Winner of America's Dick Award Announced

The votes have been counted. The people have spoken. America's Dick for 2014 is Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada!

Stephen Harper, pictured at rear, is winner
 of the 2014 America's Dick Awards.

And by a landslide. Stephen Harper received 190 votes, or 45% of the total--just over twice as many votes as runner-up David Cameron, the Prime Minister of Britain. Our poll closed the day before the British leader raised the UK terror alert to "severe" and gave the strongest fear-speech of his career.

Aussie leader Tony Abbott came in third place with 12% of votes. The Australian prime minister performed well considering his short time in office, besting veteran Dick-Award-worthy leaders like Turkey's Recep Erdoğan (8%), Germany's Angela Merkel (6%), Japan's Shinzō Abe (5%), and Sweden's Fredrik Reinfeldt (1%).

America's Dick is the leader who people say would be most likely to screw his own people for us. You can read about the nominees' achievements and our nomination criteria here.

Bruce Heyman, the Goldman Sachs managing director presently serving as U.S. Ambassador to Canada, will personally present the award to Mr. Harper next week in Ottawa.

Thanks to Stephen Harper, Canadians are more fearful than would seem reasonable given their longstanding rejection of statehood and far-north location thousands of miles away from the world's hot spots.

The Secretary of Fear told Fox News, "Stephen Harper is an exemplary ally.  He's created new opportunities for our corporate partners to feed at the Canadian trough. He's toughened sentencing to fill prisons. He's integrated border security. He's militarized Canadian police forces. He's used police to violently crush protests. He's censored government scientists. He's gutted Canada's environmental laws. He's carbon-friendly."

SecFear continued, "Before Harper, Canada had an unfortunate reputation as a peace-loving country. The country was admired internationally for its relatively independent foreign policy in spite of its proximity to us. Today Canada supports our policy of using violence to solve the problems we have created in the Middle East.  Harper is the first to cheer when our Israeli partners build a new settlement or bomb Palestinians.  For the first time in their history, Canadians have reason to fear being disliked."

Results of Our Assassination Poll

Results of our 'Kill or Capture' survey

If the President designates you a potential terrorist, would you rather we assassinate you under ██████████████████████████████ or capture, torture and indefinitely detain you without trial under Section 1021(b)(2) of NDAA 2012?

The People have Spoken: Results of Our DHS Poll

% of total votes for each choice in "Rename DHS Poll," Nov., 2011 (N=3,253)

From Nov. 2nd to Nov 8th, 2011 we orchestrated the largest ever nationwide poll on the future of the Department of Homeland Security.

Our poll concerned the most pressing question of all: Should DHS be renamed? We provided a list of alternative names and invited the American People to vote for their favorites.  By the end of the polling period, a total of 3,253 people had voted; as respondents were allowed to choose more than one response, a total of 4,064 votes were cast.

As per the above chart, these were the top responses, listed in order of votes received:

1. Privatize and name it after the buyer (i.e. "Haliburton Security" or "Saudi Binladin Group Security"): 1113 votes, 27% 
2. Scaredycatland Security (staff pick): 1008 votes, 25%
3. Fatherland Security (says we're strong):  668 votes, 16%
4. Bankland Security (its all theirs anyway): 533 votes, 14%
5. Droneland Security (rhymes with "homeland"): 329 votes, 10%

Other names received fewer than 10% of votes cast. 

We are most grateful to journalist James Fallows for having publicized our national survey on his excellent blog at the Atlantic Monthly.

Citizen contributed names

A number of citizens who declined to participate in the poll chose to submit their own names for DHS.  They submitted these names over Twitter, in the comments sections of blogs, and on major bulletin board sites across the country.  A Taiwanese website also participated.   By the end of the polling period, 568 people had suggested hundreds of alternative names for Homeland Security.

Many "citizen contributed" names were quite dubious.  Whenever individuals submitted their own names (as opposed to selecting the items on the poll) we made every effort to track down IP addresses or subpoena Twitter account information. 

Plethora of acronyms

Until our next federal grant comes through, we will not have the resources to analyze all the names, let alone arrest everyone who participated.

However, based on preliminary analysis by a team led by Undersecretary Wolf, the following acronyms are likely to be rejected: 

• KGB: Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti
• RETARDED: REdundant Treasonous Americans Raping Democracy Every Day
• DEAD: Department to Eradicate American Democracy
• ADHD: American Department of Homeland Defense
• DICKS: Department of Inequality, Capitalism, Korruption and Servitude
• DUM: Department of Unpatriotic Mentality
• DOFUS: Department of Fear, United States
• DOHAC: Department of Hope and Change
• DEATHSTAR: DEfending America THrough Security Theatrics And Ridiculousness
• WASTE: Wacky Administration Sacrificing the Taxes of Everyone
• SACUP: Dept. of Shove All Complaints Up Pooper
• BENDOVER: Bureau of Ending National Debate Over Violation of Everyone's Rights
• DIE: Dept. of Do It or Else
• GROPE: Government Response to Obvious Political Expediency
• C****: Committee for Unethical National Threat Scaremongering
• DOOM: Department Of Orwellian Misrule
• MILF: Ministry of Instantaneous and Last Freedom
• DAMNIT: Department of Absolutely Meaningless National Insecurity Theater
• USELESS: United States Emergency Law Enforcement Secret Service
• DUH: Department of Upperclass Hooligans
• A*******: American Security Services, Homeland Operations, Law Enforcement for the State
• RSMA: Reich Security Main Office
• SAFETY: Securing American's Fear of Everything Threatening You
• DHS: Department of Honor and Selflessness (inspired by this)
• DIPS***: Department of International Perception State Homeland Investigation Taskforce
  

Other dubious names
Following are some of the more curious name suggestions we received:

• Mystery Security Theater 3000
• Department of Perpetual Orange
• The Unicorn Society (I mean they are looking for non-existent things after all)
• Mother of all Fatherland Departments
• The Kindly Ones (A Greek euphemism for the Furies)
• 米国淫民的爱国爱党情操不高尚嘛  (The United States of Kinky Party Patriotic Sentiments of the People is Not a Noble Thing)

One entrepreneur suggested the DHS be named after his company's "security" product (SecurityFeelBetter).  That's capitalism at its best.   

