RealClearInvestigations Articles

Topline: The State Department meant well when it sent police experts to Iraq in 2012 to help train local law enforcement. But Iraq was not exactly a safe place for Americans at the time, and the absurd security costs made the whole venture seem completely pointless. Only 12% of the Police Development Program’s $400 million budget was spent on actual police classes. The remaining 88% was mostly spent on security guards and transportation for the 115 American teachers. The program cost $579 million in today’s money. That’s according to the “Wastebook” reporting...

Topline: One might expect that the companies developing advanced technology for Immigration and Customs Enforcement are led by gifted programmers with impressive resumés. But one firm with a $12 million no-bid contract from ICE seems to have no one leading it. Until recently, the company Edge Ops’ website claimed their lead programmer was Diya Das. It used a stock image with the description “Indian lady relax on sofa using tablet look at camera” as her supposed bio picture. Das has no listed biographical information, and there is no proof she is even a real...

Topline: The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation says the digital tablets it provides to all prisoners are “tightly controlled education tools” that help inmates learn new technology skills and get “access to the Bible.” A City Journal investigation tells a very different story. Inmates use the tablets — purchased with $189 million in taxpayer funds — to watch pornography and send sexually explicit messages to each other and, allegedly, to minors. Key facts: City Journal spoke with dozens of death-row inmates and former prison...

Topline: President Donald Trump withdrew a lawsuit he had filed against his own administration — instead planning to create a $1.8 billion slush fund that would compensate alleged victims of Joe Biden’s “weaponization” of the legal system. The fund managers would not be required to give a public explanation of their spending, and Trump would be able to remove members of the commission running the fund without cause, according to ABC News. Key facts: The “Anti-Weaponization Fund” would be led by four commissioners appointed by the attorney general and one...

Topline: The federal government is so prone to excessive spending that it is even wasting money on waste itself. The Department of Energy could save up to $229.2 billion over the next several years by changing the way it disposes of nuclear waste, according to the Government Accountability Office. A vague and poorly understood law from the 1980s makes the process overly burdensome and expensive. Key facts: The Department of Energy is in charge of treating water, soil, equipment and more that were contaminated from nuclear weapons production during World War II and the Cold...

Topline: Drunk nightclub patrons might think they were hallucinating if a urinal cake suddenly started speaking to them. But in 2012, the phenomenon was a very real use of federal taxpayer money. The Michigan State Police used a $10,000 grant from the Department of Transportation on the odd campaign to remind men not to drink and drive. The money would be worth $14,473 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...

Mary, a veteran Silicon Valley marketer who can’t find a job, considers herself a victim of an H-1B visa program run amok.  Her story, a U.S. native replaced by a foreign-born employee who is willing to work at a significantly lower wage, has become commonplace, particularly in the tech industry. Adding insult to injury, she says, her CEO, who hails from India, told her to train the man he selected to replace her before laying her off.  Despite stints at Google and Cisco and two years of job hunting, Mary can no longer compete in a job market saturated with foreign-born H-1B...

Topline: The top 20 private universities received $22.3 billion in federal research grants and contracts in fiscal year 2025, but it appears some of that funding helped them grow their own cash reserves. A statistical analysis from Open the Books found a moderate correlation between 20 elite colleges’ per-student government funding and per-student endowment growth. Schools that received the most taxpayer funding from 2018 to 2025 were the most likely to see their endowments grow, sometimes by more than 200%. Key facts: The analysis included all eight schools of the Ivy League and other...

Topline: The Government Accountability Office’s 2026 annual report made 97 new recommendations for Congress to improve government efficiency and lower the risk of fraud and waste. There are still 513 recommendations from past years that Congress has yet to fully address. Key facts: The top recommendation is for Medicare to stop paying higher rates based on where a medical procedure is performed. Currently, Medicare pays more for operations in a hospital than the exact same procedure in a doctor’s office. Equalizing the rates would save almost $16 billion per year, the GAO...

Update (May 22, 2026): Sociologist Melissa Wilde, the reform candidate for president of the American Sociological Association, lost her bid to lead the group.  Universities across the country are facing unprecedented government scrutiny of everything from the rise of antisemitism to the lack of viewpoint diversity in the left-leaning social sciences. Nowhere is the ideological battle over higher education more contentious and consequential than in Florida, home to the second-largest university system in the country. Florida’s crusade against progressivism has been more...

