Mother Jones
Alaska’s conservative streak doesn’t extend to abortion. In fact, it’s a right in the state constitution—for now. Alaskans voting Tuesday will choose whether to keep or rewrite that constitution, putting abortion rights and more on the line. Every ten years, Alaskans get to vote on holding a constitutional convention, where state legislators would pick delegates […]
Mother JonesIf you’re like a lot of the people I talk to in the Mother Jones community, the political world feels pretty dark right now—and not like the darkness before the dawn. Conspiracy theorists, liars, and authoritarians are gaining ground; further rollbacks of civil and human rights seem inevitable; powerful people, including the world’s richest man, […]
Mother JonesOne of the most intense races in Arizona this midterm election concerns public education: Republican Tom Horne, the architect of a state law used to ban Tucson Unified’s Mexican American Studies classes a decade ago, is back on the ballot hoping to get reelected as state school superintendent. He’s challenging incumbent Kathy Hoffman. Horne, who […]
Mother JonesThe Republicans running for statewide office in Arizona, each among the most extreme in the country, earned endorsements from former President Donald Trump by peddling the lie that the 2020 election was stolen. But as three of these candidates campaigned in Tucson, Arizona on Sunday, they did not mention the 2020 election. Even Trump, who […]
Mother JonesIn 2016, a Navajo and Cherokee 10-month-old named Zachary arrived in the home of a white, evangelical couple named Jennifer and Chad Brackeen. The Brackeens lived on an acre lot outside of Fort Worth, Texas, with a pool and a zip line. The couple had come to believe that fostering children was one way, they […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. For Joe Biden, the United Nations climate summit in Egypt is the crowning stage to trumpet the US finally passing major legislation to slow dangerous global heating. But the thoughts of the US president and delegates from around the world are […]
Mother JonesIn spite of losing a reelection bid, getting twice impeached, and facing a litany of lawsuits, Donald Trump is all but certain to run for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.GOP politicians have long treated the former president as their defacto frontrunner, failing to push back on his election lies, with many outright promoting them. Democrats, political pundits, and the […]
Mother JonesEditor’s note: The below article first appeared in David Corn’s newsletter, Our Land. The newsletter is written by David twice a week (most of the time) and provides behind-the-scenes stories about politics and media; his unvarnished take on the events of the day; film, book, television, podcast, and music recommendations; interactive audience features; and more. Subscribing costs just $5 […]
Mother JonesIn his 2008 book, Breaking Free: My Life with Dissociative Identity Disorder, Herschel Walker described 12 alters, or separate identities that used to take over his psyche. There was the “Consoler,” who soothed Walker as he was mocked for his weight and stutter during early adolescence; the “Hero,” who “put on the facade of not […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Governments meeting for vital climate talks have been accused of making positive commitments in public but denying them later in the privacy of the negotiating rooms by the Egyptian hosts of the summit. Wael Aboulmagd, the Egyptian diplomat in charge […]
Mother JonesThis piece was published originally by Capital & Main. They say everything is bigger in Texas—and that includes the scale and brazenness of voter suppression efforts. The 2020 election saw record turnout in the Lone Star State, an 8% increase from 2016 overall and a 9% increase among nonwhite Texans. In a healthy democracy, such a […]
Mother JonesSea levels are rising twice as fast as they were 30 years ago. Persistent drought in East Africa has plunged about 19 million people into crisis levels of food insecurity. Floods from record-breaking rainfall killed 1,700 people in Pakistan. And yet global greenhouse gas emissions are still increasing, according to the United Nations’ climate agency. […]
Mother JonesAbsentee ballot processing is kicking off today in Michigan, and the Trump-backed candidate running to become the state’s top election official is already trying to throw out tens of thousands votes—specifically in the Democratic stronghold of Detroit, which is 78 percent Black. Kristine Karamo, an election denier whose Secretary of State campaign is supported by the […]
Mother JonesRussian trolls and bots are coming back online ahead of the midterms—this time, amplifying right-wing vitriol on Gab, Parler, Gettr, and other minor social media platforms serving far-right audiences. Cybersecurity researchers have identified the reactivation of inflammatory accounts linked to the Internet Research Agency, a propaganda group associated with the Kremlin that has interfered in US […]
