RealClearInvestigations Picks of the Week

RealClearInvestigations'

Picks of the Week

September 21 to September 27

Featured Investigation:

The Obamacare Sweeteners

Poisoning Budget Negotiations

Democrats are demanding $350 billion to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies to avoid a partial government shutdown on Oct. 1. James Varney reports for RealClearInvestigations that the subsidies, first expanded under President Biden as part of COVID relief, have driven record enrollment but are now under scrutiny amid allegations of fraud, “phantom” patients, and taxpayer waste.

• A study by the Paragon Health Institute found that 12 million subsidized Obamacare enrollees in 2024 filed no claims for doctor visits, tests, or prescriptions. That figure is triple the pre-Biden era, and among those in fully subsidized plans, 40 percent had no activity. The report estimates taxpayers spent $35 billion that year on coverage never used.
• Subsidized enrollment has soared since the subsidies expanded eligibility and made many plans free. Between 2016 and 2020, signups averaged 8.5 million per year. By 2024, enrollment had ballooned to 19.5 million, despite little promotional effort. Critics argue such growth defies normal market behavior and reflects fraudulent enrollments rather than genuine demand.
• Fraud concerns extend beyond inactive policies. CMS has identified millions of people simultaneously enrolled in multiple programs, including Medicaid and the ACA exchanges, creating overlaps that could cost taxpayers $14 billion annually. Investigations have also revealed brokers using ACA databases to switch enrollees’ plans or agents of record to collect commissions, with little oversight.
• Democrats and the insurance industry reject claims of rampant fraud, arguing the subsidies make coverage affordable for more than 20 million Americans. Without renewal, they warn, premiums would rise sharply, forcing many families to drop insurance.
• Republicans say the subsidies are a costly form of corporate welfare that should expire. Democrats, often joined by insurers, insist they must be made permanent. The clash underscores broader concerns about runaway government spending, weak accountability, and the difficulty of rolling back benefits once established.

Featured Investigation:

All That Glitters: How Taxes and Regulation

Are Tarnishing the Golden State

Ana Kasparian reports for RealClearInvestigations that a dangerous mix of high taxes, steep regulation, and rising prices may be sending California’s economy into a doom loop, as officials double-down on the policies that have contributed to many of the state’s challenges.

• California was once home to 90 Bed Bath & Beyond stores, but as the home goods retailer reemerges from bankruptcy, it is not planning to open any of its 300 new stores in the Golden State. The company’s Executive Chairman Marcus Lemonis cites high costs, overregulation, and risk as reasons to avoid the Golden State. California has already seen major employers like Tesla, Chevron, and Charles Schwab relocate.
• California now posts the highest unemployment rate in the nation. Broader measures suggest over 10% of Californians may be unemployed or underemployed, with losses in both private-sector jobs and tech roles tied to AI adoption. Since 2022, unemployment has risen 45%.
• Rising taxes, fees, and wage mandates are cited as factors driving businesses out. The minimum wage hike for fast food workers to $20 an hour has coincided with reduced hours and job cuts. New ordinances in tourism-heavy Los Angeles will further increase labor costs before the 2028 Olympics.
• Retailers such as American Eagle, Whole Foods, Nordstrom, and In-N-Out have closed locations in urban centers citing theft, safety concerns, and crime. Business groups blame lenient crime policies for accelerating departures.
• California’s unemployment insurance fund is insolvent, burdened by more than $22 billion in federal debt and $55 billion in fraud during the pandemic. Employers face rising payroll taxes and new per-employee fees, further driving companies away.
• While Gov. Newsom highlights California’s $4.1 trillion GDP, economists warn that population loss, high costs, and mismanagement could prolong the state’s “doom loop,” leaving millions underemployed and undermining its once-vaunted economic power.

