Rep. Weiner Thanks GOP For Saving America From Car Talk

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You have to give Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) credit: He knows how to make a point. After the House today voted to ax public funding for National Public Radio, Weiner offered a big sarcastic kudos to his GOP colleagues for killing off Click and Clack, the Boston mechanics/MIT geniuses/brothers who host NPR’s beloved weekly Car Talk radio show. (The Senate still has to approve the measure before it’s final, an outcome that’s far from certain.) Holding up a “Save Click and Clack” poster of the Magliozzi brothers, Weiner went on a tear, congratulating Republicans for finally discovering, in a time of crisis, “a target we can all agree on.” Weiner thanked his Republican friends for ridding the airwaves of the brothers’ horrible Boston accents, and especially for putting some of the show’s staffers out of work—people like customer care guy “Haywood Jabuzoff,” or their corporate spokesperson,”Hugh Lyon Sack.” “I’m so relieved we had this emergency session…so we can finally get these guys off the radio,” he fumed.

Really, print doesn’t do the rant justice, so watch for yourself here:

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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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