RealClearInvestigations Articles

Topline: Federal officials had trouble holding their liquor in 2011, when they got carried away and spent $62,000 promoting local wine industries around the U.S. Advertising initiatives included a “Twitter Taste-Off” event in Colorado and picture books about grape juice for Ohio second graders. The money would be worth $89,000 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 abuses.  Coburn, the legendary U.S. Senator...

Topline: Former Utah State University President Elizabeth Cantwell has not been able to wash herself clean of the controversy surrounding her spending — especially not with the $750 bidet she bought with taxpayer funds. The university will undergo a full audit after a preliminary review by the Legislative Auditor General found “concerning” purchases and “several risks” with the school’s oversight rules. The investigation began after the Salt Lake Tribune exposed $661,800 in questionable expenses from Cantwell’s office, including new cars and travel...

The fertile Middle Belt region in north-central Nigeria became a killing field in June, when more than 200 Christian men, women, and children were slaughtered in an apparent series of coordinated attacks. The massacre was the latest in a string of killings that have taken the lives of an estimated 7,000 Nigerian Christians so far this year. Since 2009, Islamists – including Boko Haram and outside terrorist groups such as ISIS – have killed at least 52,500 Christians and displaced another 5 million of them, while destroying some 18,000 churches and setting 2,200 schools ablaze,...

In a recent focus group we held with 11 U.S. and foreign-born Latinos in Riverside, California, most of the participants expressed grave concerns about the breakup of hard-working and law-abiding families in what one participant called ICE’s “war” against Latinos. And yet, when asked if they were optimistic about the future, all 11 enthusiastically said “yes.”  Their responses reflected the broader patterns of progress and severe challenges we uncovered in an analysis of national data and on-the-ground reporting for our new report, “The Rise Of...

Topline: A New York City elementary school principal used at least $120,000 in taxpayer funds to hire her rich friends as consultants and buy their books, clothing and more for students, according to the New York Post. Aneesha Jacko of PS 35 Nathaniel Woodhull in Queens has not been accused of criminal wrongdoing, but the Special Commissioner of Investigation for city schools told the Post they have been reviewing complaints against her for three years. Jacko made $181,235 in 2024, per Open the Books’ database. Key facts: Jacko’s purchases included $61,000 for an absurd 1,285...

Topline: There is likely no one who would buy a house 190 miles away from their workplace knowing they would have to commute back and forth. But for Brent Robertson, chief of staff for Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS), the expense was not a problem because it was funded by taxpayers. Robertson was reimbursed $44,000 for 26 trips between Lynchburg, Va. and Washington, D.C. from April 2024 to March 2025, according to public records obtained by Politico. Key facts: Robertson has worked for Marshall since 2012 and became chief of staff in 2017. He purchased a house in Lynchburg in March 2024 and...

RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week November 2 to November 8   Featured Investigation: The Governor, the CEO & the FBI: Scandal Threatens New York Hospital  A dispute over $1 billion in allegedly withheld Medicaid funds has erupted into a partisan battle over Nassau University Medical Center, pitting Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul against Republican county officials ahead of New York's 2026 gubernatorial race. Ben Weingarten reports for RealClearInvestigations that the controversy centers on claims that New York State engineered a two-decade scheme forcing the Long...

Topline: Michigan’s plan to rely on a Chinese company to create American jobs is dead in the water. The state pulled out of an agreement to give Gotion, Inc., $715 million in subsidies for an electric vehicle battery plant, but there’s no guarantee Michigan will recoup the $23.6 million that was already paid. Key facts: Michigan agreed in 2022 to give Gotion up to $175 million in grants and $540 million in tax breaks to help fund the $2.4 billion plant. It was projected to create 2,350 jobs.  Progress was slow and opposition came quickly. Then-Senator Marco Rubio and other...

Topline: The U.S. unemployment rate was nearly 9% in 2011, but Washington was still spending taxpayer dollars to create jobs in other countries. The U.S. Agency for International Development sent $1.4 million to the island of Barbados for an "entrepreneurship initiative” run in partnership with Indiana University‘s Kelley School of Business. The money would be worth $2 million 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...

