RealClearInvestigations Newsletters: RCI Today
RealClearInvestigations Picks of the Week
RealClearInvestigations
Picks of the Week
October 19 to October 25
Featured Investigation:
After President Trump claimed that Portland was "burning to the ground" and under siege by Antifa Nancy Rommelmann returned to her former home city for RealClearInvestigations to see whether a repeat of 2020’s violence was brewing. She found, instead, a complex story of how the never-dead past is vigorously exploited for political purposes.
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Despite Trump's claims of chaos and his deployment of National Guard troops to protect ICE facilities, Rommelmann finds only a handful of disorganized protesters—a stark contrast to the 2020 protests when hundreds wearing black bloc gear attacked federal buildings nightly with rocks, fire, and axes.
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The 2025 protests are theatrical and lackadaisical, featuring protesters in anime costumes doing the macarena rather than coordinated violence. The administration appears to be viewing current events through the lens of 2020 to justify federal intervention.
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Portland's trajectory explains the 2020 explosion: young people flocked to the affordable city in the early 2000s, building a thriving food and culture scene. When economic reality caught up and Portland became expensive, disaffection grew into cancel culture, then anti-Trump protests, culminating in George Floyd protests that turned into 200+ nights of riots enabled by officials who declined to prosecute 92% of arrestees.
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Both sides now cherry-pick images to control the narrative. Conservative influencers with direct White House access exploit minor incidents (like a 90-second flag-grabbing episode) to portray citywide chaos. Trump falsely claims "very few" businesses remain open when 100,000 businesses operate in Portland.
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An unexpected dynamic emerges: Charlie Kirk supporters in crucifix shirts appear at protests, responding to provocations with "Jesus loves you" rather than violence—a "Fujiwhara effect" that disrupts the scripted conflict both sides seek to exploit.
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Rommelmann argues that reality has become contested territory in America, where protest serves as theater for propaganda rather than genuine political action, and that repetition may finally be draining 2020's toxic power.
Waste of the Day
by Jeremy Portnoy, Open the Books
Trump 2.0 and the Beltway
Rubio Promised to Betray Informants for El Salvador Prison Deal
Washington Post
To persuade El Salvador’s government to accept hundreds of deported Venezuelans, the Trump administration agreed to return nine MS-13 gang leaders in U.S. custody – some of whom had deals to act as informants for U.S. law enforcement. This article reports that “the Trump administration’s willingness to renege on secret arrangements made with informants who had aided U.S. investigations” is problematic for two reasons. First, some of those gang members “had divulged incriminating information about members of [El Salvador’s] government suspected of cutting deals with the gang” which also operates in that country.
Nixing the agreements also threatens to damage the credibility of the Justice Department, which routinely relies on informants to build cases against high-level criminals, officials said. Informant agreements are based on assurances the cooperators will be protected by the United States. Reneging on promises made in exchange for information could hinder the ability of U.S. law enforcement to develop relationships with potential cooperators in the future.
In a twist, this article reports the Trump administration appears to be reneging on its promises to El Salvador. So far only one of the nine men El Salvador requested has been returned. The other eight remain in U.S. custody. It is unclear if the Trump administration still intends to send them back and if so, whether it can prevail over legal hurdles that could prevent their deportations.
Other Trump 2.0 and the Beltway
Hunting Stand Found Near Trump's Airport, Fox News
FEMA Workers Improperly Collected Political Data, Racket News
Ignoring Whistleblower, Biden Backed $3B for Solar Co., Washington Free Beacon
Other Noteworthy Articles and Series
FDA Stayed Silent As Potential Tylenol Risks Piled Up
Daily Caller
For nearly a decade, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) defied the advice of its own drug safety experts who urged it to warn pregnant women about the potential dangers of acetaminophen (best known as the name brand drug Tylenol). Internal reports and presentations obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation reveal that FDA rank-and-file scientists repeatedly recommended the agency release information about Tylenol in pregnancy across three scientific reviews conducted in 2016, 2019, 2022 and two memos, one from the FDA’s maternal health division in 2016 and one from the FDA’s urological health division in 2017.
Still, as alarm bells rang within FDA headquarters and the boardrooms of Tylenol’s manufacturers, pregnant women heard nothing from either the government or the manufacturers about the potential risks until the September announcement by President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. FDA leadership declined to update its webpage about over-the-counter painkillers in pregnancy, repeatedly falling back on language first issued in January 2015. But that statement simply acknowledged that “FDA is aware of concerns” about Tylenol and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), citing just one scientific paper.
In a separate article published by RealClearInvestigations in 2018, William Parker described ongoing research by himself and others that “strongly suggests” acetaminophen “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.”
Michael Powell, Atlantic
This article opens with the May 2023 murder of a young female police officer in Chicago, Aréanah Preston, by a roving gang to criminals to explore the city’s “inability to solve its decades-long violent-crime problem.” Michael Powell reports that the fact 31 minutes passed before an officer arrived to find Preston lying on the sidewalk reflects the dysfunction that has become the norm in the Windy City.
