September 20, 2013

There Is a Whole Lot of Bad Blood in the Republican Party These Days


Lots of conservative-but-not-tea-party Republicans in the House have been pretty irritated at the antics of Sen. Ted Cruz and his merry band of scorched-earth nihilists, who have insisted that House members should FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT and eventually go down with the Obamacare-defunding ship even though they know perfectly well they don’t have the votes in the Senate to back them up. But the bad blood goes beyond just that. Rich Lowry prints this email from a House aide:

Yesterday the House passed a major reform to our food stamp program that reinstates the workfare programs that we know are good policy, get people off the welfare rolls and would reduce discretionary spending. But in the months we’ve been working on this conservative proposal, Heritage, Club for Growth, etc. never said one word a support. They didn’t score the bill, they didn’t tweet on it. For a lot of people in the House, it appears that because Republicans were not divided on the issue — or outside groups could not decide to label members a good Republican or a bad Republican — legislation that the Heritage Foundation would have helped craft 5 years ago — wasn’t worth their time. And our Senate conservative friends haven’t led on this issue either. . . .

I don’t know how widespread this feeling is, but it sure looks like there’s some real bitterness here, and it’s getting worse and worse. The next few months are going to be pretty interesting, for a certain definition of “interesting.” When Republicans decided to let the tea party take over the GOP, I don’t think they quite understood exactly what they were letting themselves in for. They should have asked a few Democrats over the age of 50 for pointers.

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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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