Mother Jones: Posts

Mother Jones

The Conservative Freakout Over Barbie Arrives in Brazil

Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling has been smashing box-office records left and right. It brought in $162 million during its opening weekend—the biggest debut of the year—and became the best-selling Monday ever for Warner Bros. I just watched the film described in the Atlantic as “a charming blockbuster adventure about the tribulations […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Lawmakers Spoke Up For an Indicted Chinese Mogul. Campaign Cash Followed.

The New Federal State of China, a conspiracy theory-promoting group launched in 2020 by Steve Bannon and exiled Chinese mogul Guo Wengui, who the Justice Department has indicted for running a massive fraud scheme, held its gala third-anniversary event in June. Among the mostly Chinese emigres at the event were some notable House Republicans. Fabulist and […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

The Clean Energy Transition Is “Vulnerable to Abuse by Malicious Actors”

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Across the United States, more and more companies are pledging to zero out their greenhouse gas emissions using “voluntary carbon offsets”—credits that represent some amount of climate pollution that’s either prevented or removed from the atmosphere. These credits, bought and sold on […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

The Colorado Provides Drinking Water to 40 Million People. Do They Know What Utah Does To It Upstream?

From the water, the White River canyon was a scene worthy of Ansel Adams. Swallows darted in and out of mud houses packed on the underside of the soaring sandstone cliffs. A lone elk wandered the hillside, while sheep noshed along the water, tended by a man on a horse striking an iconic Western pose […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Voting Rights Are Still Under Assault. Sen. Raphael Warnock Has a New Plan to Protect Them.

Since the 2020 election, GOP-controlled state legislatures have enshrined Donald Trump’s Big Lie by giving partisan actors unprecedented control over how elections are run and how votes are counted. According to the Voting Rights Lab, 29 states have passed 73 new laws impeding the administration of fair elections with efforts that include state legislatures seizing […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Another Indictment! Trump Told Aides to Delete Security Footage in Coverup Attempt

Former President Donald Trump told a maintenance worker at his Mar-a-Lago club to “delete security camera footage at the Mar-a-Lago Club to prevent the footage from being provided to a federal grand jury,” a new indictment charges. The new superseding indictment filed Thursday by special counsel Jack Smith in Florida says that on June 27, […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Ivermectin May Be Good for Humans After All—Indirectly

This story was originally published by Wired and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. It turns out that eating ivermectin is good for something after all. If you’re a deer, that is. And if the goal is to kill the ticks that are biting you—ticks that carry diseases that threaten humans. The antiparasitic drug, which […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

How Florida Undermined the “Benefits” of Newly Free Black People

Upon learning that Florida’s new K-12 curriculum standards require teaching middle-schoolers that enslaved people “developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit,” I tweeted, facetiously, “Hey, this slavery thing sounds swell! A great learning experience—with free room and board.” The “personal benefit” provision was one of two stunningly tone-deaf requirements related […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

The Latest Congressional Hearing on UFOs Was Full of Wild Claims

On Wednesday, a House Oversight subcommittee held a highly anticipated hearing on “unidentified aerial phenomena” (UAP)—more commonly known to the public as UFOs. Though Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) explained in his opening remarks that “we’re not bringing little green men or flying saucers into the hearing,” the hearing still got pretty…far out. The subcommittee heard […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

The Hunter Biden Plea Deal That Republicans Hate Hit a Hurdle

A plea deal between President Joe Biden’s son Hunter and the Justice Department after a years-long investigation—and that Republicans have attacked as too lenient—hit an unexpected bump on Wednesday when the federal judge overseeing the case questioned the agreement. Hunter Biden last month agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax crimes of failing to […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Ron DeSantis Hired a Rising Right-Wing Intellectual. The Campaign Just Fired Him After a Nazi-Meme Video.

It happened again. A high-profile right-wing figure had to fire a staffer for connections with Nazi stuff. On Tuesday, according to Axios, the DeSantis campaign communications staffer Nate Hochman, somewhat famous as a rising intellectual on the right, was fired for creating a video with the Black Sun (also known as the Sonnenrand), a popular neo-Nazi symbol. […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

The Rich History and Underestimated Political Clout of the Black Working Class

The 2024 presidential election cycle has begun, and the white working class once more has commanded the spotlight. Pollsters obsess over how their economic struggles and resentments influence their political choices. Democrats and Republicans jockey to win their favor, each promising— through different cultural and political appeals—to address their individual and collective needs while igniting a new […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

The Rich History and Underestimated Political Clout of the Black Working Class

The 2024 presidential election cycle has begun, and the white working class once more has commanded the spotlight. Pollsters obsess over how their economic struggles and resentments influence their political choices. Democrats and Republicans jockey to win their favor, each promising— through different cultural and political appeals—to address their individual and collective needs while igniting a new […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

The New Tucker Is Just Like the Old Tucker: a Climate Denialist

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Tucker Carlson may be gone from Fox News, but his spirit of climate denialism lives on in his replacement, Jesse Watters. On Monday, Fox debuted Watters’ show—Jesse Watters Primetime—at 8 p.m. That’s the old timeslot of Carlson, whom Fox […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Disability “Testers” Keep Businesses Accessible. Will SCOTUS Ban Them?

