RealClearInvestigations Picks of the Week

RealClearInvestigations'

Picks of the Week

March 8 to March 14

RCI Podcast

On this week’s episode of the RealClearInvestigations Podcast, RCI Editor J. Peder Zane and RCI Senior Reporter James Varney use the new documentary on investigative reporting legend Seymour Hersh as a springboard for a wide-ranging discussion with RCI contributor Aaron Maté about the decline of skepticism and rise of propaganda in the legacy media.

Featured Investigation:

The Grey Zone: When Do Protest Observers

Become Lawbreaking Participants?

As the Trump administration intensifies immigration enforcement and clamps down on bystanders it accuses of obstructing those operations, a legal battle has emerged over the rights of observers and journalists documenting ICE. Ben Weingarten reports for RealClearInvestigations that questions around their status and protections are murky, especially when authorities allege they have crossed the line between observation and participation.

• The issue has gained attention after ICE fatally shot Minneapolis resident Renee Good who was reportedly affiliated with a Minnesota ICE Watch group and former CNN anchor Don Lemon was arrested for allegedly helping to disrupt a St. Paul church service.
• The DOJ says journalists and legal observers receive no special protection to obstruct law enforcement, while groups like the ACLU argue the government is violating the constitutional rights of those documenting ICE activity.

• Legal observer groups like Minnesota ICE Watch have openly advocated "resisting" ICE, sharing intelligence on agent movements, and taking "direct action" – making it difficult to distinguish observation from participation.

• Defense attorneys argue both sides of the political spectrum have weaponized prosecutions against journalists they view as adversarial, citing the Biden-era prosecution of conservative freelancer Steve Baker alongside Trump-era targeting of Lemon.

• With over 650 federal charges filed since summer 2025 and a major national protest planned, courts and prosecutors will increasingly be asked to define where First Amendment protections end and criminal liability begins.

Featured Investigation:

Will Johnny Ever Learn To Read?

Pushback Against Science of Reading Mandates

Vince Bielski reports for RealClearInvestigations that a proven strategy for addressing America's literacy crisis is running into fierce resistance in states where teachers' unions and local educators insist on controlling classroom instruction. While long struggling states such as Mississippi and Louisiana have raised reading scores through state mandates requiring adoption of curricula grounded in the science of reading, instructors in states with declining scores, such as Massachusetts, oppose the reforms.

• A quarter of young American adults are now functionally illiterate, and 40% of fourth graders scored below the Basic reading level in 2024 – nearly matching levels from 1992.
• Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida achieved dramatic improvements in elementary reading scores through comprehensive state-mandated reforms, including new curricula, teacher training, and controversial third-grade retention policies for students who cannot read at grade level.
• The Massachusetts Teachers Association led opposition to a pending state literacy mandate, calling it government overreach, while more than 300 administrators and teachers signed letters arguing that local educators should control curriculum decisions.
• Many districts still rely on Lucy Calkins' "Units of Study," a Balanced Literacy program that critics say leaves struggling readers behind; advocates fear districts will adopt the minimum required to comply with the new law while resisting meaningful change.
• Research shows that only states implementing reforms comprehensively see significant gains – those that scaled back, like Oklahoma and North Carolina, lost hard-won progress.
• Massachusetts' pending legislation offers teacher training on a voluntary basis and includes a waiver provision, concessions to opponents that advocates worry will undermine the law's effectiveness.

Waste of the Day

by Jeremy Portnoy, Open the Books

R.I. Overtime Payments Approach $300K, RCI

Prediction: Debt Will Soon Break Record, RCI

Boston’s Soccer Stadium Cost Almost Tripled, RCI

Gigantic Routers, One Computer, RCI

Denver Group Billed Taxpayers for Drinks, RCI

Trump 2.0 and the Beltway

After Firing, Trump Admin Now Hiring 

Washington Post

Republicans have long complained that, even when they are in power, the liberal-leaning permanent government of largely liberal government employees undermines many of their policy efforts. President Trump appears to be doing something about what is often called deep state. This article reports that, a year after the Department of Government Efficiency allies purged hundreds of thousands of federal employees, the Trump Administration is ramping up hiring in an effort to reshape the bureaucracy in his image.

The hiring push is unfolding under new rules designed to give the White House greater influence over the government’s 2 million-person civilian workforce. The administration has lifted restrictions imposed during last year’s reductions and created job classifications that make it easier to hire employees aligned with the president’s priorities – and fire those who aren’t. … In recent months, the administration has moved to centralize hiring decisions, expand the role of political appointees in recruitment and roll back diversity initiatives adopted under previous administrations. Together, the shifts amount to changes supporters say will make government more responsive to elected leadership. 

This article reports that officials expect the federal government to remain far smaller than when Trump took office. His administration has fired, laid off or accepted buyouts from more than 387,000 employees since the president’s inauguration. During that same period, the administration hired roughly 123,000 workers, according to data from the Office of Personnel Management.

Other Trump 2.0 and the Beltway

DHS Ousts Privacy Officers Who Questioned ‘Illegal’ Orders, Wired

DOJ Seeks Tighter Grasp On State Bar Ethics Probes, The Hill

Flashback: From Lawfare to Barfare, RCI

Billionaires Influencing Elections Across America, New York Times

The Man Trying To Rescue Social Security, Washington Stand

Obama Allies Cashing in on Presidential Center, Fox News

Oz: Millions May Be Falsely Enrolled in ObamaCare, The Hill

Inside the Surreal World of North Carolina's Political Spouses, The Assembly NC

Other Noteworthy Articles and Series

Seniors Pay for Medicare Overpayments 

Wall Street Journal

The average American senior enrolled in Medicare Advantage paid an extra $212 in Medicare premiums last year because of alleged overpayments orchestrated by private plans. This article reports that Congressional investigators have found that controversial health insurer practices such as adding diagnoses to trigger higher payments helped push up costs. Overpayments to Medicare Advantage insurers increased Part B premiums by $13.4 billion in 2025, a cost mostly borne by seniors. 

