SHRIMP ON A TREADMILL IS BACK AND YOU’RE STILL PAYING FOR IT: That little guy running on an underwater treadmill is a YouTube classic but the backstory is that he was part of a widely criticized research project funded by federal taxpayers. Well, he’s back and taxpayers are again funding his running in a $1.3 million National Science Foundation grant, according to the Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group’s Ethan Barton. The bigger story is how NSF refuses to disclose even the most basic details about its grants. Why? Because federal laws like the FOIA are just for the little people, not federal bureaucrats.

TRAVEL THE GLOBE! STAY IN 5-STAR HOTELS! ENJOY FINE FOOD! All you have to do is be a federal bureaucrat whose job occasionally requires work overseas. The *best part, according to the Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group’s Katie Watson, is the taxpayers foot the bill really generously.  (* Unless you’re a taxpayer. Then it’s the worst part.)

COULD THERE REALLY BE THREE TIMES AS MANY SUNDAY CHURCHGOERS AS FOOTBALL WATCHERS? Turns out there are, at least if NFL data on its TV ratings and the Gallup Survey on church attendance can be believed. So why is utter ignorance about the most basic Christian beliefs espoused by millions of Americans so prevalent in the MSM? I humbly offer some thoughts here.

THIS EXPLAINS A LOT ABOUT THE SNAFU OTHERWISE KNOWN AS “THE DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS:” The government’s master agreement with the American Federation of Government Employees favors union bureaucrats over veterans in hiring. And when the Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group’s Luke Rosiak “scraped” thousands of current VA job opening announcements, he found the reason why when vets are hired at VA they typically get mops, not management duties.

THINKING ABOUT FLYING SOMEWHERE SOON? Might want to think about this – Improving technology is almost always a blessing but there are occasional exceptions in unintended or unexpected consequences. Take those automatic pilots on commercial airliners. A new report from the Department of Transportation Inspector General says pilots’ manual skills are declining as computers increasingly take over the bulk of flight direction.

“While airlines have long used automation safely to improve efficiency and reduce pilot workload, several recent accidents, including the July 2013 crash of Asiana Airlines flight 214, have shown that pilots who typically fly with automation can make errors when confronted with an unexpected event or transitioning to manual flying,” the IG said, according to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s Ethan Barton. So the question is, what are the airlines and FAA doing about this development? Not much, the IG says.

REMEMBER THOSE DISAPPEARING ROSE LAW FIRM BILLINGS FOR HILLARY CLINTON? You know, the ones that mysteriously showed up in the Clinton White House personal residence more than two years after a subpoena was issued for them by the Whitewater special counsel.

It’s Deja Vu all over again today in the Hillary Email scandal. Seems the State Department waited until late Friday to tell a federal court that thousands of previously undiscovered documents related to the former Secretary of State’s use of a private email and server have been found. Non-profit government watchdog Judicial Watch announced the discovery today.

HERE’S WHY HILLARY WILL BE INDICTED: Former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova predicts chaos in a few months when Attorney General Loretta Lynch declines to prosecute Hillary Clinton despite an FBI recommendation to indict the former Secretary of State. Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group interviews of congressional and government ethics insiders suggest an indictment for Hatch Act violations isn’t likely. The outlook is far more ominous for Clinton on an indictment for negligence in handling classified information.

“MOST TRANSPARENT ADMINISTRATION EVER” IS ALSO THE MOST SUED FOR FOIA GAMES: An analysis of court records between 2001 and 2015 by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University found that a record number of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits were filed against federal agencies during 2015. The combined total of 421 in 2014 and 498 in 2015 represents a 54 percent increase over the two-year total for 2009 and 2010. Such suits are typically only filed after months of delays, dickering, threats and negotiations between federal officials and requesters seeking government documents the FOIA says are owned by taxpayers.

ONLY 13 PERCENT OF VA’S TOP 300 HOSPITAL EXECS ARE VETERANS: Wait a minute! The Veterans Preference Act became law in 1944 and ever since then returning veterans are supposed to have a leg up for good government jobs, right? So why are there so few veterans running the key facilities of the agency whose sole reason for being is caring for veterans?

Luke Rosiak of the Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group analyzed the bios and talked to highly educated, skilled veterans who were repeatedly rejected by VA. How can this be? I don’t know, maybe the first priority of the career bureaucrats running VA is protecting themselves rather caring for veterans???