Waste of the Day

by Jeremy Portnoy, Open the Books

Washington Pays For Homeless Crisis, RCI

 8,000+ Employees Outearn U.S. President, RCI

Oregon Has “Sluggish” Procurement, RCI

Throwback Thursday - Agriculture Grants Help Buy Jam, RCI

U.S. Not Monitoring Foreign Weapons Sales, RCI

Trump 2.0 and the Beltway

Former FBI Director Comey Indicted, New York Post

Feds Say Justice Kavanaugh Wasn't Assassin's Only Target, National Review

Secret Service Tackles Swatting Hoaxes, CNN

How DOGE Uncovered Massive Health Care Heist, PJ Media

When Big-Time Lobbyists Become Powerful Trump Officials, Politico

Why Democrats Can’t Match Trump’s Gerrymander Push, Politico

J.D. Vance’s Sharp-Elbowed Theology, Tablet

Other Noteworthy Articles and Series

Flashback: Troubling Links Between Acetaminophen & Autism

RCI

The Trump administration’s announcement suggesting links between Tylenol and autism unleashed a torrent of criticism from the legacy media stating that there is little to no evidence linking the two. This came as news to RealClearInvestigations because we had published an article in 2018 by then Duke University researcher William Parker drawing on animal studies and public health data suggesting there might be.

The myth that vaccines cause autism has been widely debunked. But scientific research has revealed an unexpected link: Acetaminophen, routinely administered to relieve aches, pains and fevers from the vaccine shots, may be one culprit. Ongoing research strongly suggests that this over-the-counter pain reliever sold under various brand names, including Tylenol, can cause physical changes associated with autism and that infants and children who are given acetaminophen are far more likely to develop autism than those who are not. Although more research must be conducted to prove a definitive link, the evidence already gathered justifies careful consideration before administering acetaminophen to infants and to children younger than about 6 years of age.

Although research into the issue is ongoing, the larger point is Parker and many other investigators, including Harvard School of Public Health Dean Andrea A. Baccarelli, have provided plenty of evidence indicating a link between the pain reliver and autism. We might go so far as to suggest that the legacy media’s knee jerk dismissal of claims they do not approve of as being “without evidence” is a form of journalistic cancer.

Medicine Shortchanged in Spending on Global AIDS Prevention 

Washington Free Beacon

When critics argued last winter that the administration’s proposed cuts in foreign aid would lead to millions of deaths in the developing world, they frequently pointed to the life-saving work of President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). This article reports that a new report has found troubling spending patterns in that program.

Just 40 percent of the $110 billion the United States has invested into global HIV/AIDS prevention since 2003 actually went toward on-the-ground deliveries of life-saving medical supplies. … An internal State Department review …of PEPFAR’s $4.7 billion bilateral budget, [found] only approximately $1.0 billion goes to support medical commodity purchases and their related transport and delivery" … [while] around 60 percent of America’s investment is lost to overhead costs, steep executive salaries, and in some cases, radical programming that has included a "Transgender Day of Remembrance" and a "decolonizing development series," according to internal documents reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.

Radical Normie Terrorism

City Journal

While few would dispute that America seems to be engulfed in a new wave of terroristic violence, it can seem increasingly hard to figure why it is being perpetrated. For decades such attacks have been seen through the lens of the left-right divide. That’s the approach taken by a recent analysis of 750 attacks and plots in the United States from January 1, 1994 to July 4, 2025 by “a nonstate actor attempting to achieve a political end.” It’s key finding was that “left-wing terrorism has increased since President Donald Trump’s rise to political prominence in 2016. Indeed, 2025 marks the first time in more than 30 years that left-wing attacks outnumber those from the far right.” But, as Christopher F. Rufo reports for City Journal, a new form of terror has emerged recently, as exemplified by the attack on schoolchildren at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the assassination of Charlie Kirk in Orem, Utah.

