November 23, 2016

Conservatives Just Can’t Figure Out Why Trump Chose Nikki Haley as UN Ambassador

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Donald Trump has named South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley as his ambassador to the UN. This is, as Dan McLaughlin says over at National Review, a little puzzling. It’s puzzling first because it’s not clear why Haley would want the job. And it’s puzzling second because she has no foreign policy background and has criticized Trump in the past:

Does the willingness to hire Haley tell us much about Trump? I doubt we will see much in the way of ideology as the basis of any of Trump’s hires outside of the jobs that handle immigration and trade policy. Sure, it shows Trump hiring a former critic, but first, Haley endorsed Trump in the general election and stuck by that endorsement without wavering (unlike, say, Kelly Ayotte or Joe Heck, who now seem persona non grata with Trump); second, it could sideline a potential (if unlikely) 2020 primary threat by bringing her inside the tent without giving her a position of great influence; and third, it rewards an early Trump endorser, South Carolina Lieutenant Governor Henry McMaster, who will now become Governor and could run in 2018 as the incumbent.

Conservatives just can’t bring themselves to admit what Trump is up to, can they? So let’s cut through the chaff and go straight to Wikipedia:

Haley was born Nimrata Nikki Randhawa in Bamberg, South Carolina, on January 20, 1972, to an Indian Sikh family.

Haley is a woman, and she’s the daughter of immigrants. Trump wants a few non-white non-males in his cabinet, and he likely couldn’t care less about the UN. So why not? He’s not rewarding anyone and he’s not worried about 2020. Nor does he care that Haley is bizarrely unqualified for a job that dozens of people would kill for. He’s just checking off a box.

Trump’s win was a victory against the malevolent forces of political correctness, right? So surely there’s no longer any need to let political correctness stop us from pointing out the obvious?

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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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