January 1, 2017

Trump Promises New Episode of The Donald Show on Tuesday (or Maybe Wednesday)

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Happy New Year!

Here is the president-elect of the United States on the last day of the old year, offering his skepticism that Russia was behind the hacks of the DNC and other political organizations during the election:

“I just want them to be sure because it’s a pretty serious charge,” Mr. Trump said of the intelligence agencies….He added: “And I know a lot about hacking. And hacking is a very hard thing to prove. So it could be somebody else. And I also know things that other people don’t know, and so they cannot be sure of the situation.”

When asked what he knew that others did not, Mr. Trump demurred, saying only, “You’ll find out on Tuesday or Wednesday.”

Here’s what I think Donald Trump knows about hacking: nothing. In movies, the stereotypical hacking nerd can blow through any cyber defense in about 30 seconds of whirlwind typing. So this is what Trump believes: There are lots of 19-year-old kids who can type furiously for about 30 seconds and break into any computer in the world.

I don’t imagine anyone is going to argue with me about that, so let’s move on to Trump’s statement that he knows things “that other people don’t know.” Intriguing! What could that be?

Well, America’s intelligence agencies think Russia is behind the hacking, so Trump doesn’t have any secret knowledge from them. Where else could he have gotten it? There are two obvious possibilities. The first is that Trump’s team did it, and he’s going to confess on Tuesday (or Wednesday). Wouldn’t that be great? The second possibility is that Putin has provided Trump with some kind of plausible misdirection, which he’s going to parrot on Tuesday (or Wednesday).

Actually, of course, there’s a third possibility, and it’s the most likely of all: Trump is just blathering as usual, and he will provide no new information on either Tuesday or Wednesday. He’s just playing the press the way he always does, and we’ll all turn out for the show, just like we did for the birther show in September.

We’ve got at least four years and 20 days of this stuff still ahead of us, folks. Take a deep breath.

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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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