Keeping Them Honest: Is a South Dakota school using "poverty porn" to raise money?
“My dad drinks and hits me … my mom chose drugs over me … my home on the reservation isn’t a safe place for me to be.”
That is a plea for donations sent to millions of people and has helped raise millions of dollars for St. Joseph's Indian School in Chamberlain, South Dakota. The mailers attribute those words to a young boy named Josh Little Bear, but he does not exist.
St. Joseph's Director of Development acknowledges “The name 'Josh Little Bear' is fictitious,” he wrote, “but unfortunately his story is not.” But the Vice President of a nearby reservation says the school's fundraising material "make the Indians look bad." The President of the First Nations Development Institute even calls it "poverty porn."
Senior Investigative Correspondent Drew Griffin traveled to the school and he is Keeping Them Honest.
Keeping Them Honest: What's inside the Inspector General's report on the VA?
A scathing report has just been released on the VA facilities in Phoenix. The study looked at more than 3,000 cases and found that dozens of veterans had quote 'clinically significant' delays in care, and six of them died. The report says investigators could not conclusively link their deaths to those delays. Senior Investigative Correspondent Drew Griffin broke this story and has been Keeping Them Honest from the beginning. He has been going through the report and its disturbing findings.
AC360 Exclusive: Theme park employees caught in sex stings
CNN finds dozens of employees from Disney as well as Universal Studios and SeaWorld have been arrested in connection with alleged child-sex crimes since 2006. None of the cases involved children or teens visiting the parks.
Click here to read the rest of this report.
If you have a tip for Kyra on this, or any other story, you can let her know by going to CNN.com/Investigate
Keeping Them Honest: CNN confronts Sen. Mike Lee during ski trip with lobbyists
Utah Senator Mike Lee delivered the Tea Party's response to the State of the Union address and criticized "political and economic insiders" who "twist the immense power of the federal government." But that did not stop Senator Lee from scheduling a fundraising ski trip with lobbyists. Lee is definitely not the only lawmaker to raise political cash this way. But he wasn’t expecting Drew Griffin to show up asking questions.
Check out Drew Griffin's reports on money and influence in Washington
When lawmakers and lobbyists are family
There’s a saying in Washington that it’s not simply what you know, it’s who you know. It may be a bromide but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
As part of a planned year long series on AC 360 devoted to money, politics and influence, we took a look at how many members of Congressional families are in fact registered lobbyists.
The results may surprise you. We worked with an independent group called Legistorm and the non profit Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Please take a look. If you’d like to see the entire list, you can easily take a look here.
Keeping Them Honest: Money, influence and politics
The journalist Michael Kinsley famously wrote about Washington: The real scandal is not what's against the law. The real scandal is what's LEGAL. Drew Griffin investigates what some are calling the extortion game, played for personal gain, they say, by the very politicians who make the rules… and it is all perfectly legal.
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