RealClearInvestigations Articles

Topline: In 2011, the U.S. Agency for International Development completed a wasteful project by spending $12 million on energy-efficient irrigation pumps in Pakistan. The program bought far fewer pumps than planned without a reduction in the total cost, and the farmers receiving the new technology didn’t even want it. 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...

Topline: The Veterans Health Administration has lost an estimated 5% of its reusable medical equipment worth at least $211 million -- including exam tables, computers and microscopes -- and “will continue to do so if processes are not improved,” according to a new audit from the Veterans Affairs inspector general. Key facts: VA hospitals own over 2 million pieces of nonexpendable equipment that is meant to be used for two years or more, valued at $12 billion. Federal auditors recently visited hospitals to see if the VA was properly tracking the equipment and found that thousands...

Topline: United Healthcare potentially collected an extra $6 billion from the federal government in 2023 by exaggerating how sick their patients were, according to new analysis from the nonprofit Alliance of Community Health Plans. Key facts: Medicare Advantage is an alternative to traditional government-run Medicare that allows elderly patients to use private health insurance companies, which get reimbursed every month based on how many patients they cover. Because elderly patients can be expensive for private companies to insure, the government offers “risk adjustment” payments,...

Recently declassified documents indicate that people close to former FBI Director James Comey and Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff were connected to leaks of classified information to prominent reporters designed to portray Donald Trump and his allies as being in league with Russia.    Reporters from the New York Times and Washington Post shared a 2018 Pulitzer Prize for articles that used classified leaks to advance the Russigate hoax. Columbia University, Photo by Eileen Barroso Written in 2017, the FBI documents expose how selected Washington reporters, including Ellen Nakashima of...

The classroom subject of “civics” evokes antiquated images of Cold War-era conformity, but Andrew Hart describes a recent teacher workshop on civics with a schoolboy’s exuberance: “It was really refreshing. I was, like, wow.” The weeklong seminar at the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia delved into the writings of Aristotle and Cicero, the Founding Fathers, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and civil rights titans W.E.B. Du Bois, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X.  “We spent the first full day just talking about...

Topline: The free Staten Island ferry in New York City is actually costing taxpayers a lot of money. Seventeen of the engineers running the boats each earned over $1 million in 2024, totaling $23.1 million. Chief Marine Engineer Mark Tettonis and his $1.7 million salary topped the list, according to OpenTheBooks’ database. Another 10 marine engineers earned between $500,000 and $999,000, and an additional 43 earned more than $200,000. Key facts: Of the 30 highest-paid employees in all of New York City last year, 27 were chief marine engineers. Their base salary was only $169,520, but a...

RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week September 7 to September 13   Featured Investigation: Exodus: Affordability Crisis Sends Americans Packing From Big Cities For over a century, migration in the U.S. flowed from rural towns to major cities. Now, that trend is reversing, Joel Kotkin & Wendell Cox report for RealClearInvestigations. Urban cores are shrinking while suburbs, exurbs, and small towns are experiencing rapid growth. Between 2010 and 2020, suburbs gained 2 million domestic migrants, while core counties lost 2.7 million. Pandemic-driven remote work accelerated this...

Topline: As chancellor of the Veterans Affairs Acquisition Academy, Judith Dawson’s job was to teach other VA employees the proper way to hire contractors for government work. Instead, Dawson told her staff to illegally ask contractors to buy them alcohol and private buses during an extravagant $4.6 million VA training symposium. Dawson “knowingly” accepted illicit gifts including over $2,400 of spa treatments during the August 2023 event in Aurora, Colorado, according to a new report from the VA inspector general. Key facts: The event was held at the Gaylord Rockies...

HOLLY RIDGE, La. – More than three millennia ago, indigenous people built a massive ceremonial mound a few miles from here, an engineering marvel called Poverty Point and one of the oldest known building projects in North America. Today, this is ground zero for what may prove a defining feature of the 21st century’s landscape. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, is constructing a gargantuan, $10 billion data center that tech executives, lawmakers, and business leaders say will bring much-needed prosperity to this rural area in northeast Louisiana. Set to be operational...

This is the second of a two-part series on the Great Dispersion of Americans across the country. Read the first installment here. The famous New Yorker magazine cover showing much of civilization ending at the Hudson River, save for Chicago, D.C., and then the West Coast, had more than a grain of truth for much of the 20th century. The term “flyover country” was not just a snobbish put-down but a reality as a handful of core cities – New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco – exerted oversized influence over America’s culture, politics, and...

