RealClearInvestigations Original Articles

American journalism has experienced a spectacular collapse in the last 25 years – daily newspaper circulation has declined from over 60 million subscribers to just over 20 million. And the trend is accelerating: According to the Pew Research Organization, the average monthly number of unique visitors to the websites of the country’s top 50 newspapers plummeted 20% in one year from 2021 to 2022. At the same time, the remaining readership expresses a historically low level of faith that the news they are getting is accurate. Just 32% of Americans say they have a...

RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the WeekOctober 6 to October 12   Featured Investigation: Trump’s Toughest Foe Could Be Kamala Harris’ Lawyer Marc Elias    As both major parties increasingly turn to the courts to gain electoral edges, no one has loomed larger on the lawfare battlefield than Marc Elias. Paul Sperry reports for RealClearInvestigations that the Democrats’ longtime super-lawyer has not only been in the forefront of legal strategies to impact elections but also invited controversy through his partisan political activities. As general counsel to...

If Donald Trump gets past Kamala Harris on Nov. 5, he’ll likely face a fiercer opponent in court – her campaign attorney, Marc Elias. The longtime Democratic Party lawyer has already filed more than 60 preelection lawsuits to stop Trump from becoming president again by combatting what he calls Republican “voter suppression” efforts such as requiring voters to provide identification at the polls. Echoing a standard Democratic talking point, Elias maintains that such requirements are “racist” strategies designed to make it harder for minorities to...

On the eve of a highly-anticipated live X “Spaces” conversation between Elon Musk and former president Donald Trump, the powerful European Union Commissioner Thierry Breton warned in August that authorities would be “monitoring” the conversation for “content that may incite violence, hate, and racism.”  While reminding Musk that the EU was already investigating X for alleged failures “to combat disinformation,” Breton said he and his colleagues “will not hesitate to make full use of our toolbox … to protect EU citizens from...

Although the Federal Emergency Management Agency told Congress last month that it had $4 billion in its Disaster Relief Fund, officials also warned that the Fund could have a shortfall of $6 billion by year’s end, a situation FEMA says could deteriorate in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. While FEMA is expected to ask Congress for new money, budget experts note a surprising fact: FEMA is currently sitting on untapped reserves appropriated for past disasters stretching back decades.  An August report from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of...

RealClearInvestigations’ Picks of the WeekSeptember 29 to October 5   Featured Investigation: Nondisclosure: Vaccine Ad Blitz Sidestepped Transparency Rules Ads urging Americans to get the newly minted vaccines for COVID-19 in 2021 looked like most other pharmaceutical spots except for one glaring omission: disclosure that the medicine was experimental and might lead to side effects. Lee Fang reports for RealClearInvestigations that this omission appears at odds with the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA), which allowed the drug companies to sell their COVID vaccines without...

By Lee Fang, RealClearInvestigationsOctober 3, 2024 “A bun in the toaster oven,” a woman exclaims off-camera, handing an ultrasound image to family members who erupt into tearful emotion over the news. “Oh my God!”  The touching baby announcement video then gets down to business as text appears on the screen amidst the ongoing celebration, suggesting the best way to stay alive for this joyous birth is by becoming vaccinated against COVID-19. “Why will you get vaccinated? …  Because some people you just want to meet in...

By Vince Bielski, RealClearInvestigationsSeptember 29, 2024 As most public schools struggle to recover the profound learning loss tied to the pandemic, students in Colorado’s Boulder Valley School District are racing ahead, leaving the dark days of COVID behind.  Boulder Valley’s notable 2024 test scores, which easily surpassed its math and reading marks in 2019, are not the result of a newfangled education theory but instead involve a bedrock principle of American business: Return on Investment. Academic ROI (AROI) is a data-driven approach that analyzes the costs and...

By Julie Kelly, RealClearInvestigationsSeptember 18, 2024 Attorney General Merrick Garland broke precedent just weeks before the November election, delivering politically charged remarks at the U.S. Attorneys’ National Conference in Washington – pointedly speaking publicly rather than privately in a departure from his usual practice. Merrick Garland, Attorney General: "We will not allow this department to be used as a political weapon." AP “Our norms are a promise that we will not allow this department to be used as a political weapon,” he said before a packed...

Americans are spending more money on melatonin than they ever have, while at the same time, a growing percentage of adults, 37%, complain that they’re getting worse sleep.  Experts have a simple explanation for the mismatch, and it’s bad news for the 67 million Americans, or about 27% of adults, who use the supplement: While taking it can be timed to help overcome jet lag, melatonin is no good for chronic sleeplessness. “There’s not enough strong evidence on the effectiveness or safety of melatonin supplementation for chronic insomnia to...

