April 27, 2016

8 Stories Ted Cruz Should Probably Have Read Before Picking Carly Fiorina

Did he know all this when he decided she’d be a good vice president?

Mark J. Terrill/AP

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Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz will name former Hewlett-Packard CEO and Republican primary rival Carly Fiorina as his running mate on Wednesday afternoon, multiple outlets have reported.

Fiorina left the race in February, on the heels of poor numbers at the polls—and many stories about her shoddy business record and her propensity for stretching the truth. Now that she’s back in the race, let’s take a stroll down Fiorina memory lane:

“Can a CEO Who Laid Off Thousands, Botched a Merger, and Left With $21 Million Become President?“: At the heart of Fiorina’s leadership experience is her time as the CEO of HP, from 1999 to 2005. But under her watch, the company lost millions of dollars and enacted a merger with Compaq that has widely been deemed a corporate failure.

“Carly Fiorina Makes a Lot of Stuff Up About Everything“: From discussions of her chummy relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin to HP’s alleged violations of the Iran embargo, we put together a nonexhaustive list of Fiorina’s embellishments.

“Fiorina Super-PAC Makes Its Own Abortion Video“: After Fiorina described a grisly abortion video during a GOP debate in September, multiple media outlets pointed out that the video didn’t exist. In response, her super-PAC created a version of the previously nonexistent video.

“Carly Fiorina’s Fact-Defying Stump Speech“: Fiorina dropped several shocking statistics during a campaign speech in Iowa. Among other dubious claims, she said that in the previous year 307,000 veterans had died before they received health care from the Department of Veterans Affairs and that the tax code is 73,000 pages. We fact-checked the numbers.

“Fact-Checking Carly Fiorina on Women’s Job Losses Under Obama“: Here are more surprising stats trumpeted by the former presidential candidate, and more fact-checking showing that her numbers don’t add up.

“Carly Fiorina Isn’t Just Attacking Planned Parenthood at the Debates“: While her presidential campaign was in full swing, Fiorina recorded a robocall that was blasted throughout California encouraging voters to support a ballot measure that would require parental notification before an underage girl can terminate a pregnancy. The measure has been a main goal of California’s anti-abortion advocates for the past decade, and fighting it on ballot after ballot has drained Planned Parenthood’s money and time for years.

“Little Did These Adorable Kids Know That Carly Fiorina Was Using Them as Anti-Abortion Props“: On her way into an anti-abortion rally in Des Moines, Iowa, Fiorina stumbled upon a group of four- and five-year-olds on a field trip to a botanical garden. Fiorina ushered the kids onto the stage of the rally, where they sat at her feet while she gave a speech—against the backdrop of an enormous photo of a fetus. 

“Carly Fiorina Creates a Whole New Debate Technique“: When faced with a tough debate question, Fiorina got pretty creative. 

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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.

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