Mother Jones: Posts

Mother Jones

Sinema Faced an Uphill Battle. So She Decided to Skip It.

Kyrsten Sinema is back where she started. On Friday, the Arizona senator announced that she was leaving the Democratic Party, but would keep her committee appointments and not caucus with the Republicans. Twenty years after Sinema lost a race for state legislature as an independent, she is once again a party of one. On a […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Kyrsten Sinema Is Leaving the Democratic Party

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is leaving the Democratic Party and registering as an independent. Politico has the scoop, which you can decide is either unsurprising or something of a bombshell. The news comes shortly after two key moments for Democrats. This week, Sen. Raphael Warnock won re-election in Georgia, securing the party with a theoretically more […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

A Highly Lethal Avian Flu Strain Has Scientists Concerned

This story was originally published by Hakai Magazine and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Bernie sniffs the disembodied wing, picks it up in his jaws, and runs away. Four years after we adopted him, our dog’s recall is generally a point of pride. A sharp blast on a pea whistle helps when his mind […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

The Media Still Doesn’t Know How to Cover Trump’s Extremism

The day after Donald Trump, a former president and the leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, called for the “termination” of provisions of the US Constitution governing elections and essentially demanded that he be declared the “rightful winner” of the 2020 election, neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post ran […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

All School Kids Should Eat Lunch For Free

For the first two years of the pandemic, there was such a thing as a free lunch—for public school kids, at least. To blunt a spike in hunger caused by job losses and school closures, the federal government made school meals free, even available as “grab and go,” for virtually all children. But Republicans blocked […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

With NYT on Strike, Let’s Revisit “Not the New York Times”

More than 1,100 New York Times employees are striking for 24 hours after more than a year and a half of contract negotiations. But the Times website is still up and running, populated by prewrites, articles written by non-unionized staff, and a couple high-profile scabs. This reminded us of a relic of a famous newspaper strike: […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Mark Halperin Said He’s Like a Cancel Culture “Refugee.” Now He’s Making Bank at No Labels.

One of the last in-person events I had the fortune of attending before the pandemic was a “closed door” panel discussion on the excesses of cancel culture, orchestrated by a PR firm and featuring none other than Mark Halperin, a political pundit and Game Change coauthor who had lost his gig as an MSNBC senior political analyst […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Was the Anti-Abortion Influence Campaign an Open Secret at the Supreme Court?

On Thursday, Rev. Robert Schenck testified before Congress about the anti-abortion influence campaign he ran targeting the Supreme Court, recounting the bombshell revelations that have clouded the highest court in scandal first reported in November by the New York Times. While speaking to the lawmakers, Schenck shared a new detail: That at least one justice […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

The House Just Voted to Protect Gay Marriage

In a vote Thursday morning, the House passed a bill that would enshrine same-sex and interracial marriage in federal law. All Democrats voted for the bill, as did 39 Republicans. The bill already passed in the Senate, and it now heads to the desk of President Biden, who is expected to sign it into law. Biden […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Brittney Griner Released From Russian Penal Colony in Prisoner Swap

On Thursday, President Joe Biden announced that Brittney Griner is finally free. After 293 days in Russia detention and months of painstaking negotiations, the WNBA star—who had been sentenced to nearly a decade in a Russian penal colony—is safe and on a flight back home, according to the White House. Moments ago I spoke to […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

“An Abyss of Fear and Wild Lawlessness”

Signs of the Russian presence linger everywhere in the recently liberated southern Ukrainian city of Kherson. In shops, vendors still sell “Crimea” brand lemonade, made in Russia. Hanging from billboards are exhortations that “Russians and Ukrainians are one people”—old-fashioned propaganda that now seems like grim satire. A smiling grandmother on one billboard extolls Russian social […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

UN Environment Chief Warns of a Biodiversity Apocalypse

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The UN’s environment chief has warned that “we are at war with nature” and must “make peace,” as countries gather at Cop15 in Montreal to agree a deal to protect the planet’s biodiversity. “We’ve just welcomed the 8 billionth member of […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

An Old Ally of Marco Rubio Was Just Arrested on Charges of Lobbying for Venezuela

Once again, there are a series of tricky questions headed for Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) about his relationship with former Republican congressman David Rivera. On Monday, Rivera, a “longtime pal” of Rubio, was arrested on charges of illegally lobbying for Venezuela. Rivera faces eight federal charges that include conspiracy to commit money laundering, failure to […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

More Classified Documents Found in a Trump Storage Locker

Donald Trump is a sordid individual, a man whose free time spans a spectrum of low-brow to debased. So the mere thought of having to rummage through his personal items is downright disgusting to me. But that’s essentially what an outside team hired by Trump’s lawyers was tasked to do after a federal judge demanded that […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Republicans Want the Supreme Court to “Rewrite History” So They Can Hijack Elections

A lawyer for the GOP-controlled North Carolina legislature argued before the Supreme Court on Wednesday that state legislatures should be granted sweeping new powers to pass gerrymandered maps and restrictive voting laws and cannot be constrained by state courts or state constitutions when it comes to regulating federal elections. This “independent state legislature” theory had […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

