Mother Jones
In recent months, Ron DeSantis has received a load of bad press focused on his slippage in the 2024 polls, shake-ups within his organization, and less-than-stellar campaign finances. Yet the Florida governor is one of the most prodigious political cash-chasers in recent US history. When he successfully ran for reelection in Florida in 2022, DeSantis, […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. On a 20-acre parcel outside the tiny Southern California town of New Cuyama, a 1.5-megawatt solar farm uses the sun’s rays to slowly charge nearly 600 batteries in nearby cabinets. At night, when energy demand rises, that electricity is sent to the […]
Mother JonesOpen one social media platform and you’re hit with a fake video; open another and you’re hit with bigotry. Open a news article, and you’ll find some victims “killed” but others “dying.” Each account of events in Israel and Palestine seems to rely on different facts. What’s clear is that misinformation, hate speech, and factual […]
Mother JonesIn the days after the Capitol attack on January 6, 2021, some legal experts began to speculate that a little-known constitutional provision might be used to block President Donald Trump from ever serving a second term. The 14th Amendment, passed after the Civil War, included a portion, called Section 3, that was designed to keep […]
Mother Jones‘Tis the season for politicians to spend an hour in front of cameras with turkeys. Two turkeys from a Hormel subsidiary in Minnesota were apparently shipped to Washington D.C. in a stretch black Cadillac Escalade for their White House pardoning ceremony. At a library in the tiny Texas city of Van, the mayor appointed a […]
Mother JonesIn the spring of 1966, as college students protesting the Vietnam War organized teach-ins to educate their peers on the war, the poet Robert Bly knew they needed backup. “If you went to an audience [at that time],” he told an interviewer in 1970, “I’d say 90 percent would be in favor of the war and […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Forest conservation and restoration could make a major contribution to tackling the climate crisis as long as greenhouse gas emissions are slashed, according to a study. By allowing existing trees to grow old in healthy ecosystems and restoring degraded […]
Mother JonesAt a summit in Bahrain on Saturday, a US official stated that far more humanitarian aid would be allowed into Gaza if Hamas released the hostages it is holding. In doing so, Brett McGurk, the White House Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, effectively conceded that Israel is subjecting the people of Gaza […]
Mother JonesOn Wednesday, Elon Musk endorsed a post on his social media platform that accused Jews of pushing “dialectical hatred against whites” and failing to realize that the “hordes of minorities” who were “flooding their country” didn’t actually like them. “You have said the actual truth,” Musk wrote, replying to the post. Nearly two hours later, […]
Mother JonesPhilippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), said on Saturday that Israel is only allowing “half of the daily minimum” amount of fuel needed for humanitarian operations in Gaza. Israel’s decision to allow in any fuel followed weeks of delay and pressure […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Atlas Obscura and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. On a hillside in Utah’s Fishlake National Forest is a tree, and if you listen very carefully, this aspen is talking to us. This one plant actually looks like a forest of 47,000 genetically identical trees, which are effectively branches […]
Mother JonesThe Center for American Progress has now said the word that the Biden administration and most Democrats in Congress have been most unwilling to utter since Israel began to bomb Gaza: ceasefire. In a significant development, CAP—perhaps the most influential think tank within the Democratic establishment—published an article on Friday asking the Biden administration and Congress to “urge an […]
Mother JonesIn the fables of environmentalism, lawyers are heroes. They invented the legal theories and mustered the facts to stop countless dams, mines, timber sales, and other harmful projects. But somewhere along the line, environmentalists stopped treating litigation as a tool and started behaving as if it’s an end in itself—an end to be preserved even […]
Mother JonesIn 2019, when Tracy Droz Tragos started filming Plan C, her new documentary about a network of activists and medical providers helping Americans access abortion pills—which are approved by the FDA but restricted in some states—she knew some people might see it as a touchy subject. But she didn’t expect she’d have to fight to […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. When data scientist Xaio Wu arrived at Stanford University for his postdoctoral fellowship, California was coming off a record-breaking wildfire season. In 2020, nearly 9,900 fires had burned more than 4.3 million acres of land in the state, killing dozens of people […]
