Our Score So Far: Republicans 89, Democrats 1

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This comes via a 4th-grade friend, who got it from some guy on Facebook, who probably got it from Daily Kos, who got it from Wikipedia:

In the criminal convictions contest, the score is Republicans 89, Democrats 1. And that’s not even counting all the high-level Iran-Contra folks who probably would have been convicted of various felonies if they hadn’t been pardoned by GHW Bush.

Among Democrats, there’s been only one criminal conviction in the past 50 years. The unlucky schmoe is Ron Blackley, who was collateral damage from a special prosecutor who even Ken Starr thought was kind of nuts. The guy ran amuck in a futile attempt to pin something on Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy,1 and in the process he managed to win a perjury conviction against Blackley, who served as Espy’s chief of staff, for failing to disclose a pittance in consulting fees from a former consulting business in Mississippi.

I wonder if Donald Trump can break Nixon’s record? One thing going against Trump is that he’s barely able to hire anyone these days, and you can’t garner lots of corruption convictions if you don’t have anyone working for you. On the other hand, he’s Trump. You never know.

1He got a grand jury to hand down a bunch of indictments, but his case was so thin that Espy didn’t even bother mounting a defense. The jury acquitted Espy of everything.

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Owned by no one—except you.

We just keep seeing it happen: Newsrooms owned by billionaires and corporations are spinning their own narratives, overwriting the truth, following only stories that keep them in the pocket of those with even more power.

Not here. We’re not owned by anyone. We’re not part of any cult that demands our allegiance to a bottom line. We’ve spoken up and spoken out while other newsrooms changed their stories—or cut them altogether—to keep the C suite happy.

Our mission is to find the truth and amplify it. That’s why we’re independent, nonprofit, and, crucially, funded by readers. The investigations on our website will always be free to read, watch, and listen to, but our newsroom is powered by readers who pitch in what they can so we can keep asking the hard questions.

Can you chip in today?

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