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Mother Jones

Trump Says the DOJ Is Politicized. If He Wins, It Will Be.

Donald Trump has been indicted three times in four months. He faces charges in New York, DC, and Florida, with Georgia expected to join the list soon. Those cases, in local and federal courts, include 76 separate counts for crimes he allegedly committed in 2016, 2020, 2021, and 2022. The most likely explanation for this […]

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Ron DeSantis Wants to “Start Slitting Throats on Day One”

During a barbecue campaign event on Sunday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told New Hampshire voters that if he makes it to the White House, he will be “slitting throats on day one” in order to root out the so-called “deep state” lurking in the federal government. “We’re going to have all of these deep state […]

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Mike Huckabee Is Now Peddling Climate Misinformation to Children

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Beverly Grimmett thought the kids magazines she saw stacked on a coworker’s desk this spring were perfectly innocent, until she picked one up. “My stomach turned,” Grimmett said. The guides were decorated in bright colors and cheerful cartoons, with titles […]

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Authors Like Me Are Fighting the Book-Ban Zealots. We Need Help.

Not long ago, I was one of 22 authors honored at a fundraising dinner for my local library. It was a swanky affair, with a multicourse meal, a pair of emcees, and a photographer to capture the rare sight of authors in cocktail attire rather than the sweatpants and baggy T-shirts we tend to favor. […]

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Somehow Being Named a Co-Conspirator in the Trump Indictment Was Not the Worst Part of Giuliani’s Week

For the third time this year, former President Trump has been indicted, this time on federal charges related to his attempts to subvert the 2020 presidential election. He faces three different conspiracy counts. And he didn’t act alone. Prosecutors say that Trump worked with at least six co-conspirators, five of whom are attorneys. My colleague […]

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The Lizzo Lawsuit Shows You Can’t Have Representation Without Labor Rights

On Tuesday, Lizzo was hit with a lawsuit from three of her former dancers, who allege that they faced a hostile work environment while employed by the singer. The suit, which also names Lizzo’s production company and her dance captain Shirlene Quigley, includes numerous complaints about sexual, racial, religious, and disability harassment, as well as […]

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The US’s Credit Rating Just Got Downgraded. You Can Thank Trump’s Coup Attempt.

On Tuesday, the credit agency Fitch Ratings downgraded its debt rating for the United States from the highest AAA rating to AA+. The demotion, as some economists including Paul Krugman have argued, is strange and ultimately a bit meaningless. But the apparent reasons behind the decision are worth reviewing. Here’s Richard Francis, Fitch’s senior director, […]

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This New Lawsuit Could Restore Democracy in Wisconsin

On Tuesday, at roughly the same time that Donald Trump was indicted for trying to overturn the 2020 election, liberal judge Janet Protasiewicz was sworn in as a new member of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, giving progressives their first majority on the court since 2008. The new composition of the court has major ramifications for […]

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DeSantis Criticized for Not Being Anti-Abortion Enough

In April, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a six-week abortion ban into law. Still, that is not enough to prove he’s truly committed to being an anti-abortion advocate. This week, in an interview with Megyn Kelly, DeSantis touted the Florida law as “the most significant pro-life protections that we’ve ever done,” and promised to “come down […]

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Atlanta Officials Push to Build Cop City Without a Public Vote

Last Thursday, a federal judge upheld the First Amendment rights of residents living outside of Atlanta to collect signatures to force a vote on whether or not to build an infamous training center that has become known as “Cop City.” Now, Atlanta is appealing the decision saying it rewrites “state statute and city ordinance.” The judge’s […]

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Mother Jones

Big Business Is Fighting Efforts to Protect Workers From Heat

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Big-business lobbyists, including big agricultural and construction groups, are pushing to water down or stymie efforts at the federal and state levels to implement workplace heat protection standards. This summer, millions in the United States have been exposed to some of […]

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Who Are Trump’s Alleged Co-Conspirators?

One of the defenses Donald Trump preemptively offered ahead of his indictment Tuesday was that he was “advised by many lawyers” as he attempted to overturn the 2020 election. It turns out there’s a big problem with that argument: The Justice Department alleges that several of those lawyers are criminals, too. The charging document says that […]

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Mother Jones

The New Trump Indictment Will Supercharge His War on American Democracy

Even after all these years of Donald Trump’s extremist attacks on American democracy and decency itself, the four-count criminal indictment handed down by a federal grand jury on Tuesday that accused the former president of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results still is a shocking development. It would be quite the capstone to the […]

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Read the Trump Jan. 6 Indictment

For the third time this year, former President Trump has been indicted. Potentially the most serious case, this federal indictment deals with Trump’s alleged role in the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Read the charges here: This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

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Mother Jones

Read the Trump Jan. 6 Indictment

For the third time this year, former President Trump has been indicted. Potentially the most serious case, this federal indictment deals with Trump’s alleged role in the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The four new charges include conspiracy to defraud the United States, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison […]

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Trump Indicted for Subverting American Democracy

