“He Did a Good Job—He Almost Sounded Like a Republican”

Zuma/<a href="http://www.zumapress.com/zpdtl.html?IMG=20110125_zaf_bw2_006.jpg&CNT=1&cktst=1">Christy Bowe</a>

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Listening to Republicans’ immediate reaction to President Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday night, you’d almost think they didn’t hear the same speech. “I thought he did a good job—he almost sounded like a Republican,” freshmen Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho), said minutes after exiting the House floor. Another freshman, Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), told Mother Jones, “It sounded like a lot more of the same—a lot more government spending.” Rep. Allen West (R-Florida) hit both points at once: “It was a president caught between two worlds—the world of trying to be a fiscal conservative and the world of trying to appease his base.”

Though Republicans were quick to slam the key pillars of Obama’s speech—his call for greater innovation, infrastructure spending, and education investments—as just “another stimulus,” but the president’s biggest critics were willing to admit there was a lot to like as well.

Obama’s promise to revamp the tax code garnered praise from Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), a top-ranking conservative. “If he wants to work with Republicans to fundamentally flatten the tax code of all the various loopholes and credits and deductions, [we’re] happy to work with him on that,” Hensarling said, as he waited in line for a cable appearance.

Firebrand conservative Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) said that he was pleasantly surprised by the president’s nod to clean coal. “It was couched in the language subtly,” he said. “But maybe he is giving us some openings for all energy all the time, which I’m for.”

West, the Florida freshmen, even showed off his copy of Obama’s speech: In the margins, he’d scribbled, “Good point!” near the president’s lines praising teachers and addressing illegal immigration.

To be sure, the parts of the speech that drew the most Republican cheers also have the dimmest chance of becoming law: there’s little political drive on either side for a comprehensive energy bill, immigration refrom, or tax-reform legislation. And Republicans are still bent on beating up Obama on the budget. Though the president’s call for a freeze on all discretionary government spending drew a few gasps, King noted that that the freeze would only be “a good thing” if Obama were to roll back spending to 2008 levels—a massive cut that House Republicans are demanding.

In King’s view, even the much-ballyhooed across-the-aisle seating arrangement showed the limits of bipartisanship: Members of each party couldn’t applaud as a block, he noted, and so  “there wasn’t much response from the crowd. I’ve never been a SOTU address and seen such a flat response.”

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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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