RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
March 26 to April 1 Featured Investigation RealClearInvestigations is introducing a new feature spotlighting past masters of the reporting craft â Investigative Classics. You can find it on left hand rail of the home page. This week weâre highlighting a previous winner of the Pulitzer each day until this yearâs prizes are announced on April 10. Whatâs striking is how many of the issues investigated decades ago â voter fraud, the plight of low-wage workers, efforts to defund Planned Parenthood â remain on the front burner. So it is with our first Classic, The New York Timesâ 1999 National Reporting Award for a series of articles that explored how a foreign nation, China, tried to influence U.S. elections and gain access to American technology. Hereâs the opening of the second part of the series, which was written primarily by Jeff Gerth: A Democratic fund-raiser has told Federal investigators he funneled tens of thousands of dollars from a Chinese military officer to the Democrats during President Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign, according to lawyers and officials with knowledge of the Justice Department's campaign finance inquiry. The fund-raiser, Johnny Chung, told investigators that a large part of the nearly $100,000 he gave to Democratic causes in the summer of 1996 â including $80,000 to the Democratic National Committee â came from China's People's Liberation Army through a Chinese lieutenant colonel and aerospace executive whose father was General Liu Huaqing, the officials and lawyers said. General Liu was then not only China's top military commander but also a member of the top leadership of the Communist Party. Read the full winning entry here. Other Noteworthy Articles and Series Most DEA Cash Grabs Were Never Connected to Criminal Charges - Reason
The Drug Enforcement Administration seized more than $4 billion in cash from people suspected of drug activity over the last decade, but $3.2 billion of those seizures were never connected to any criminal charges. The libertarian-leaning Institute for Justice said the Justice Department inspector general's findings "fundamentally undercut law enforcement's claim that civil forfeiture is a vital crime-fighting tool." Peter Thiel's Palantir vs. the Pentagon's $600-Toilet-Seat Mindset - Fortune
The new struggle over Pentagon procurement involves some of the Trump administration's most powerful players. They are all connected to Palantir Technologies, a company of ardent, even smug, believers in the superiority of their products. They are trying to crash a long-running, exclusive party involving the annual dispensing of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars. Inside Silicon Valley's Mission to Make Death Optional - New Yorker
The quest for longevity, as seen from California: When a Nobel Prize-winning scientist takes questions at a party, Goldie Hawn, regal on a comfy sofa, purrs: âI have a question about the mitochondria. ... â The premise of the evening was that answers, and maybe even a solution, were just around the corner. Anti-Gorsuch 'Dark Money' Critic Heads Dark Money Group - Washington Free Beacon
Heather McGhee, the president of liberal think tank Demos, criticized Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing because of his stance on Citizens United and public disclosures of campaign contributions. But Demos has been criticized as a dark money group that also does not disclose its donors' identities. Ex-Worker: PETA 'Routinely Euthanizes Healthy Puppies and Kittens'Â - Daily Caller
In an affidavit, a former employee of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said PETA intentionally euthanized healthy and adoptable dogs and cats. PETA euthanized 1,411 cats and dogs last year, while only 57 were adopted, according to a report by the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. The Death Row Basketball League - Marshall Project
"Lifting weights was my passion before basketball," writes Lyle May, an inmate on Death Row in North Carolina. "Neither were activities I had ever once considered before the judge declared: 'This court hereby sentences you to death. May God have mercy on your soul.' But in a place where we have been sent to die for the damage we have done, a chance at a half-life has emerged out here on the rec yard." | 
