RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
October 4 to October 10, 2020 In an exclusive for RealClearInvestigations, Aaron Maté reports that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her husband have invested up to $1 million in CrowdStrike Holdings, deepening the Democrat Party's connection to a firm central to the discredited Trump-Russia collusion narrative. - The Pelosis bought the stock at $129.25 a share on September 3. The price has risen since to around $143.
- CrowdStrike became central to the Trump-Russia affair in 2016 when it alleged that Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee, whose embarrassing emails were published by WikiLeaks.
- The FBI gave CrowdStrike the lead role in investigating the data theft, relying on the firm's word rather than examining the DNC servers itself.
- DNC law firm Perkins Coie originally hired CrowdStrike as well as Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that produced the discredited Steele dossier.
- Testifying behind closed doors in December 2017, CrowdStrike's President admitted that the firm "did not have concrete evidence" that Russian hackers actually stole any emails or other data from the DNC servers. "There's circumstantial evidence, but no evidence that they were actually exfiltrated," Shawn Henry said.
- During the years when CrowdStrike's own uncertainty about its hacking allegation was kept from the public, the firm enjoyed a stratospheric rise on Wall Street.
- Its market capitalization has risen from $1 billion in 2017 to over $31 billion.
- CrowdStrike and Fusion GPS are not the only Democrat-connected companies to play critical and lucrative roles in the Trump-Russia saga.
The CIA, FBI and President Obama had evidence in July 2016 that Hillary Clinton's campaign was working to divert attention from her email scandal by blaming Russia and the Trump campaign for hacking Democratic National Committee servers, according to recently declassified information released by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe. In an Investigative Issues commentary for RealClearPolitics and RealClearInvestigations, columnist Peder Zane argues that this "shows how Obama administration officials willfully ignored all evidence to the contrary in their relentless pursuit of Trump": Even though [then-CIA Director John] Brennan had information that Clinton was intent on blaming Trump for the hacking as a campaign ploy, he became one of the prime architects of the Trump/Russia conspiracy theory. Same goes for [then-FBI Director] Jim Comey. Stunningly, at his Senate hearing last week, Comey claimed he had no recollection of the U.S. intelligence referral that combined the bureau's two most significant probes of 2016: Clinton's emails and Trump's supposed Russia connections. Noting that the mainstream media also pushed the Russiagate hoax, Zane argues that coverage of the Ratcliffe letter reveals that they are still using anonymous sources and misleading language to drive coverage - only this time to diminish facts that challenged the original Trump-Russia narrative. Both Politico and the New York Times, for example, quoted anonymous sources to say that the Ratcliffe letter's claims have been evaluated and dismissed: Instead of exploring the issues raised, the publications and their anonymous sources are trying to shut down any inquiry through a deceptive leap of logic. They are using one aspect of the intelligence that has not been verified - that Clinton herself personally approved the anti-Trump effort - to invalidate the broader point that her campaign originated the Russiagate smear. This is the same approach they have used regarding Hunter Biden's efforts to cash in on his father's name. Obvious ethical questions about egregious conflicts of interest are sidestepped by narrowly defining the issue as whether there's direct evidence that Joe Biden changed policy to enrich his son. This deception is especially brazen in the Clinton campaign's case because its pivotal role in Russiagate is long established and beyond dispute. As such, it seems part of a larger strategy to take every opportunity to fog the air and muddy the waters so the public doesn't know what to think - a win for wrongdoers. Trump-Russia/2020 Election News Trump: Release All Russia Collusion, Clinton Probe Files Fox News
Brennan Memo Out on Alleged Hillary Russiagate Hoax Federalist
Feds Tracked Overseas Cash Pocketed by Hunter Biden Washington Times
Illegal, Hidden Scrutiny of Americans in Biden-Ukraine Affair Just the News
NBC 'Undecideds' Earlier Shown Favoring Biden Washington Free Beacon
NJ: Carrier Charged in Dumping Mail, Including Many Ballots Daily Wire
Texas: 100+ Counts of Absentee-Vote Fraud for Mayoral Candidate CBS DFW
NH: Mystery Requests for Absentee Ballots New Hampshire Union Leader Other Noteworthy Articles and Series The Store That Called the Cops on George Floyd
Slate
On May 25, an intoxicated man tried to pass a fake bill at CUP Foods, a small grocery store owned by Palestinian-Americans in Minneapolis. After a brief confrontation outside the store, an employee called the police who arrested the man, George Floyd. In the days and months following Floyd's death, this article reports, "armed groups would patrol the area, and police would stay on the other side of barricades. The store would be vandalized repeatedly, with an obscenity spray-painted on the exterior. Even longtime customers would question whether it ever deserved to reopen." Carmen Means, head of a Minneapolis urban development group, told Slate that the store should remain closed "because of the role they played - and to be clear, they did not kill George Floyd, but they did play a meaningful role in the lynching of George Floyd - that speaks to the culture of the store. My personal experience inside the store, I didn't have any issues. I won't lie and say that I did. The challenge," she said, "is what the store represents." Is Warren Buffett the Wallet Behind Black Lives Matter?
