RealClearInvestigations Articles

A few weeks before Christmas in 2022, Amber Lavigne was cleaning her 13-year-old’s bedroom when she stumbled upon her daughter’s secret: a chest binder. She learned that Autumn had been wearing the garment, which girls use to flatten their breasts to achieve a masculine appearance, for about two months at school in Maine, where she had adopted a boy’s name, Leo, and was using he/him pronouns.  It was the first of two chest binders Lavigne found that had been provided to her eighth-grade daughter by a social worker at the Great Salt Bay Community School, according to a...

Topline: The federal government paid $2 million in service fees for bank accounts with a balance of $0 in 2011, many of which had been empty for over three years, according to a Government Accountability Office report from April 2012. The money would be worth $2.9 million today. That’s according to the “Wastebook” reporting published by the late U.S. Senator Dr. Tom Coburn. For years, these reports shined a white-hot spotlight on federal frauds and taxpayer abuses.  Coburn, the legendary U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, earned the nickname "Dr. No" by stopping thousands of...

Topline: The 2026 federal budget contains $15.8 billion in earmark funding for 8,475 local projects in lawmakers’ home districts, but the money was not distributed equitably. Senators who are Republicans or have been in Congress for decades were far more likely to receive money than their colleagues. Key facts: Senators filed their earmark requests in May 2025, but the majority were removed from the draft budget before it was signed into law this February. Those cuts were made partially along party lines. The average Republican senator got 47% of the money they asked for, while the...

California’s $200 billion-a-year Medicaid program, known as Medi-Cal, is one of the largest public healthcare systems in the nation. Behind the staggering price tag lies a program repeatedly flagged for waste, mismanagement, and fraud, raising fresh doubts as state leaders propose taxing billionaires to keep it afloat. For years, audits and federal investigations have documented everything from improper payments to large-scale fraud schemes. State officials have acknowledged that fraud has reached alarming levels in some sectors, including hospice services and in-home...

Topline: Florida spent $405 million in emergency funding on its immigration crackdown in the last six months, with nearly a quarter paying for porta-potties and millions going to companies whose executives have donated to Republican political action committees linked to Gov. Ron DeSantis, the Florida Phoenix reported. Key facts: Florida’s $2.7 billion Emergency Preparedness and Response Fund was created in 2022 to be used by the governor “for purposes of preparing or responding to a disaster declared by the Governor as a state of emergency.” DeSantis declared illegal...

Topline: One doesn’t associate luxury with being in the military, but Pentagon personnel spent record amounts of money dining on seafood in 2025, according to federal spending records reviewed by Open the Books. Key facts: From March to November 2025, the military spent $15.9 million on 524 orders of Alaskan king crab and $66.7 million on 1,359 orders of lobster. There have only been seven times in history where the Pentagon spent at least $2 million on Alaskan king crab in a single month. Donald Trump has been president for six of them. It happened in July 2019, October 2020 and four...

RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week February 22 to February 28   Featured Investigation: Bad Bets: Massive EV Subsidies Not Paying Off James Varney reports for RealClearInvestigations that federal and state governments have committed at least $100 billion to electric vehicle subsidies, loans, and mandates over the past decade, even as consumer demand softens and major automakers report mounting losses. Supporters say the spending is vital to fight climate change and compete with China. Critics warn taxpayers may be left holding the bag if heavily subsidized projects falter. In...

Topline: The federal government lost $186 billion to improper payments in fiscal year 2025, according to newly released data from the Office of Management and Budget. That’s more than $350,000 in taxpayer money every minute, all sent to the wrong person, for the wrong amount, or for the wrong reason. Key facts: Medicare was responsible for $56.7 billion of the improper payments, and Medicaid lost $37.4 billion.  The other biggest offenders included the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Agriculture, and the Small Business Administration. The $186 billion total is almost...

The future was supposed to have arrived this year in a cluster of counties just east of Atlanta in the form of a state-of-the-art factory that would churn out 400,000 electric vehicles a year. But when JoEllen Artz looks about her lifetime neighborhood, all she sees are holes. “Those shovel holes they made in the ground? That’s it,” she said of the planned site of a Rivian manufacturing plant. “It’s awful, awful.” The problem is not a lack of funds. On the promise of thousands of jobs, elected officials in Washington, D.C., and Atlanta have pledged some $8...