The Justice Department has so far charged more than 1,000 people with crimes related to the January 6 attack on Congress. Now Donald Trump is one of them. On Tuesday evening, a grand jury in Washington brought felony charges against the former president in relation to his effort to subvert the 2020 election. Four charges resulted […]

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Of Course Republicans Still Want Trump After All These Indictments

The New York Times and Siena College are out with the latest 2024 polls, and the outlook is as expected. Former president Donald Trump, despite facing mounting criminal charges, is crushing his rivals. He’s in a dead heat against Joe Biden, with 43 percent of registered voters backing each candidate in an increasingly likely rematch. It’s not hard […]

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Trump Loyalists Lay Out Plan for Second Term: Gut Worker Protections

If Donald Trump wins the White House in 2024, loyalists have written a battle plan for how to change labor laws and regulations: make it harder for workers to form unions, make it easier for companies to classify employees as independent contractors, and ban the government from collecting race-based employment data in the name of stopping […]

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Henrietta Lacks’ Family Reaches Settlement With Company Profiting Off Her Stolen Cells

The HPV vaccine. Genetic mapping. The polio vaccine. All of these medical miracles were made possible by Henrietta Lacks, a Virginia woman whose cells were taken without her permission in the early 1950s and used for an enormous range of medical research over the decades that followed. Now more than 70 years later, her family is finally […]

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Mother Jones

When White People Became “White People”

How exactly did white people become “white” people? It seems like most white people have no idea about how they came to identify as “white”. That’s a problem. Overlooking this part of our history, I think, means white people can misunderstand ongoing critiques of white identity politics in today’s culture wars. So, I’ve broken it […]

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Mother Jones

When White People Became “White People”

How exactly did white people become “white” people? It seems like most white people have no idea about how they came to identify as “white”. That’s a problem. Overlooking this part of our history, I think, means white people can misunderstand ongoing critiques of white identity politics in today’s culture wars. So, I’ve broken it […]

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Mother Jones

Phoenix Just Had Its Hottest July Ever. So What Now?

This story was originally published by the Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. That Phoenix is hot should come as no surprise. The heat is often the first thing that comes up when someone from out of state asks locals about living in the Valley of the Sun. “How can […]

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Mother Jones

Barbie 2 Should Be About the Gender Binary. It Practically Writes Itself.

As a trans guy I feel an affinity to Ken. No body hair? No male genitalia? Parted hair? Fashionable outfits? And the undying belief that women are wonderful? Sign me up! So, I donned my best Beach look (this wasn’t hard: I already own a matching, patterned swim-trunk, button down combo) and showed up ready […]

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White Nationalists Are Big Fans of Elon’s “White Genocide” Tweets

Elon Musk made his most brazen overture to white nationalists yet on Monday, tweeting about the “white genocide” conspiracy theory in South Africa. In response to a video of South Africa’s ​​Economic Freedom Fighters party posted by right-wing influencer and serial plagiarist Benny Johnson, Musk tweeted, “They are openly pushing for genocide of white people […]

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The TikTok Account You Should Be Following is Probably a Library

Let’s face it. It’s bleak out there. Book banning is a whole political stance. It’s scorching hot just about everywhere. And Donald Trump is vowing to run for president—from prison. But one wholesome TikTok trend is reminding me of the light. Against one of the most contentious times for public libraries in recent memory, supporters […]

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Mother Jones

Very Annoyed Judge Rejects Trump’s Latest Scheme to Avoid Criminal Charges

A state judge in Georgia has rejected Donald Trump’s bid to throw out a grand jury report and disqualify the Fulton County district attorney from investigating the former president’s efforts to overturn that state’s 2020 election results. The ruling could potentially clear the way for criminal charges in the case. The nine-page order comes from a man […]

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Mother Jones

Inside the Republican Plot to Dismantle US Environmental Policy

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. An alliance of rightwing groups has crafted an extensive presidential proposal to bolster the planet-heating oil and gas industry and hamstring the energy transition, it has emerged. Against a backdrop of record-breaking heat and floods this year, the $22 million […]

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Mother Jones

“The Era of Global Boiling Has Arrived”: July on Track To Be Earth’s Hottest Month Ever

Wildfires raged in Canada and in 10 countries around the Mediterranean. Heat waves blanketed much of North America, Europe, and Asia. Each day from July 3 to July 6 set records for Earth’s hottest day ever. Now, the World Meteorological Organization and Copernicus, a European Union climate observation agency, have announced that July is “extremely […]

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Trump’s PAC Has Spent $40 Million on Legal Bills This Year

After former president Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, he raised more than $250 million in donations by pushing the “Big Lie”—claiming that he had actually won and needed the money to contest the results. Some of the money that came pouring in went to pay down his campaign’s debts, or into the bank accounts of […]

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Mother Jones

Federal Judge Blocks Arkansas Law to Criminalize Librarians for Providing “Harmful” Books to Minors

On Saturday, a federal judge in Arkansas temporarily blocked a new law that would have allowed local prosecutors to file felony charges against school and public librarians who loaned out material considered considered “harmful to minors.” The law—which also created a new process to challenge the “appropriateness” of books and force them to be moved […]

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