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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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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