When Sen. Elizabeth A. Warren recently traveled to the Big Apple to endorse New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, she was asked if overt socialism is really the best model for Democrats to adopt. “You bet,” she replied in her signature folksy style. The Boston lawmaker wasn’t just jumping on the sudden trendiness of socialism three-and-a-half decades after its near-extinction. With fellow Senate traveler Bernie Sanders, Warren has been a catalyst for moving her party to the left since her first campaign in 2012.  She and Sanders are, in many ways, the...

In 2023, then-U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy released a bombshell report, “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation,” that painted a bleak picture of citizens feeling “isolated, invisible, and insignificant.” Most provocatively, it stated that perhaps half of Americans face a personal crisis of aloneness that poses health risks “similar to that caused by smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.” The report received wide attention as it resonated with myriad data points – including declining marriage and birth rates and the rise of remote work –...

Topline: Taxpayers in Dauphin County, Penn., spent $670,000 on an empty parking lot this summer, but Amiracle4sure, the nonprofit in charge, does not seem concerned about the price. In an interview with PennLive, Executive Director Marsha Curry-Nixon credited the sale to “divine intervention” and said she “didn’t care” what the empty lot was actually worth. Key facts: The lot will be used to house a local homeless population that was forced out of a “tent city” due to highway construction. Amiracle4sure owns the 3.5-acre lot — which...

Topline: New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell has a history of taking expensive trips using public funds, but her latest voyage is shrouded in secrecy. FOX8 found in an open records request that Cantrell spent over $50,000 traveling to the French Riviera in June, and the city refuses to say whether taxpayers will foot the entire bill. Key facts: Cantrell, her security guard and two other city employees spent over $9,800 each on upgraded flights to the United Nations Ocean Rise & Coastal Summit in Nice, France, according to FOX8. The group flew first-class in and out of New Orleans and...

After taking the helm at New York’s financially troubled Nassau University Medical Center late last year, Megan C. Ryan stumbled upon something baffling in the books: a two-decade-long series of transactions engineered by New York State that may have shortchanged the hospital by a staggering $1 billion in matching funds. As a hospital primarily serving patients on Medicare, Medicaid, or who are uninsured, the medical center qualified for federal matching grants tied to state contributions. Ryan’s discovery indicated that the state was having the medical center itself post its...

Topline: Baltimore County spent $125,513 installing crosswalks and traffic devices in the wrong locations, according to a recent inspector general report. Key facts: The errors came from the local Traffic Calming Unit, which was supposed to reduce traffic and enforce speed limits in residential areas by installing raised crosswalks with speed humps. The mistakes began after an employee at Victory Villa Elementary School asked the county to install a raised crosswalk in front of the school. The county promptly spent $20,606 to build one at the intersection of Compass Road and Cord Street...

RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week October 26 to November 1   Featured Investigation: Why Is New York’s AG Targeting a Castle in West Virginia? Lawfare or feather-bedding? James Varney reports for RealClearInvestigations reports that question is at the heart of the ongoing legal dispute between New York Attorney General Letitia James and one of the right’s most controversial opponents of immigration, Peter Brimelow, who says the AG’s claims of financial impropriety centered on a West Virginia castle are really an effort to silence him. VDARE, established in...

Topline: President Donald Trump has taken significant steps to secure the border and curb illegal immigration, but now he is taking a victory lap with the use of public funds. The Department of Homeland Security has committed to spending $180 million on “advertising and media support” about the “national emergency at the southern border.” Axios reports that $51 million has already been paid for TV ads praising Trump for “putting America first.” The $51 million expense means Trump has spent more on political ads than any politician in the country this year,...

Topline: Imagine a world where government-funded scientists track your every move online, including your location and all of your text messages. It’s not a dystopian fiction, or at least it wasn’t in 2011. The National Science Foundation paid the University of Notre Dame $802,000 for a study that monitored the cell phone usage of 200 college student volunteers for two years. The money would be worth $1.1 million 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...

Topline: The City of Baltimore gave $62,500 to a nonprofit that employs the mayor’s wife, according to tax filings reviewed by the Baltimore Sun. Six members of City Council have introduced a bill that would make similar payments illegal — which the mayor opposes. Key facts: The grant was paid in 2023 from the Baltimore Children and Youth Fund to the nonprofit Bmore Empowered, where Hana Scott is the director of operations. She is also Mayor Brandon Scott’s wife. The mayor’s office has a representative on the Youth Fund board who votes on which nonprofits receive...