December 19, 2012

The NRA Has No Intention of Making “Meaningful Contributions”

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I know that everyone already knows this, but I suppose it bears repeating. When the NRA says, in response to the Newtown massacre, that it’s “prepared to offer meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again,” they mean exactly the opposite. They will hold a press conference on Friday and talk somberly about mental health. They will blame Hollywood and video games. They will insist that we need to enforce laws already on the books. They will proclaim a willingness to have a “dialog.”

But it will be a sham, as always. They will, as usual, do their best to distract pundits and talking heads with discussions of Xboxes, programs to help disturbed teenagers, and other shiny objects unrelated to firearms. They will continue doing everything they can to demonize the ATF and keep it effectively powerless. They will continue to fight any proposals that would regulate gun ownership in even the smallest way. They will make no changes to the scorecards they keep on their pet legislators. They will do everything they can behind the scenes to slow things down until, they hope, everyone gets tired and just goes home. They’ve spent the entire past week strategizing about how to do this in the smoothest, least noticeable way possible.

We all know this. Just be sure to keep it in mind over the next few weeks. Don’t let mental health or Grand Theft Auto distract you, no matter how worthy you think those topics are. If you want to get anything done, keep your focus on guns and nothing but guns.

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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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