August 16, 2012

Does Joe Biden’s Secret Service Detail Hate Him?

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A cupcake shop called Crumb and Get It, based in Radford, Virginia, declined the opportunity to be the backdrop for a visit by Joe Biden yesterday. Its owner doesn’t like Obama much, and says “he’s hoping folks will understand he just didn’t want to be part of a photo op for an administration whose policies he doesn’t agree with.”

No problem! I wouldn’t want to be part of a Romney photo-op, so I understand. But there’s more:

Here’s the back story, we’re told that shortly after Crumb and Get It told Biden’s advance people ‘no’ — the secret service walked in and told Chris McMurray ”Thanks for standing up and saying ‘no’ — then they bought a whole bunch of cookies and cupcakes.

Hmmm. This sounds sort of unlikely to me, but I guess you never know. But I came across this via Dan Foster at NRO, who says:

If this is true, it’s obviously unprofessional. But it’s also rather damning.

I don’t get it. How is this damning? Shouldn’t we just leave it at unprofessional, full stop?

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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.

payment methods

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