RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
August 4 to August 10, 2024 In RealClearInvestigations, James Varney reports that the sexual-abuse reckoning is expanding beyond Hollywood, the Roman Catholic Church, and Boy Scouts to take on perhaps the biggest sexual misconduct scandal of them all: decades of abuses by teachers and others in K-12 education. And today's local taxpayers are footing the bill. -
RCI found $1.2 billion in sexual-abuse settlements for school districts in the last decade. One insurer calculates that 2023 settlements nearly tripled to more than $325 million since 2021. -
As states open new windows for plaintiffs to sue, more victims are coming forward and school districts and insurers are scrambling to find the money juries and judges are awarding. -
Just how much all this may cost is unclear, because only cases that go to trial are a matter of public record. And usually it is only big settlements or awards that draw attention -- like Pomona Unified School District’s this year in California. -
The tab for all the litigation and damage awards is being shifted to the public in various ways, from higher insurance premiums and legal bills to the liquidation of public assets. -
The K-12 education totals could potentially exceed scandals that have rocked Catholic dioceses and the Boy Scouts, given there are nearly 17,000 public school districts in the U.S. with close to 50 million students today. -
“I think we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg," an Oregon plaintiffs’ attorney tells RealClearInvestigations. -
Part 1: Forbidden Fruit and the Classroom.
Waste of the Day
by Adam Andrzejewski, Open the Books Memphis Mayor Hid $773K Scam Losses, RCI
COVID Profligacy Imperils Disaster Relief, RCI
NYC Wins Dunce Cap for Preschool Study, RCI
VA's Building Upkeep Vacant of Wisdom, RCI
Texas Pregnancy Center Begat Graft, RCI Biden, Trump and the Beltway Harris VP Pick Walz Gave Migrants Health Care, Driver Licenses, More, NY Post
Walz 'Encouraged Neighbors to Snitch' During COVID, Fox News
Walz Made Minnesota a Trans and Abortion Refuge, Associated Press
Walz Called Slow to Send Guard in '20 Riots, Minneapolis StarTribune
Walz’s Wife Rhapsodized About Aroma of 2020 BLM Fires, Daily Caller
Charge: Walz Bailed on Deployment to Iraq, Minneapolis StarTribune
Walz's Deep Links to China, Daily Mail
The Second Gentleman's Love Child, Daily Mail
Cheatle Sought to Destroy White House Coke Evidence, Susan Crabtree, RCP
Whistleblowers: Air Police Surveil Tulsi Gabbard, UncoverDC
How Staffers Censored Talk of Biden's Decline, Thread Reader Other Noteworthy Articles and Series It sounds like a joke – if only it were. Two men showed up at the Marine Corps Base Quantico on May 3 in a box truck claiming they were delivering packages for an Amazon subcontractor. When the guards directed them to a holding area to be vetted, they blew through the gate to drive onto the base. They were arrested. So far, so good, right? Turns out the two men were Jordanian nationals who had crossed into the country illegally. One of them may pose an even great threat, this article reports. Though the Biden administration has publicly denied it, one of the Jordanian illegal immigrants, Hasan Yousef Hamdan, appears on a terror watch list, according to records obtained by Judicial Watch. One would think the two men are now squirreled away in jail awaiting justice. One would be wrong. Both men have been released on bail – reportedly $15,000 for Hamdan, $10,000 for his comrade – with the pinky swear promise that they will stay away from military facilities and appear in court for immigration hearings. In a separate article, Fox News reports that at least 99 illegal immigrants on the terror watch list have been released into the United States during the Biden administration, according to a new report from the GOP-led House. Millions of times each year, this article reports, insurers send nurses into the homes of Medicare recipients to look them over, run tests and ask dozens of questions. The nurses aren’t there to treat anyone. They are gathering new diagnoses that entitle private Medicare Advantage insurers to collect extra money from the federal government: A Wall Street Journal investigation of insurer home visits found the companies pushed nurses to run screening tests and add unusual diagnoses, turning the roughly hourlong stops in patients’ homes into an extra $1,818 per visit, on average, from 2019 to 2021. Those payments added up to about $15 billion during that period, according to a Journal analysis of Medicare data. … Last month, the Journal reported that insurers received nearly $50 billion in payments from 2019 to 2021 due to diagnoses they added themselves for conditions that no doctor or hospital treated. Many of the insurer-driven diagnoses were outright wrong or highly questionable, the Journal found. The diagnoses added after home visits accounted for about 30% of that total. More than 700,000 peripheral artery disease cases diagnosed only during home visits added $1.8 billion in payments during that period. This article reports that insurers, including UnitedHealth and CVS Health, owner of both Signify