December 5, 2022

The House of Windsor Is in Shambles. Yay.

There’ll be plenty to ridicule in the lead-up to Charles’ big ass party in May. Let me do that for you.

Ian Vogler/Daily Mirror/AP

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Once adored for their pristine blowouts and dutiful silence in our age of the Kardashians, Kate Middleton and her husband, William Arthur Philip Louis Mountbatten-Windsor, draw jeers these days. Loud, jumbotron-ed boos smack in the middle of their first stateside tour in nearly a decade, a three-day visit that barely registered with bored Americans.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph?” Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla responded, looking dead serious when asked whether he had met the royal couple during their attendance at a Celtics game. “Oh no, I did not. I’m only familiar with one royal family. I don’t know too much about that one.” 

The apparent yawns over Kate and William’s visit to Boston came amid more trouble for the royals, including the resignation of a woman called Lady Susan Hussey from Buckingham Palace after Hussey reportedly peppered a Black charity boss with repeated racist questions about where she was from. Then came the double-whammy. Two trailers for the upcoming Netflix doc, “Harry & Meghan,” dropped days apart from each other, prompting the ever-calm Daily Mail  to yell of a “DELIBERATE” effort to ding Kate and William’s tour.

Meanwhile, the latest season of “The Crown” was boring as hell, and left many wondering whether Charles himself was behind the bizarre choice of Dominic West, far too rugged and handsome for the Charles we know, to play the sympathetic role of a progressive young prince struggling under an old-fashioned monarchy.

Yeah, things are strange for the House of Windsor these days—and I’m happy to document the mounting mess. After all, the monarchy is an immoral institution that diverts untold millions from the British public while health workers are treated like shit; the notion of a King Charles in 2022 is nothing short of absurd; and as Meghan Markle detailed, is a racist hell hole.

Will my blogging finally kill off the monarchy? No. But it’ll keep me buzzing as I periodically mumble “down with the monarchy” to myself. There’ll be plenty to ridicule, especially in the lead-up to Charles’ big ass party in May, so watch this space for more.

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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.

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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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