[This] decentralized, digitally driven violence [is] organized not around coherent ideologies but around memes, fantasies, and nihilistic impulses. The perpetrators of this low-grade terror campaign do not belong to hierarchical organizations or pursue concrete political aims. More often, they come from ordinary families and lash out in acts of violence without discernible purpose. … Westman, the alleged Annunciation shooter, left a diary detailing fantasies and inner turmoil related to his transgender identity. While he decorated his weapons with pithy slogans, including “Kill Donald Trump,” “Burn Israel,” and “Nuke India,” these were memes and ironies, designed to give the appearance of ideology, concealing a potentially more disturbing motive. He was in the throes of a transgender identity crisis and had fantasized about being a demon and wanting to watch children suffer. The ideology was a brittle shell around a deeper emptiness that could only be satisfied with horror. … [Tyler] Robinson, Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin, reportedly spent thousands of hours playing video games, had an account on sexual fetish websites, and played a “dating simulator” game involving “furries,” muscular cartoon characters that are half-animal and half-man.

Rufo reports this new form of terrorism poses a new challenge for law enforcement. “As a veteran FBI agent told me, domestic law enforcement has no systematic program to identify, assess, and respond to this kind of online radicalization.”

In a separate article, CNN reports that the surge of swatting calls against judges and other high-ranking officials may be connected to foreign governments and criminals in the US operating advanced, unmanned call centers. One such operation near New York City had more than 100,000 SIM cards and 300 SIM servers that could be commanded remotely to create massive amounts of phone traffic. “The hidden electronic maze was so powerful, it could have sent an encrypted and anonymous text to every human being in the United States within 12 minutes.”

Meta Exposé Author Faces Ruin for Criticizing Company

Guardian

If Europe is the canary in the coal mine for speech rights in America, this article provides more troubling news. Sarah Wynn-Williams has sold more 150,000 copies of her explosive expose about her former employer, Meta, but she is “on the verge of bankruptcy” thanks to the media company’s legal maneuvers in Britain to intimidate and silence her. This article reports that Wynn-Williams faces a fine of $50,000 (£37,000) every time she breaches an order secured by Meta in a British court preventing her from talking disparagingly about the company, which she criticized in her book for, among other things, its dealings with China and its treatment of teenagers.

Wynn-Williams has not spoken in public since appearing at the Senate hearing in April. In a written statement this month, she said she was grateful that the US Senate was continuing to investigate Meta’s behaviour. “I wish I could say more,” she said. “I urge other tech employees and those who are thinking of whistleblowing to share what they know before more children are harmed.” Her lawyer confirmed Wynn-Williams “remains silenced about the very matters Congress is investigating, despite clear and unanimous voices from Congress calling on Meta to end their arbitration proceedings which threaten to bankrupt her”.

Meta says the ruling preventing Wynn-Williams from publicizing the memoir confirmed the “false and defamatory book should never have been published.”

DEI Fail: Home-Appraiser Bias Claims Are Falling Apart 

City Journal

From the Annals of You’re Charged With a Crime on the Front Page and Cleared on the Back Page, this article reports that the New York Times advanced the assertion of systemic racism in August 2022 through an article whose headline read: “Home Appraised With a Black Owner: $472,000. With a White Owner: $750,000.” What began with great fanfare, however, ended with a whimper last month when a federal court dismissed the discrimination claims. The article’s author, Tobias Peters, reports:

The court’s dismissal of the claims should not have been a surprise. Research from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where I work, has long shown that claims of widespread appraiser bias are overstated and that the methodologies used to support them are deeply flawed. Critics have cited the Biden administration’s Property Appraisal and Valuation Equity (PAVE) task force and studies, including a Brookings Institution report, as evidence of systemic undervaluation of homes in black neighborhoods. But these analyses largely fail to control for such critical socioeconomic factors as income, education, marriage rates, credit scores, and wealth. When we at AEI accounted for such variables, the racial valuation gap nearly disappeared.

Peters writes that these so-called “mystery shopper” experiments that generate headlines are deeply flawed because they are not randomized or controlled. “If appraisers are to be evaluated, the benchmark should be clear: when possible, compare valuations against prior sale prices and reasonable home-price appreciation.” In the case featured by the Times, the family bought their home in 2017 for $450,000 (with concessions lowering the net price to $436,500). Federal data suggested a 12 percent to 14 percent appreciation by 2021 in the neighborhood, placing the appraised value of $472,000 well within range – suggesting that the second appraiser may have been the one who deserved more scrutiny.