By James Varney, RealClearInvestigations Part 1: Forbidden Fruit and the Classroom Given the roughly 50 million students in U.S. K-12 schools each year, the number of students who have been victims of sexual misconduct by school employees is probably in the millions each decade, Varney reports. Such numbers would far exceed the high-profile abuse scandals that rocked the Roman Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts of America. For a variety of reasons, ranging from embarrassment to eagerness to avoid liability, elected or appointed officials, along with unions or lobbying groups representing...

Third in a seriesPart 1: Forbidden Fruit and the ClassroomPart 2: You the Taxpayer Are on the HookRelated: A Sex-Abuse Suspect Ensnared by His Alleged Victim By James Varney, RealClearInvestigationsAugust 28, 2024 To outward appearances, Michael Allen was a revered high school coach in the tiny community of Little Axe, Oklahoma -- a caring, charismatic leader who mentored star athletes on his girls' softball and boys' baseball teams. Ashley Rolen: “I watched them pass the trash right in front of me." Reclaim Oklahoma Parent Empowerment All of that changed when Allen and fellow...

Main Story:Sad Lesson of School Sex-Abuse 101: It's Pass the Trash By James Varney, RealClearInvestigationsAugust 28, 2024 Brent and Donna McGee were the “First Couple” of Wetumka, Oklahoma. He was athletic director and football coach at the high school who had once served as mayor; she was superintendent of the school system.  And as if all those levers of local power weren’t enough, they also owned the Dairy Queen, the prime hangout in this small rural town and a key source of high school jobs. Casey Yochum today, on the sports mentor he now condemns: "He was always...

By Vince Bielski, RealClearInvestigationsAugust 22, 2024 Jon Graft is on a mission to reignite the passion for learning by pushing a long-denigrated  classroom practice: vocational education. Jon Graft, superintendent: “We are changing the mindset of our communities.”  Butler Tech The superintendent of the Butler Tech District of high schools in Ohio is a leader in the growing movement to revive public education, marred by low test scores and high absenteeism, through a hands-on approach to learning that prepares students for careers in today’s...

More than a dozen jurisdictions run by Democrats – including Washington D.C., and several adjacent Maryland municipalities – allow noncitizens to vote in some local elections. San Francisco not only permits noncitizens to vote but appointed one to serve on its Elections Commission. Such developments, against a backdrop of millions of illegal migrants streaming into the United States under the Biden-Harris administration, bring new urgency to debates over election integrity. Many Republicans fear that a widespread effort is afoot to give noncitizens the full benefits...

By Paul Sperry, RealClearInvestigationsAugust 13, 2024 For the next five months, Dr. Kevin C. O’Connor will be one of the most powerful people in the world. The White House physician is the chief medical arbiter of Joe Biden’s fitness to continue as commander in chief in a war-torn world until the end of his term in January. Even as the public has long expressed concern about the 81-year-old president’s mental capacities and Democratic Party leaders pressured Biden to drop his bid for a second term, O’Connor has repeatedly given his boss a clean bill of health. As...

Second in a SeriesPart 1: Forbidden Fruit and the Classroom By James Varney, RealClearInvestigationsAugust 6, 2024 The teenage female athletes at California’s Pomona High School said they felt special when a handful of coaches there took them under their wing, spending more time with them than others, providing extra encouragement, sharing personal stories and, sometimes, seemingly harmless flirtatious talk. One track team member was amazed at a Nevada meet when she saw the coaches drinking, smoking marijuana, and sharing the party scene with teammates. But that attention turned to...

By Julie Kelly, RealClearInvestigationsJuly 30, 2024 After the evasive House testimony of now-former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle and FBI Director Christopher Wray’s shortlived suggestion that Donald Trump may not have been hit by a bullet, one man alone may help allay Republican fears that the Biden administration will not conduct a forthright investigation into the attempted assassination of Trump last month: Joseph Cuffari. The Trump-appointed inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security has already opened two investigations into the U.S. Secret Service,...

Paul Fishbein’s conviction on rent fraud charges in New York City last year was a feast for the tabloids.  The story was crazy enough to get readers to click. Prosecutors said that Fishbein, 51, somehow convinced local housing agencies that he owned dilapidated apartment buildings that he didn’t, enabling him to move in tenants and skim government rent subsidies meant for lower-income, disabled, and elderly residents. Fishbein kept the con going for more than years. His take: $1.8 million.  It can help you find housing but it doesn't help auditors...