and Aetna, said the house calls help patients by, among other things, catching diseases early and making sure people are taking their medicine properly. The insurers said they relay home-visit findings to primary-care doctors. As tens of thousands of Venezuelans have crossed into the United States – with more expected after President Maduro’s controversial re-election – Venezuela’s most notorious gang has set-up new headquarters outside El Paso, this article reports: Dubbed the 'epitome of evil', the notorious criminal organization Tren de Aragua, or TdA as it is known by federal agents, previously operated out of an infamous South American prison so completely under gang leaders' control that it had its own zoo, swimming pool and nightclub. But after kingpin Hector Guerrero Flores escaped last year, the mafia moved its command center to Ciudad Juárez in Mexico on the U.S. border - directly across from El Paso. This article reports that El Paso officials now fear gang violence will spill over into Texas' sixth largest city. “Dozens of gangsters have already been caught trying to sneak into the US, with those who have been successful unleashing a terrifying crime wave across the country from Dallas to New York." In a separate article, the Daily Mail reports that members of Tren de Aragua violently looted a Denver jewelry store as terrified staff cowered in fear. Seven males are still being sought over the heist; however, one suspect - Jean Torres Roman, 21 - was arrested last week by Homeland Security. Many patients at the Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute, an 89-bed facility affiliated with Pennsylvania State University, suffer from schizophrenia, substance abuse, depression, or bipolar disorder. They cannot complete the "activities of daily living," the hospital’s inpatient clinic states. Some are "suicidal, aggressive, or dangerous to themselves or others." Quote: Located in a swing state that could decide the 2024 election, the hospital asks psychiatric inpatients, regardless of diagnosis, if they would be interested in "voter registration tools" that let them check their nearest polling station and register to vote online. Patients can also request a mail-in ballot with "assistance" from hospital staff, according to a pair of papers about the project, which began in 2020. Since then, the hospital has continued registering patients – even those who are not near discharge and have not yet been stabilized – on the grounds that voting, as the institute puts it, is a "therapeutic tool" that "helps empower patients and makes them feel good." Since then, the hospital has continued registering patients – even those who are not near discharge and have not yet been stabilized – on the grounds that voting, as the institute puts it, is a "therapeutic tool" that "helps empower patients and makes them feel good." The article reports that the Pennsylvania-based institute initially relied on "voter support" materials created by its own staff. In more recent years, however, it has turned to the nonprofit Vot-ER, which develops "nonpartisan civic engagement tools" for "every corner of the healthcare system." Founded by an emergency room physician at Harvard Medical School, Alister Martin, who served as an advisor to Vice President Kamala Harris, Vot-ER has helped more than 50,000 doctors register their patients to vote. As RCI reported in May, while much of the debate about crime focuses on rates of murder and other violent acts, people’s experience with and perceptions of crime are shaped by less deadly trespasses. Shoplifting, for example, has risen by 24% in the first of this year in 23 cities studied by the liberal think tank the Council on Criminal Justice. This article reports: Shoplifting has become a major problem in cities around the country, with some store owners announcing they had to close up shop because of the increased theft. Shoplifting and looting during the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots helped spur on a new era of increased shoplifting. Several major stores, including CVS, Macy’s, Target, Walmart and others have cited shoplifting when they closed down urban locations. … A new survey from LendingTree found that 23% of Americans admit to shoplifting, which doesn’t include those unwilling to confess to their crimes. “Of those with a shoplifting history, 23% have done so within the past year, and 52% were older than 16 at the time,” LendingTree said. “Shoplifters are most likely to hide the items on their bodies (55%) or in purses or bags (36%), while 25% are bold enough to walk out with their loot in plain sight.” In a separate article, the New York Post reports: More sickos are publicly pleasuring and exposing themselves on the streets of the Big Apple, crime statistics show … Reports of pervs fondling themselves out in the open soared 51% through June 30, up to 378 complaints from 251 during the same period in 2023, according to NYPD data. Meanwhile cops issued 159 criminal summonses through June 30 citywide to New Yorkers whipping out their genitals – sometimes to urinate – a staggering 396% increase from the 32 tickets written in 2023, according to city data. |
