March 21, 2013

How Dare You Ask Me About My Own Words!

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So Michele Bachmann (R–Crazytown) gave a speech at CPAC this weekend in which she (a) slammed President Obama over his scandalous mishandling of Benghazi, and (b) slammed him again for his lavish White House lifestyle, including his use of a full-time dog walker. CNN’s Dana Bash trekked over to the Capitol to get a comment. Here’s how it went:

Bash: You talked about the excesses that he’s engaged in, the fact that he has a dog walker, which is not true.

Bachmann: The big point of my speech was about Benghazi….

[Crosstalk plus some outraged histrionics about Obama’s bungled response to Benghazi.]

Bash: But if you want to focus on that, why bring up the other things?

Bachmann, in indignant tones:  You want to talk about dog handlers and there’s four Americans that were killed?

Bash: But congresswoman, you’re the one who brought it up!

Isn’t that great? How dare you ask me about stuff that I myself brought up in the first place? That’s our Michele!

For what it’s worth, Glenn Kessler gave Bachmann a grand total of eight Pinocchios for her CPAC address, which was only 16 minutes long. That’s because (a) he only examined two of her claims, and (b) four Pinocchios is the most he’s allowed to hand out. “There really aren’t enough Pinocchios for such misleading use of statistics in a major speech,” he sighed about her food stamp whopper.

STANDARD REMINDER: Bachmann was briefly considered a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination. Just in case anyone has forgotten that.

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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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