RealClearInvestigations Articles

Topline: Most football fans are likely jealous of anyone who can afford tickets to the Super Bowl, which typically cost thousands of dollars. But in 2012, fans watching at home were forced to cover the transportation costs of those with tickets to the big game.  The U.S. Department of Transportation gave the City of Indianapolis $142,419 in taxpayer money to offer free bus rides to Lucas Oil Stadium on Super Bowl Sunday and the three days leading up to it. The money would be worth $206,571 today. That’s according to the “Wastebook” reporting published by the late U.S....

Topline: The Army and Navy found 14 weapons systems that had “critical cost growth” in 2023 and 2024, meaning it will cost at least 25% more than expected to maintain them until they are defunct. The cost overruns total $695.2 billion, according to data in an April report by the Government Accountability Office. Key facts: The weapons are already built, but repairing and operating them is typically expensive, according to the GAO. Not all of the cost overruns are an issue, because some of the weapons will last longer than initially expected, thus justifying the added cost. A fleet...

Topline: The Los Angeles Police Department spent $315.5 million on overtime last year, and the fire department spent $283.4 million, leading to inflated take-home pay, according to payroll records obtained by Open the Books. Both were the highest amounts in city history as the departments continue to be grossly understaffed. Key facts: California Gov. Gavin Newsom had a salary of $242,295 last year. There were 89 fire and police employees in Los Angeles who made more than that in overtime alone. Fire battalion chief Nicholas Ferrrari made $653,484 in overtime. It was the highest ever for a...

One of the beneficiaries of Virginia’s aggressive attempt to gerrymander the state for Democratic advantage could be a former federal prosecutor whose campaign for Congress hinges on his efforts to use the law to target President Trump and his supporters. When a slim majority of Virginia voters gave the legislature authority last month to create congressional districts that could give Democrats a 10-1 advantage, J.P. Cooney cheered the  outcome in a message on social media, boasting that the new district he was running in had been drawn “expressly for the...

Topline: The Department of the Interior spent $2.6 billion to help state and local governments and nonprofits manage drought conditions in the Colorado River Basin, but it’s almost impossible for taxpayers to track where the money went. Federal officials classified the spending as “miscellaneous obligations” to avoid the requirement that all grants be posted online at USAspending.gov, according to an April inspector general report. Public oversight would have been vital. The Department of the Interior never checked if the recipients were barred from doing business with the...

RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week April 26 to May 2   RCI Podcasts & Videos On this week’s episode of the RealClearInvestigations Podcast, RCI Editor J. Peder Zane and RCI Senior Reporter James Varney speak about his RCI article which details the central yet largely hidden role played University of North Carolina virologist Ralph Baric in both the risky scientific work that may have created the virus that causes COVID-19 and the subsequent campaign to suppress public debate about its origins.   On The Miller Report: Real Clear Journalism, Maggie Miller speaks with...

Topline: The fox is guarding the henhouse at Montclair Public Schools in New Jersey. After the district’s annual audit uncovered seven “deficiencies” with its financial records, school officials slashed the budget for a follow-up investigation into “potential irregularities such as fraud, waste, and abuse,” according to Montclair Local. Key facts: The annual audit found that the district overspent its budget by $13.6 million across 39 different spending categories last year. Auditors identified duplicate expenses, missing invoices, contradictory account balances...

Topline: In 2012, researchers at Purdue University used optical illusions to show that making a golf hole appear larger helps golfers improve their performance. The $350,000 hole in the federal budget was sadly no magic trick. The National Science Foundation funded the project with a grant that would be worth $510,000 today, even after the National Institutes of Health funded a similar Purdue study in 2008. 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...

Topline: President Donald Trump made it a priority to downsize the federal workforce last year, but the top-paid employees are making more money than previously. There were 1,540 federal workers who outearned the president’s salary of $400,000 last year, breaking the previous record of 956 workers. The employees collectively earned $632.3 million. An additional 189 employees made exactly $400,000. Key facts: The eight highest-paid federal employees all work for the National Institutes of Health. Gary Gibbons, director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, made $547,285. It...

Topline: Aretha Ferrell-Benavides — the disgraced former city manager of Martinsville, Va. — spent $96,613 on her city credit card without proper approval, according to an independent audit released this April. Several purchases ignored city spending limits on meals and hotels. The City Manager’s Office also took money from another department to fund Ferrell-Benades' travel and a pay raise without approval from the city council, according to the audit. Key facts: Ferrell-Benavides made 307 purchases on her credit card from February 2024 to June 2025. Sixty-eight of them were...

