RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
March 20 to March 26, 2022
Featured Investigation:
A Pharma Giant Imposed
‘Follow the Mandate’ on Vaccine Objectors.
They Are Now Ex-Workers.
More than a dozen former Eli Lilly employees who objected to the drugmaker’s vaccine mandate – including those who resisted on scientific grounds — say their principled stands cost them their jobs and much more, Clayton Fox reports for RealClearInvestigations.
The ex-workers’ accounts open a window on the largely secretive process by which companies carry out specific vaccine policies — sometimes inflexible ones that have roiled the American economy nationwide. Fox reports:
- The Lilly workers in particular illuminate a trend seen across the healthcare industry: resistance to vaccines rooted in science and professional training — beyond objections solely based on religion or ideas of personal liberty.
- Those who spoke to RealClearInvestigations were involved in manufacturing and selling drugs, including monoclonal antibodies used to treat COVID-19.
- Vaccine-skeptical employee: “The science of immunity from natural infection is being ignored, which is super disappointing considering we are a science-based company who developed an antibody treatment from those recovered.”
- Not only did workers lose their jobs; some lost out on stock options and severance packages.
- Others struggled to collect unemployment, claiming Lilly misrepresented their dismissals to state offices.
- Company statement: “As guided by science, Lilly believes that COVID-19 vaccination helps keep our employees, families, communities, and customers safe and healthy. …”
Featured Investigation:
What If the Fishy 'Big Blue Shift'
to Democrats Late in Elections Is Legal?
Donald Trump has been pilloried for unproven claims that the results in late-breaking battleground states in 2020 were “rigged.” But legal or not, "blue shifts" late in election tallies are increasingly common, Eric Felten reports for RealClearInvestigations. And researchers who study them warn that an election that appears unfair can be as damaging to democracy as a ballot box that has actually been stuffed.
At issue are factors favoring Democrats late in election-counting, Felten reports, unpacking the work of a pair of academics from MIT and Ohio State:
- After the Florida election fiasco of 2000, a reform allowed more “provisional ballots” from improperly registered voters that “systematically” benefited Democrats in the days after elections – what the academics call “overtime.”
- Democrats use such tally-prolonging provisional ballots more often in part because they are younger and move more than Republicans, making it more likely they haven’t updated their addresses in the voting database.
- Delay-causing provisional ballots also result from errors, the academics write, and “voters with lower education (who also tend to vote Democratic) may be more likely to make errors on their registration forms.”
- Then there is the familiar issue of more populous (and blue) metro areas taking longer to count.
- And now there is the matter of a provision tucked into the infamous 2014 “Cromnibus” spending law – a provision allowing vastly increased contributions for lawyers’ fees in litigating elections. It was shepherded in part by top Democrat election lawyer Marc Elias.
- That presents the specter of elections being decided by lawyers, not voters – the epitome of legality, maybe, even if it creates a destructive perception indeed.
Biden, Trump and the Beltway Ukraine Edition
The Pentagon's Work With Ukraine’s Bio Labs
Wall Street Journal
Fox News host Tucker Carlson is only the most famous person accused of spouting Russian propaganda for reporting that the United States has long worked with biolabs in Ukraine. This article confirms those claims.
'The program, which dates back to 1991 and continues today, stretches across the former Soviet Union. Since the program started, the Pentagon has spent approximately $12 billion on securing material used in weapons of mass destruction in post-Soviet republics, according to a [Defense Threat Reduction Agency] spokeswoman. Of those funds, about $200 million has been spent on the biological work in Ukraine since 2005. The funds have supported dozens of labs, health facilities and diagnostic sites around the country, the DTRA spokeswoman said. … Ukraine’s laboratories—unlike some in other former Soviet republics—weren’t directly involved in the Cold War biological-weapons program, but they did have pathogens that fed into offensive work [such as anthrax].
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Robert Pope, who heads the arm of the Pentagon running the program, calls Russian claims that the labs are used to create weapons “outrageous.” But Pope also says, “We were created 30 years ago to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, and Russia knows well we eliminate weapons of mass destruction” – but does not explain why, three decades later, they have not been eliminated.
