Rick Perry Bravely Speaks Out

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Time magazine has an interview with Rick Perry this week. Is this his first real interview since announcing his candidacy? I’m not sure, but it’s the first one I’ve seen. Here’s one tidbit:

What should happen next in Afghanistan?

I think we need to try to move our men and women home as soon as we can. Not just in Afghanistan, but in Iraq as well….Our overall objective has to be to […] drive out those who would do harm to our country. I think we’ve done that in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have substantial ways to continue to put the pressure on the bad guys, if you will, and I don’t think keeping a large force of United States uniform military in Afghanistan for a long period of time is particularly in the interest of the U.S., or for that matter, in Afghani interest.

That’s….interesting. Definitely not something from the neocon wing of Republican thinking. But Perry is certainly attuned to the tea party id, and I’d take this a sign that even there people have mostly lost interest in Afghanistan and Iraq as “central fronts in the war on terror.” The fact that Perry is implicitly endorsing Obama’s strategy in both places strikes me as pretty meaningful.

But in case you’re thinking that maybe this means Perry is surprisingly informed and flexible on foreign affairs, there’s also this:

Beside the Bible or other religious texts, which book has influenced you most over the last decade?

I don’t know about influencing me the most — I’m reading a couple of books on China right now that are most interesting. After a trip to Beijing and Shanghai and Taiwan, I realized how important that region of the world is to America and to the world. So Kissinger’s book on China, I’m wading through it, and I’m reading another book by Aaron Friedberg [A Contest for Supremacy] that is a really fine read about China, their very long view of the world and our need to really pay attention to what’s going on in that part of the world.

Seriously? He’s just now realizing how important China is? Urk.

There’s also some stuff about Social Security, of course. Perry once again congratulates himself for bravely bringing up a subject that, in fact, has been discussed to death for decades, and once again declines to offer any actual proposals. “The idea that we’re going to write a Social Security reform plan today is a bit of a stretch from my perspective.” I can’t imagine why, since you could probably paper over the Capitol dome with Social Security plans, but that’s his stand and he’s sticking to it. It’s terrible, it’s broken, it demands immediate attention, and……one of these days he’ll give it some serious thought. Urk again.

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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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