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RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
June 18 to June 24

Featured Investigation

Many truckers at Los Angeles ports are like Jim Crow-era sharecroppers, USA Today reports.

A yearlong investigation reported by Brett Murphy found "that port trucking companies in southern California have spent the past decade forcing drivers to finance their own trucks by taking on debt they could not afford. Companies then used that debt as leverage to extract forced labor and trap drivers in jobs that left them destitute."

Murphy suggests this situation was prompted, in part, by California's aggressive environmental regulations. In 2008 it ordered that 16,000 older diesel trucks be replaced with new, cleaner rigs. He writes:

Suddenly, this obscure but critical collection of trucking companies faced a $2.5 billion crossroads unlike anything experienced at other U.S. ports.

Instead of digging into their own pockets to undo the environmental mess they helped create, the companies found a way to push the cost onto individual drivers, who are paid by the number and kinds of containers they move, not by the hour.

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Other Noteworthy Articles and Series

Pay-to-Play Suspicions About McCain Institute Donors
Daily Caller
The Clintons and John McCain aren't often lumped together in the same bucket, but their namesake organizations have a few things in common: questionable donors and accusations of a pay-to-play operation. Critics say big-money donors like Saudi Arabia and a state-run Moroccan company present conflicts of interest for McCain.

Nonprofit Tracker Tags Conservative Outfits as ‘Hate Groups'
Daily Signal
GuideStar, the nation's leading source of information on U.S. charities, is incorporating "hate group" labels of the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center in listings for some well-known conservative nonprofits, many of them Christian. Forty-one conservative leaders, representing the Family Research Center, the Immigration Reform Law Institute and others, have signed a letter protesting the move.

Republican Data Firm Exposed Nearly 200 Million Voters' Info
UpGuard
A misconfigured cloud database with the sensitive personal details of more than 198 million American voters -- more than 60 percent of the U.S. population -- was left exposed to the internet by a firm working for the Republican National Committee in the effort to elect Donald Trump. Aside from security lapses, the exposure illuminates workings of the Republican data operation for 2016, a huge undertaking launched after Mitt Romney's loss in 2012.

Wall Street Journal Fires Reporter Tied to Foreign Arms Dealing
Associated Press
In the process of investigating an Iranian-born aviation magnate who has ferried weapons for the CIA, the Associated Press uncovered evidence of a top Wall Street Journal correspondent's role in prospective commercial deals with the businessman, including one involving foreign arms sales. When the AP went to the newspaper with the evidence, it fired the reporter, Jay Solomon, citing what it said were ethical lapses and "poor judgment."

Hard-Partying Travel Guide's Outfit Took Otto Warmbier to North Korea
Consumer Affairs
The travel experience company that took University of Virginia student Otto Warmbier on his fatal trip to North Korea has a disturbing history of disregard for the rules of "destinations your mother would rather you stayed away from" -- and a lack of concern for the welfare of its patrons. Former customers say owner and tour guide Gareth Johnson's fondness for drink endangered their own return from North Korea.

Behind Secret Door in Argentina, a Huge Nazi Trove
Associated Press
Argentina's police believe they have found the biggest collection of Nazi artifacts in the country's history, including a bust relief of Adolf Hitler, magnifying glasses inside elegant boxes with swastikas and even a macabre medical device used to measure head size. "Finding 75 original pieces is historic and could offer irrefutable proof of the presence of top leaders who escaped from Nazi Germany," said a Jewish leader.

Investigative Classics: Merchants of Misery Prey on Sick in Chicago
Chicago Tribune, 1970
Police payoffs and cruel treatment of patients were among the crimes and abuses witnessed by reporter William Jones when he went undercover to work as an ambulance attendant. His series of articles - which included the story of an epileptic man with a fractured hip who had wait in a police car for two hours until the "right" private ambulance arrived - led to several reforms and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1971.