RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
April 14 to April 20 Featured Investigation:
Mueller Report Drops at Last,
and Collusion Bias Lives on Republicans were afraid that what they called Special Counsel Robert Mueller's practice of distorting facts during his investigation would color his final report, and now that it is public, they can claim vindication in more ways that one: The redacted report apparently confirms "collusion bias" in the past by Mueller's team even as it shows up anew in his final written pronouncement on the Trump-Russia affair. Before the Mueller report's release, Paul Sperry of RealClearInvestigations reported that Democrats were looking to cherry-pick details of the Special Counsel's "no collusion" conclusion as part of their effort to keep the collusion narrative alive heading into the 2020 presidential election. And it seems that they'll have ample material over which to cast dark shadows of suspicion, given the report's tens of thousands of gravely presented words on mostly mundane dealings between Trump figures and various Russians -- that is, smoke but no criminal fire. Sperry reports these cases of past distortions by Mueller prosecutors, flagged by Republican congressional investigators, either confirmed by the final report or perpetuated in it: - In false-statement charges against former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos in 2017, Mueller's team misleadingly said his emails revealed that a Trump "campaign official suggested ‘low level' staff should go to Russia." But as the Mueller report now confirms, a wider look at his emails shows the campaign wanted someone "low level" to decline such invitations.
- In chargingdocumentsagainst former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, Mueller omitted exculpatory information about his questioning by FBI agent and noted Trump critic Peter Strzok. The G-man reported that he "had the impression at the time that Flynn was not lying or did not think he was lying," according to internal FBI documentsuncoveredby Flynn's defense.
- Mueller used the so-called Moscow Project talks on a Russian skyscraper to connect Trump directly to Vladimir Putin during the campaign, whilewithholding from thecourt details that would clear Trump of such collusion. Mueller omitted the fact that Trump lawyer Michael Cohen did not have any direct points of contact at the Kremlin, and had resorted to sending emails to a general press mailbox. The Mueller report confirms that Mueller knew this exculpatory fact.
Mueller's report also fails to mention exculpatory material on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page: his cooperation with the FBI in 2013 in a New York investigation of Russian agents. But that omission is not as serious the one that helped the feds win a spy warrant against Page: misleading disclosure on spurious opposition research against him. Sperry writes that while it's not hard to see why many partisan Democrats would want to push collusion ahead of 2020, Mueller's motivations are likely more complicated.Former prosecutors and investigators think Mueller's hidden agenda was - and is - to protect the FBI, Justice Department and other intelligence agencies. Some also think teasing collusion successfully tipped 2018 election results toward Democrats. And some clearly think that sort of thing can work again. Read Full Article The Trump Investigations: Top Articles The Mueller Report, U.S. Department of Justice
How Mueller Report Obliterated Russiagate Theories, The Intercept
Mueller Report's Portrait of White House Chaos, New York Times
Highlights From the Mueller Report, Annotated, NPR
Post-Mueller Questions for Investigating the Investigators, The Hill
Post-Mueller IG Report Taking Aim at Dossier Man Steele, Politico
The Brit Ex-Spy Boss Who Flies Under the Russiagate Radar, Daily Caller
Ex-CIA Analyst: U.S. Intelligence a Bastion of Liberals, Free Beacon
Other Noteworthy Articles and Series Dogging Mayor Pete: Secret Tapes on Black Chief's Demotion
The Hill
There is seething racial tension in South Bend, Indiana - the town led by Democrat presidential hopeful Mayor PeteButtigieg, which is 25 percent black. Thisarticlereports that an Indiana judge will rule soon on whether to release five cassette tapes of secretly recorded conversations between South Bend police officers that led to the 2012 demotion of Police Chief Darryl Boykins, the city's first black police chief.Buttigieg'scritics say he's gone to great lengths to conceal the contents of the tapes, which some believe could include racist language by white police officers. Black city leaders say the tapes could call into question scores of convictions resulting from white police officers investigating black suspects. 5-Star Phonies: The Fake Amazon Review Complex
The Hustle
Many Amazon shoppers rely on customer reviews to determine which of the hundreds of merchants selling lightning cordstheyshould buy from. Amazon assures them they can trust the reviews, claiming "less than 1%" of its reviewsarefakes. A website calledReviewMeta, which says it has analyzed 203 million Amazon reviews found 11.3% (22.8 million) of them to be untrustworthy. (A similar site,Fakespot, places this figure at around 30%). This article reports that fake reviews have been an issue for Amazon since its inception, but the problem appears to have intensified in 2015, when Amazon.com began to court Chinese sellers. The decision has led to a flood of new products — a 33% increase, by some accounts — sold by hundreds of thousands of new sellers. But the ensuingrush to the marketplace has spawned thousands of indistinguishable goods (chargers, cables, batteries, etc.). And it has prompted sellers to game the system. DC Puts Homeless in Upscale Digs. A Mess Ensues.
