RealClearInvestigations Picks of the Week

RealClearInvestigations'

Picks of the Week

December 21 to December 27

Featured Investigation:

How Illegal Immigration and Government

Failure Fuel Identity Theft

James Varney reports for RealClearInvestigations that more than a million Americans may unknowingly be victims of identity theft, as illegal immigrants use their stolen Social Security numbers to secure employment. Although the federal E-Verify is available as a deterrent, federal and state governments have failed to mandate its use, leaving citizens vulnerable to financial and emotional harm from this widespread crime.

• More than a million Americans may hold unwitting "second jobs" because illegal aliens are working under their stolen Social Security numbers. Victims face crushing tax bills and often never learn their identities were pilfered.
• E-Verify, established in 1997, allows employers to check whether applicant information matches federal records. While effective, it only confirms data matches—not that it belongs to the actual applicant. Most experts consider it a strong deterrent.
• Only nine states require E-Verify for larger private employers. It's mandatory for federal contracts but voluntary in most states. California actively restricts its use; Illinois discourages it.
• Recent cases include 70 illegal workers at a Nebraska meatpacking plant accused of stealing over 100 identities, and 18 individuals charged with aggravated identity theft in March. The Social Security Administration received 78,588 allegations of number misuse in fiscal year 2024.
• The Social Security Administration's "Earnings Suspense File"—taxes paid that can't be matched to citizens—jumped 20 percent from $1.9 trillion to $2.3 trillion between 2021 and 2023, largely due to illegal immigration.
• States mandating E-Verify show no negative economic impacts. South Carolina's GDP increased from $21.4 billion to $34.3 billion after implementing E-Verify in 2012, while unemployment fell from 9.9% to 4.3%.
• Experts recommend connecting E-Verify with motor vehicle records for photo verification, aggressive use of IRS "no match letters," and enhanced counterfeit detection to strengthen the system against increasingly sophisticated fake documents.

Waste of the Day

by Jeremy Portnoy, Open the Books

Outlays Per Person Up Nearly 100X Since 1916, RCI

Superintendent Resigns, Nets Over $900K, RCI

Christmas Arrives in September for Federal Buildings, RCI

Throwback Thursday – Christmas Tree Awareness, RCI

Austin Funds Allegedly Sent to Fake Companies, RCI

Trump 2.0 and the Beltway

Judges Who Ruled Against Trump Report Harassment, NBC News

New Docs Reveal How Obama & Biden Protected Hillary, Federalist

Trump’s Base Impatient on Failure to Ban Abortion Pill, The Hill

Other Noteworthy Articles and Series

Hezbollah Turns to Drug Trafficking

in Venezuela to Fill Coffers 

Washington Free Beacon

Hezbollah terrorists are flocking to Venezuela as the terror group – and Iran's most important proxy – increasingly turns to drug trafficking as a way to raise revenue in the aftermath of Israel's successful campaigns against the Islamic Republic, this article reports.

While the Iran-backed terror group has long taken advantage of the Venezuelan regime's hospitality, the increased focus on drug trafficking suggests that it is scrambling to find sources of funding outside the Islamic Republic. Iran has provided upwards of $700 million to Hezbollah each year – or about 70 percent of the terror group's annual budget – but is no longer contributing enough to keep its proxy afloat, the sources familiar with Hezbollah's presence in Latin America said. … The terror group's main trade is in "black cocaine," which is formed into charcoal-colored bricks to avoid detection by authorities. The proceeds from these drug sales fund Hezbollah's global terror operation, while the Venezuelan regime takes a cut, helping it stay afloat.

This article reports that as U.S. leaders discuss Hezbollah's involvement in Venezuelan drug trafficking, Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei has begun weighing in on the Trump administration's recent pressure campaign against Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. The Iranian leader used a speech at a religious ceremony last week to condemn President Donald Trump's seizure of an oil tanker in the Caribbean.

Israel’s Escalating Campaign for Control of the West Bank 

New York Times

Even as the war in Gaza has commanded the world’s attention, this article reports, a quieter battle has been unfolding in the West Bank. The intensifying efforts by Jewish settlers to remove Palestinian famers in Bethlehem and Jericho, Ramallah and Hebron illuminates the conflict between Palestinians who see the area as the foundation of a future state of their own and Jews who see it as their rightful homeland.

