December 31, 2018

Elizabeth Warren Is In

Senate via ZUMA Wire

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So. Elizabeth Warren. I guess I should noodle out loud about what I think of her. This is all pretty vague and unformed, but here goes:

  • First things first: she’s obviously a solid progressive who would support progressive goals like universal health care and so forth. However, we’re going to have a lot of candidates who fit that mold this year.
  • I like the FDRish way she defends capitalism and just wants to save it from itself.
  • I’m not so thrilled—yet—with her foreign policy. She sits on the Armed Services Committee as an obvious way to shore up her military cred, but her big speech recently on foreign policy fell flat for me. She tried to make it all about applying her progressive domestic values to foreign affairs, but that just doesn’t cut it. At some point, she’s going to have to take some firm stands on real foreign policy issues that aren’t just extensions of progressive domestic values. What does she think of China? Russia? North Korea? Israel? Yemen? Iran? Saudi Arabia? Free trade? NATO? Nuclear modernization? Ohio class submarines? Cyberwarfare? Etc.
  • She gave a speech a while back about shoring up private pensions: 401(k)s, IRAs, and so forth. I liked it. Portable pensions are obviously here to stay, and it’s better to talk about how to make them better than it is to moon forever about the loss of old-school company pensions—which weren’t all that great anyway.
  • I’m not sold at all on her idea of the government manufacturing generic drugs. Governments should do the kinds of things they’re good at, and this is definitely not one of them. What’s more, if you really are a capitalist at heart, you should consider direct control of manufacturing as a last resort after you’ve tried everything else. The fact that Warren is proposing it as a first-best solution does not leave me with the warm fuzzies about her judgment.
  • Let’s face it: her handling of the whole Pocahontas/native heritage affair was pretty ham handed. As an issue, it doesn’t matter that much. But as an indicator of how well she handles difficult situations, it might not bode well.
  • She has very little political experience. But I don’t know if that even matters anymore.

Overall, Warren still strikes me as a bit shallow, a candidate with one big issue and not too much else. But she has plenty of time to fix that.

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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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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