RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
September 8 to September 14, 2024 Featured Investigation: According to press reports, one of Donald Trump’s worst moments in his debate with Kamala Harris came when he said that Haitian migrants were eating people’s pets in Springfield, Ohio. Debate moderator David Muir quickly interjected that his claim was false. This article suggests that Muir’s fact check was off-base. Maybe the animals weren't pets, but: A [Aug. 26] recording of a police phone call obtained by The Federalist reveals a local resident reporting a group of Haitian migrants carrying four geese in Springfield, Ohio two weeks ago. “I’m sitting here, I’m riding on the trail, I’m going to my orientation for my job today, and I see a group of Haitian people, there was about four of ’em, they all had geese in their hand,” the caller tells the public services dispatcher in the audio recording of the call. Wild geese are not pets and the identity of the caller has not been revealed, but other residents of the quiet, blue-collar community of 60,000 residents say they have seen similar behavior. “A resident named Anthony Harris complained to city officials last month. “They’re in the park, grabbing up ducks by the neck and cutting their heads off and eating them.” In a separate article, the Associated Press reports that Ohio Governor Mike DeWine will send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to Springfield in response to the an estimated 20,000 Haitian migrants who are overwhelming services. This article reports that the Ohio State Highway Patrol will be dispatched to help local law enforcement with traffic issues that officials say have cropped up due to an increase in Haitians unfamiliar with U.S. traffic laws using the roads. DeWine said he is also earmarking $2.5 million over two years to provide more primary healthcare through the county health department and private healthcare institutions. … “These dramatic surges impact every citizen of the community, every citizen,” he said, noting additional influxes are occurring in Findlay and Lima, Ohio. “Moms who have to wait hours in a waiting room with a sick child, everyone who drives on the streets, and it affects children who go to school in more crowded classrooms.” Also related:
Haitian Voter Fraud Evidence Found in Springfield, PJ Media In a separate article, Just the News reports that California Public Utilities Commission is reportedly going to eliminate requiring social security numbers for the California LifeLine program, which provides phone bill discounts for low-income residents, which would allow illegal immigrants to take advantage of the benefit. Waste of the Day
by Jeremy Portnoy, Open the Books Stuck Inside Limbo With Disaster Cash Again, RCI
Sky-High Costs at Low-Traffic Airports, RCI
All the Avoidable Deaths in ICE Custody, RCI
Federal Cash for Unsafe Boston Housing, RCI
Tip Tax Giveaway = Huge Budget Hole , RCI Election 2024 and the Beltway With the deaths of 13 service members, the August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan is widely acknowledged as a debacle. This article provides more detail about all the U.S. lost and left behind and the problems it helped create: The Biden-Harris administration abandoned $57.6 million in American funds, a "significant amount of classified information," and advanced biometric data that enabled the Taliban to hunt down nearly 500 former Afghan officials during its bungled 2021 withdrawal, according to the findings of a three-year long congressional investigation. … Because of these security failures, Taliban-controlled Afghanistan is now "a hotbed of terrorist activities." But the Biden-Harris administration has not conducted a single anti-terrorism operation in the country since 2021, suggesting the withdrawal severely hindered the military’s ability to target militants operating in the country. This article reports that President Biden’s insistence that the withdrawal be complete before the anniversary of 9/11 this week meant, as American officials interviewed by the committee disclosed, that while "they needed weeks to destroy the materials left behind,” they “were only given one day’s notice by embassy leadership." As a result, when the Taliban closed in, "they still had massive amounts of classified paper documents that they [were] trying to burn," according to one U.S. service member who spoke to the committee. Read the committee’s full report here. Other Election 2024 and the Beltway It's Dem vs. GOP Crypto Lobbyists in 2024 Cage Match, Politico
Iraqi Banks Used U.S.-Made System to Funnel Funds to Iran, WSJ
Laura Loomer: Conservative Provocateur, Trump Whisperer, CNN Other Noteworthy Articles and Series A decade ago, people looking to buy illicit drugs online would visit the dark web. But this was quickly eclipsed by the rise of social media and messaging platforms. Using popular social media sites, encrypted chats, and legitimate payment and shipping services, dealers moved into the light. As a result, this article reports, deadly drug deals – usually involving fentanyl-laced fakes – are increasingly being arranged not on the mean streets but in the safety of children’s homes through social media: The kids hear you can get pills on social media. A few taps later and then a package arrives. They retreat to the sanctity of their bedroom and take a pill. Fifteen minutes later, they’re dead. No one even knows until the next morning. … Fentanyl overdoses have become a leading cause of death for minors in the last five years or so, even as overall drug use has dropped slightly. In