RealClearInvestigations Articles

The New York State Court of Appeals made clear today: even unpopular defendants are entitled to fair trials. Will Juan Marchan, who is overseeing Trump's trial, take heed? In the United States, we prosecute crimes, not people. Arguably, this rule is the fundamental principle of our justice system. Doesn’t matter if a defendant volunteers every Sunday or has an affair every Tuesday. Defendants are accused of committing specific offenses. Prosecutors must prove their guilt without making the trial a referendum on their character or political views. On Thursday,...

Joe Feldman has faced many tough crowds in the course of successfully selling his “Grading for Equity” program to school districts across the nation. During the consultant’s presentations, teachers concerned that his approach lowers standards have rolled their eyes, questioned his understanding of students, and worse. Joe Feldman, equity-grading booster: Teachers and parents can be a tough crowd, but dozens of districts nationwide are giving the consultant’s ambitious project a shot. Crescendo Education Group “A guy in the front row got his stuff...

Topline: The ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus opposed this year’s $1.7 trillion federal budget, urging lawmakers to vote against the bill and trigger a government shutdown because it was “loaded with hundreds of pages of earmarks.” What the Freedom Caucus failed to mention is that its own members and allies have earmarked $957 million over the last two years. Waste of the Day 4.24.24 Open the Books Key facts: A recent OpenTheBooks report found that the average Freedom Caucus earmark in the last two years cost taxpayers $4.6 million — more than double...

Goodbye, intersectionality – hello, “It’s All One Thingism.” In this nebulous new cosmology, Palestinians – even Hamas themselves – aren’t just engaged in a specific geopolitical fight over territory and resources. No, they’re the tip of the spear of a perceived collective liberation against the West, the Global North, “colonisers,” whatever you want to call the Bad Guys. It’s a magical world in which all politics and world affairs once seen through intersectionality’s colourful prism have been flattened into (somewhat...

Between hosting Right Side Broadcasting Network and dating Marjorie Taylor Greene, Brian Glenn is the next big MAGA media star: Right Side Broadcasting Network dates back to 2016, when stay-at-home dad Joe Seales launched the online channel in order to live stream Trump rallies. Eight years later, RSBN has grown into a full outlet that employs roughly a dozen people and features a website full of stories. RSBN is like NFL RedZone for Trump rallies, covering them hours before any speakers approach the dais. Now, as Trump’s general election campaign kicks into high gear, it has...

Topline: The Chinese government refuses to repay over $1 trillion of decades-old bonds held by private American citizens, even though the U.S. is still making payments on its more than $850 billion debt to China, according to a recent op-ed in The Hill. Key facts: The Republic of China financed huge infrastructure projects in the early 20th century by issuing bonds to investors and governments around the world. The Chinese government fell behind on its bond payments in 1938 while at war with Japan. Before they could fix the error, it was overthrown by the current communist regime and the...

The Biden administration has often struggled to condemn prejudice against Jews without also condemning prejudice against Muslims, as if one were a response to the other, or as if they were equivalent phenomena. On Monday, Biden took that a step further, seeming to justify the anti-Israel protests by portraying them as a legitimate expression of solidarity with the Palestinians rather than threatening displays of hatred for Israel and Jews who identify with it. Biden’s response recalled the “fine people hoax,” in which then-President Donald Trump was falsely accused to have...

Topline: Two former California transit employees used $50,000 of taxpayer money to build secret apartments inside two train stations, allegedly for their own personal convenience. Records at OpenTheBooks.com revealed that at least one of them collected almost $1.1 million in taxpayer-funded salary between 2017 and 2021. Key facts: Deputy Director of Operations Joe Navarro and Station Manager Seth Worden installed showers, heating systems, security cameras and more in two closed-down offices in the San Francisco area, according to the Mercury News. Waste of the Day 4.22.24 Open the...

RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the WeekApril 14 to April 20, 2024   Featured Investigation:Impeachment ‘Whistleblower’ Was in the Loop of Biden-Ukraine Dealings That Trump Wanted Probed In RealClearInvestigations, Paul Sperry reports that the “whistleblower” who sparked Donald Trump’s first impeachment was deeply involved in the political maneuverings over Biden-family business schemes in Ukraine that Trump wanted investigated: In 2019, then-intelligence analyst Eric Ciaramella touched off the impeachment when, relying on a colleague’s account of...