Topline: The City of New Britain, Conn. is investigating Erin Stewart, its former mayor, for questionable purchases she made as mayor, including groceries, maternity clothing, party supplies and much more. Stewart also approved an annual $39,000 pension for herself despite only working in New Britain for 14 years, not the required 20 years. Stewart is currently campaigning for governor. As of May 12, she is the favorite to win the Republican nomination. Key facts: Stewart racked up $207,000 on her city credit card from 2016 to 2025. The Hartford Courant first reported the story, and it was...

RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week May 10 to May 16   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 Leighton Woodhouse about his article detailing how conservative legislators and influencers have joined with left-leaning animal rights activists to oppose scientific research using dogs.   On The Miller Report: Real Clear Journalism, Maggie Miller is joined by Senator Alan Armstrong from Oklahoma (R-OK) to discuss the “build baby build”...

Topline: The homelessness agency in King County, Wash., has a $45 million deficit, but auditors can’t fully figure out why, according to a state audit publicly released this April. Its accounting records are so poor that it’s impossible to track where portions of its money are being spent. Key facts: The King County Regional Homelessness Authority helps run shelters and outreach to the homeless population in 39 cities. It’s funded jointly by the county and the City of Seattle. Financial records claim that the city and county owe the Homelessness Authority $49.8 million...

The Biden administration may have failed to convince Congress to double Medicaid spending on home healthcare in 2021, but the funding increase occurred anyway. An RCI analysis of federal data has found that spending on the program, which pays health aides and family members to act as caregivers for elderly and disabled adults, nearly doubled between 2019 and 2024, to $46.4 billion a year – an amount nearly identical to the $50 billion per year Biden wanted. As a result, American taxpayers paid more than $217 billion for home-based care under the program during that five-year...

Topline: A night at the movies turned into a national scandal in 2012 when Dallas Independent School District spent $57,000 on a boys-only trip to see Red Tails, a World War II film directed by George Lucas of Star Wars fame. Female students were forced to stay at school and watch a movie about a spelling bee, prompting a federal Title IX investigation for gender-based discrimination. Ironically, no one made out better than the administrator who planned the field trip. She resigned with a $142,000 payout and became a private consultant. Waste of the Day 5.14.26 Open the Books The...

Topline: North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University awarded $5 million in scholarships “without evidence of merit or need,” some of which were “deliberately funneled” to school employees and their relatives, according to a report by State Auditor Dave Boliek released on April 23. Key facts: The university collects fees from students for housing, dining and parking. They are supposed to fund administrative costs like facilities and human resources, not scholarships. But $73,063 was used to help a board member’s nephew cover tuition, the audit...

BLUE MOUNDS, Wisc. – Ridglan Farms, a breeder of beagles for scientific experiments, has withstood attacks from the animal rights movement for years. Activists have broken into its buildings to document the conditions inside them, rescued some dogs, and pushed Wisconsin authorities to cite the company for animal abuse.  On April 30, Ridglan finally buckled to the public pressure, handing the movement against animal testing one of its biggest triumphs. Big Dog Rescue and the Center for a Humane Economy announced that the groups reached an agreement to purchase 1,500 beagles for...

Topline: The federal office overseeing Medicare hearings and appeals was significantly overstaffed, leading to $30 million in wasted resources in 2023 and 2024, according to a whistleblower complaint substantiated by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel. The Office of Medicare Hearings and Appeals has since laid off 185 employees. Key facts: In 2018, the office had 672 employees making $62.6 million, according to data obtained from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. That was not enough to deal with a massive backlog of claims from seniors arguing Medicare had wrongfully denied them...

Topline: Every taxpayer in North Dakota is losing money gambling on horse races, even those who never placed a bet. The state’s Racing Commission, a five-member board that ensures horse racing is fair and profitable, has awarded ill-advised grants and spent too much money on its own operation, according to a state audit released in April. Key facts: The Commission awarded 349 grants worth $2.9 million from 2021 to 2025, and the audit randomly reviewed 25 of them. Three of the grants went to racetracks that never applied for them, totaling $25,500. Another three went to recipients who...