RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
December 20 to December 26, 2020 Joe Biden needs to put the pedal to the metal as he races toward his goal of ridding America's energy sources of carbon emissions by 2035. But, as Vince Bielski reports for RealClearInvestigations, his rush to green the power grid may be slowed by a snarl of political speed limits in the states. Major flashpoint: an expected Biden power play to supersede state control with a law setting a federal clean electricity standard. Bielski reports: - Such legislation would face major pushback because few states are on track to boost wind and solar power to reach Biden's objective in just 15 years.
- Utilities, even those voluntarily pursuing clean energy, don't want their hands tied by more mandates.
- Even those aligned with Biden consider his goal quixotic: It would require a breathtakingly fast transformation of the massive power industry - from replacing hundreds of dirty power plants to upgrading thousands of miles of transmission lines.
- Yet the power grid must be cleaned up first so other big sources of pollution - transportation and industry - can slash emissions too.
- With a dirty power grid, plugging an electric car or "green" factory into it amounts to running in place.
- For an early Biden victory on greening the grid, a Democratic sweep of the Georgia U.S. Senate runoffs on Jan. 5 is crucial. If Republicans retain control of the chamber, then a federal standard is likely dead on arrival.
Trump-Russia/2020 Election News Barr: No Hunter Biden or Vote-Fraud Special Counsels Law & Crime
Strzok Text: Pre-FISA, FBI Knew Steele's Aim to Sway Vote Just the News
FBI Ties Iran to Hit List Targeting Vote-Fraud Debunkers Washington Post
Trump Pardons Manafort and Stone Wall Street Journal
Kushner Dad Pardoned After Tax Evasion, Sex Trap Associated Press Coronavirus Investigations How the Centers for Disease Control Went Woke
Washington Free Beacon
It's hard to imagine a more alarming example of social-justice racial bias -- one that would have sacrificed untold numbers of the covid-vulnerable elderly on the altar of wokeness in urgent national health policy. Before the Centers for Disease Control pulled back in the face of outrage from across the political spectrum, its ethical framework for allocating COVID-19 vaccines called for inoculating essential workers before the elderly because because the former are disproportionately black and Hispanic while adults over 65 skew white. The CDC advisory committee openly acknowledged that its plan would result in more deaths, this article reports. Quote: According to meeting minutes, presentation slides, public statements, and even civil-rights directives, the now-scuttled plan didn't come out of thin air. Rather, it reflects the reductive, racialist worldview that is rapidly gaining ground in education, media, nonprofits, and now the U.S federal government—a worldview with concrete policy implications and concrete human costs. Poultry Farms in Apt. 13D Show Epic Scale of Covid Fraud
Bloomberg
South Hermitage Avenue South on Chicago's South Side is a typical residential street whose crenelated brick apartment buildings stand behind low iron fences and tidy lawns. But when Congress passed covid relief offering $10,000 grants for small businesses employing 10 or more people, it miraculously turned into a hub of industry. The block, which lacks so much as a single storefront or neon sign, contains 18 businesses employing at least 10 people each, according to Small Business Administration grant records. This article reports such fraud was rampant in Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, Houston and elsewhere, where $10,000 grants far outnumbered eligible businesses. Eleven workers at a Las Vegas strip club got $10,000. So did three fighters and a trainer at a boxing gym in Ohio. At the fire department in Mount Vernon, just north of New York City, at least 11 members were approved for $10,000 grants, including five holding a rank of lieutenant or higher. Thousands more grants and loans went to self-described farmers operating in densely populated cities, including more than $150,000 approved for a pair of poultry farms in apartment 13D of a swanky high-rise in Manhattan's Greenwich Village. The Department of Justice has announced 37 prosecutions for disaster-aid fraud around the country, but in most cases the defendants were also being charged with other, more serious crimes. The SBA says it has referred more than 80,000 loans for possible criminal investigation. Other Coronavirus Investigations 25 States Prioritize Minorities Over Whites in Vaccinating Daily Mail
Hospitals Back Off Early Covid Efforts, Finding Basics Better Wall St Journal
How School Reopenings Tore Apart a Science-Savvy Suburb Slate Other Noteworthy Articles and Series How Untested Software Opened the Door to Hacks Across Government
Politico