Mother JonesThe tweet that got Michael Eisen fired as editor-in-chief of a prestigious science journal seems less provocative with each passing day. On October 13, less than a week after Hamas’ cold-blooded rampage near the Gaza-Israel border, satirical news outlet the Onion posted a brief article on X, headlined, “Dying Gazans Criticized For Not Using Last Words to Condemn […]
Mother JonesThe United Auto Workers union, in a closely watched vote, has officially ratified its deal with General Motors, bringing the months-long saga of history-making strikes to a close. On Thursday, the union posted the final results, showing that approximately 55 percent of the 36,000 GM union members voted in favor of the deal, according to Forbes. […]
Mother JonesOn Thursday, Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT) became the first Jewish congressperson to join the congressional call for a ceasefire in the war in Gaza. A first-term representative, Balint made history last year as the first woman and LGBTQ person to represent Vermont in Congress. Her call for a ceasefire comes one week after activists from […]
Mother JonesI watch the news for a living and come across moments of political dysfunction at a regular clip. So, I was not shocked to learn that Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who until last month was second in the presidential line of succession, shoved a congressman in a “clean shot to the kidneys.” Nor was I […]
Mother JonesThe bizarre saga of George Santos as a member of the US House of Representatives is heading toward its finale. One way or another. On Thursday morning, the New York Republican and champion liar announced that he will not seek reelection. This came after the release of a humiliating House Ethics Committee report—which itself might […]
Mother JonesFive years ago, Mother Jones broke a wild story: A mysterious Scotland-based shell company had paid a GOP-linked American lobbyist to help a presidential candidate in Albania court support from the Trump administration—and the money was apparently tied to Russia. Now a new piece of the puzzle has materialized. In 2017, Nick Muzin—a former aide […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The state oil company of the United Arab Emirates, whose CEO will preside over imminent UN climate negotiations, has the largest net-zero-busting expansion plans of any company in the world, according to new data. Sultan Al Jaber is the chief executive […]
Mother JonesAllie Phillips, a 28-year-old running as a Democrat for the Tennessee House of Representatives in District 75, has told her abortion story countless times. She has explained it to her followers on TikTok, to the lawyers helping her sue her state over restrictions to reproductive care, and to the lawmakers who failed her. In November 2022, Phillips […]
Mother JonesAllie Phillips, a 28-year-old running as a Democrat for the Tennessee House of Representatives in District 75, has told her abortion story countless times. She has explained it to her followers on TikTok, to the lawyers helping her sue her state over restrictions to reproductive care, and to the lawmakers who failed her. In November 2022, Phillips […]
Mother JonesMore than 130 former Obama campaign staffers have sent the ex-president a letter demanding he “leverage” his influence with President Joe Biden and other elected officials to call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war and broker the return of hostages, the Intercept reported Tuesday. “You always called on us to be courageous in reaching our […]
Mother JonesRep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) became Speaker of the House less than a month ago. Since then, a national audience has become aware of a slew of questionable remarks, associations, and policy positions: The congressman has been criticized for blaming school shootings on no-fault divorces; he has been critiqued for working hand-in-hand with legislators like Rep. Marjorie […]
Mother JonesFacebook, under the premise of so-called free speech, has long allowed politicians to lie on its platforms. But after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, the company appeared to issue somewhat of a mea culpa. Perhaps, as my colleague Pema Levy wrote at the time, Meta executives were finally willing to recognize that […]
Mother JonesBack in mid-2021, when it was clear that conservatives were mobilizing against the Covid vaccines, I remember asking a prominent doctors’ group if they were worried that their attacks on the new shots would undermine confidence in routine childhood vaccinations—the kind that prevents potentially deadly, contagious childhood diseases like measles, polio, and whooping cough. They […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. China and the US have pledged to work together more closely to fight global heating, declaring the climate crisis “one of the greatest challenges of our time,” hours before a key meeting in San Francisco between Joe Biden and […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. For the last 20 years, Walter Ritte has been working to restore a massive, human-made lagoon along the south shore of the island of Molokai. Before Hawaiʻi become a state, before the United States overthrew the Hawaiian Kingdom, this 55-acre pond was […]