July 22, 2020

This Isn’t How You Apologize for Calling a Congresswoman a “Fucking Bitch”

Real contrition doesn’t usually involve obscure denial and heavy use of the passive voice.

Bill Clark/AP

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For more than two years, white Republican men have targeted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y), who at 30, is the youngest woman to serve Congress, with a steady stream of racist and sexist attacks. 

So while abhorrent, it wasn’t exactly surprising to hear that another white Republican man with a track record of arguing that lynching is not a hate crime had harassed Ocasio-Cortez outside the Capitol building on Tuesday and allegedly called her a “fucking bitch.” Rep. Ted Yoho quickly claimed that he had merely muttered “bullshit” in reference to Ocasio-Cortez’s progressive politics. But not even his own Republican colleagues appeared to be convinced by that denial.

“We think everyone should show respect to one another,” House minority leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who in the past has defended President Trump’s “send her back” chants against Democratic congresswomen of color, including Ocasio-Cortez, told reporters as calls for Yoho to apologize mounted on social media and throughout Congress. 

Leave it to Yoho himself to further erase the remote plausibility that came with his initial “bullshit” account.

“The offensive name-calling words attributed to me by the press were never spoken to my colleagues,” he said Wednesday in a speech on the House floor, “and if they were construed that way, I apologize for their misunderstanding.” Yoho ended his remarks, which never referred to Ocasio-Cortez by name, by refusing to “apologize for my passion or for loving my God, my family, and my country.” 

It’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on here. One stab at an explanation could see Yoho attempting to thread the needle between calling Ocasio-Cortex a “fucking bitch” to her face and mumbling the sexist slur as he slunk away from the encounter. But we all know that meaningful contrition doesn’t usually rely on obscure denial and the heavy use of the passive voice.

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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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