Washington Post
The SWAT team, the overdose, the complaints of pot smoke in the air and feces in the stairwell - it would be hard to pinpoint a moment when things took a turn for the worse at Sedgwick Gardens, a stately apartment building in northwest Washington. Located in affluent Cleveland Park and designed byMihranMesrobian- the pre-war architect behind such Washington landmarks as the Hay-Adams Hotel - Sedgwick Gardens was once out of reach for low-income District residents. That changed two years ago, when District of Columbia housing officials dramatically increased the value of rental subsidies. The goal was to give tenants who had previously clustered in impoverished, high-crime areas east of the Anacostia River a shot at living in more desirable neighborhoods. Mixed-income developments aren't rare in Washington, where officials often require that new buildings preserve some space for working-class residents.But the situation at Sedgwick Gardens is different: Many of the new tenants are homeless men and women who came directly from shelters or the streets, some still struggling with severe behavioral problems. The result has been a kind of high-stakes social experiment that so far has left few of its subjects happy. 118,352 Human Feces Reports in San Franscisco Since '11
Forbes
Since 2011, there have been at least 118,352 reported instances of human fecal matter onthe streets of San Francisco - most of which are attributed to the city's large homeless population. The new mayor, London Breed, won election by promising to clean things up. But conditions are the same or worse. Last year, the number of reports spiked to an all-time high at 28,084. In the first quarter of 2019, the pace continued with 6,676 instances of human waste.This article includes maps plotting reports of waste by zip code. Seventy-two percent of all cases since 2008 were reported in just 10 neighborhoods: Tenderloin (30,863); South of Market (23,599); Mission (19,150); Civic Center (6,232); Mission Dolores (4,096); Lower Nob Hill (3,654); PotreroHill (2,489); Showplace Square (2,022); North Beach (1,826); and Financial District (1,810). Tracking Phones, Google is a Dragnet for the Police
New York Times
Science fiction isn't the only place where new technologies have the potential for dystopian results: An enormous Google database can track cellphone users' locations for law enforcement - and sometimes mislead cops. In Phoenix, police got a search warrant requiring Google to provide information on a murder suspect, but this data led them to the wrong person. Use of the database, first exploited in 2016, has spread to California, Florida, Minnesota, and Washington. Billionaire Pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's Secret Chartity
Daily Beast
Jeffrey Epstein, a billionaire and convicted sex offender, is still quitely spreading his wealth around, using a private foundation called Gratitude America. It was launched in 2012 in order to back organizations that "seek to celebrate the United States of America and the American ideals." Money has gone to Deepak Chopra, Elton John, and a doctor connected to Donald Trump. Its biggest donation was a $375,000 payout to the International Peace Institute, a New York think tank.
The Scam of Fake Orphanages in Cambodia
Der Spiegel
Thousands of children live in orphanages in Cambodia, even though many of them still have living parents. Mired in poverty and unable to meet basic costs, families send children to these fake orphanages to produce goods with hammers and chisels and appeal to tourists for money. Why Are So Many Teen Athletes Struggling With Depression?
The Atlantic
High school and psychological problems practically go together, but less well known is that sometimes sports are a key contributor, the Atlantic reports. According to one study, many student athletes report higher levels of negative emotional states than students who aren't athletes. Given that sports are often thought of as esteem builders, parents and coaches are perplexed. Some think the problem is the growing professionalization of high school sports, where teen athletes copy the training methods and intensity seen at higher levels. |
