August 23, 2017

United States Science Envoy Resigns After Donald Trump’s Charlottesville Response

Is there a hidden message in his announcement?

Alex Brandon/AP

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The fallout from President Donald Trump’s equivocal response to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, continues this week, with the resignation of US Science Envoy Daniel Kammen.

“Acts and words matter,” Kammen wrote in a letter announcing his decision. “To continue in my role under your administration would be inconsistent with the United States Oath of Allegiance to which I adhere.”

The president has been under fierce criticism for his claim that “many sides” were responsible for the “Unite the Right Rally” in Charlottesville earlier this month, where one woman was killed and 19 injured after a white supremacist drove through a crowd of counter-protesters. Amid the backlash, many members of the president’s various advisory councils, along with all 16 members of the White House Arts Committee, have resigned to protest Trump’s response.

During a deeply divisive rally in Phoenix, Arizona, Tuesday evening, Trump appeared defiant, lashing out at his critics who have condemned the explosive remarks.

Kammen’s decision to step down from the State Department post on Tuesday joined the growing condemnation. It also appeared to include an anagram containing a blunt message: taken together, the first letters of the first sentence of each of the paragraphs spell “I M P E A C H.”

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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.

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