RealClearInvestigations Newsletters: RCI Today

RealClearInvestigations Picks of the Week

By The Editors, RealClearInvestigations
July 18, 2026
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RealClearInvestigations'

Picks of the Week

July 12 to July 18

 

RCI Podcasts & Videos

On this week’s episode of the RealClearInvestigations Podcast, RCI Editor J. Peder Zane and RCI Senior Reporter James Varney speak with Tablet writer and RCI contributor Lee Smith about conservative media in the Trump era with a special focus on X.

On The Miller Report: Real Clear Journalism, Maggie Miller speaks with Varney about his recent RCI article that examines billions of taxpayer dollars invested in private companies. Varney’s investigation raises questions about oversight, accountability, and whether the government is equipped to make high-risk investment decisions traditionally left to private investors. 

Featured Investigation:

Inside Elite University’s Campaign

To Bring Conservatives to Campus

Vince Bielski reports for RealClearInvestigations that Johns Hopkins University, under President Ron Daniels, is pursuing a bet on ideological pluralism, hiring conservative and heterodox scholars to counter academia's leftward tilt and revive open intellectual debate on campus.

  • Hopkins recently hired economist Peter Arcidiacono, known for research showing affirmative action can harm underprepared minority students and for providing evidence in the Supreme Court's 2023 ruling against Harvard, as vice dean of its new School of Government and Policy, opening in Washington, D.C., by 2028.
  • Daniels began building viewpoint diversity in 2017 and wrote a 2021 book on universities' duty to train students in pluralistic thinking; last year he forged a partnership with the American Enterprise Institute to spur cross-ideological collaboration.
  • A 2025 survey of 4,500 faculty found about 64% describe themselves as liberal, 30% moderate, and only 6% conservative, illustrating the imbalance pluralism advocates hope to correct.
  • Many faculty resist explicitly hiring conservatives, calling it ideological affirmative action; sociology chair Andrew Perrin instead favors weighting research orientation only when building applicant pools, not in final hiring decisions.
  • The Agora Institute, founded by Daniels, has hired about 25 heterodox scholars outside departmental control and hosts open ideological debates; its Moral and Political Economy major has grown from five students to about 20.
  • Hopkins-AEI grants of up to $50,000 fund joint research; 15 have been awarded, including a course pairing right- and left-leaning scholars on the meaning of a liberal education.
  • The new School of Government and Policy drew 2,500 applications and aims to hire about 40 diverse scholars; dean William Howell says accountability measures are needed to ensure genuine intellectual mixing rather than retreat into silos.
  • Scholars caution it's untested whether campus-wide pluralism will improve research quality, with skeptics predicting it could take a decade before faculty ranks meaningfully rebalance.

Waste of the Day

by Jeremy Portnoy, Open the Books

 

Trump 2.0 and the Beltway

Other Noteworthy Articles and Series

Video: Billions for Senior "Adult Daycare" in Queens

Nick Shirley/YouTube

In his latest video, Nick Shirley – the independent reporter who helped expose alleged Medicaid fraud in Minneapolis earlier this year – claims to have uncovered millions of dollars in fraud perpetrated by "adult daycares" for the elderly in a relatively small patch of Queens, New York. Medicaid czar Dr. Mehmet Oz joined Shirley and claimed senior services centers in the borough have generated $2.1 billion in the last three years, and alleged some have paid seniors kickbacks to use their services, which they bill to the state, which then receives large reimbursements from the federal government.

At one point, Shirley asks to see one of the places under the pretense of enrolling his grandmother and is told, "No Americans here."
"Only Koreans here, so I think she cannot get along with the other people because they cannot speak English," the man says.
Shirley counters: "Oh, she speaks Korean. She wants to come and play games with the other old people."

Later addressing the camera, Shirley says: "Your tax dollars are paying for elderly Koreans and Chinese to play ping pong and do tai chi, while the fraudsters give kickbacks to those who enroll. It's alleged a lot of these places have ties to the Chinese mafia, and no one knows where this money is going. We do know that fraudsters in the U.S. are often foreigners, and it is foreign governments involved." As with Shirley’s previous videos, he offers compelling evidence of misconduct, but no smoking gun proof – suggesting, at minimum, that questionable practices may also be legal. He also highlights how little accountability there appears to be regarding massive government spending.

Estonia Faces Drug Crisis Worse Than Fentanyl 

New York Times

Some Estonians look back on the years when the country was ravaged by a scourge of fentanyl as the good old days now that an even deadlier new synthetic drugs are killing their people. This article reports that after Estonia largely tamed the fentanyl crisis, a new set of drugs even more addictive and harder to treat or quit – known as nitazenes – have sent mortality rates skyrocketing. New varieties keep popping up, too, some more than 40 times stronger than fentanyl.