Where to go from here? 

 Hubble Space Telescope photo of remote galaxies (NASA).

Only 4% of respondents in our national poll said they favor retaining the name Homeland Security.  This means the name is probably going to have to change. What is our next step?  OutputLogic describes our plan of action quite accurately:

First, they have to form a Committee for Renaming the Department of Homeland Security.  Second, the committee has to work for two years and draft a 1000-page conclusions document.  Third, there has to be a nation-wide referendum. Fourth…

Because the debt is scary enough already, we will outsource as much of this work as possible to companies in Asia.  Encouragingly, we received some interesting responses from Taiwan.  Staff particularly appreciated the forward thinking behind a name suggested by one of the Taiwanese.  SandersYao wrote:

If the boundaries of U.S. imperialism were to be extended to encompass the scope of the universe, it should be called the Space Security Agency.  

Our global media partners

James Fallows publicized our poll.

The U.S. Dept. of Fear couldn't possibly achieve its objectives without the complicity of the media.  Here's a partial list of various media organizations that helped to promote the survey (along with the number of DHS names suggested):

• Atlantic Monthly, "Cast Your Vote Now! New Names for DHS": n/a
• SlashDot, "Help Rename the Department of Homeland Security": 382 names
• FearDepartment, "Other suggested names for Homeland Security": 66 names
• MetaFilter: "Department of Terror and Graft": 39 names
• @FearDept (our Twitter account): 32 names 
• Flier Talk, "The Atlantic poll: Vote on a new name for the Department of Homeland Security": 25 names
• Jandan.net, "恶搞，为美国国土安全部门重命名": 18 names
• TeraScape Networks, "Help Rename Homeland Security": 5 names
• Prison Planet Forum, "Rename the U.S. Department of Fear... err, um... I mean Homeland Security.": 1 name

Survey questionnaire
Voters could select multiple items.  The online polling gadget (bellow) calculates the percent for each item as percent of the number of persons voting (N=3,253), whereas our chart (top of the post) indicates the percent of total votes (4,064) each item received.  

Should we rename Homeland Security? What would be a better name for it?

Fox News voted scariest organization in America

Almost three million FoxNews viewers attended Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally in Aug. 2010.

This is the polling question we asked readers to respond to last week:

WHAT INDIVIDUAL OR ORGANIZATION WENT TO THE GREATEST LENGTHS TO SCARE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE IN 2010? VOTE FOR YOUR CHOICE. THE WINNER WILL BE DECLARED "FEAR HERO 2010" ON DEC 31ST AT OUR ANNUAL FUNDRAISING BALL FOR DEFENSE INDUSTRY LOBBYISTS.

Friends of the United States Department of Fear have spoken. The scariest "person or organization" of 2010 was Fox News. The scariest person? That would be Glenn Beck, the prominent Fox News announcer.  In September 2010 Glenn led the massive "Restoring Honor" rally on the Mall in Washington D.C..  DoF analysts estimate that the event was attended by 2.7 million Americans.

Sec Fear, interviewed Tuesday by Fox News about the results, said, "We're pleased with the outcome of our New Year's poll, but frankly, we aren't surprised.  DoF has always considered your network a reliable partner in fear."

We asked Dr. Rebecca Wolf, Undersecretary for Community Affairs at DoF, to analyze the continued success of Fox News.  Dr. Wolf said,  "What they (Fox) understand is wisdom of our department's moto Timendi causa est nescire (ignorance causes fear)."

Dr. Wolf noted that a recent University of Maryland study ("Misinformation and the 2010 Election") had documented the cable network's greater success at spreading misinformation relative to other American  news organizations.

According to the 2010 study, those who watched Fox News almost daily were significantly more likely than those who never watched it to be ignorant about various political issues.   For example, the study found Fox News viewers to be more likely than other American news consumers to believe that:

• most economists estimate the stimulus caused job losses (12 points more likely) 
• most economists have estimated the health care law will worsen the deficit (31 points)
• the economy is getting worse (26 points) 
• most scientists do not agree that climate change is occurring (30 points)
• the stimulus legislation did not include any tax cuts (14 points) 
• their own income taxes have gone up (14 points) 
• the auto bailout only occurred under Obama (13 points) 
• when TARP came up for a vote most Republicans opposed it (12 points) 
• and that it is not clear that Obama was born in the United States (31 points)

The authors of the Maryland study observed, "These effects increased incrementally with increasing levels of exposure and all were statistically significant. The effect was also not simply a function of partisan bias, as people who voted Democratic and watched Fox News were also more likely to have such misinformation than those who did not watch it--though by a lesser margin than those who voted Republican."

DoF extends its heartfelt congratulates to Glenn, Sarah, Sean, Bill and all our friends at Fox News for making the American public more ignorant, and therefore, more afraid in 2010.   We urge our readers to join us in spreading the word about the "fear heroes" of Fox News in the New Year.