Hey, a Brand New Bush Administration Scandal!

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Who would have thought it was possible, at this late date?

Apparently, the DOJ’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention has been handing out its National Juvenile Justice Grants not based on the interests of America’s at-risk kids, but on cronyism and fraud.

Programs ranked as highly effective by DOJ staff were ignored and denied funding, sometimes because they taught sex ed or because they catered to gay and lesbian teens. Meanwhile, poorly ranked programs were awarded millions of dollars because they had political, social, or religious connections to the Bush Administration. None of the top six programs received money, but the World Golf Foundation, ranked 47 out of 104, was funded. Former President George H. W. Bush sits on its board.

The full report is at ABC News. Embedding seems impossible. TNR notes that this exact scandal happened during the Reagan Administration.

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GREAT JOURNALISM, SLOW FUNDRAISING

Our team has been on fire lately—publishing sweeping, one-of-a-kind investigations, ambitious, groundbreaking projects, and even releasing “the holy shit documentary of the year.” And that’s on top of protecting free and fair elections and standing up to bullies and BS when others in the media don’t.

Yet, we just came up pretty short on our first big fundraising campaign since Mother Jones and the Center for Investigative Reporting joined forces.

So, two things:

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2) If you’re not ready to donate but you’re interested enough in our work to be reading this, please consider signing up for our free Mother Jones Daily newsletter to get to know us and our reporting better. Maybe once you do, you’ll see it’s something worth supporting.

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