RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
July 3 to July 9, 2022
Featured Investigation:
Here's the Surprising Backstory
of the Downfall of Roe v. Wade
In RealClearInvestigations, Mark Hemingway interviews the anti-abortion legal strategists behind the historic overturning of Roe v. Wade – presenting first-person accounts from Erin Hawley, wife of Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, and colleagues in the Alliance Defending Freedom.
Highlights:
- Erin Hawley and the Alliance downplayed their roles throughout the case, part of a deliberate strategy reflecting sensitivities over today’s bitter partisanship.
- Though she had clerked under Chief Justice John Roberts and her legal acumen is not in doubt, Hawley's husband is a bête noire of abortion activists. Publicizing her involvement would have been an unwelcome distraction.
- Similarly, although the Alliance Defending Freedom has won numerous victories at the Supreme Court, it kept its role under wraps for fear that the Southern Poverty Law Center, which labels it a “hate group,” would pounce to undermine the case.
- Instead, Mississippi publicly presented the case -- but that came after wrenching internal deliberations among pro-life allies.
- Many pro-lifers cautiously hewed to the so-called fetal viability standard to make incremental gains in abortion restrictions.
- But Hawley was among those who said go for broke: “We know that at 15 weeks that a baby can ... can stretch and move and quite likely feel pain. So why can't a state protect her life at that point when they can a few weeks later?”
- That argument prevailed when Mississippi restricted abortions after 15 weeks – well before the accepted viability line.
- And it prevailed at the Supreme Court with a new conservative majority after the death of liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg -- and with the victors surprised their opponents hadn't argued for a middle-ground decision.
Featured Investigation:
President Biden's 'Whole-of-Government'
Climate Spending Extravaganza
Never mind the prospect of reins on executive climate action like the Supreme Court's recent stinging regulatory rebuke: The Biden administration has embarked on an explosion of climate spending answering the President’s call for a “whole-of-government approach“ to the issue, Eric Felten reports for RealClearInvestigations.
Felten runs down ways every department, bureau, and agency is getting with the program:
- In the last two years, the National Endowment for the Arts has funded some 40 climate-focused projects to the tune of $1,369,000 -- up from just one such project the year prior.
- The Centers for Disease Control gets an exponential increase, from $10 million to $110 million, to “identify potential health effects associated with climate change and implement health adaptation plans.”
- Homeland Security has staked a claim to $55 million to battle climate change even as it struggles with the illegal immigrant influx (or encourages it, in the view of many).
- Will some of the undocumented be getting a lift in quieter rides? DHS is also committed to electrifying half its vehicle fleet.
- The State Department has dibs on $2.3 billion in climate-related largesse including numerous multimillion-dollar programs for “climate diplomacy” such as over $16 million to support the “Special Presidential Envoy for Climate” – aka John Kerry.
- Democratic Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan: “Climate change is not only a real and growing threat, but it also presents an economic opportunity.”
Biden, Trump and the Beltway
The dam seems to have officially broken with a deluge of reports in recent weeks on Hunter Biden’s business affairs and allegedly illicit conduct, Joe Biden’s proximity to Hunter’s activities -- including financially -- and an intensifying effort by Republicans in Congress to probe these matters and prod law enforcement to intervene.
Top U.S.-China Contacts Found
in Hunter Biden Laptop Rolodex
New York Post
Hunter Biden’s hard drive contained an enviable lineup of contacts for top U.S. officials tasked with overseeing the U.S.-China relationship, and at least 10 senior Google executives — raising new questions about the extent to which Joe Biden’s well-connected son could have leveraged his connections for personal profit, this article reports.
Many of the top-level government officials would have been in position to help Hunter’s business aspirations in China during father’s term as vice president from 2008 to 2016. Throughout that period, he infamously looked to capitalize from his family name and connections — often while his father conducted sensitive state business.
As for the Google brain trust, one former exec there told The Post that Hunter Biden sought the tech giant’s cash for Chinese ventures, and that several of the company’s bigwigs wound up working for the Obama-Biden administration during his father’s vice presidency.
Biden Administration's 1 Million-Barrel Oil Sale
to Hunter-Tied China Firm
Washington Free Beacon
Hunter Biden’s Chinese ties have taken on new potential significance given the policies his father is executing now. This article reports that the Biden administration sold roughly one million barrels from America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve to a Chinese state-controlled gas giant, claiming the sale would “support American consumers and the global economy in response to Vladimir Putin’s war of choice against Ukraine” and counter “Putin’s price hike.” Yet evidence suggests the Chinese concern continues buying Russian oil. The administration sold the barrels to Unipec, the trading arm of the China Petrochemical Corporation, often referred to as ‘Sinopec.’
Biden's son is tied to Sinopec. In 2015, a private equity firm he cofounded bought a $1.7 billion stake in Sinopec Marketing. Sinopec went on to enter negotiations to purchase Gazprom in March, one month after the Biden administration sanctioned the Russian gas giant.
Biden Admin Accused of Shielding Suspicious Hunter Records
New York Post
Republicans say they're being stonewalled in seeking information from Treasury officials regarding sketchy business transactions consummated by Hunter Biden, Biden associates, and family members. According to this report, ranking House Oversight Committee Republican James Comer of Kentucky claimed in a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen ...
