May 7, 2018

Gavin Newsom Tagged as Big Fat Liar

Rory Merry/AFLO/ZUMAPRESS

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In an ad currently running on every TV in California, our well-coiffed lieutenant governor, Gavin Newsom, says he was “the first to take on the National Rifle Association and win.” This has unleashed a tsunami of tut-tutting, like today’s column in the LA Times from George Skelton:

You’ve got to wonder what goes through a candidate’s head when his first TV ad contains an indisputable, major falsehood. Maybe nothing goes through it….After Newsom’s TV ad was released April 23, it was assailed in several news media outlets. PolitiFact, a nonpartisan organization that referees political ads, rated Newsom’s claim of being the first to fight the NRA and win as “false.”

In case you’re wondering what’s going on, Newsom did indeed take on the NRA when he sponsored Prop 63 a few years ago. And he did indeed win. This is not a huge accomplishment here in Blue-State-istan, but he did do it. So what’s the fuss?

Well, he wasn’t “the first.” This cracks me up. If Newsom had acted like a Republican, he would have said that he crushed the NRA like an eggshell,¹ that his opponents were all pawns of Big Gun,² and that Californians were finally safe from gun violence.³ Everyone would figure that this was just the usual Republican pandering to the base and would have pretty much ignored it. But if a Democrat tells a teensy little fib, he’s suddenly unfit for office. I love politics.

¹The NRA didn’t even bother fighting Proposition 63.

²Every Democrat in the state supported it.

³Prop 63 didn’t really do much.

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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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