Topline: National parks are a great way to connect with nature and escape from technology, but someone forgot to give the National Science Foundation the memo. Back in 2011, the NSF spent $300,000 on “documentary poem” podcasts about Alaska’s national parks for tourists to listen to during their visit. The money would be worth $429,000 today. The documentaries directed visitors to Facebook and Twitter posts about the national parks, while they were already inside the park and could experience it for themselves. That’s according to the “Wastebook” reporting...

Topline: The New York Police Department’s highly paid director of traffic Franklin Sepulveda allegedly sideswiped a parked car and then told his subordinate to file a fake report about the incident. Key facts: Sources interviewed by the nonprofit newsroom The City said a department traffic manager who parks Sepulveda’s car was the first to notice the damage. Sepulveda allegedly told the manager to say that Sepulveda’s car was the one that had been damaged in a hit and run. Internal Affairs allegedly later found footage showing that Sepulveda was the perpetrator. Sepulveda...

Topline: Recent reports have revealed continued spending on two controversial parts of the Department of Defense’s budget — congressional increases and unfunded priority “wish lists” — that send billions of dollars to projects the military arguably does not need and oftentimes does not even want. Key facts: The president submits a budget request every year to tell Congress how much money he believes each federal agency should receive, but the DOD receives special treatment during the process. The secretary of defense must list additional “wish list”...

This is the first in a two-part series of the Great Dispersion of Americans across the country. For much of the past century, in both the United States and elsewhere, the inexorable trend has been for people to move from rural areas and towns to ever larger cities, particularly those with vibrant downtown cores such as New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, and dozens of other iconic American cities. Most visions of the future still view urban cores as the uncontested centers of production, consumption, and culture, with rural areas, small cities, and suburbs relegated to the backwaters...

Topline: The Gulf of Maine Research Institute said the loss of up to $4 million in federal funding this year will affect its community work, but that’s as the nonprofit has been spending significant portions of its budget on high compensation for its top executives. Tax returns show that former President Don Perkins collected $737,000 in the six months before he retired. Key facts: The research institute’s mission is to support Maine’s fishing economy and prepare for the future effects of climate change on the region. It received $10.4 million in government funding in fiscal...

Jim Simons’ mathematical skills helped transform him from a prize-winning academic at Harvard and MIT into a legendary financier whose algorithmic models made Renaissance Technologies one of the most successful hedge funds in history. After his death last year, one of his consequential bequests went to his daughter, Liz, who oversees the Heising-Simons Foundation and its nearly billion-dollar endowment. Liz Simons is using some of the money made by her hedge fund math whiz father, Jim Simmons, to push math informed by social justice.  @CommunityChange YouTube channel What Liz...

RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week August 31 to September 6   Featured Investigation: The Last Taboo: Acknowledging Violent Behavior in Women Domestic violence is usually seen as a crime of men against women, but new research challenges this one-way narrative, Christopher J. Ferguson reports for RealClearInvestigations. Studies show women are just as likely to perpetrate domestic violence as men, though the impacts may differ. Despite this, social taboos, stereotypes, and academic resistance make the issue difficult to address. A Canadian study of nearly 36,000 teens found boys...

Topline: The nonprofit running New York’s 9/11 memorial operated at a loss of $19 million in 2024 and had to use $4.5 million of public funds to stay afloat, but that didn’t stop the group from paying more than $850,000 to its top executive, according to the New York Post. Key facts: The nonprofit is officially registered as the National September 11 Memorial And Museum At The World Trade Center and opened in 2011 at the former site of the Twin Towers. The nonprofit received $4 million from the National Park Service for “the continued operation, maintenance and security of...

Key facts: The Department of Veterans Affairs faced one of its biggest controversies after spending over $6.2 million on in-person conferences in 2011 that allegedly included limousines and spa days. The money would have been enough to pay the annual disability compensation of 168 disabled veterans, and today would be worth $8.9 million. A January 2011 conference in Scottsdale, Ariz. cost $221,000 and was highlighted in the “Wastebook” reporting published by the late U.S. Senator Dr. Tom Coburn. But it was two conferences held in Orlando in July and August for over $6 million that...