August 1, 2013

Republicans Won’t Stop Trying to Name Ocean Waters After Ronald Reagan

<a href="http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/photographs/large/c35748-15A.jpg">Ronald Reagan Presidential Library</a>

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The saga continues. Via The Hill:

Republicans and Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee argued colorfully Wednesday over a GOP bill that would name 3.4 million square nautical miles of ocean after the late President Ronald Reagan.

The panel is weighing Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R-Calif.) bill that would rename the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), which generally extends from 3 miles to 200 miles offshore, as the Ronald Wilson Reagan Exclusive Economic Zone.

“While certain left-wing organizations have characterized this legislation as trivial, there is no debate our 40th president served with the highest distinction,” said Rep. John Fleming (R-La.), speaking in favor of the bill that honors Reagan’s 1983 designation of the EEZ.

Republicans in Congress have been at this for a while now. It keeps with their pattern of attempting to name virtually everything in sight after our 40th president. In 1998, Washington National Airport was officially renamed, via legislation, Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, even though it was already named after a man who most credible historians can agree was a considerably superior president to Reagan. Deification has reached such a point that during the 2012 Republican National Convention, rumors swirled that the convention’s “mystery speaker” was going to be a hologram of Reagan. (It turned out to be a non-hologram version of fellow actor Clint Eastwood instead, to the disappointment and anger of many.)

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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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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.

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