Republicans Finally Cave on Funds for Widespread Testing

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This is, as usual these days, beyond belief:

The Trump administration and congressional leaders closed in Sunday on a $400 billion-plus deal to renew funding for a small business loan program that ran out of money under crushing demand, aiming to pass the agreement into law within days.

….The agreement also would include $75 billion for hospitals and $25 billion for testing, which have been major Democratic demands. Some of the money in the small business program would be directed specifically to rural and minority businesses, according to people familiar with the plan who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe it.

What possible reason could there be for $25 billion in testing to be a “Democratic” demand? The single most unanimous agreement among experts is that we need to vastly increase testing and contact tracing before we start to loosen lockdowns and get back to (sort of) normal life. There’s literally not a single reason this should be a partisan issue.

But it is. For some reason Republicans resisted it for more than a week before caving in. What the hell is wrong with these people?

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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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