RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
August 1 to August 7, 2021
Featured Investigation
Lawyer: Capitol Cop Who Shot Ashli Babbitt
'Ambushed' Her on Jan. 6 Without Warning
The attorney for the family of Ashli Babbitt, the unarmed Jan. 6 protester shot dead by a plainclothes officer in the U.S. Capitol riot, says witness testimony will prove the cop issued no warning before opening fire -- and in fact "ambushed" her from the side as she attempted to breach barricaded glass doors, Paul Sperry reports for RealClearInvestigations.
- “It’s not debatable -- There was no warning,” says attorney Terry Roberts, who said he has gathered evidence preparing a $10 million wrongful-death lawsuit.
- The officer’s lawyer, Mark Schamel, insists his client not only issued warnings but did so loudly and clearly: “He was screaming, ‘Stay back!’ ”
- A Democrat-dominated House panel opened an inquiry last week into "the violence in the citadel of democracy.” But no one mentioned the most violent act of the day: the fatal shooting of Babbitt, a 35-year-old Air Force veteran -- the only shot fired in the entire riot.
- Sources have identified the Capitol Police officer as Lt. Michael L. Byrd, 53, now on paid leave.
- In 2019, Byrd was investigated for leaving his pistol unattended in a restroom.
- Photos from Jan. 6 show Byrd “gunslinging like some cowboy,” Roberts said. One shows his pistol slung low at his side pointed in the direction of other officers with backs to him, finger apparently on the trigger.
Featured Investigation:
1619 Project, Touted as Racial Reckoning,
Ignores Democratic Party Racism
A prominent effort to reframe American history in terms of race, the New York Times’ 1619 Project, virtually ignores the Democratic Party’s role in advancing and sustaining slavery and racism in the United States, Mark Hemingway reports for RealClearInvestigations. Highlights:
- Democrats accuse Republicans of whitewashing American history by trying to ban the teaching of critical race theory.
- But critics of the 1619 Project fault it for whitewashing the Democrats’ central historical role in racism. In fact, the 1619 essays name the party only three times in passing.
- A 1619 essayist blasts the Republican Party, formed to fight slavery, as the 21st century heir to the 19th century racist ideology of pro-slavery power broker John C. Calhoun, a Democrat.
- Unmentioned by the 1619 Project: Democratic Party founder Martin Van Buren's efforts to sustain slavery as a coalition-building "northern man with southern principles."
- Unmentioned by the 1619 Project: racist Democratic President Woodrow Wilson’s hosting of a White House screening of D.W. Griffith’s white supremacist “Birth of a Nation.”
- There are many more such omissions.
- Critics see politics at play in pulling punches at Democrats. A key 1619 aim is extracting billions in reparations through legislation. "You need to court favor with the political party that is most likely to advance that agenda,” a scholar says.
- The 1619 essays present a wide array of complex issues –obesity, traffic jams etc. – as being primarily a consequence of America’s history of slavery and racial injustice.
Biden, Trump and the Beltway
Big Money Funds Trump's Stolen Election Charge New Yorker
#Resistance Pol Grayson Kept Anti-Trump Cash Daily Beast
'Infrastructure' Bill Doubles Funds for Manchin’s Wife's Panel Washington Times
Mystery of $5,800 Bottle of Whiskey Given to Pompeo New Y Times
CIA Feud Complicates Jan. 6 Probe Politico
FBI Used Pics of Young Female Staff in Sex Stings Washington Post
EPA Overruled Scientists in Corporate-Priority Cases Intercept
Coronavirus Investigations
New York Times Quashed Covid Origins Inquiry The Spectator
Back to School Turns Ugly as Delta Rages Politico
Dystopian Quarantines Crushed Olympic Dreams Wall St Journal
Other Noteworthy Articles and Series
Classical Music’s Suicide Pact (Part 1)
City Journal
“You are complicit in racism every time you listen to Handel’s Messiah” (Handel having held stock in a slave-trading company). This line, from a Composers Forum in June 2020, speaks to today's state of classical music, which like every other aspect of society, is facing a woke revolution. This article reports that in the post-George Floyd era, the genre has come under racial attack. Orchestras and opera companies have been deemed discriminatory institutions by dint of their lack of black talent, and classical music itself has been cast as a function of white supremacy. The article argues that, in reality, there has been substantial institutional support and encouragement of black musicians, reflected in diversity fellowships at prominent orchestras and music schools, and efforts by ensembles specifically aimed at commissioning works from black composers. Lack of black representation in classical music, suggests writer Heather Mac Donald, is not attributable to bigotry, but to the fact that “over the last 60 years, two of the three main sources for exposing a child to classical music—circumambient culture and music education—have dried up.”
Key Cuomo Sexual-Harassment Findings
Wall Street Journal
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s sexual-harassment scandal escalated this week when investigators released a lengthy report finding the Democrat groped and kissed several female state employees while he and his aides flouted their own rules for responding to misconduct complaints. This article reports that Cuomo crossed legal lines and personal boundaries, grabbing the breast of an executive assistant; caressing the neck, back and belly of a state trooper; squeezing the butt of another employee; inappropriately touching two other women; asking an economic adviser to play strip poker aboard the governor’s plane; and making a habit of hugging and kissing staff members to their discomfort. In a videotaped response, Cuomo claimed he “never touched anyone inappropriately or made inappropriate sexual advances.” Attorney General Letitia James’s office’s report said some of the governor’s senior staff defended the 63-year-old’s conduct as traditional behavior representative of his age and background. “I do embrace people. I do hug people, men and women,” the governor said. In a separate article, Politico profiles the 11 victims of sexual harassment and mistreatment detailed in the attorney general’s report -- nine of whom are current or former state employees. AG James said that her office would not pursue criminal charges and “there’s no penalty specifically tied to this report.” But New York and the nation's Democratic establishment appeared to be turning against the eloquent Mario Cuomo's coarser political heir and son. Still, some yet wondered if a Democratic double standard might again obtain, of the kind that benefited President Bill Clinton, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, and President Biden.
What Philadelphia Reveals About U.S. Homicide Surge
ProPublica
After decades of falling violent crime rates in cities across the country, over the last 18 months such crimes have surged. Philadelphia has been acutely impacted. This article examines the various causes concerning everything from progressive law enforcement initiatives and the effects of George Floyd’s death on police and the public, to the coronavirus response and its social and economic impacts, and the claimed proliferation of guns purchased by individuals using stimulus payments and unemployment benefits. All told, Philadelphia endured 499 homicides in 2020, more than in 2013 and 2014 combined. In something of a related article, the New York Times reports on Fresnillo, a Mexican city overrun by violence and organized crime that it describes as the nation’s “most terrified.” Such carnage had the Mexican government in a Massachusetts court last week suing some of the biggest U.S. gun manufacturers, accusing them of reckless business practices.
MEL
The strivings of human ingenuity, and of journalists to probe and prod its origins, know few bounds. This week's case in point comes from MEL magazine, which examines the seminal impact on society of a man's grousing to Pizza Hut focus-group researchers about "pizza bones," remnant pieces of crust he saw fit to feed only to the dog.
Until the 1990s, dogged food scientists had been stymied. But then "Here, boy!" inspired "Eureka!":
'... [W]hen the man kept going on about “pizza bones,” it caught the attention of [Patty] Scheibmeir and her colleagues in Pizza Hut R&D. And when the man explained that he was talking about the crust, she had something of a revelation. “He was complaining about how half the pizza goes to waste, so I thought, ‘How do I make the whole pizza edible?’ Then it just dawned on me: ‘What if I roll something into the edge?’ ”
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