RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week}

RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
February 28 to March 6, 2021

Featured Investigation:
So This Conservative Comic Goes
on Social Media and ...

Conservative-leaning comics say their material is increasingly subject to arbitrary online censorship by Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social media giants -- treatment that appears to have no other explanation except the targets’ bucking of leftist orthodoxy.

Hollywood blogger Christian Toto reports for RealClearInvestigations:

Comedian Chrissie Mayr’s video mocking China’s handling of covid -- “Kung Flu Fighting” -- was erased by Instagram as “hate speech,” despite its diverse lineup of comics.
Facebook demonetized the Babylon Bee, the right’s online answer to The Onion, for an article that riffed on a classic bit from “Monty Python.”
The offending “Python” riff: “Senator Hirono Demands ACB Be Weighed Against A Duck To See If She Is A Witch,” the story’s headline read, using ACB to refer to Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
Comics complain of social media’s lack of transparency and consistency in applying rules, saying lefty humor is almost never policed, even for worse content.
On Twitter, Bette Midler routinely makes sexist and racist wisecracks with impunity. She’s even suggested violence: “Where’s Rand Paul’s neighbor when you need him?” she tweeted in 2018.
Particularly galling to some: the case of meme artist Douglass Mackey, aka “Ricky Vaughn,” who faces 10 years in jail for spreading “misinformation” -- after posting memes asking people to vote via text for Hillary Clinton.
Yet “social justice” comic Kristina Wong tweeted a very similar exhortation: “Hey Trump Supporters! Skip poll lines at #Election2016 and TEXT in your vote! Text votes are legit. Or vote tomorrow on Super Wednesday!”
Online censorship threats are a bread-and-butter concern for “un-woke” comics. Their economic dependence on social media has only increased as many clubs remain shuttered due to the pandemic.

Featured Investigation:
Why Does ‘Fill the Boot’ Charity
Fill Fire Fighter Union Coffers?

"Fill the Boot," the wildly successful charity in which fire fighters turn Labor Day coin drops into a cash firehose to fight debilitating muscular disease, has some of them questioning whether their national union is diverting buckets for itself. Bill McMorris reports for RealClearInvestigations that alarms have been sounded over multi-million-dollar payments from the Muscular Dystrophy Association to the scandal-plagued International Association of Fire Fighters:

Since 2005 the charity and its affiliates have forked over more than $10 million to the union, which represents some 300,000 fire fighters nationwide, according to federal filings.
In some cases, the union has been the top recipient of all the MDA's cash.
The $1.15 million the union got in 2018 was about four times more than the most lucrative grants the charity awarded to top hospitals, university labs, and other medical researchers.
The union says the payments are used to cover fundraising costs and other expenses related to Fill the Boot.
That doesn’t wash, says a Nantucket fire captain. "We still haven't heard a valid reason as to why these payments were made from the MDA," he says.
The union's finances have been under the microscope since March, when an internal report found $6 million missing and alleged that the union’s president inappropriately took nearly $1 million from a pension fund.

Featured Investigation:
Everything's Coming Up Covid
for Much Public Spending,
Even as Virus Fades

For some special interests, a fading coronavirus poses a problem -- but not always an insurmountable one. As Steve Miller reports for RealClearInvestigations, unions and others have achieved or are close to realizing long-sought goals using the rationale of pandemic relief:

For the Biden administration’s immigration overhaul, advocates are stressing the need to legalize workers essential to pandemic recovery.
The left-leaning Brookings Institution won billions more federal dollars for child-care programs in the name of pandemic safety.
Several states and municipalities have signed off on covid-connected sick leave rules, and more are considering broadening their policies.
Colorado lawmakers passed a permanent change to the state’s so-called leave act, citing the pandemic, requiring businesses with 16 employees or more to allow workers in the state to accrue up to six paid sick days annually beginning in 2021.
A union-led crusade for covid hazard pay is taking shape in several West Coast cities including Seattle, Long Beach, Calif., and Los Angeles.
The poster child in the covid spending push is the so-far unsuccessful effort to include a $15 minimum wage in the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill now before Congress.

Coronavirus Investigations

Freed in U.S., Border Crossers Test Covid-Positive
NBC
This article reports that at least 108 members of migrant families released by the Border Patrol in Brownsville, Texas, have tested positive for COVID-19 since Jan. 25, which is 6.3 percent of those who took the test. The city said it does not have the authority to retain these migrants, who plan to travel to dozens of cities throughout the country. Interviewees who tested positive said they did not have any document indicating their COVID-19 test results; they said they were simply told by the station workers after taking the test. Eva Orellana, 29, who is from Honduras and who tested positive, said she was going to take the bus to North Carolina with her 3-year-old daughter. "On the way, we were wearing a mask all the time, gel, washing our hands," she said. "Really, I don't feel anything."

Scams Flood Pandemic Jobless Aid
Associated Press

The Labor Department inspector general’s office estimates that more than $63 billion has been paid out improperly through fraud or errors — roughly 10% of the total amount paid under coronavirus pandemic-related unemployment programs since March. California ranks first with an estimated $11 billion in fraudulent payments and an additional $19 billion in suspect accounts. Colorado has paid out nearly as much to scammers — an estimated $6.5 billion — as it has to people who filed legitimate unemployment claims. The nationwide fraud has fed on twin vulnerabilities: a unmanageable flood of jobless benefit applications since the pandemic began and antiquated benefit systems that are easy prey for crafty and persistent criminals.

Other Coronavirus Investigations

Scolding, Bad Risk Analysis: Repeat Pandemic Errors Atlantic
Bats and the Origin of Outbreaks Reuters
What Life Is Like for New York’s ‘Patient Zero’ Wall Street Journal

Other Noteworthy Articles and Series

Flea Collar Tied to Almost 1,700 Pet Deaths
Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting

EPA documents show that one of the most popular flea and tick collars in the country, Seresto, has been linked to hundreds of pet deaths, tens of thousands of injured animals and hundreds of harmed humans. But, this article reports, the agency “has done nothing to inform the public of the risks.” Seresto works by releasing small amounts of pesticide onto the animal for months at a time. The pesticide is supposed to kill fleas, ticks and other pests but be safe for cats and dogs. Karen McCormack, a retired EPA employee who worked as both a scientist and communications officer, said the agency has known about these incidents for years but has not informed the public. The EPA declined to say how Seresto compares to other pet products but said that the two pesticides in Seresto have “been found eligible for continued registration” based on best available science, including incident data.

Women: GOP Rep. Harassed Us In College
BuzzFeed

Madison Cawthorn is just weeks into his first term in Congress, and two leading liberal news outlets - the Washington Post and BuzzFeed – have published very similar articles alleging the 25-year-old was a serial sexual harasser in college. Buzzfeed reports that:

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Four women told BuzzFeed News that Cawthorn, now a rising Republican star, was aggressive, misogynistic, or predatory toward them. Their allegations include calling them derogatory names in public in front of their peers, including calling one woman “slutty,” asking them inappropriate questions about their sex lives, grabbing their thighs, forcing them to sit in his lap, and kissing and touching them without their consent.
'

The Post story also quotes women who tell similar stories and describes a string of falsehoods Cawthorn has told – including an apparently false story about the car wreck that has required him to use a wheelchair since he the age of 18. Both articles seem well-reported, but their timing seems odd. Journalists are loath to reveal their sources, so we may never know if reporters at two publications just happened to come up with the same story at the same time -- or if they were both fed leads by opposition research outfits looking to use mainstream outlets to take down a politician.