The massive months-long hack of agencies across the U.S. government succeeded, in part, because no one was looking in the right place. The federal government does only cursory security inspections of the software it buys from private companies, this article reports, creating the blind spot that suspected Russian hackers exploited to breach the Treasury Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the National Institutes of Health and other agencies. After embedding code in widely used network management software made by a Texas company called SolarWinds, all the hackers had to do was wait for the agencies to download routine software updates from the trusted supplier. SolarWinds, whose 330,000 customers include key federal agencies, major telecommunications firms, every branch of the military and four-fifths of the Fortune 500, is one of the most extreme examples of the dysfunction that made this hack possible. Federal investigators have said it was not the only way the hackers had invaded their targets, warning of "additional initial access vectors and tactics, techniques, and procedures … that have not yet been discovered." In a separate article, Foreign Policy reports that China used stolen data to expose CIA operatives in Africa and Europe. Biggest West Point Cheating Scandal in Decades
USA Today
More than 70 cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point were accused of cheating on a math exam, the worst academic scandal since the 1970s at the Army's premier training ground for officers. Fifty-eight cadets admitted cheating on the exam, administered remotely because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of them have been enrolled in a rehabilitation program and will be on probation for the remainder of their time at the academy. Others resigned, and some face hearings that could result in their expulsion. Cadets in the rehabilitation program are matched with a mentor and write journals and essays on their experience. The cadets are "early in their developmental process," said a senior adviser. "And so on occasion, these incidents happen, but we have a system in place to deal with them when they do." The Journalist and the Pharma Bro, Martin Shkreli
Elle
Bloomberg journalist Christie Smythe found love through her work. The only problem is she was married at the time and the object of her affection was Martin Shkreli, the man headline writers dubbed the "New Icon of Modern Greed" and "Big Pharma's Biggest A**hole," because he increased the price of a lifesaving drug by 5,000 percent overnight; he is now serving seven years in prison for fraud. Smythe met Shkreli while covering white-collar crime. She knew he was a master manipulator but she thought she could handle it - and, perhaps, exploit their friendship for scoops and a book. "He's just using you," Smythe's husband had told her early on, after a late-night call with Shkreli. "For what?" she had replied. Only later did she realize "I fell down the rabbit hole." Their relationship eventually cost Smythe her marriage and her job, but she is happy. She describes Shkreli as her "life partner," and says they have already discussed "their kids' names and prenups." Shkreli declined to be interviewed for the article. Upper Monclair, NJ: Black Neighbors and the 'Karen' Next Door
The Cut
This fascinating article about a dispute between black and white neighbors in the rich suburb of Upper Montclair, N.J., captures much of the racial tension across America. The galvanizing incident came when the white woman called the police on her black neighbors, the Hayats, who had simply asked her to leave their property. The incident was filmed and posted; the woman quickly became to many a symbol of the racism that supposedly infects all white people, and of the centuries of oppression endured by people of color. The article reports that the affluent black couple welcomed the attention because it echoed similar experiences they had suffered in the past. It reports that Mrs. Hayat thought: Now you can all finally see what we've been dealing with. Meanwhile, many of their white neighbors rallied around them, even leading protests aimed at forcing the white woman to move. Mr. Hayat welcomed the support, but with reservations, the article reports: There can be an oppressiveness to sympathy, a way in which a newly galvanized community doesn't let in room for doubt - for wondering whether the community would have been quite so galvanized if it hadn't been the peak of a summer of racial-justice protests, if you still had [dread]locs or a shitty car in your driveway, or didn't have a law degree, or your wife wasn't the president of the PTA. When everyone is working so hard, when everyone is so vocally on your side, so apologetic for your experience, it's easier to accept "Kumbaya" Montclair than to wrestle with those questions and ask other people to wrestle with them too. |
