If Talking About Dams is Suspicious, Let’s Investigate Bush

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So Jim Bensman, who’s a fixture of just about any environmental debate in the Midwest, goes to a public meeting to discuss a dam in St. Louis and, surprise, says he’d just as soon see the dam gone. The local paper dutifully reports that Benson “said he would like to see the dam blown up and resents paying taxes to fix dam problems when it is barge companies that profit from the dam.” Next thing you know the Corps of Engineers–which you’d think had other things to worry about–calls the FBI to investigate Bensman as a possible security threat. And the FBI actually bothers to follow through. All this at a time when the White House is, for the first time ever, endorsing blowing up dams.

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

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