Corn on Hardball: Watching Matthews Eviscerate an Iraq War Hawk (Video)

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I don’t know if Hardball host Chris Matthews will run for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania and challenge incumbent Republican Arlen Specter. I do know that it would be refreshing to have a fellow in the Senate with as much passion as Matthews. Sure, he peeved a number of people with his comments on Hillary Clinton during the recent presidential campaign. But last night, I was a guest on his show and watched Matthews eviscerate former Reagan administration aide Frank Gaffney on the question of whether the Iraq war had been justified. I had been booked to debate Gaffney on the subject. But Matthews tore into him more than I could.

I give Matthews plenty of credit–not just for being right on this issue but for devoting the first quarter of his show to the matter. He shoved aside Blago and Caroline Kennedy to discuss a war that the mainstream media does not sufficiently cover. There aren’t many television talk show hosts who still greatly care about whether George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and the rest of that crew hoodwinked the country into war. But Matthews does. He wants to win the fight over the history and make sure that the public does not forget how the soon-to-be-gone Bush administration misled the nation. I’m not urging Matthews to run–I enjoy appearing on his show and would be sad to see it disappear–but it would be heartening to see in the Senate a man who displays so much zeal on this front.

I have a feeling that in the coming years the Bush-backers and neocons will not give up the fight; they will relentlessly argue that the war was right and just. Even though the majority of the American public doesn’t buy that, the foes of the war will have to push back and do combat over and over on this point. Whether Matthews is on TV or in the Senate, he could be a valuable participant in that (alas) never-ending debate.

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“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.

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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.

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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.

payment methods

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