RealClearInvestigations Articles

RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the WeekOctober 11 to October 17   RCI Podcasts & Videos On this week’s episode of the RealClearInvestigations Podcast, RCI Editor J. Peder Zane and RCI Senior Reporter James Varney discuss a series of articles featured by RCI that reported on the alleged gang rape at Cornell, bias in the algorithms Apple News uses to spotlight political coverage and a French woman who faced criminal charges for arguing biological men should not be allowed in women-only spaces such as bathrooms and locker rooms. On The Miller Report: RealClearJournalism, Maggie...

Editor's Note: This is the final installment of Waste of the Day. Jeremy Portnoy will continue to contribute to RealClearInvestigations.  Nevada’s largest school district spent $37,000 to send 17 employees on a six-day teacher-recruiting trip to Miami Beach over the July 4th holiday in 2023.  The Clark County School District employees only met with two prospective teachers. Neither filled out a job application.  The Las Vegas Review-Journal had previously reported on the trip, citing expense reports and other documents showing $37,000 spent on lodging, transportation,...

Congress began funding a transportation research center at South Carolina State University in 1998. Twenty-eight years later, most of the project is still in the design phase.  The university has already spent $11 million in federal funds, the bulk of it in 2013. It would be $15.8 million in today’s money. 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...

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s new plan to combat antisemitism includes increased funding for the Arab American Association of New York — an advocacy group whose employees have made dehumanizing remarks about Jews. The group is also a financial backer of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), whose senior leadership has made statements supporting violence against Jewish civilians.  Key facts: Mamdani’s 33-page plan to combat antisemitism, unveiled in late September, says it will “support Jewish New Yorkers” by doubling funding for the...

New Jersey’s largest school district spent $566,000 on an employee fitness center that averages just seven users per day, according to an Oct. 1 report from the New Jersey Office of the State Auditor. Key facts: Newark Public Schools built the fitness center in the basement of its administrative headquarters. Auditors found the district spent more than $300,000 on construction without proper school board approval and circumvented competitive bidding requirements.  They also hired a personal trainer to work at the gym full-time with a salary of $86,490. The remaining expenses were...

Nearly 300,000 retirees across 18 states collected public pensions of $100,000 or more in 2025, costing taxpayers $36.2 billion.  It’s a notable increase from 2024, when almost 236,000 people earned $30.6 billion. Key facts: California paid 160,943 of the six-figure pensions — more than half the total. Illinois paid nearly 48,962 of them, and New York gave 32,381. There were 2,822 retirees with pensions of more than $250,000, including 31 people who earned more than $500,000. Harris Zeigler, a former psychology professor at New York City’s Hunter College, collected just...

RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the WeekOctober 4 to October 10   RCI Podcasts & Videos On the RealClearInvestigations Podcast, RCI Editor J. Peder Zane and RCI contributor John Murawski speak with Nathan Cofnas about his academic research into group identity and IQ – work that is so controversial that he may be facing criminal charges in Europe.   On The Miller Report: Real Clear Journalism, Maggie Miller speaks with Vince Bielski about his recent article about whether Democratic governors will sign up for a Trump-backed federal scholarship tax credit that could reap...

The Postal Service is increasing the risk of fraud by approving invoices that lack descriptions of the goods or services being purchased, according to a Sept. 24 inspector general report. Key facts: The audit focused on time-and-materials contracts, used when the price of a purchase can’t be estimated in advance. The inspector general estimated that 74% of the contracts, worth $271.1 million, were approved in 2024 and 2025 even though the Postal Service couldn’t verify that the purchases were delivered.  Some invoices were approved even though they didn’t list how many...

Arlington County, Virginia opened its first “SuperStop” bus stop in 2013, complete with heated floors, electronic display screens, and slanted pavement that allowed passengers to board a bus without stepping upwards. It was just missing one thing: a proper roof. Passengers found themselves drenched on rainy days or shivering in the winter because the bus stop provided little shelter.  The poorly-designed bus stop cost $1 million, or $1.4 million in today’s money.  That’s according to the “Wastebook” reporting published by the late U.S. Senator Dr....

Eugene Wu recently started his fourth year as a patient of Cliffside Rehabilitation in Queens, New York. He has little hope of ever leaving. Minimally conscious, nonverbal, and quadriplegic since suffering a brain injury, the 47-year-old former IT worker is seen only by staff and his court-appointed guardian.  Until mid-2025, Eugene was visited almost-daily by family members. Court-imposed restrictions now prevent Eugene’s family members from seeing him at all, angering his sister Amy, who complains that he receives substandard medical care.  Minimally conscious,...