a 2022 analysis of fentanyl-laced prescription pills, the DEA found that six out of 10 contained a potentially lethal dose of the drug. And social media, where tainted, fake prescription drugs can be obtained with just a few clicks, is a big part of the problem. Experts, law enforcement and children’s advocates say companies like Snap, TikTok, Telegram and Meta Platforms, which owns Instagram, are not doing enough to keep children safe. This article includes the story of Coco Arnold, a 17-year-old who left home just outside New York City in 2022 to meet with a dealer she’d messaged through Instagram, who promised to sell her Percocet. She never made it home. She was found dead the next day, two blocks from the address that the guy had provided her. This article reports that the New York Police Department has tossed out more than 500 civilian complaints about police misconduct this year without looking at the evidence: The cases were fully investigated and substantiated by the city’s police oversight agency, the Civilian Complaint Review Board. … They included officers wrongfully searching vehicles and homes, as well as using excessive force against New Yorkers. In one instance, an officer punched a man in the groin, the oversight agency found. In another, an officer unjustifiably tackled a young man, and then another officer wrongly stopped and searched him, according to the CCRB. The article reports that the practice of dropping complaints without review began three years ago as a way to cope with escalating caseloads that were approaching a deadline for discipline. But ProPublica found the practice has become more frequent under Police Commissioner Edward Caban, who resigned this week as a result of other, unrelated scandals. In 2016, Greenpeace, Native American tribal groups and thousands of other activists camped for months in a remote corner of North Dakota to block the completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline. In response, billionaire Kelcy Warren – who owns the company behind the pipeline, Energy Transfer – launched a lawsuit against Greenpeace USA which, this article reports, could bankrupt the environmental group: Energy Transfer’s lawsuit alleges several Greenpeace entities incited the Dakota Access protests, funded attacks to damage the pipeline, and spread misinformation about the company and its project. The case is set for trial in February in a North Dakota state court, where both sides expect a fossil fuel-friendly jury. Energy Transfer is seeking $300 million in damages, which would likely wipe out Greenpeace USA, according to the group’s leadership. … “Everybody is afraid of these environmental groups and the fear that it may look wrong if you fight back with these people,” Warren said in a 2017 TV interview. “But what they did to us is wrong, and they’re gonna pay for it.” This article reports that the litigation is unlikely to affect Greenpeace’s international operations. But environmental leaders fear the demise of Greenpeace USA would send a chilling message to their movement. Sometimes you just say enough is enough. That moment appears to have arrived for many displaced Gazans, this article reports, who are opposing Hamas’ efforts to hide in the shelters where they are seeking refuge: Residents, already forced to evacuate their homes because of Israel’s intense bombardment, wanted to avoid becoming a target for Israeli forces hunting down Hamas militants. … “We simply want to save all families, women and children and not let there be any potential threat against us because of the existence of police and members of the Hamas government,” [one man said]. The article should be taken with a grain of salt. It reports that “it is hard to know how widespread the phenomenon is” and that the Israeli military has said that it continues to find weapons stored at schools and other civilian spaces. The article also does not say what reprisals Gazans face by saying no Hamas. It makes sense that Gazans would say enough, but, given all the caveats, it is also possible that the subjects interviewed are casting themselves as victims to pressure Israel to agree to a cease-fire, which would help Hamas. Growing numbers of women may be deciding not to have children, but that doesn’t mean they have, or can, extinguish the maternal instinct. This article reports that in the developed nation with the world’s lowest birthrate, South Korea, many women and couples are replacing babies with pampered puppies, so much so that last year the sale of dog strollers outpaced those of baby strollers for the first time: The country is confronting a national fertility rate of 0.72 – or a mere third of the level needed to maintain the population. At a youth roundtable last year, Kim Moon-soo, the country’s now labor minister, scolded the fresh-faced attendees: “What I worry about is young people not loving each other,” Kim said. “Instead, they love their dogs and carry them around, they don’t get married, and they don’t have children.” … In a recent local poll, one in two South Korean women aged 20 to 49 said they had no intention of having children, seeing it as inessential and citing financial constraints. While pet-friendly venues proliferate across the country, restaurants and cafes declare “no-kid zones,” pointing to disruptive behavior. The article reports that the government’s entreaty for younger generations to choose children over pets comes with a glaring incongruity: South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol is married without children – and has a menagerie of at least 10 dogs and cats himself. | 