BIG TOBACCO SEES BIG PROFITS COMING IN LEGALIZED MARIJUANA: Want to be the Marlboro Man of Marijuana? The tobacco giants see legal marijuana in their future and $50 billion in new profits. And, oh by the way, did you know Richard Nixon’s Justice Department funded studies by the tobacco industry on what legalization would mean for them and how best to take advantage of it? Here’s a sample:

“We are in the business of relaxing people who are tense and providing a pick up for people who are bored or depressed,” the tobacco memo added. “The human needs that our product fills will not go away. Thus, the only real threat to our business is that society will find other means of satisfying these needs.”

Richard Pollock of the Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group has what may be the least expected news of 2016.

NO WONDER HILLARY GETS SUCH A SWEET DEAL ON THOSE DEBATES! Turns out the former Secretary of State and presumptive 2016 Democratic presidential nominee has a special arrangement with the Democratic National Committee. Essentially, it’s an incentive for hyper-dollar donors to max out to Hillary and give extra-generously to the DNC. Hillary scratches Debbie’s back, Debbie scratches Hillary’s back, while Bernie and Marty get screwed. The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group’s Luke Rosiak quotes several campaign finance experts who say it’s unprecedented.

HAPPY NEW YEAR IN 2016? MAYBE NOT IF YOUR STATE IS DEEP IN DEBT: If California’s debts all come due this year, residents will have to cough up an additional $32,600 in taxes. Only 11 states have more assets than debts. Check out the spreadsheet to see how your state fares, courtesy of the Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group. But be forewarned: If you celebrated a bit too much last night, maybe you should wait to check until that throbbing in your head eases.

JUST ANOTHER DAY AT THE SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION OFFICE? Feds improperly gave away $64 million in Social Security Disability payments because they failed to check the recipients’ income. Oh, and they did so despite the fact the SSA Inspector General has issued at least two reports in the last decade warning that millions of tax dollars are being lost because of such sloppy work, according to Ethan Barton of the Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group.

COULD THIS BE WHY IRS ILLEGALLY HARASSED 292 RIGHT GROUPS IN 2010 AND 2012? Kathryn Watson says analysis of campaign contributions made by IRS workers between 1990 and 2014 found twice as many of them contributed to Democrats as did to GOP candidates and causes. The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group’s analysis was based on FEC data compiled by OpenSecrets.org.

THESE 6,604 FEDERAL EMPLOYEES MAY HAVE WASHINGTON’S TOUGHEST JOBS: They work for the federal government’s 72 inspectors general, the taxpayers’ first responders in the fight against waste and fraud. But the Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group’s Ethan Barton says the story here isn’t how many of them there are but how many tax dollars each is responsible for overseeing. The 6,604 work at the eight largest federal departments, which together spend more than $3 trillion every year.

“These watchdogs – full-time auditors, investigators and others with related skills – fight waste, fraud and abuse in federal spending and each one of them is responsible, on average, for $503 million … And that’s just top eight; there are 64 other inspectors general in the federal government. Call it a ‘target-rich environment’ for all of them,” Barton writes.

Like first-responders in the military, law enforcement, civil emergencies and fire-fighting, the IG staffers have a huge role in helping protect the quality of life in America.

PFFF! JUST LIKE THAT, PUERTO RICAN OFFICIALS DISAPPEAR A $10 MILLION FEDERAL GRANT: Awarded in 2007, the grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development was intended to pay for building a bus station, a four-story building and a cemetery. Comes now 2015 and nothing – as in nada, zero – has been built. Puerto Rican officials claim they have no paperwork on the project because the contractor is holding the documents as “ransom” for not being paid. Luke Rosiak of the Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group has a simple question – Who got the $10 million????

NOW IT’S NOAA CAUGHT IN ‘A NEW CLIMATE DATA SCANDAL:’ It revolves around the agency’s persistent refusal to provide to Congress documentation of its methodology for collecting and using data in climate models. The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology subpoena’d the documents earlier this year, and Judicial Watch, the non-profit transparency watchdog, filed a Freedom of Information Act request for them as well. Neither got the requested documents from NOAA. But then Judicial Watch filed an FOIA lawsuit against NOAA on Dec. 2 and shortly thereafter the agency coughed up the documents to the committee.

The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group’s Ethan Barton quoted Judicial Watch chief Tom Fitton saying “Given the lawless refusal to comply with our FOIA request and a congressional subpoena, we have little doubt that the documents will show the Obama administration put politics before science in advance of global warming alarmism.” Stay tuned.