And just as the authorities started grappling with this new nightmare, they were hit yet again: An even newer synthetic drug blindsided them. In the first three months of this year, a synthetic opioid called cychlorphine has begun killing even more people than nitazenes. … This is what the new drug war looks like. Exceedingly powerful substances are being churned out with such speed that the agencies created to stop them are baffled, racing to keep up.

This article reports that “just as science has made plastics, medicines and foods phenomenally more varied and abundant, it has revolutionized illicit substances. … More than 1,460 new psychoactive substances have been reported in more than 150 countries and territories across the world, a vast majority in the last decade, according to the United Nations.” The article also notes that, even if the United States manages to halt the fentanyl crisis, Estonia offers a harrowing lesson: Far more potent substances are already out there, ready to fill the void.

How Ukraine Brought the War to Russia 

The New Yorker

Thanks to drone warfare, Ukraine can now strike targets deep inside Russia, turning the ongoing conflict into a two-front war. This article reports that the first front remains in the Donbas, in eastern Ukraine, where Russian forces have continued their advance, albeit at an incredibly slow pace. A recent report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies states that Russia has suffered more than 30,000 casualties per month this year, while advancing, in certain areas, less than 100 meters per day. “These are among the slowest rates of advance in any war over the last century,” the report notes. The second front is in the skies over both countries.

In recent weeks, Ukraine has said that it has hit Russian military sites and energy infrastructure at so-called strategic depth – as much as a thousand miles or more from its border with Russia – including the oil terminal at the main port in St. Petersburg; a satellite-communications center near Moscow; a plant in Volgograd that manufactures specialized components for Russia’s missile program; and major oil refineries in Moscow and Omsk. In Crimea, where Ukrainian strikes on supply routes and infrastructure have become commonplace, gasoline is especially scarce, and power outages are routine. Last month, local authorities cancelled all children’s summer camps – a long-held tradition and point of pride across the Russian state – for the rest of the season.

This article reports that Russia and Ukraine shoot down the overwhelming majority of drones that enter their airspace, which makes the success of any given drone attack a matter of numbers. One Moscow defense source compared the coming chapter to a “bloody repeat” of the so-called War of the Cities in the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, in which both sides, stalled on the front, launched indiscriminate air and missile strikes on each other. In a way, more than four years into the war, that’s hardly a new prospect for Ukraine. “They’re used to this,” the source said. “We’re the ones facing this for the first time.” 

When Teenage Mobs Take Over the Streets 

City Journal

2026 is becoming the year of the teenage takeover. In dozens of cities and towns across the country, mobs of youngsters have been using social media to quickly organize mass events, which can turn violent.

Teen takeovers come in two varieties: pedestrian and vehicular. Pedestrian takeovers feature hordes of youths on foot commandeering roadways, sidewalks, beaches, and malls. Vehicular takeovers, also known as sideshows, involve cars performing daredevil stunts at intersections, on freeways and bridges, and in parking lots. … Not all takeovers devolve into violence, but when they do, social media again snaps into play. Dozens of phones are held aloft in the hope of making a viral video. Violence has acquired a performative, specular quality, as though staged for maximum circulation online.

Reporter Heather Mac Donald runs through the litany of broad societal forces – from the legacy of COVID lockdowns and police policies to hunger, poverty and capitalism – that have been invoked to explain the phenomenon. She also offers her view on why none “withstands scrutiny.” Although those dynamics impact all Americans, she notes that “teen takeovers are overwhelmingly black, though the media avoid mentioning that fact.” 

Paul Pelosi’s Long Record of Bad Driving 

New York Times

This article reports that in the moneyed vineyards and bistros of Napa Valley, friends had murmured about the health and fitness of Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul long before the July 3 crash that made him the talk of the town this month. When he slammed his convertible into a parked Tesla, the authorities said, and what had been whispers about his well-being were suddenly all that certain circles here were talking about. And for Mr. Pelosi, 86, the crash appears to have followed a series of driving violations in recent years.

Over more than a decade, he has had at least eight driving violations in the San Francisco Bay Area, including driving the wrong way down a one-way street, speeding and, on more than one occasion, driving through a red light, court records show. In the latest incident, Mr. Pelosi smashed the Tesla and then continued driving down a residential street in Napa Valley until his own car broke down and law enforcement officers came on the scene. The crash was serious enough that the authorities have asked that Mr. Pelosi take a behind-the-wheel driving test if he wants to remain on the road.

This article reports that Paul Pelosi’s most serious driving offense occurred on the night of May 28, 2022, when he crashed after dinner at his friend’s estate in Napa Valley. He pleaded guilty to driving under the influence and was sentenced to community service, three years of probation, nearly $7,000 in restitution and court fees, as well as five days in jail — though he did not have to serve that time. 

 

 



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