March 17, 2010

Ralph Reed Joins Health Care Fight

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As the future of health care reform seems to be coming down to the very last wire, the high-stakes political battle seems to be drawing out of the woodwork long lost activists and groups once associated with the disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramhoff. Yesterday we noted the participation of the National Center for Public Policy Research, which has put out some slick new campaign materials for health care opponents. That group was accused of flacking for Abramhoff clients in exchange for big donations. Today comes none other than Ralph Reed, the former Christian Coalition leader who helped Republicans take over Congress in 1994 but then crashed and burned after revelations about his work for Abramhoff. (Reed famously took millions from an Indian tribe represented by Abramhoff to run a religious-based anti-gambling campaign that was actually designed to prevent a rival tribe from opening a competing casino.)

Reed is now head of a new group called the Faith and Freedom Coalition, which today sent out an appeal to readers of WorldNet Daily soliciting “FaxGrams of Protest” against Obamacare to members of Congress. The email comes with all the doomsday predictions about the bill. Reed writes, “This vote is happening any day or hour now. It is do or die for freedom’s survival in America! We are now at D-Day for Obamacare. Will America become another failed Cuba-style Socialist state? Or will freedom and respect for Constitutional government make a comeback in America? The next few hours and days will answer that question.”

Links from the WND email lead through Reed’s website. Naturally, this being a Reed endeavor, the fax grams don’t come free. In order to send one, health care opponents have to provide a credit card number to make a “donation” to the Faith and Freedom Coalition. Whether Reed is simply capitalizing on the health care debate to raise money or whether he’s been hired by some desperate anti-health care forces to fight the bill isn’t clear. (Could be both.) But one thing’s for sure: If Indian tribes start to chime in, we should really start to get suspicious. 

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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.

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