The Diddly Awards

The Forked-Tongue award for political doublespeak

Illustration: Peter Hoey

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Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), for an email to his Team American PAC in which he insisted that the reason we needed to secure our nation’s border was the “struggle to preserve our national identity.”

Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio), for having his spokesman issue an ex-planation for a curiosity on his financial disclosure forms, which showed that the representative had reported a $30,000 debt but then experienced a conspicuous streak of luck during a fleeting visit to a private high-stakes casino. The congressman, according to his flack, placed two bets, the first at $100, and won $34,000 in a three-card “game of chance.”

Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.), for taking issue with Katrina survivors at a congressional hearing when they compared their temporary housing to concentration camps. “Not a single person was marched into a gas chamber and killed,” Miller explained.

Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho), for eliminating the $1.3 million funding (and all future funding) for the Fish Passage Center, which carried out a simple count of endangered salmon on the Columbia and Snake rivers, calculating the fish’s decline. Craig—who, during his last campaign, received more money from energy groups than from any other industry and was honored by the National Hydropower Association as “Legislator of the Year”—accused fisheries scientists of “advocacy,” arguing that “false science leads people to false choices.”

Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas), for claiming that he’d never met Jack Abramoff when it became public that political fixer Ralph Reed had assured Abramoff in an email, “We have also choreographed Cornyn’s response.”

WINNER! Bob Ney, who allegedly helped Abramoff’s casino clients, has refused to elaborate on his casino visit because of the “national security implications.”

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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