RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
April 30 to May 6 Featured Investigation The federal government has spent millions on paintings that almost no American as ever seen - and that may be a blessing. They are portraits of bureaucrats, such as the $40,000 painting of former EPA head Lisa Jackson. Some hang in the corridors of agency offices and conference rooms; others, well, no one seems to know where they are. In James Varney's article for RealClearInvestigations about the paintings - and the playfully named bill, the EGO ACT, that aims to stop them - the arts critic Terry Teachout explains: Nobody - absolutely nobody - gives a damn about official portraits of American politicians. They are never sold, never displayed, never discussed. Frankly, I'm surprised that they even get painted anymore, and I can't think of a single good reason why the taxpayers should underwrite their continuing production. While the cost of the paintings is less than a trifle in a $4 trillion budget, Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, a co-sponsor of the EGO Act, says the money it is not merely a drop in the bucket to constituents. "I'd encourage anyone who's commissioned a portrait using Missourians' hard-earned tax dollars to come back to my state with me and ask folks how they feel about it - they'll get an earful." Read Full Story Other Noteworthy Articles and Series Student-on-Student Sexual Assaults as Young as Age 5
Associated Press
Journalists spent a year investigating sexual assaults in elementary, middle and high schools and found that they occurred almost anywhere students were left unsupervised, including on buses and in hallways. There were 17,000 official reports of student-on-student sexual assault over four years, with some victims just kindergarteners. The Human Cost of Chicken Nuggets
ProPublica/The New Yorker
Case Farms produces nearly a billion pounds of chicken annually for school lunch programs and customers such as Kentucky Fried Chicken, Popeyes, Taco Bell and Boar's Head. It also has some of the most dangerous workplaces in the U.S., employing a lot of illegal immigrants. When plant workers get hurt or fight back, they can expect Case to use America's immigration laws against them. Too Scared to Report Sexual Abuse. The Fear: Deportation
New York Times
Law enforcement officials in several large cities--including Los Angeles, Houston and Denver--have noticed a sharp downturn in reports of sexual assault and domestic violence among Latinos, "and many experts attribute the decline to fears of deportation." Noisy Humans Drown Out Sounds of Nature in Protected Areas
Wall Street Journal
Noise from aircraft, traffic and commercial development is drowning out the natural quiet of many wilderness areas and parks, according to a new analysis of noise pollution in U.S. protected lands. Colorado's War on Online Dog-Walking Services
Reason
Big government and "Big Kennel" are conspiring against the sharing economy by making it illegal for people to watch pets for money unless they get licensed as a commercial kennel. Almost Every Speed Limit Is Too Low
Quartz
Speed limits have little effect on how fast people choose to drive, which means more than half of drivers are breaking the law at all times. | 
