RealClearInvestigations Articles

When President Biden’s supporters attacked him for describing the man who allegedly murdered Georgia co-ed Laken Reilly as an “illegal,” they shined a light on one of the most contested words in American politics. Laken Riley: High-profile victim. Wikipedia The progressive push to describe border crossers as undocumented or unauthorized can also serve to downplay and obscure the massive issue of crime perpetrated and spawned by the influx of millions of migrants since Biden was elected – often in ways that leave the migrants themselves as victims. While migrant...

Topline: The federal government has given $324 million since 2020 to projects that have created a podcast, including some with questionable topics, according to a recent investigation from OpenTheBooks.com. Key facts: OpenTheBooks’ auditors identified a list of 58 podcasts created with government funds, covering everything from Swedish gender-neutral pronouns to AI-generated erotic literature. The Regeneration Rising podcast, which received over $446,000 from the Department of Agriculture, has an episode about “building a queer farmer community.” Waste of the Day...

A member of the Qatari royal family invested roughly $50 million in Newsmax, according to documents and representatives for the media company and the royal, in a moment of acute Middle East tensions during the Trump administration. The investment bolstered a key conservative media outlet at a time when Qatar was facing intense diplomatic pressure from its neighbors and seeking allies in the United States. At the time the investment was made, a coalition of countries led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had established a diplomatic and economic blockade against Qatar,...

It has been a week- and weekend-long struggle session over NBC’s hiring of McDaniel to provide election-year analysis: Which leads us to wonder: are there any adults still working at NBC and MSNBC? Update: McDaniel Eyes Big Payout After NBC Sacks Her Politico McDaniel’s hiring simply could not stand with the elite of MSNBC like Chuck Todd, Joe Scarborough and Nicolle Wallace (all former political operatives) as they issued on-air apologies over NBC management to hire someone so closely attuned to a political party they don’t belong to. Jen Psaki would like a word....

By Amanda Kieffer, RealClearInvestigationsMarch 25, 2024 After years of drug abuse and crime, Rudolph H. Carey III began to get his life back on track in 2007 when he checked himself into rehab and eventually drew on his experience to become a substance abuse counselor in Virginia. Rudolph H. Carey III: To this former inmate, the link between work and not returning to crime is no mystery. “You gotta have income to survive,” he says. Institute for Justice Then it was all taken away from him. After his company was taken over, his new employer fired him in 2018 due to...

Topline: The University of Virginia spent an estimated $20 million to pay its 235 “diversity, equity and inclusion” employees last year, according to payroll records obtained by OpenTheBooks.com. Key facts: These employees under the DEI banner earned $15 million in salary and an estimated $5 million in benefits, OpenTheBooks found. That’s the full tuition payments for nearly 1,000 in-state undergraduate students. The university only has 17,500 undergraduates. Waste of the Day 3.25.24 Open the Books The highest-paid DEI employees included Martin N. Davidson, who...

Joe Biden vs. Donald Trump is not the race America needs, but it is the one we deserve. A political system that has spit out a race few voters want is the perfect symbol of a nation – and a people – bent to the point of breaking. Biden vs. Trump appears to be a welcome diversion in a country whose government seems unequipped to face its biggest challenges and whose people are increasingly unwilling to take responsibility for their own problems. Eight months arguing about two angry old men – hearing our own side praise us to the hilt while blaming every...

In talking to executives, hosts, correspondents, and producers yesterday in the wake of [Chuck] Todd’s public excoriation of NBC leadership, it was clear the problem stems from a breakdown in trust and communication among the company’s balkanized and ideologically fractured divisions. First, there’s the message sent by hiring McDaniel on a nearly $300,000-a-year contract amid a growing sense inside the Washington bureau that Comcast sees its news division, which has been subject to recent layoffs and other cuts, as a divisive nuisance to be stripped down. “Across...

CBS’ “60 Minutes” failed to disclose that a prominent “misinformation” researcher it featured on its Sunday program received funding and collaborated with President Joe Biden’s administration. University of Washington professor and researcher Kate Starbird was featured on the program about “misinformation” proliferating on social media. Starbird spearheaded a project that Biden’s National Science Foundation (NSF) granted $2.25 million in 2021, and the researcher collaborated with the Department of Homeland...

RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the WeekMarch 17 to March 23, 2024   Featured Investigation:Friends in Low Places? Behind South Africa's New Genocide Case Against Israel  In RealClearInvestigations, Toby Dershowitz and Max Friedman explore South Africa's possible motives in accusing Israel of post-Oct. 7 genocide in the World Court: It appears less an act of probity than one of cynical collaboration with one of Israel’s fiercest enemies, Iran. They report: Shortly before undertaking the multi-million-dollar legal action against Israel in December, the bereft South African...

Topline: The U.S. debt held by the public is expected to more than double during the next 26 years until it reaches an “unsustainable” amount, according to a new study from the Government Accountability Office. Key facts: Debt held by the public was $26.2 trillion in September 2023, about the same as the U.S. gross domestic product. That means our debt is growing at the same pace as the economy. Waste of the Day 3.22.24 Open the Books Debt held by the public measures everything the government owes to those outside the government. It’s slightly different from the...

Yesterday CNN published an article by senior writer Tara John about the UK National Health Service’s newly skeptical stance toward youth gender medicine. The main takeaway, which is big news to observers of this debate, is that the NHS will no longer provide puberty blockers to young people, other than in research contexts. (As for cross-sex hormones, a relatively strict-seeming regime is set to be implemented, and they will be offered to youth only “from around their 16th birthday.”) As myself and a number of others pointed out, the article contains a...

Topline: Critics of government spending often claim there are bigger fish to fry than the issues our tax dollars support. That was not the case in 2008, when the federal government spent $135,000 to repair the world’s largest stuffed fish in a Long Island museum. The project cost $197,000 in 2024 dollars. The stuffed fish was highlighted in the “Wastebook” reporting published by the late U.S. Senator Dr. Tom Coburn. For years, these reports shined a white-hot spotlight on federal frauds and taxpayer abuses. Waste of the Day 3.21.24 Open the Books Coburn, a U.S....

Who decides whether TikTok stays Chinese, is banned or sold? Washington. Who determines whether an American or Japanese company gets to buy  United States Steel? Washington. Who is giving Intel $8.5 billion to make semiconductors in the U.S.? You get the picture. Across the U.S., business decisions once made in boardrooms or shareholder meetings increasingly depend on politics. The U.S. isn’t sliding toward socialism, in which the government controls the means of production. It may, however, be slouching toward state capitalism, in which government regularly...

Topline: Two new kinds of boats being built for the Coast Guard are years behind schedule and will cost a combined $12.9 billion more than expected, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office. Key facts: The Coast Guard is developing 25 Offshore Patrol Cutters and three Polar Security Cutters to replace outdated boats. They were originally supposed to cost $63.8 billion to acquire and maintain until they are no longer usable. Waste of the Day 3.20.24 Open the Books But after delays and redesigns, new projections say the boats will actually cost $76.7...

Topline: A California school spent $250,000 in federal funds to hire a teacher training service called Woke Kindergarten, but after two years, student performance got even worse, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. An audit by researchers at OpenTheBooks.com revealed that almost two-thirds of employees at the low-income, underperforming Glassbrook Elementary are making six-figure salaries. Retired educators are also collecting pensions of more than $200,000. Waste of the Day 3.19.24 Open the Books Key facts: Woke Kindergarten’s website says it supports “children,...

By Toby Dershowitz and Max Friedman, RealClearInvestigationsMarch 18, 2024 Shortly before South Africa accused Israel in the International Court of Justice of committing genocide in its post-Oct. 7 counteroffensive against Hamas, the South African ruling party, the African National Congress, suddenly resolved its longstanding and crippling debt issues. Naledi Pandor: South Africa’s foreign minister is scheduled to visit Washington in the coming days. AP The court action in December – committing tens of millions of dollars to accuse a nation thousands of miles from South...

Topline: The Smithsonian Institution received $7.5 million to respond to Covid-19, but the museum and research complex spent some of those funds on unrelated items and potentially overpaid for other supplies, according to a new Inspector General report. Key facts: The IG audited 64% of the Smithsonian’s money from the 2020 CARES Act and found that the museum “did not consistently spend … funds in accordance with applicable laws, policies, and procedures.” Waste of the Day 3.18.24 Open the Books In July 2020, the Smithsonian said it urgently needed to hire a...

In his new book "Blood Money: Why the Powerful Turn a Blind Eye While China Kills Americans,” investigative journalist Peter Schweizer continues his groundbreaking scrutiny of what he portrays as the intentionally subversive influence of China across American politics and society. His reporting -- ranging from the deadly fentanyl trade to America's social justice movement to its medical establishment -- heavily implicates American elites across the spectrum, from the Bidens and their suspect Chinese connections to those of Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell and his wife, Elaine...