Olive grove by olive grove, sheep pasture by sheep pasture, village by village, the idea of a Palestinian state is withering in the West Bank. Over the past two years, Israeli settlers have established a record number of  new outposts in the occupied territory. The goal is to win on the ground what might otherwise be lost at a negotiating table. Armed Israeli settlers, often protected by soldiers, harass and attack Palestinian villagers daily, with the undisguised goal of driving them out. … The unrelenting violent campaign by these settlers, that critics say is largely tolerated by the Israeli military, consists of brutal harassment, beatings, even killings, as well as high-impact roadblocks and village closures. These are coupled with a drastic increase in land seizures by the state and the demolition of villages to force Palestinians to abandon their land.

This article reports that the Israeli onslaught has all but vanquished a free Palestinian existence in the West Bank. While the Palestinian Authority governs part of the West Bank, the Israeli military remains the occupying power of the whole territory, and military law supersedes the authority’s rule. There is little due process and villagers live at the mercy of vigilante settlers and members of military platoons who exert almost total power over them. 

How People Are Dying in America’s Prisons and Jails 

Marshall Project

Using information from a federal government database of 21,675 people who died in prisons, jails during the course of arrest between Oct. 1, 2019, and Sept. 30, 2023, this article shows how people are dying in America’s prisons and jails.

For cases where there was enough information to make a determination as to the cause of death, which constituted about 60 percent, we found the most common causes were related to heart conditions, followed by various types of cancer, and then respiratory conditions. These findings broadly align with mortality data for the entire U.S. population from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which show heart disease as the leading cause of death in 2023, followed by cancer and then accidents. For incarcerated people under the age of 55, just under half of the deaths we could identify were from largely preventable causes – like suicide or drug overdoses. Older incarcerated people tended to die from natural causes. In more than a third of cases, we simply could not determine a cause of death, because there was not enough information.

This article also reports that “executions were the least common way people died behind bars.”

Gen-Z Revolts As Protests Sweep the Globe 

Bloomberg

Feeling crushed by soaring rents and living costs and staring down a future where robots and AI threaten their jobs, this article reports that Gen Z is unleashing a wave of protests that is rattling governments worldwide.

Leaders have already fallen in Nepal, Madagascar and Bulgaria, while administrations from Indonesia to Peru and Serbia grapple with relentless youth-driven unrest that’s fomented on social media and draws inspiration from video games and anime. It’s a frustration echoed even in advanced economies, where Zohran Mamdani’s surprise mayoral win in New York City underscored how deeply affordability concerns and economic anxiety are shaping the politics of the youngest working generation. While the sparks differ by country, interviews with protesters, sympathizers and experts reveal shared grievances: frustration over rising inequality, underemployment, corruption and a deepening doubt among students and young workers that they’ll ever enjoy the kind of lives their parents had. The Carnegie Protest Tracker tallies 53 demonstrations of 10,000 people or more across 33 economies this year, the highest total since the project began in 2017.

This article reports that high social media penetration and a low median age increase the risk of discontent over issues such as inequality, unemployment and corruption that can tip over into civil unrest.

Did Las Vegas Get Too Greedy? 

Nate Silver

Substack

A slump in tourism this year suggests that Vegas may have passed its saturation point. Once a town of penny slots and cheap buffets, Vegas no longer feels like a good value to middle-class consumers. This article reports that tourism is down 7.6 percent for the first ten months of the year as compared to January-October 2024, a fall on pace to mark the biggest year-over-year drop in tourist arrivals on record. The decline in revenues projects to be even steeper because the average daily room rate is off by 5.2 percent from last year, or roughly 8 percent after inflation. But not everyone is pulling back:

Baccarat revenues were up 18.4 percent in the 12 months ending in October 2025 as compared to three years earlier and adjusted for inflation. … But craps are down 8.2 percent, roulette is off 12.7 percent, and blackjack – the traditional choice of price-sensitive gamblers because of its relatively low variance and narrow house edge – has fallen by 16.4 percent. What’s different about baccarat? Out of the “big four” table games (along with craps, blackjack and roulette), it’s the province of high-rollers: stereotypically often wealthy VIPs from Asia. So far this year¹, the average baccarat table is generating $353,000 in revenues, as compared with $56,000 for blackjack, $95,000 for roulette and $129,000 for craps. So the high end of the customer pyramid is doing fine, while more and more blackjack tables sit empty.

This article also reports that middle-class players are being squeezed by the casinos which have added more triple-zero roulette wheels, “which raise the house edge on every spin from 5.3 percent to 7.7 percent and tables that now pay out 6:5 rather than 3:2 on blackjack. … Slot machines have also grown stingier.”