The Lever - The Origin Story

Hi there,

I hope you’re enjoying your new subscription to The Lever. To give you an idea of who we are and why we’re doing this, I want to share a personal story with you.

In the spring of 2020, I was demoralized, depressed, and ready to quit journalism and politics for good. The angst of working on Bernie Sanders’ long presidential campaign and the hatred aimed at me every day for decades had crushed my soul. I felt rejected by the world. I was a shell of a person.

My family and friends intervened and slowly but surely, I started writing again. I launched this news outlet and started reporting important stories that made a big impact. I started feeling alive again. Soon I had been joined by an amazing team, and we were quickly making a huge impact holding corrupt politicians accountable. While corporate media focus all too often on frivolous gossip, we got to work following the money to show which industries were buying specific politicians to halt promised legislation, and more.

This work has already accomplished the following, and more:

Shedding light on the dark money network that is installing conservative Supreme Court justices and funding the politicians and nonprofits bringing radical, right-wing cases before the court.
Breaking the story behind New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s corrupt nursing home immunity law, resulting in its repeal and helping lead to his resignation.
Discovering internal documents in which a fast food conglomerate bragged about how it had derailed Democrats’ promised $15 minimum wage — not long after its restaurants were found to have some of the highest percentage of workers on food stamps.
Detailing how billionaire Charles Koch bankrolled the campaign to end the pandemic eviction moratorium, while at the same time launching major new real estate investments.
Exposing the Trump and Biden administration’s Medicare privatization scheme.

So why does this matter to you? We believe that an effective citizen is an informed citizen. By doing this tireless work uncovering corruption and informing you of it, we can then work together to build the foundation for a better world.

If you haven’t already, we strongly recommend you do the following 3 things to get the most out of your time with The Lever:

1. Follow us on any social and news channels you use by clicking the links below:

Twitter
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Apple News

2. Find our podcast on your podcast player of choice and subscribe by clicking here.

3. Ensure our emails don’t end up getting blocked or sent to your spam folder by adding editor@levernews.com to your email provider’s safe sender list. Also, click here to learn how to make sure our emails don’t go to your Promotions folder, and other important information about how to manage your account and the newsletter.

Ultimately, as one of the few truly independent reader-supported news outlets covering politics and government, we hold ourselves accountable only to you, our subscribers. So here is my commitment to you: We will hold politicians accountable, follow the money, challenge power, and expose inconvenient truths — no matter who that angers — and we will inform you about what we find, so you can take appropriate actions as an informed citizen. That is the ethos of accountability journalism.

Reading and sharing this reporting is a huge part of the battle, but if you are interested in going further and becoming a paid supporter of The Lever, click here to learn what that entails.

Rock the boat,
Sirota

The Lever - The Origin Story

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