'... that the Biden administration may be preventing the release of suspicious activity reports related to Hunter Biden. The reports, known as SARs, are generated by banks that flag suspiciously large transactions and are meant to guard against money laundering.
“The Biden Administration is restricting Congress’ access to SARs, and Committee Republicans are investigating whether this change in longstanding policy is motivated by efforts to shield Hunter Biden and potentially President Biden from scrutiny,” Comer wrote. “Though the Committee requested documents and information ‘no later than June 8, 2022,’ the Department of the Treasury has provided no documents or information.”
Comer…alleged that Treasury officials told GOP committee staffers in a June 13 phone call that they would not release the SARs unless Democrats join in the request.
'
Biden Paid Big for Son's Detox
(Cue Booze and Drugs)
Daily Mail
While Hunter Biden was in rehab on his father’s dime, newly released video recorded by Biden himself and retrieved from his infamous laptop indicates he was drinking and using drugs during his time at a Massachusetts wellness center in January 2019. As this article reports:
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'Just one month earlier Hunter had texted his dad, Joe, complaining he didn't have enough money for the treatment program on top of bills and alimony.'
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'Joe later agreed to wire his son $75,000 to cover the costs, as well as an additional $20,000 for a treatment program in New York City'
This follows a report highlighted last week that Joe Biden had potentially unwittingly funded Hunter’s romps with escorts from a Russia-tied agency in the 2018-19 period. In an update, the Washington Examiner reports that Republican Senators Charles Grassley and Ron Johnson demanded a full Department of Justice and FBI investigation into this and other potential criminal leads stemming from Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Other Biden, Trump and the Beltway
End Runs Around Bans on Private Election Funding PJ Media
DoJ Preps Transgender Curriculum for All Federal Prisons Fox
Comey and McCabe Got Rare Audits Under Trump IRS NY Times
Page, Strzok Evade Trump Subpoenas for Months Business Insider
Scant Evidence of an 'Armed' Mob on January 6 American Greatness
U.S. Military’s Newest Weapon: Hot Air (as in Balloons) Politico
The Army Thinks Printers Cost Over $1 Million Reason
76 Fake Charities Shared a Mailbox. IRS OK'd Them All. NY Times
Status of Jan. 6 Cases 18 Months After Riot Politico
Labor Dept. Doles Out $77B in 'Improper' Jobless Payments Epoch Times
'Tax the Rich' AOC Fined for Unpaid Taxes Washington Examiner
Other Noteworthy Articles and Series
Elite Colleges Becoming
Outsourced Online Schools
Wall Street Journal
With universities seeking new revenue streams, one effort reportedly reshaping higher education comes in the form of online learning. This article reports that at least 550 schools have hired vendors with which to partner in executing online programs, with at least 25 for-profit companies now in the business of setting up such courses and recruiting students to fill them.
'As part of the arrangement…universities sometimes hand over to companies a great deal of control of student recruitment and instructional design, especially for nondegree programs. For their work, the companies receive hefty shares of tuition dollars.
Much of this isn’t clear to prospective and current students. Universities often cooperate with companies in ways that can blur the lines for students between schools and recruiters.
'
The Covid-19 pandemic seems to have accelerated the online, outsourced-education trend, which has aimed to reach new audiences like working adults.
J.K. Rowling's Metamorphosis
Into Anti-Trans Villain
Politico
This article chronicles J.K. Rowling’s transformation from rags-to-riches children’s author of the hugely successful Harry Potter book series to reviled woke nemesis, particularly with respect to her feminist defense of biological sex in the face of transgender activists. Despite criticism, the previously “milquetoast center left” writer seems unbowed:
'If anything, as the criticism has mounted, Rowling has only become more combative, cheerfully retweeting her detractors to trigger pile-ons from fellow thinkers.
What’s more: When it comes to driving the debate, she seems to be winning. Asked earlier this year by an anonymous poster whether her battle was a hill she wanted her legacy to die on, she answered tartly:
“Yes, sweetheart. I’m staying right here on this hill, defending the right of women and girls to talk about themselves, their bodies and their lives in any way they damn well please,” she tweeted. “You worry about your legacy, I’ll worry about mine 😉”
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A tangentially related report details the Oxford English Dictionary’s ambitious effort to define every English word, one that has required substantial updating in recent years to account for the ever-growing woke lexicon.
Mega-Antiquities Heist for the Ages,
From Cambodia to the Met
Bloomberg
This article reports that government officials and lawyers in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, academics in Paris, heritage advocates in Washington, and federal prosecutors in New York City are all involved in trying to unravel what they consider a historic crime: the long plunder of Cambodia’s archaeological treasures continuing almost until the end of the 20th century.
'Thousands of pieces were taken, robbing Cambodians of relics that some view almost as physical manifestations of their ancestors. Ripped from their pedestals with picks, chisels, and even dynamite, and sometimes broken into parts for easier transport, these artifacts were dispersed around the world, repurposed to adorn museum halls and living rooms in New York, London, and Palm Beach.
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