I reported on New York’s crack and crime epidemic in the early 1990s, and on the wave of homicides in Washington, D.C., later in the decade. As violent crime fell dramatically in those cities and elsewhere, I wondered why Chicago remained so bloody by comparison. Disinvestment and industrial decline are part of the answer; these forces led about 1 million people to move out of the city over decades, and left many Black and Latino neighborhoods blighted and dangerous. Another is the ineffectiveness of the Chicago Police Department, which has moved far too slowly into the 21st century and has never managed to bring the city’s gangs to heel. Perhaps most troubling of all, the city’s political leadership – which Democrats have dominated for nearly a century – has tolerated disorder for far too long. Some politicians talk of killings as they might of the weather, an implacable force.
Powell reports that while parts of the city remain glorious – Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, the beaches and marinas along the waters of Lake Michigan, the Art Institute, and the gentrified neighborhoods that run north through Wrigleyville to Evanston – areas beyond those spots are often hollowed out areas of despair. It is these sections, full of abandoned lots where “physical disorder” has spawned a pervasive sense (and reality) “of menace and fear. … Chicago officials have talked of plans and more plans but have handed over relatively few vacant lots to local groups and developers.”
In a separate article, New York magazine reports that in response to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Chicago, “neighborhoods have mobilized in experimental and collective ways. In their free time, or, in some cases, by actively taking time off work, everyday Chicagoans are building rapid-response teams to keep eyes on the streets and follow the movements of federal agents. Some pass out whistles in bars and laundromats; others keep vigil outside Home Depots and taquerías. Activists have begun locating agents’ suburban hotels and hosting noisy protests outside. Some take shifts patrolling their neighborhoods on foot, in cars, and on bikes to alert neighbors to the presence of federal agents and to document their aggressive tactics and arrests.”
Bloomberg
Not all engines of economic growth are good. This article reports that in recent years, hurricanes, tornadoes and other devastating weather events have consumed an outsized share or America’s production and wealth.
The country spent almost $1 trillion in the 12 months ending in June, money that most everyone would prefer to spend on goods or services of their choosing. In the 1990s, the annual average was closer to $80 billion in current dollars. Government spending on disasters, and companies leading the recovery, make up an underappreciated, yet major, slice of the US economy. The money goes to insurers and waste haulers, power grid equipment manufacturers and engineering contractors, hardware stores and self-storage facilities. These are good businesses to be in in challenging times.
This article reports that investors are on the hunt for companies readying for a world with more frequent and intense weather shocks. “This is a growing part of our economy, and we don’t treat it that way,” he said Andrew John Stevenson, a senior analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.
China Helps Students Cheat Their Way into US Law Schools
Washington Free Beacon
Chinese LSAT preparation companies have violated the security of remotely administered exams for years, allowing Chinese nationals to access stolen questions and take the place of qualified Americans, the CEO of the U.S. test preparation company told the Washington Free Beacon.
The CEO, Dave Killoran of PowerScore, revealed that a Chinese whistleblower, frustrated with how easy cheating on the LSAT appeared to be, contacted him in May of this year with what he claimed were stolen questions. "After a review of those questions, I quickly determined they were actual LSAT questions," Killoran said.
This article reports that online testing has spawned an industry of companies in China that bypass the LSAT’s "remote security measures," allowing cheating agents to take the test from anywhere in the world by posing as students and using fake IDs. While taking the remote exams, these agents take screenshots of questions. The screenshots end up being "compiled into PDFs and sold to students who can’t pay the high fees for a proxy test taker," Killoran said. The organization that administers the test appears to be aware of the problem. It said it would suspend online testing in China for all LSATs after the October sitting, citing increased concern "about organized efforts by individuals and companies in mainland China to promote test misconduct."
Bloomberg
Just a few years ago, people with backgrounds in diversity, equity and inclusion were a hot commodity. Now, this article reports, “having DEI experience on a resume can feel like a scarlet letter in an already difficult job market.”
DEI specialists say they’re getting less interest from recruiters than they did several years ago and fewer interviews from companies. To bolster their chances, professionals have stripped the three letters from resumes and sought roles in adjacent departments such as in human resources, public affairs and marketing. Others have weighed changing careers. “It’s hard to recall any skill set becoming obsolete so quickly and completely,” said Peter Cappelli, a management professor at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.
This article reports that while some high-profile companies, including Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines and Coca-Cola, have kept the DEI label on their websites, many others (including Amazon.com, McDonald’s and Goldman Sachs) have pulled back from some previous efforts. Corporate fears around legal risks overshadow everything else, said Tynesia Boyea-Robinson, whose firm CapEQ advises companies on diversity and other social issues. “A lot of people basically looked to their legal counsel and asked: What is the way we can protect ourselves from being sued?’’