No Cute Headlines or Manipulative BS

What is the best way to go about this? “This,” being raising the money it takes to keep Mother Jones going strong. That’s the million-dollar question right now. Or, actually, the $1.4 million question, because that’s how much we need to bring in from online readers by June 30, when our current budgeting cycle ends. […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Women at Federal “Rape Club” Prison Allege Abuse by Former Warden

At the federal courthouse in Oakland, California, last week, an incarcerated woman named Katrina sat in the witness stand, avoiding the gaze of her former warden. The prosecutor asked her to begin by describing the comments the warden, Ray Garcia, made about her breasts after they first met in 2020 on the walkway from her […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Raphael Warnock Beats Herschel Walker in Georgia Senate Runoff

Democrat Raphael Warnock—the incumbent junior Senator from Georgia, the son of a former sharecropper, and the senior pastor at the church where Martin Luther King Jr. used to preach—has won the runoff election against Republican challenger Herschel Walker, multiple media outlets projected late Tuesday night. Warnock bested Walker 49.4 percent to 48.5 in the Nov. […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

What Musk and Co. Want You To Forget About #TwitterFiles

Editor’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 a […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Trump Companies Convicted on All Nine Counts in Criminal Tax Fraud Trial

A New York City jury has convicted the Trump Organization on criminal tax fraud charges. While former President Donald Trump was not personally on trial, he owned and closely oversaw the two corporate entities at the heart of the case. The charges stemmed from a scheme to reduce the taxable income of top executives by […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Family of Fallen Jan. 6 Officer Snub McCarthy and McConnell at Gold Medal Ceremony

On Tuesday, at a ceremony to commemorate law enforcement officials who responded to the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol, several award recipients and their families snubbed the nation’s top Republicans, Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell. Among those who were seen declining to shake hands with both men were family members of Brian Sicknick, […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

From Wedding Websites to ‘Whites Only’: Will the Supreme Court OK Economic Discrimination?

On Monday, the Supreme Court heard 303 Creative v. Elenis, a case brought by a Colorado designer who only will create wedding websites for opposite-sex couples—not same-sex ones—and wants to advertise that fact, just like brick-and-mortar businesses once hung signs announcing whom they would refuse to serve. After arguments, it appeared clear that the 6-3 conservative […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Con Law: How a Fake Document Could Help the Supreme Court Diminish our Democracy

Three decades after the Constitution was drafted in Philadelphia, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams set about assembling the government’s official Journal of the Convention. Missing from the records was the proposal submitted by Charles Pinckney of South Carolina. So Adams wrote him to request a copy. Pinckney replied with an extraordinary document: a draft […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Scientists Say This New Wheat Can Withstand Extreme Heat and Drought

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. A new drought-tolerant variety of durum wheat has been created as part of an international breeding program to boost climate resilience in the food system by increasing crop diversity. Durum wheat is used to make pasta, pizza crusts, and flatbreads such […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Dem Dysfunction, Tabloid Hellscapes, Crime: How New York Almost Went Red

A month or so before the election, the New York Post’s sensationalism remained wide-ranging. The old saying “if it bleeds it ledes” was still true on many days. Headlines warned of the dystopian (“Blade Runner”) and the apocalyptic (“Holy Hell”), or presented the city as pitifully ignored (“Will No One Help Us?”). But not on every day. […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

How the Trucking Industry Became the Dystopian Frontier of Workplace Surveillance

The coronavirus pandemic has ushered in a new era of workplace surveillance that will extend well beyond our current crisis. Companies are increasingly monitoring employees who work from home, citing worries about security concerns or the need to boost employee productivity. In Amazon warehouses and UPS delivery trucks, surveillance technologies are being built into workplace […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

How the New York State Democratic Party Lost Its Grassroots—and Then the US House

It was two weeks before the New York statewide June primary, when Erica Vladimer realized a powerful member of her own party was working against her. Vladimer was campaigning to fill an open spot as a Democratic State Committee member in New York City’s 76th Assembly District, which represents the Upper East Side’s Yorkville and Roosevelt […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

DeSantis Officials Finally Tell Us What “Woke” Means

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, chief warrior in the crusade against “wokeness,” has hurled the word at so many targets as to render it meaningless. Fortunately, some members of DeSantis’ office have opened up about what they consider the definition of the word “woke” to be—and said a lot about their politics, while they were at […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

The House of Windsor Is in Shambles. Yay.

Once adored for their pristine blowouts and dutiful silence in our age of the Kardashians, Kate Middleton and her husband, William Arthur Philip Louis Mountbatten-Windsor, draw jeers these days. Loud, jumbotron-ed boos smack in the middle of their first stateside tour in nearly a decade, a three-day visit that barely registered with bored Americans. “Jesus, […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

How Right-Wing Groups Set the Stage for the Supreme Court to Rig Future Elections

On Wednesday the Supreme Court will hear a bombshell case, Moore v. Harper, that will have enormous ramifications for future elections. The outcome will determine whether state legislatures—many of which are heavily gerrymandered and disproportionately controlled by Republicans—will be granted near king-like status to draw new redistricting maps and pass restrictive voting laws with little […]

Continue Reading…