March 29, 2013

Watch: If House Lannister Had a Super-PAC

Last year, we noted that HBO’s hit show Game of Thrones—which features dragons, sword fights, and zombie armies—is at its core a tale of intense political intrigue. Alliances are forged and broken; backroom deals are cut; principles are sacrificed. It’s a dirty game—and not just because there’s no indoor plumbing. And we imagined what might happen if super-PACs and dark-money outfits existed in the Seven Kingdoms. The result: political attack ads that went viral. With the third season starting this week—and the show (according to our spies) becoming even bleaker—here are those ads once again. They remain a fitting commentary, for as in the real world, politics in Westeros is not getting any less sleazy.

Daenerys Targaryen: Wrong for Dragons, Wrong for the Realm

Joffrey Baratheon: What a Bastard!

Robb Stark: The Biggest Celebrity in the North

Created, written, and directed by David Corn, Dan Schulman, Nick Baumann, Adam Serwer, Tim Murphy, and Asawin Suebsaeng. Videos edited by Ethan Elliott-Williams and David Mullins. Narrated by Jason Williams. Actors: Jennifer Cutting, Patrick Plunkett, and Stephen Winick.

Read our interview with Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and Dan Weiss. And click here to check out other TV and movie features from Mother Jones.

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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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