Firefighters To Testify Against Sotomayor

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The Senate Judiiciary Committee has released the witness list for Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings next week, and suprise surprise! Testifying for Republicans will be Frank Ricci, the name plaintiff in the now-infamous Connecticut firefighter case in which Republicans have accused Sotomayor of sanctioning “reverse racism.” What he has to offer about Sotomayor’s qualifications for the bench seems pretty limited, but we in the media can only hope Ricci will liven up what promises to be a pretty perfunctory proceeding. (Sadly, the Republicans don’t seem to have invited that nunchuck guy, who also has a bone to pick with Sotomayor.)

Democrats plan to counter such testimony with witnesses of their own, most notably, former Major League Baseball pitcher David Cone. Cone was one of the beneficiaries of Sotomayor’s decision ending the baseball players’ strike. Presumably Democrats are thinking that Cone will mitigate whatever nasty things Ricci has to say about Sotomayor’s view of the white male.

(Hat tip to The BLT.)

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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.

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