Mary Cheney: It’s a Boy!

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Dick Cheney’s already a grandfather. There are five young impressionable minds he’s molding; let that one settle in. (And all those family hunting trips? Hopefully the grandkids get the good body armor.) Now a sixth is on the way, this one born of his lesbian daughter Mary and her partner, Heather Poe. Cheney has hardly been the bragging granddad to date, but yesterday he went public with his pride as he announced that the baby is a boy.

Cheney told ABC Radio, “I’m looking forward to the arrival of a new grandson.” He said that the baby was due next month (but didn’t say whether his nursery is filled with purple Teletubbies or is swathed with a rainbow).

He also didn’t say that he supports the right of said grandson’s parents to be happily married. The bastard.

“I think each state ought to have the capacity to decide how they want to handle those issues . . . And I obviously think it’s important for us as a society to be tolerant and respectful of whatever arrangements people enter into.”

Cheney’s punt to the states is telling. His daughter and her partner live in Virginia, where in November voters approved a sweeping amendment banning gay marriage (and stripping all unmarried couples of many rights). So Poe will have no legal relationship to the child she and Mary are bringing into the world together — how would Dick feel about this one if Poe were the one carrying the baby?

But in some ways, this was a pretty big step for the guy. Remember back in January when Wolf Blitzer asked him about the impending arrival of his grandchild? Cheney warmly replied that the topic was “out of line.”

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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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