Other Biden, Trump and the Beltway: Ukraine Edition
How Ukraine Is Able to Battle Mighty Russia The Atlantic
Why Can’t Spy Agencies Predict a Country’s Will to Fight? New York Times
Journalist Details Harrowing Escape from Mariupol AP
How Oligarch Secretly Invested Billions in U.S. New York Times
Western Firms Fleeing Russia – Except France's Wall Street Journal
American Gunmakers Help Ukrainians Fight Associated Press
U.S. Quietly Passing Intel to Ukraine The Intercept
Obama Rejected Biden Plan to Arm Ukraine Washington Post
Other Noteworthy Articles and Series
Trump Sues Clinton, DNC Over Russiagate
Politico
Imagine mixing the trials of John T. Scopes, O.J. Simpson and Charles Manson together – they still wouldn’t come close to the must-see-TV potential of the suit former President Trump has filed accusing Hillary Clinton of conspiring with dozens of other actors to topple his presidency. Voluminous news articles and investigation support the outline of his claim:
'“In the run-up to the 2016 Presidential Election, Hillary Clinton and her cohorts orchestrated an unthinkable plot – one that shocks the conscience and is an affront to this nation’s democracy,” the complaint says. “Acting in concert, the Defendants maliciously conspired to weave a false narrative that their Republican opponent, Donald J. Trump, was colluding with a hostile foreign sovereignty. … The actions taken in furtherance of their scheme—falsifying evidence, deceiving law enforcement, and exploiting access to highly-sensitive data sources—are so outrageous, subversive and incendiary that even the events of Watergate pale in comparison,” the complaint adds.
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Of course, proving that specific people took specific actions for specific illegal purposes is a high bar and Trump will have to overcome other legal hurdles. But if this case makes it to trial, the ratings will be more like the Super Bowl than “The Apprentice.” Stay tuned!
Iran Used Secret Finance System to Skirt Sanctions
Wall Street Journal
Iran established a clandestine banking and finance system to handle tens of billions of dollars in annual trade banned under U.S.-led sanctions. Although years of sanctions have hobbled Iran’s economy and caused its currency, the rial, to collapse, Iran has still been able to boost trade roughly to pre-sanction levels, this article reports. This has helped the economy rebound after three years of contraction, alleviating domestic political pressure and bolstering Tehran’s negotiating position in multilateral nuclear talks.
'According to the documents and Western officials, the clandestine banking system works like this: Iranian banks that serve companies barred by U.S. sanctions from exporting or importing engage affiliate firms in Iran to manage sanctioned trade on their behalf. Those firms establish companies outside of Iran’s borders to serve as proxies for the Iranian traders. The proxies trade with foreign purchasers of Iranian oil and other commodities, or sellers of goods for import into Iran, in dollars, euros or other foreign currencies, through accounts set up in foreign banks. Some of the revenue is smuggled into Iran by couriers who carry cash withdrawn from the proxy company accounts abroad, according to some of the officials. But much of it remains in bank accounts abroad, according to the Western officials. … The Wall Street Journal reviewed financial transactions for scores of Iranian proxy companies in 61 accounts at 28 foreign banks in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates totaling several hundred million dollars.
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The article also reports that Iran’s success at circumventing trade and finance bans shows the limits of global financial sanctions at a time when the U.S. and European Union are relying on them as a chief tool for punishing Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
Are Tough Texas Border Policies Really Working?
Marshall Project
Is Texas cooking the books to make its border patrol efforts seem more robust? A year ago the state announced robust new efforts to patrol its border with Mexico. Since then, officials say, they have made more than 11,000 criminal arrests, drug seizures that amount to millions of “lethal doses” and the referrals of tens of thousands of unauthorized immigrants to the federal government for deportation as signs that the program is effective. This article claims Texas may be cooking the books.
'The state’s claim of success has been based on shifting metrics that included crimes with no connection to the border, work conducted by troopers stationed in targeted counties prior to the operation, and arrest and drug seizure efforts that do not clearly distinguish DPS’s role from that of other agencies, an investigation by ProPublica, The Texas Tribune and The Marshall Project found.
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This article challenges claims of the initiative’s effectiveness, noting that “more than 2,000 arrests” were for non-immigration related crimes. But they were still pretty serious, including “sexual assault and stalking”; 270 of those charges “were for violent crimes, which are defined by the FBI as murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery and aggravated assault.”
Coronavirus Investigations
IRS Probe Finds Nearly $2 Billion in COVID-Related Fraud
The Hill
IRS investigators have uncovered more than $1.8 billion in fraudulent activity related to federal COVID-19 stimulus funds. The agency said it has closed 660 criminal cases related to various stimulus bills prompted by the pandemic. This article reports that many of these are wire fraud cases in which people made false claims about their business or financial situation in order to obtain money from the government.
'One such case involved the CEO of a nonfunctioning nonprofit organization who pleaded guilty to lying about having 25 employees and an average monthly payroll cost of more than $120,000. He received more than $300,000 from the Paycheck Protection Program, which was deposited into his personal account. “In reality, [the nonprofit] had no employees or payroll expenses,” the IRS wrote in a December 2021, statement.
Another case highlighted by the agency involved a married couple who used made-up and stolen identities, including some belonging to deceased people and foreign exchange students, to submit more than 150 fraudulent loan applications.
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Other Coronavirus Investigations
CDC Lowers Pandemic Death Count by 72,000 Just the News
Why It's So Hard to Measure COVID Immunity CNN
Why Are Africa's Pandemic Death Rates So Low? New York Times