RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
November 29 to December 5, 2020 Has Chicken Little gone into the home title-lock business with Rudy Giuliani? No, but if you miss financial writer John F. Wasik's reporting for RealClearInvestigations, you could be forgiven for thinking the sky is falling on one aspect of the American Dream of home ownership. Wasik examines home title theft, and finds that despite the many alarmist ads selling protection against it, it's a minuscule problem. Wasik reports: - When he isn't representing President Trump, Giuliani is one of numerous on-air personalities pitching Home Title Lock. "Imagine losing your home to some online scammer," America's Mayor warns. "In an instant your home is no longer yours. Is this even possible? Yes."
- But such grave cautions aside, the FBI estimates that home title thieves victimize a microscopic percentage - slightly more than .0001% - of the 87 million U.S. homes owned.
- Home title fraud, or home stealing, is when thieves track down ownership of a home that's either empty, a second residence or occupied by an elderly person. Then they create a false identity, take over the place and typically borrow against it.
- With more homes changing hands now, the opportunity for title fraud may be higher today -- but whether it's on the rise is difficult to say because it gets mixed up with statistics on the wider problem of ID theft.
- Like many consumer services, "lock" programs exploit people's fear of identity theft, which has accelerated during the Covid crisis.
- And just like general credit monitoring services, title-lock services are largely unnecessary with a little consumer vigilance.
Trump-Russia/2020 Election News Ga. Probes Warnock-Led Voter Registration Group Washington Free Beacon
'Mercenary' Foreign-Tied Donor Sold 'Pay to Play' Associated Press
Lawsuits: USPS Trucking and Other Vote Irregularities Epoch Times
4 Takeaways From Michigan Senate's Vote Fraud Hearing Daily Signal
Barr: No Evidence of Fraud That'd Change Vote Outcome Associated Press
Biden OMB Pick Tanden Touted Conspiracy in Trump '16 Win New York Post
Durham Was Quietly Named Russiagate Special Counsel in Oct. Daily Caller
Leaked Tapes of CNN Quashing Hunter Biden Story New York Post
Docu-Dump: Hillary Allies Boosted Steele Access to FBI Washington Examiner
Biden-Tied Firm WestExec Scrubs Site of China Work Washington Free Beacon
Trump Donor, Kushner Lawyer Tied to Pardon Bribery Intrigue New York Times
What Really Happened to Trump in Election 2020 PJ Media Other Noteworthy Articles and Series 1% of Borrowers Got Over 25% of Relief Money
New York Times
Some food for thought as Congress considers another massive round of stimulus: A tiny fraction of companies gobbled up vast sums of money during the first round of loans under the federal government's signature relief program for small businesses reeling from the pandemic. This article reports that about 600 businesses received loans of $10 million, the largest available under the $525 billion Paycheck Protection Program. And a mere 1 percent of borrowers received more than a quarter of the total amount of money disbursed — or around $143 billion in loans of $1.4 million and above. The companies that received the maximum $10 million include dozens of restaurant chains, including Black Angus Steakhouses, P.F. Chang's, Legal Sea Foods and TGI Friday's. Prominent law films including Boies Schiller Flexner, the high-priced firm run by David Boies, and Kasowitz Benson Torres, founded and run by President Trump's longtime personal lawyer, Marc E. Kasowitz, also collected $10 million loans. Hit Squad Killing of Iran's Nuke Guru
Financial Times
Evidently nothing was left to chance in the assassination of Iran's top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. As his sedan headed down the road, an automatic machine gun, installed inside a blue pickup truck parked under an electric transmitter, began firing. Then the pickup truck, packed with explosives, was detonated by remote control. Finally, as many as 12 attackers opened fire, including those on motorbikes, in a Hyundai SUV as well as hidden snipers. This article notes that the killing - which is being blamed on Israel - is not the first deadly attack against Iran's nuclear program. The Iranians have been too weak to respond effectively. Their best hope may be Joe Biden's intention to revive the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal which President Trump withdrew from. In a separate article, the Daily Mail provides more detail, including photos and maps #MeToo's Time's Up Spent Big on Salaries
New York Post