In October, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on a core recourse for protecting disabled people’s civil rights: The ability to sue private businesses for inaccessibility under the Americans With Disabilities Act. Inaccessibility isn’t just discriminatory—it can also impact disabled people’s quality of life. If an online portal for a private hospital doesn’t work with screen readers, […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Disability “Testers” Keep Businesses Accessible. Will SCOTUS Ban Them?

In October, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on a core recourse for protecting disabled people’s civil rights: The ability to sue private businesses for inaccessibility under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Inaccessibility isn’t just discriminatory—it can also impact disabled people’s quality of life. If an online portal for a private hospital doesn’t work with screen readers, […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Birthright Citizenship Is Fundamental to “Who We Are as a Nation.” So Why Do Republicans Attack It?

In early July, CNN’s Abby Phillip confronted Republican presidential candidate and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy about his position on birthright citizenship, the constitutional principle derived from the 14th Amendment that makes it possible for children born in the United States to automatically become citizens. When asked if he would end that long-standing tradition, Ramaswamy said […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

“Oppenheimer”: A Masterpiece Missing a Piece

Editor’s note: The below article first appeared in David Corn’s newsletter, Our Land. The newsletter comes out twice a week (most of the time) and provides behind-the-scenes stories and articles about politics, media, and culture. Subscribing costs just $5 a month—but you can sign up for a free 30-day trial of Our Land here. Please check it out. With Oppenheimer, director Christopher Nolan […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Federal Judge Blocks Biden Administration’s Rule Restricting Asylum

On Tuesday, a federal judge in California delivered a blow to the Biden administration’s efforts to manage migrant arrivals at the US-Mexico border. Judge Jon S. Tigar of the District Court for the Northern District of California blocked a controversial rule that severely restricts asylum for most migrants, requiring that they seek protection in third […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Not Everyone Is Happy About E-Bikes in National Parks

Touring Yellowstone on an e-bike seems preferable to using a car. But can e-bikes actually hurt the environments they allow us to explore? In 2019, near the end of the Trump administration, then–Interior Secretary David Bernhardt instructed national parks to allow e-bikes wherever traditional bikes were allowed. The nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Biden Designates National Monuments Honoring Emmett Till

President Biden on Tuesday officially designated national monuments to honor Emmett Till, who was killed at the hands of white supremacists and galvanized the civil rights movement, and his mother Mamie Till-Mobley. The move comes as conservatives around the country work to control, sanitize, and erase critical moments in Black history from public schools. “At a time when […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

UPS and Teamsters Reach Deal to Avert Strike

After weeks of intense negotiations and practice picket lines, the Teamsters union has reached a preliminary five-year contract agreement with UPS, averting a potentially economically devastating work stoppage at the world’s largest package courier company. The tentative contract includes wage increases, the end of mandatory overtime on drivers’ days off, and the elimination of a […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Climate Crisis Is Making the California Dream Even Less Affordable

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Minerva Contreras can’t keep up with the bills. Recently, after a series of extreme heatwaves in California forced her family to run the AC, her monthly electricity costs rose to about $500. Her water bill averages around $100, but because the water is […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

New Twitter Logo Probably Not Stolen Just Bad

Today, Twitter launched its logo rebrand, turning its famous bird logo into an “X.” Since 2022, Elon Musk has said he hopes to make Twitter into a “super app” called X. In theory, this would mean the social network would become a catch-all for connecting us in a state of “unlimited interactivity—centered in audio, video, […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Let’s Hear it for the Record-Smashing, Greta Gerwig

Greta Gerwig has made history. Barbie raked in a staggering $162 million domestically on its opening weekend, making it the biggest opening of the year and the highest-grossing opening weekend for a movie directed by a woman—ever. Oh, and it beat out Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, which took in $80.5 million. Another big winner? Movie theaters, […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

The Government Is Basically Burning Trash to Pad Its Climate Stats

This article is a collaboration between Mother Jones and Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit investigative newsroom. Also listen to Reveal‘s accompanying podcast, “It’s Not Easy Going Green.” Every day, thousands of tons of trash—rotten food, takeout containers, diapers, old shoes, construction debris, tires, plastic bags, soiled carpet, and lawn clippings—burst into flame and turn to […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

I Can’t Stop Laughing at Guys Mad Because the Barbie Movie Is Too “Woke”

This weekend, I was among the masses flocking to see Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, adding my 20 bucks to the film’s history-making $155 million opening weekend. Starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling as “stereotypical” Barbie and Ken, Gerwig’s film is as much of a celebration of pink as it is a call to smash the patriarchy. […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Mike Pence Fled for His Life on January 6. He Still Won’t Call Trump’s Actions Criminal.

On CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday, former Vice President and Republican presidential candidate Mike Pence said he’s not sure Donald Trump’s actions on January 6 were criminal. “While his words were reckless,” Pence said of his former boss’ actions before and during the pro-Trump mob’s ransacking of the Capitol, “based on what I know, […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

The Creators of Florida’s Black History Standards Get an F on Their Homework

Florida education officials and the state’s governor, Ron DeSantis, are facing a wave of criticism this week after the Florida Board of Education approved a new set of guidelines for teaching public school students about slavery in America. Among the guidelines is a provision implying that slavery benefitted some Black people because they learned skills […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

“The Last of Us” Is Fictional, but Scary Fungi Are Real

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. A young girl, home alone, wakes up in the middle of the night and walks over to her neighbor’s house. She opens the front door and encounters a horrific scene: a zombified grandma committing an act of cannibalism. Instead of teeth in […]

Continue Reading…