In September 2024, automated computer systems flagged more than 400,000 people who were potentially wrongly receiving Social Security checks. Employees at the Social Security Administration ignored or did not fully review an estimated 80% of the alerts and are still sending out the checks today, according to a new inspector general audit. Recipients received more than $1 billion in the past two years. The report estimates that the government can still claw back $344 million, but $664 million is likely lost forever. Key facts: A Social Security recipient who returns to work is required to...

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement “urgently” needs to “avoid further waste of taxpayer dollars” resulting from misguided purchases, according to a Sept. 24 report by the Government Accountability Office. ICE never developed a plan for spending the huge funding boost it received last year, and blew billions of dollars on initiatives that were later scaled back or abandoned entirely. Key facts: The One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 gave ICE $45 billion to use for detention efforts by 2029, more than doubling its previous budget. In early 2026, ICE spent more than...

Federal disaster money meant to rebuild homes destroyed by Hurricane Sandy instead helped finance a contractor’s Lamborghini, Porsche, Jaguar and real estate after he defrauded Long Island homeowners. Alexander Almaraz, owner of the construction company Design Concepts Group, was sentenced last month to four years in federal prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Key facts: After Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast in 2012, New York awarded $1.2 billion in federally-backed grants to help almost 13,000 families rebuild their homes. The funds came from U.S....

RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the WeekSeptember 27 to October 3   RCI Podcasts & Videos On the RealClearInvestigations Podcast, RCI Editor J. Peder Zane and RCI Senior Reporter James Varney speak with Dr. Robert Malone about how powerful businesses, government officials, foundations and journalists are behind the growing push to regulate artificial intelligence, an effort which, he says, has less to do with saving humanity from extinction than protecting the valuation and competitive advantages of AI behemoths.   Featured Investigation: Media Law: How One Firm’s...

Federal agencies spent the past two years deep cleaning their offices, throwing away $10 billion worth of inventory ranging from bandages to airplanes.  Only 9% of the items were donated, resold or reused by another agency, even though 56% of the items were unused, the Government Accountability Office found in a new report. Key facts: The report analyzed 48 million items thrown away from July 2023 to September 2025. Almost 60% of them originally cost $1,000 or more.  Fifty-six percent of the items were completely unused, the GAO found. Another 43% were “usable,”...

Voters often say that politicians have no common sense, but a little-known Senate program takes that belief a bit too seriously. The Office of Education and Training gives senators and their staffers classes on basic life skills like stress management, small talk, self-assertiveness, proper sitting posture and even sleeping. Taxpayers spent $1.9 million funding the classes in 2013, or $2.7 million in today’s money. The program still exists, but the dollar cost is unclear because it’s been incorporated into the larger Office of the Sergeant at Arms’ budget. That’s...

One of the most urgent questions facing society today is the potential impact of AI on education and labor markets. So it’s no surprise that two scientists attempted to provide an answer, producing a meta-analysis suggesting that incorporating ChatGPT in schooling dramatically improved student outcomes. Social media and online sources promoted the 2025 study as a beacon of bright light.  The problem is that the researchers’ conclusions were later found to be unreliable, and the study was retracted in April – another blow to the public’s faith in...

The State of Utah overpaid a janitorial contractor by $677,669 after one of its own employees falsified procurement documents and made improper contract changes. The Division of Facilities Construction and Management recovered some of the money, but $291,650 is gone, according to a September state audit. Key facts: The problems involved janitorial services at the Taylorsville State Office Building, a 415,000-square-foot complex housing more than a dozen government agencies.  Auditors said the employee responsible for the contract worked mostly in isolation. Reviewers failed to catch...

Contractors working at the Department of Veterans Affairs’ suicide-prevention hotline earned $11.2 million without answering a single phone call, according to a Sept. 1 report from the VA inspector general. Key facts: The Veterans Crisis Line is available 24 hours per day for veterans experiencing a mental health emergency. Trained government staff answer calls, provide support and send a medical team if there is an immediate risk of harm. In 2019, a contractor was hired to establish a backup crisis line. If the main Veterans Crisis Line was unavailable because of a power outage or some...