Hollywood's Time's Up organization, set up to fight sexual harassment, spent the bulk of its donations on executive salaries and only a fraction on legal costs to help victims, this article reports. The organization - whose board members include Reese Witherspoon, Amy Schumer, Brie Larson and other luminaries - raised $3,670,219 in 2018, its founding year, but spent $1,407,032 on salaries and only $312,001 on the Time's Up Legal Defense Fund for people who have experienced sexual harassment. Charity watchdog groups such as Charity Navigator recommend that non-profits spend 75 percent of their revenues on their mission and 25 percent on administration. Time's Up spent 38 percent on salaries. How America's Deadlies Serial Killer Went Undetected for Years
Washington Post
This article - the first in a series labeled "Indifferent Justice" - is a compelling story marred by a social justice agenda. Its subject is Samuel Little, an African-American man who is one of the most prolific serial killers in American history. Now 80, he has confessed to killing 93 people, virtually all of them women, in a murderous rampage that spanned 19 states and more than 30 years and ended in 2005. But the truly guilty party in this story is not so much Little but "a fragmented and indifferent criminal justice system that allowed a man to murder without fear of retribution by deliberately targeting those on the margins of society — drug users, sex workers and runaways whose deaths either went unnoticed or stirred little outrage." The article, however, presents scant evidence that the police failed to take the cases seriously. Little often buried his victims in shallow graves, where their bodies quickly decomposed. By the time they were found, it was often hard to tell what killed them. The fact they were murdered by a random stranger made the cases even harder. The article also undercuts its claim of official indifference by noting that "advances in DNA technology and the rise of cold-case units eventually led to his arrest and conviction in 2014." Still, it reports that "Little's decades of impunity underscore a troubling truth about the U.S. criminal justice system: It is possible to get away with murder if you kill people whose lives are already devalued by society." Georgia Sen. Perdue's Portfolio: 2,596 Trades in One Term
New York Times
This triple-bylined article reads like opposition research against Georgia GOP Sen. David Purdue in advance of his January runoff against liberal Joel Ossoff. It reports that Purdue has been an especially active trader in stocks during his first term; his 2,596 trades, mostly in stocks but also in bonds and funds, roughly equal the combined trading volume of the next five most active traders in the Senate. And in some cases the companies he traded in were connected to issues before committees he sat on. But it also reports that financial advisers make the day-to-day decisions about Perdue's account. Last spring, after questions were raised about stock trades that he and other senators had made around the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, he abruptly sold virtually all of his stock holdings and soon announced that his advisers would no longer trade in individual stocks for his portfolio. The article found no evidence of wrongdoing. It does report that Ossoff has seized on Perdue's investments as a campaign issue. The Extremists Knocking on Seattle Doors and Claiming People's Homes
Daily Beast
The stranger knocking on the door was wearing a red fez hat and carrying a message for the homeowner: "I am here to let you know that I am the legal owner of the property and today is the day." After a back and forth that resembled an Abbott & Costello skit - "What?" "Today is the day!" "Huhn?" "Today is the day" - the knocker handed over some official-looking paperwork and drove off. The weird encounter was one of four such incidents to take place in a pair of Seattle suburbs in recent weeks. Someone knocks on a door, claims to be the legal owner of the house, and tells the current occupant to clear out. But these aren't part of the evictions that have swept the country amid the COVID-19 pandemic. They're part of an effort by the Moorish sovereign citizen movement. This conspiratorial group believes Black people are indigenous Americans and are therefore not bound by the same laws as the rest of the country. It also means they are the rightful owners of virtually all property in America. Can't you hear me knockin'? Coronavirus Investigations Leaked Files: China Vastly Underreported Covid Early On CNN
Trapped in a Nursing Home in the Hard-Hit Bronx ProPublica, New Republic
2 Global Efforts Try to Trace the Origin of the Covid Virus Wired
Hackers Target the Covid Vaccine's Vast 'Cold' Supply Chain Wired |