Topline: There is one major reason why most Americans do not regularly buy caviar: the price. Publicity is not the issue. The Department of Agriculture ignored that fact in 2012, when it handed out $300,000 for an Idaho fish company to print flyers and create a website advertising its caviar. The money would be worth $565,000 today.  That’s according to the “Wastebook” reporting published by the late U.S. Senator Dr. Tom Coburn. For years, these reports shined a white-hot spotlight on federal frauds and taxpayer abuses.  Coburn, the legendary U.S. Senator from...

Topline: At each of the eight public universities in Utah, a volunteer Board of Trustees is responsible for evaluating the school’s president, among other things. But according to a state audit released Jan. 30, multiple trustees are “confused” by the evaluation process. In fact, only 26% of trustees are aware that it’s their job to evaluate the president. Key facts: The trustees must create Key Performance Indicator criteria every year to review their school’s president. Yet when surveyed by the state auditor, 37% of trustees said the Utah System of Higher...

The push to “protect” children from cell phones and social media is gaining momentum worldwide. As EU and Asian countries consider legal limits on minors’ access to social media, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was grilled in a Los Angeles courtroom last week about whether his company’s popular apps, which include Facebook and Instagram, are addictive. That question already seems to have been resolved in the public mind. Pennsylvania now seems poised to become the 32nd state to ban or limit cell phones in its public schools. A parent leader who...

Topline: The purchasing platform offered by the General Services Administration is putting government agencies at a disadvantage, according to a new audit from the GSA inspector general. Government agencies across the U.S. use it to buy goods and services, but the website is littered with markups and rip-offs. Key facts: Created in 1995, GSA Advantage is essentially Amazon for the government.  Contractors negotiate prices with the General Services Administration and list their products on the website. Federal agencies and state and local governments can buy supplies at the negotiated...

Topline: Illinois State Rep. Robin Gabel reportedly told his colleagues that “there is no pork” in the 2026 state budget bill he sponsored. Yet ongoing analysis from the Illinois Policy Institute has found 2,815 pork-barrel earmarks hidden in the budget, worth a whopping $4.5 billion.  Key facts: The $55.2 budget passed on May 31, 2025, and included a $2 million earmark for the operational expenses of the nonprofit XS Tennis in Chicago. According to Construct Connect News, “XS Tennis and Education Foundation is the largest minority-owned tennis organization in the...

RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week February 15 to February 21   Featured Investigation: Deporting Censorship: US Targets UK Government Ally Over Free Speech The Trump administration is seeking to deport Imran Ahmed, British CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), alleging he collaborated with the Biden administration to censor Americans and pressure U.S. companies to restrict speech online. Paul D. Thacker reports for RealClearInvestigations that the case has significant implications for U.S.-U.K. relations given Ahmed's deep ties to Prime Minister Keir Starmer's...

Topline: A taxpayer-funded Connecticut nonprofit closed down after a state audit found it lost $300,000 to wire fraud, gave a grant to an employee, and had no records to prove that another $1.3 million was spent properly. Key facts: The Blue Hills Civic Association supported community empowerment through youth programs, housing assistance and more. They received $15.7 million in state and federal funds from 2022 to 2025, including $5.5 million last year. Open the Books previously reported on an audit that found that State Sen. Doug McCrory directed Blue Hills to send state funds to his...

Topline: Dr. Frankenstein was able to bring his monster back to life using just rusty tools and a cramped workshop. Researchers in California needed taxpayer funding from the National Science Foundation for their own reanimation experiment, with results that were not quite as impressive. In 2012, San Diego State University and the University of California, Davis used part of a $325,000 grant to create “Robosquirrel,” a taxidermied squirrel with a robotic tail. The money would be worth $459,000 today.  That’s according to the “Wastebook” reporting published...

Topline: No matter how far smartphone addiction spreads in America, it’s still impossible to keep texting from the grave. Yet state spending records say otherwise. Phone and internet providers in three states claimed federal subsidies for nearly 117,000 dead customers from 2020 to 2025, costing the federal government $5 million, according to a new report from the Federal Communications Commission.  Key facts: The FCC’s Lifeline program pays companies to offer discounted phone and internet rates to low-income families who struggle to afford their bills. It costs almost $1...

As ICE sweeps in Minneapolis have drawn wide attention, a little-noticed immigration case playing out in a New York federal court has significant implications for America’s relationship with Britain and the ongoing debate over global censorship.   In late December, the State Department announced its intention to revoke the visas of five foreign individuals who have allegedly censored Americans. The most consequential member of this group is Imran Ahmed, a British Labour Party political operative now living in the U.S., who is the CEO of an influential nonprofit,...