June 16, 2009

TweetWatch: The Many Moods of Chuck Grassley

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Only since the recent rise in popularity of our favorite 140-character messaging service do we actually get to see what some of our most influential leaders are thinking as the thoughts pop into their heads. Inside the head of Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, these thoughts are brutal, banal, and generally make us glad that he doesn’t control America’s nuclear football. Below, five of our favorite Grassley tweets:

The Tweet: Ran 3miles w 5 delegate of the30th annual DsM Partnership at 515am. Barb had oatmeal for all.

The Analysis: I’m glad that a 75-year-old-man can still run 3 miles, but do I really give a crap that your wife knows how to make OATMEAL? Is this something to brag about?

The Tweet: My carbon footprint is abt 25per cent of Al Gore. I’m greener than Al Gore. Is that enuf?

The Analysis: Really, his carbon footprint is greener than a person? Strunk and White are rolling over in their grammarian graves.

The Tweet: Pres Obama you got nerve while u sightseeing in Paris to tell us”time to deliver” on health care. We still on skedul/even workinWKEND.

The Analysis: FoxNews looked into this Tweet most carefully and Grassley stood by it 100%. I wouldn’t exactly call Obama’s trip abroad — where he marked the 65th anniversary of D-Day and visited the sites of other World War II atrocities — a sightseeing journey. And for the record, George W. Bush spent 487 days at his ranch in Texas during his presidency…

The Tweet: My office softball team beat my Chr Baucus softball team last nite.

The Analysis: This is the guy who criticized Obama for sightseeing in Paris? Get your lazy staff back to work!

The Tweet: Met with new crop of sumer intrns today 1st of 2 6 week sessions I offer in DC office If ur interested in being an intrn ck my website.

The Analysis: I could think of few people who would be more fun to work for than a man who Tweets with as much mindless vigor as Chuck Grassley.

 

[h/t to my buddy Jim Newell and others at Wonkette for first drawing attention to this Mad Tweeter’s lack of style.]

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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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