Mother JonesIn the final days of former mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration, he honored a pledge made in his 2021 State of the City address: the creation of a commission to revise the city’s governing charter through amendments, in the form of ballot measures, to “uncover and attack” institutional racism in New York City. On Tuesday, voters will […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Most plastics marketed as “home compostable” don’t actually work, with as much as 60% failing to disintegrate after six months, according to research. An estimated 10 percent of people can effectively compost at home, but for the remaining 90 […]
Mother JonesAn already messy battle in Pennsylvania over mail-in ballots stepped up on Friday, with the NAACP and an alliance of other voting rights group filing a lawsuit to insist certain votes should be counted. The issue at hand is whether a state law says that mail-in votes can be counted if they have a valid date […]
Mother JonesRep. Liz Cheney used to be one of the standard-bearers of the Republican party—she’s literally the heir to one of the most prominent Republicans in modern history. But since she broke with former president Donald Trump, she’s strayed far from the party and is now not just campaigning against pro-Trump Republicans, she’s endorsing Democrats. After […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by the Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Countries’ climate pledges rely on “unrealistic” and “extensive” amounts of land for carbon removal projects like tree planting schemes, a new report from the University of Melbourne said. A landmass larger than the entire United States, about […]
Mother JonesShoe company Nike has paused its relationship with NBA star Kyrie Irving after he promoted an anti-semitic film on Twitter—and then subsequently refused to apologize for it. Irving, who plays for the New Jersey Nets, was also suspended for at least five games. On Oct. 27, Irving tweeted a link to an Amazon listing for […]
Mother JonesIf there’s one thing Dr. Mehmet Oz wants you to believe, it’s that his opponent Lt. Gov. John Fetterman is soft on crime. Oz, a celebrity talk-show host turned Republican politician, has hit this point over and over again as he attempts to close the gap in an increasingly tight race in Pennsylvania that could determine […]
Mother JonesAfter a lengthy period of “will he or won’t he,” that’s gone on since last April, Elon Musk finally bought Twitter for the hilarious price of $54.20 per share—$44 billion total—a much higher price than what many analysts consider the company to be worth. Following the acquisition, Musk started telling people that he planned to […]
Mother JonesTom Barrack, a fund manager and adviser to former President Donald Trump, was acquitted Friday of charges that he acted as an unregistered agent of the United Arab Emirates. The verdict was the latest in a string of recent blows to the Justice Department’s efforts to crack down on foreign lobbying. After deliberating for two days, […]
Mother JonesIf Mark Finchem, the Republican candidate for secretary of state in Arizona and a QAnon-friendly election denialist who was recently accused of antisemitism and who days ago attended a conference with conspiracy theorist extremists, wins on Tuesday, he will soon oversee all the state’s elections, including the upcoming 2024 presidential contest. That possibility has long […]
Mother JonesA New York judge on Thursday evening ordered that an independent financial monitor be appointed to keep tabs on Donald Trump’s business empire while state Attorney General Letitia James pursues her $250 million civil fraud lawsuit against the former president. The judge ordered the unusual move after James’ office argued that the Trumps couldn’t be […]
Mother JonesSince the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, President Joe Biden has been telling voters the solution is the polls. “Vote, vote vote,” he implored them a week after the court decided there was no constitutional right to abortion, after all. “Vote, vote, vote,” he repeated in July, signing an executive order that took some […]
Mother JonesContent warning: This story contains descriptions of child sexual abuse. The two girls at the sleepover huddled together on the bed, passing the cell phone around. They took turns glancing at the screen, fascinated and unsettled by what they saw but unable to look away. Their other friend wanted no part of what was going […]
Mother JonesWhen a draft of the Supreme Court ruling that would strike down the federal right to abortion leaked earlier this year, Christine Marsh, a Democratic state senator who is running for re-election in one of Arizona’s most competitive districts, noticed a shift in the conversations she was having with voters. “It changed everything at the […]
Mother JonesOliver Wenditz, who goes by Ollie, catches me up on the goings-on at my old school in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Though we’re separated by close to 20 years, we adore the same art teacher, love printmaking, and do theater. But I had no hand-eye coordination, and Ollie, an eighth-grader, hopes to play basketball in the […]
Mother JonesDr. Mobeen Rathore has spent the better part of his career trying to protect the children in his practice from contracting deadly diseases like measles, whooping cough, and polio. As chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases and Immunology at the University of Florida’s College of Medicine, Rathore remembers a time—just a few decades […]