DOES THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION SCREW THIS STUFF UP ON PURPOSE? Vice-President Joe Biden was in the Ukraine recently touting that country’s anti-corruption prosecutor, Vitaliy Kasko. Also praising Kasko was U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt. Sounds good, right? But wait, there’s a catch (isn’t there always?) Key leaders in the Ukrainian parliament say Kasko can’t be trusted because he is beholden to Russian corporate interests via his law firm, which represents those interests.

And there’s another wrinkle (Ukrainian politics are never simple): Biden’s son, Hunter, sits on the four-member board of directors of a Ukrainian natural gas company, Burisma Holdings, Ltd. “Also on the board is Devon Archer, who is a close family friend of Secretary of State John Kerry. Biden and Archer are partners in the D.C.-based investment and policy advisory firm Rosemont Seneca Partners,” according to the Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group’s Richard Pollock. It’s complicated, but worth following as Pollock peels the onion and sorts it all out.

GUESS WHAT AMERICA IS GIVING WASHINGTON, D.C.’S FEDERAL BUREAUCRATS FOR CHRISTMAS? How about riding the national capital’s troubled Metro subway system to and from work every day for free! Well, free for the bureaucrats, not the taxpayers. And that’s just one of the gems found by Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group’s Katie Watson when she dug into the Omnibus Spending Bill being voted on today by the House of Representatives.

WHAT’S VA’S “100-DAY PLAN” FIX FOR ITS TERRIBLE TOMAH HOSPITAL? That’s the one in Wisconsin where “Candy Man” doctors were turning vets into zombies by chronically over-medicating them. The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group’s Luke Rosiak reports the plan emphasizes more “praising” of VA employees, greater “diversity” in hiring those employees and building a new “employee wellness center.” Luke is not making this up and neither am I.

VA HASN’T RUN OUT OF SOMEONE ELSE’S MONEY JUST YET: Maybe that’s why the federal government has paid out $871 million in medical malpractice settlements in suits against the Department of Veterans Affairs since 2006. That’s an average of “only” $87 million a year, but something happened because things got much worse in 2014 and 2015, with $230 million in settlements, according to the Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group’s Luke Rosiak.

IT’S BEEN A DECADE SINCE EPA’S WATCHDOG AUDITED ONE OF EPA’S $542 MILLION IN COLLEGE GRANTS: The grants are for research on such vitally important topics as harvesting fog, measuring how much water we use in hotel bathroom showers and avoiding pollution caused by grilling steaks in the backyard. Sleep tight tonight, folks, your EPA has got it covered. Your wallet, that is.

23 AND COUNTING. THAT’S HOW MANY ACTIVE FOIA LAWSUITS JUDICIAL WATCH HAS NOW AGAINST THE STATE DEPARTMENT. The latest one was filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the government failed to comply with the FOIA regarding the non-profit transparency watchdog group’s Aug. 18, 2015, request for the employment documents for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, and deputy chief of staff, Huma Abedin. Why do you suppose the State Department wouldn’t want the public to see what Mills and Abedin told the government about themselves?

HE’S A GREAT VA NURSE (OTHER THAN THAT MANSLAUGHTER CHARGE!): Department of Veterans Affairs officials returned a 240-pound nurse to work despite his being charged with manslaughter in the beating death of a 70-year-old veteran in a VA hospital. The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Team’s Luke Rosiak reports the case provides evidence that VA manipulates administrative leave data so Congress can’t see what’s really happening. Just – cough, cough – like secret waiting lists to see doctors – cough, cough.

YOU CAN KEEP YOUR DOCTOR, YOU CAN KEEP YOUR PLAN: Unless your Obamacare co-op goes bust, as have 14 of the 23 established at a cost of $2.4 billion in 2011. Many of the co-ops going under, reports the Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Team’s Richard Pollock, lack insurance to pay patient and care-provider claims in the event of bankruptcy.

Among the uncovered is New York’s Health Republic, the largest of the Obamacare co-ops, which got $265 million from the government to launch. Sara Horowitz, Health Republic’s founder, worked with Obama years ago at a left-wing New York activist group.

Twenty percent of the doctors treating Health Republic customers are now owed $100,000 or more. Odds are they won’t even get pennies on the dollar. You can keep your doctor … if you happen to run into him or her in the Obamacare health insurance poor-house now under construction.