, only six percent of the records listed COVID-19 as the only contributing factor. Further, the report indicated that in the other 94 percent, afflicted individuals suffered from, on average, 2.6 additional health conditions. These included influenza, pneumonia, respiratory failure, hypertensive disease, diabetes, cardiac arrest, and dementia. Tracker: Coronavirus Cases on U.S. Campuses
New York Times
This fine piece of visual journalism provides a map of the United States that allows readers to access results of a New York Times survey regarding COVID-19 cases at more than 1,500 American colleges and universities — including every four-year public institution, every private college that competes in NCAA sports and others that identified cases. The survey identified at least 51,000 cases and at least 60 deaths since the pandemic began, confirming other reports that the young, as a group, seem less vulnerable to the death from the disease than older people. Also Coronavirus-Related America's Vaccine Researchers Face a Monkey Shortage Atlantic
How Trump Sowed COVID Supply Chaos Wall Street Journal
America's Contact Tracing Crisis National Geographic
'Carnage' in Lab Dish Shows How Virus May Damage Hearts STAT News
Chinese Embassy's PR Firm Got Coronavirus Relief Loan Daily Caller |