Topline: Three times during 2022, the Navy accidentally spent more in Ukraine than was approved, totaling $399 million in excess spending. Key facts: A new inspector general audit reviewed funds awarded by three 2022 spending bills that gave the Department of Defense $34.4 billion to spend in Ukraine. The Navy received $1.7 billion of that money. Because of poor oversight, the Navy spent $2.1 billion — 24% more than allowed. Waste of the Day 4.19.24 Open the Books Most of the overspending came in June 2022. The errors were not caught until July, so the Navy altered its records...

What the paper of record failed to mention, but is easily visible across social media on a regular basis, is that these protests are promoting and normalizing anti-Semitism, not taking a principled stand on behalf of the Palestinians (a majority of whom approved of Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, according to polling data). In New York in late March, for example, outside a fundraiser for President Biden, a male protester was captured on video following a young woman who was trying to get into the building. He screamed at her, “F—ing murderous kike. F—ing die....

Various left-wing news organizations completely ignored the bombshell Cass Review, a report commissioned by England’s National Health Services (NHS) which found there was “weak evidence” for the efficacy of puberty blockers in minors, a Daily Caller review found. CNN, ABC News, Axios and Vox haven’t covered the story on their websites at all. NPR, CBS and NBC have four combined stories on the review, one from NPR, one from CBS and two from NBC. ... The review, commissioned by the U.K.’s NHS, was written by Dr. Hilary Cass, a British pediatrician who...

Topline: When a federal grant makes national headlines for being wasteful, the government usually gets the hint and caps spending on the project. But in 2008, the National Science Foundation responded to critics of its $100,000 Chinese video game research study by … investing another $2.9 million into the project, or $4.3 million in 2024 dollars. 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. Waste of the Day...

By James Varney & Abigail Degnan, RealClearInvestigationsApril 18, 2024 When Dexter Reed died in a shootout with Chicago police on March 21, the incident was quickly grafted onto a narrative that began in 2014 after a policeman killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. – namely, that the U.S. faces an epidemic of violence by unbridled cops who do not believe black lives matter. “Killing of Dexter Reed raises questions about Chicago police reform. ‘The message is, go in guns blazing,’” blared a headline in the Chicago Sun-Times. Reed’s death joins a long...

An internal leak investigation ended without a “definitive conclusion,” as the Times cuts ties with a controversial Israeli freelancer. Since Israel began its war on the Gaza Strip after the October 7 attacks, internal strife has wracked the New York Times. The intensity of the debate reached its zenith in late December and January, amid a sustained fight over the paper’s claim that Hamas had systematically weaponized sexual violence on October 7. Published on December 28, the story, headlined “Screams Without Words,” instantly served as a powerful reference...

Topline: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) has spent $210,000 of taxpayer money on 11 private flights since 2020, according to public records reviewed by the Daily Beast. Key facts: Sinema’s flight tab includes $116,000 just from 2023. A single trip last August for Sinema and four staffers cost $50,250. The money came out of Sinema’s taxpayer-funded office budget, which was $4.1 million last year. Waste of the Day 4.17.24 Open the Books Lawmakers rarely use public money on private flights, according to the Daily Beast. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) has seemingly never done so, even...

By Paul Sperry, RealClearInvestigationsApril 17, 2024 The ‘whistleblower’ who sparked Donald Trump’s first impeachment was deeply involved in the political maneuverings behind Biden-family business schemes in Ukraine that Trump wanted probed, newly obtained emails from former Vice President Joe Biden’s office reveal. Eric Ciaramella: Privately expressed shock -- "Yikes" -- at linking U.S. aid to firing a prosecutor probing the firm paying Biden's son. But he kept mum publicly, so was he really shocked? Harvard University/Davis Center In 2019, then-National...

Topline: A group of eight Democratic progressive U.S. House members known as “The Squad” have filed $224 million of earmarks in the federal budget since 2023 to fund pet projects based around leftist ideologies, according to OpenTheBooks.com. Key facts: The full list of The Squad’s 203 earmarks in the last two years can be viewed here. Twenty-one earmarks funded environmental justice and clean energy projects, focal points of the Green New Deal championed by The Squad. Waste of the Day 4.16.24 Open the Books That includes Rep. Ayanna Pressley’s (MA) $1...

The justices’ questioned whether prosecutors have been stretching the law to reach members of the mob responsible for the attack: The Supreme Court seemed wary on Tuesday of letting prosecutors use a federal obstruction law to charge hundreds of rioters involved in the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021. A decision rejecting the government’s interpretation of the law could not only disrupt those prosecutions but also eliminate two of the federal charges against former President Donald J. Trump in the case accusing him of plotting to subvert the 2020 election. Mr....