Tablet
This long and complex article has a key takeaway: An important funding source of Black Lives Matter has received large donations from another nonprofit, NoVo, a social justice foundation formed in 2006 by Peter Buffett—the son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett—and Peter's wife, Jennifer. The article reports that in 2015, for example, NoVo gifted $3.72 million to BLM supporter IDEX, a sum greater than the organization's past three years of total revenue combined. Of that funding, $700,000 was specifically earmarked for the support of the Black Lives Matter movement. BLM co-founder Alicia Garza likewise saw her employer, NDWA, get a significant bump in revenue from NoVo, with an exponentially increased $4.5 million in unrestricted funding. The article also reports that the Buffet-supported group added a new member to its board in 2015 - Susan Rosenberg, a former member of a terrorist group, the Weather Underground. She was given a long prison for driving the getaway car in a botched robbery of a Brinks robbery that left one man dead and two injured in 1981. President Clinton granted her clemency on his last day in office. Debt Collectors Are Making a Fortune This Year
ProPublica
At least one business sector is thriving as covid lockdowns ravage the economy: the debt industry. This article focuses on the largest debt buyer in the country, Encore Capital, which announced that it had doubled its previous record for earnings in a quarter. In recent years Encore has bought around 2 million to 3 million U.S. accounts per year, according to public filings. Last year, on average, the company paid 8.6 cents on the dollar for each account. For a typical debt of $3,142, Encore paid $271. It also reports that in recent months, the only real bad news for debt buyers was that local courts across the country temporarily shut down because of the pandemic. But now even that hiccup is over. Plastic Pandemic: How Covid Trashed the Recycling Dream
Reuters
The coronavirus pandemic has sparked a rush for plastic. From Wuhan to New York, demand for face shields, gloves, to-go food containers and bubble wrap for online shopping has surged. Since most of that cannot be recycled, waste has surged. But there is another consequence. The pandemic has intensified a price war between recycled and new plastic, made by the oil industry. It's a war recyclers worldwide are losing. The economic slowdown has punctured demand for oil. In turn, that has cut the price of new plastic. Since COVID-19, even drink bottles made of recycled plastic - the most commonly recycled plastic item - have become less viable. The recycled plastic to make them is 83% to 93% more expensive than new bottle-grade plastic. Since the coronavirus struck, recyclers worldwide told Reuters, their businesses have shrunk, by more than 20% in Europe, by 50% in parts of Asia, and as much as 60% for some firms in the United States. This price differential is expected to increase in the future. In response to the growing fleet of electric vehicles expected to hit the roads, as well as improved engine efficiency that reduced fuel demand, the oil industry is investing more heavily in plastic. Newly Legal Process for Turning Human Corpses Into Soil
Medium
What to do with your human remains? Those who believe burial is a waste of land and consider cremation too incendiary have a new option: returning to the earth as soil. All it takes is one corpse and a reusable eight-by-four-foot steel cylinder packed with wood chips, straw, and alfalfa. For 30 days, this article reports, the dead human and living microbes stay in the vessel together, lying alongside fellow "Recomposers" in the warehouse's hexagonal wooden frame, while the microorganisms slowly break down the corpse. At the end, after a brief turn in a curing bin to cool and dry out excess moisture, what once was a human body is now about a cubic yard of fertile, nutrient-rich soil, which can be returned to loved ones or scattered according to the decedent' wishes. The Washington state company that offers this service charges $5,500. That's more than a typical cremation and service costs in the U.S., but about half the price of burial. Some 275 people have already signed up for the new service. Coronavirus Investigations Cuomo: Nursing Home Debacle 'Never Happened' Washington Free Beacon
Nine Days in Wuhan, Pandemic Ground Zero New Yorker
500,000 Sharks Could Die in Race for Covid Vaccine, Smithsonian |