In March 2020, a couple of months after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the United States, editors at the journal Nature Medicine appended a note to a coronavirus study it had published five years prior. “We are aware that this article is being used as the basis for unverified theories that the novel coronavirus causing COVID-19 was engineered,” the journal editors wrote. “There is no evidence that this is true; scientists believe that an animal is the most likely source of the coronavirus.” The...

Topline: Secretary of War Pete Hegseth was not kidding when he complained that there are too many “fat troops” in the military. The military has spent nearly $726 million buying Ozempic and other GLP-1 weight loss drugs since 2021, including $274.6 million in fiscal year 2025, according to spending records obtained by Open the Books.  Key facts: The spending includes 102,597 separate purchases, all from the Defense Logistics Agency for “troop support.” Almost all of the money went to the wholesale drug company Cencora. More than a dozen brands of GLP-1 drugs were...

RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the WeekApril 19 to April 25   RCI Podcasts & Videos On this week’s episode of the RealClearInvestigations Podcast, RCI Editor J. Peder Zane and RCI Senior Reporter James Varney speak RealClearPolitics reporter Susan Crabtree and her new book (co-authored with Jed McFatter) “Fool’s Gold: The Radicals, Con Artists, and Traitors Who Killed the California Dream and Now Threaten Us All.”     On The Miller Report: Real Clear Journalism, Maggie Miller speaks with Ben Weingarten about his recent RCI article on how the U.S....

Topline: The firing of then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem came after she funded a $220 million ad campaign without a competitive bidding process, but she is far from the only federal official awarding no-bid contracts. Washington spent a record $262.6 billion on no-bid contracts in fiscal year 2025, or 33% of all contract spending for the year. Key facts: The competitive bidding process helps ensure that taxpayers get the best value for their money when the government buys a product or service. Several companies submit offers for the job, and the government chooses the cheapest one...

Topline: PepsiCo’s odd attempt at being associated with health foods ended in failure in 2015, when its Greek yogurt factory closed due to poor sales. The government tried its best to help PepsiCo succeed, at taxpayer expense. The Departments of Agriculture and Commerce spent $1.3 million to pave the road to the factory and upgrade its water supply. The money would be worth $1.9 million today.  The factory was also promised a combined $26.3 million in tax credits from New York State and Genesee County.  That’s according to the “Wastebook” reporting published...

Working at a 24/7 bodega in the heart of Brooklyn, Tajuken Deli employees are prepared for almost anything – except having guns pointed at their heads by cops. That’s what seemed to be happening one early April morning last year, when four armed men dressed in police uniforms flashed their badges, yelling “NYPD” as they stormed the neighborhood shop. Surveillance video shows one worker being quickly knocked to the ground and zip-tied into submission before being dragged to the back of the store. Another worker and customer were also subdued as the masked...

Topline: Texas taxpayers spent an estimated $42.3 million to $111.5 million to help local governments lobby the state legislature in 2025, even though 83% of voters oppose the practice. A new report from the Texas Public Policy Foundation found that 570 lobbyists in Texas have at least one taxpayer-funded entity as a client, such as a city, school district or community college. Key facts: Taxpayer-funded lobbyists have registered with the state to influence legislation involving emissions regulations, gun control, school vouchers, transgender students competing in college sports, legalized...

Topline: Employees at the Internal Revenue Service are busy processing tax returns, but they’re equipped with supplies that go far beyond laptops and calculators. The IRS spent $2.6 million last year on military-style equipment like ammunition and rifle plates. Federal agencies besides the Department of War spent more than $448 million on military equipment in fiscal year 2025. The dollar total encompasses 40 purchasing categories listed on USAspending.gov, such as grenades and chemical weapons. Key facts: Some of the weaponry was purchased by law enforcement agencies like the...

Topline: Economic development corporation JobsOhio controls the sale of liquor in Ohio and uses most of the profits — $359 million last year — for job creation programs. But as a private corporation that is not subject to open records or open meetings laws, much of its operations are shrouded in secrecy. The corporation is now under fire for sponsoring a $60,000 podcast that produced just one episode. Key facts: Former Gov. John Kasich created the corporation in 2011 and put many of his campaign donors on its board. Ohio Attorney General David Yost tried to audit JobsOhio in 2013,...