August 8, 2012

Tea Party Shoots Itself in Foot Again

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Missouri senator Claire McCaskill has long seemed like a goner: Missouri is getting redder all the time and even McCaskill’s brand of centrist liberalism is just too far to the left for her to win reelection. But last night brought her some good news: the winner of the Republican primary was the wingnuttiest of the three wingnuts in the race. Steve Benen summarizes:

Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) was running third in the three-way primary up until fairly recently, but McCaskill started running ads intended to boost the right-wing congressman with the GOP base in advance of his Senate primary. As the dust settled last night, the scheme worked surprisingly well: Akin won a surprise victory, winning by six points over his next closest challenger.

….What is it, exactly, about Akin that makes him so unappealing to the voting mainstream? The congressman believes the very existence of the federal student-loan program is a “stage-three cancer of socialism.” He’s also eager to eliminate the minimum wage, believes liberalism is based on “a hatred of God,” believes the Bible should be a “blueprint” for American government; and wants to impeach President Obama because, in his mind, the president is “a complete menace to our civilization.”

Akin also has a highly attackable voting record, which Greg Sargent documents here.

In the last election cycle, the tea party nearly kept the GOP from winning control of the Senate by nominating unelectable ideologues like Sharron Angle, Ken Buck, and Christine O’Donnell. They might be doing the same thing this year. Every seat is likely to count, and McCaskill was probably a sure loser against anyone relatively normal. But she has a chance to beat Akin. Three cheers for the tea party!

UPDATE: Andy Kroll has a great review of the Missouri Senate race today and the role that tidal waves of secret money are playing in it. “Dark Money’s Top Target,” it turns out, is Claire McCaskill.

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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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