October 9, 2009

Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize Win: Instant Analysis

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In the age of the 24-hour news cycle and, more important, twitter, you can quickly get all possible reactions to a story. Here’s a sample of some of the most interesting and amusing tweets responding to Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize win:

  • AdamSerwer Just woke up and heard aboyt rhe nobel. The right is going to go berzerk today.
  • AdamSerwer No joke obama should turn the nobel peace prize down until he’s finished with his two wars.
  • lehmannchris: Biden now convinced he has a shot at the Chemistry prize.
  • basseyworld: Mr. Pres., I’m happy for you and I’m gonna let you finish but Nelson Mandela was the best Peace Prize winner of all time.
  • chrislhayes Kind of happy I’m headed out of the country just when we’re about the achieve post-Nobel peak wingnut.
  • ThePlumLineGS Wow. DNC blisters RNC for criticizing Obama’s Nobel, saying GOP has thrown in its lot with the terrorists: http://tinyurl.com/yfrayec
  • marcambinder Matthew Cooper on what Bill Clinton’s gotta be thinking…. http://twurl.nl/jvdczn
  • daveweigel BREAKING: Orly Taitz sues Obama, demands proof that he’s not actually Nicolae Carpathia.
  • brianbeutler Clearly Obama should appoint an unaccountable Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Czar
  • brianbeutler RT @daveweigel: OK, still laughing at Fark’s headline: “Barack Obama linked to terrorist Yasser Arafat”
  • agolis Crappy day to be a newspaper. http://bit.ly/kxDtl
  •  
  • AdamSerwer Is there a Nobel for warrantless surveillance? Obama could win that.
  • basseyworld: Mr. Pres., I’m happy for you and I’m gonna let you finish but Nelson Mandela was the best Peace Prize winner of all time.
  • DavidCornDC Nobel committee: take that, George W. Bush! #nobel #barackobamawins
  • DavidCornDC Michelle Bachmann calls for international boycott of Sweden.
  • DavidCornDC Obama to wear #NobelPeacePrize medal at next SitRoom meeting on #Afghanistan.
  • DavidCornDC Glenn Beck notes last sitting president of major nation to win #NobelPeacePrize: Gorbachev of Soviet Union. Put 2 and 2 together, people.
  • AdamSerwer I wonder who’s going to be the first righty to complain about affirmative action?
  • brianbeutler Ah racists: RT @ewerickson: I did not realize the Nobel Committee had affirmative action quotas it had to meet.
  • AdamSerwer Erick erickson wins the wingnut “obama won the nobel cuz of affirmative action” prize
  • brianbeutler It’s almost as if @ewerickson doesn’t realize there are whole continents of people that aren’t majority white: http://bit.ly/KML6s
  • jimgeraghty: I believe this is the first Nobel Peace Prize ever awarded to a world leader born in Kenya.
  • yunjid Called WH aide, 545am. Aide: “Yunji, this better be good” me: “potus won nobel prize” aide: “oh, that is good”
  • ezraklein Obama also awarded Nobel prize in chemistry. “He’s just got great chemistry,” says Nobel Committee.
  • DavidCornDC It’s a streak: last two Dem. pres. nominees to win popular vote also win #NobelPeacePrize. (Bill Clinton feels left out?)
  • DavidCornDC Last US official in charge of a war to win #NobelPeacePrize: Henry Kissinger (1973). That turned out well.
  • ezraklein How long till the Nobel Committee just gives up the ghost and names “you!” the winner of the peace prize?
  • KagroX: 1 year later: Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize; Palin’s daughter’s baby daddy appearing nude in Playgirl.
  • MattGertz High level of crazy today. Very exciting.
  • ezraklein Think the Right is mad now? Wait till Obama donates his winnings to ACORN.
  • kate_sheppard Clearly late to this game, but would like to direct an obligatory WTF to the Nobel Committee.
  • glenngreenwald RT @normative “Gratified, if a little surprised, that it appears nobody is actually sufficiently hackish to defend this”//day is still early
  • kate_sheppard After winning an effing peace prize Obama better show up in Copenhagen in December. #COP15
  • brianbeutler Conservatives last week: Hooray, America failed! Conservatives this week: Boo, America succeeded 🙁
  • kate_sheppard RT @HumanityCritic …people at Nobel saw all the assholes cheering Chicago’s failed Olympic bid and said, “Lets fuck with the wingnuts”
  • mattyglesias They should institute a Nobel Prize for driving conservatives crazy.

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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.

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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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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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