November 10, 2015

Senator Claire McCaskill Wants Her Male Colleagues to Learn to “Just Shut the Hell Up”


Are you listening, male US Senators? Your colleague, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) wants you to stop mansplaining and “just shut the hell up.”

In a refreshing video prepared for the Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Monday, the first woman elected to the Missouri senate (and consummate badass) explains that while she values the importance of encouraging more women to run for office, it’s equally important for men to stop inserting their opinions into every damn issue.

“It’s not that women don’t value your thoughts—it’s just that we don’t value all of them,” McCaskill said. “The world doesn’t need your opinion on everything.”

The senator continued by enumerating a list of topics she’d love to see all men stop talking about. These include: what women do with their bodies, pantsuits, Star Wars (repeated twice), Shonda Rhimes, and #GamerGate.

“If you can control yourselves and hold back from further expressing your opinions on any of these topics, we’ll let you keep weighing in on marijuana legalization,” she said, offering a reward for their good behavior.

“But,” she cautioned. “That’s a huge, big ‘if.'”

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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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