The Wall Street Journal reported in 2024 that insurer practices contribute to potential overpayments. For instance, insurers sent nurses to patients’ homes, where they documented diagnoses that trigger more payments. Medicare Advantage companies said their practices improve patient care and save money.

In an interview Friday, Medicare agency administrator Mehmet Oz said of Medicare Advantage insurers, “I don’t think they’re as overpaid as has been reported.” Yet, Oz also acknowledged that the Medicare Advantage payment system had at times created the wrong incentives and “we should change the rules.”

In a separate article, the Journal reports that “autism therapy is Medicaid’s fastest-growing jackpot.” The number of companies offering such therapy – individualized treatments meant to help patients manage behavior and develop daily living and social skills – almost doubled between 2019 and 2023. Direct payments from state Medicaid programs to autism therapy providers grew to $2.2 billion in 2023, from $660 million just four years earlier, according to the data. Private insurers administering Medicaid benefits paid hundreds of millions more. The Journal reports that in 2023, Indiana paid one company $29 million to provide therapy to just 84 patients – about $340,000 a child. The article does not suggest criminal fraud but a near-criminal lack of oversight that allowed the company to bill so much for so little.

Lavish Leftist Effort to ‘Train’ Judges About Climate Change 

Washington Free Beacon

Continuing education is essential for judges who preside over cases involving complex and fast-moving sectors of society. This article draws from a trove of previously unreported documents to report that a left-wing environmental group has weaponized this instruction, "training" judges overseeing climate-related lawsuits at multi-day, all-expenses-paid seminars in locales like Napa Valley and Palm Beach.

At the "Judicial Leaders in Climate Science" seminars, representatives of the activist group, the Climate Judiciary Project, present to the judges contested claims on climate and other environmental issues as settled, scientific fact. Judges who attend the seminars are also expected to make a year-long commitment to participate in CJP events, take online classes and, perhaps most importantly, help identify and recruit other judges who have influence over environmental law. The secretive program is designed to function like a judicial Tupperware party, with an ever-widening circle of judges recruited to normalize controversial and often unsubstantiated climate theories.

This article reports that while ethics rules in the state and federal judiciaries typically require judges to disclose their attendance at privately funded seminars – and when they receive free travel and lodging – seminars hosted by the CJP like "Judicial Leaders in Climate Science" are not subject to those rules because the organization partners with "educational groups" like the Federal Judicial Center, thus casting its initiatives as continuous education and lifelong learning for modestly paid judges.

Exodus: California’s Tech Billionaires Flee to Florida 

Los Angeles Times

This article reports that Florida may be poised to become a powerful rival to Silicon Valley as California’s proposed wealth tax is driving unprecedented demand for Florida luxury properties and reshaping South Florida’s economy. Tech billionaires, including Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, are rapidly buying up properties in Florida to avoid California’s proposed 5% wealth tax on billionaires.

Florida, with its high concentration of wealth – it has about 115 billionaires, ranking third behind California and New York – no state income tax, pro-business policies and balmy weather, has drawn an unusually large number of the disaffected California tech moguls. … The exodus has not been limited to individuals. Wells Fargo, announced it was relocating its wealth management division from San Francisco to West Palm Beach by year’s end, while Palantir, the A.I. and software analytics giant, last month disclosed its move to Miami – six years after the company transferred its headquarters from Palo Alto to Denver. … [Stephen M.] Ross and fellow billionaire transplant Ken Griffin recently unveiled “Ambitious Accelerated,” a campaign to incentivize more businesses to move to what they’ve dubbed Florida’s “Tech Gold Coast.” Ross and Griffin have donated $5 million each to the campaign.

This article reports that Gov. Gavin Newsom has called the proposed billionaire tax “really damaging to the state,” saying it will “drive away affluent residents,” and has promised to work to defeat it.

Online Pharmacies Hawk Trans Drugs to Vulnerable Kids 

Daily Signal

Suffering from obesity, hair loss or erectile dysfunction? It’s easier than ever to go online and find physicians willing to prescribe and mail drugs to patients they know almost nothing about. This article reports on a new study by the medical watchdog group “Do No Harm” that found this largely unregulated dynamic is also enabling trans-identifying teens to acquire body-changing hormones from online vendors.

A report titled “The Lack of Barriers to Minors Ordering Cross-Sex Hormones Online” highlights certain websites that may enable minors to obtain estrogen and testosterone from online pharmacies and other sources that do not appear to require prescriptions or age verification. … Studies have shown concrete harms from these drugs, however. One study found that males who identify as transgender and take estrogen in order to appear female face higher risks of infertility, diabetes, testicular and breast cancer, and early death. An FDA study found that suicidal thoughts actually increase among kids who take so-called puberty blockers.

This article reports that the practice is hard to stop because many of the online pharmacies are in foreign countries. One Mexican pharmacy that ships to the U.S. explicitly states on the website that it requires “No prescription to purchase any medicines in our pharmacy.” Another pharmacy based in the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu states that it is “permitted to process your order without a prescription.”