October 30, 2011

Is This the Weirdest Rick Perry Speech Ever?

Jon Ward flags this video of Texas Governor Rick Perry speaking at an event in New Hampshire on Friday, and politely calls it “unusually expressive.” I will go a few steps further and say it is the strangest Rick Perry video I have ever seen (which is a pretty long list). Just watch:

Have you ever seen anyone so happy to receive a jug of maple syrup? Ward, who was in attendance, says the clip was not fully representative of the speech, but notes that the entire presentation was weird enough to prompt a tea party leader to tell him, “I think Obama would chew him up.” The most recent Des Moines Register survey has the Texas governor polling at just 7 percent in Iowa (tied with Newt Gingrich), a state he led just two months ago. Speeches like this, which look more like an appeal to Alec Baldwin to make another guest appearance on SNL, likely aren’t going to do much to stop his free-fall.

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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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