Santorum in Your Pants

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/6184429412/sizes/m/in/photostream/">Gage Skidmore</a>/Flickr

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Rick Santorum caught a lot of people off guard with his strong showing in the Iowa caucuses on Tuesday. But just in case you forgot how extreme his views are on a number of issues, here he is earlier this week talking about homosexuality and birth control on ABC News.

Discussing the Supreme Court’s 1965 ruling that invalidated a Connecticut law banning contraception, he said:

The state has a right to do that. I have never questioned that the state has a right to do that. It is not a constitutional right. The state has the right to pass whatever statutes they have. That is the thing I have said about the activism of the Supreme Court, they are creating rights, and they should be left up to the people to decide.

Santorum also argued that there is no constitutionally protected right to sodomy, and that the Supreme Court’s decision in the 2003 case Lawrence v. Texas was wrong. “I wouldn’t have voted for that law. I thought that law was an improper law, but that doesn’t mean the state doesn’t have a right to do that,” he said. “We shouldn’t create constitutional rights when states do dumb things.”

Of course, that would be a different idea of what the Constitution is, and why the Supreme Court exists, than most people have.

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“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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