Mother Jones
At the New Hampshire GOP leadership summit in October, former presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy made a bold promise. If elected, he would pardon participants in the January 6 riot at the US Capitol who he claimed were “targets of politicized federal prosecutions.” The pledge came in response to a question from an audience member with some […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Imagine if you could walk from your house to anywhere you needed to go in less than 15 minutes: the pharmacy, the bakery, the gym, and then back to the bakery. In a certain, conspiracy-addled corner of the internet, this urban planning […]
Mother JonesOn Tuesday morning, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said that she’d no longer attend Republican primary debates unless Donald Trump participates—a move that many warned could end the party’s 2024 debates. Less than eight hours later, those chickens have come home to roost: ABC has officially canceled the GOP debate scheduled for Thursday in […]
Mother JonesThree migrants drowned in the Rio Grande near the Texas border on Friday night—a tragedy that federal officials say may have been prevented were it not for the state’s attempt to seize control of patrolling the border in pursuit of its anti-immigration goals. CNN reported that Mexico’s National Institute of Migration on Monday identified the […]
Mother JonesYou probably didn’t watch the GOP debates, and now you may not have to read headlines about them either. On Tuesday, fresh off a disappointing third place in the Iowa caucuses, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley put her foot down: The former South Carolina governor said she will no longer be on the debate stage […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Wired and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. In a roundabout way, coal is solar-powered. Millions of years ago, swamp plants soaked up the sun’s energy, eating carbon dioxide in the process. They died, accumulated, and transformed over geologic time into energy-dense rock. This solar-powered fuel, of course, is […]
Mother JonesDonald Trump just accomplished something he wasn’t able to do in 2016—he won the Iowa caucuses. Not long after precinct sites opened Monday night, the networks called the first-in-the-nation GOP race for the former president, who appeared to be cruising to a dominant victory over rivals Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley. Trump—who in 2020 tried […]
Mother JonesAs a teenager, Rachel Gilmer, a Black and Jewish activist, was recruited to join Young Judaea, a Zionist nonprofit for Jewish youth. “They were offering scholarships to go to summer camp and I’m one of six siblings, so my mom was like, ‘Great, let’s get the kids out of the house.’” When she reached high […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. With Earth’s average annual temperature speeding toward 1.5 degrees Celsius faster than expected and global climate policy on a treadmill, an increasing number of researchers say it’s time to consider a “restorative pathway” to avoid the worst ecological and social outcomes of global […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Canada’s National Observer and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The battle between a Canadian mining company and Panama over one of the richest copper-gold mines in the Americas is headed to international arbitration—exposing Canada’s double standard when it comes to promoting free trade in the Global South. Late […]
Mother JonesIn Iowa this weekend, subzero temperatures and blizzard conditions are wreaking havoc on the caucuses, forcing candidates to cancel events and threatening to keep voters home. Uncomfortable and inconvenient conditions are not especially unusual for January in Iowa—but that fact isn’t stopping far-right activist and Trump supporter Laura Loomer from insisting that they are actually […]
Mother JonesA federal judge appointed by Donald Trump on Friday declined to block the state’s system for runoff elections, which was originally designed to dilute Black voting power in the early 1960s and revamped by Republicans in 2021 to dramatically curb ballot access after Democrats won two US Senate elections. As part of a sweeping package […]
Mother JonesIn August 2022, Kansans decisively voted to protect reproductive rights, rejecting a proposed constitutional amendment from pro-life groups that said there was no right to abortion in the state. Fifty-nine percent of Kansans voted to safeguard access to abortion, providing an early sign of the unpopularity of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The planet-warming emissions generated during the first two months of the war in Gaza were greater than the annual carbon footprint of more than 20 of the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations, new research reveals. The vast majority (over 99 percent) of the […]
Mother JonesTexas Gov. Greg Abbott has told a right-wing radio host that there’s only one tool the state isn’t using to stop migrants from crossing the border into Texas: gun violence, because it would prompt a response from the pesky federal government. “The only thing that we are not doing is we’re not shooting people who […]
Mother JonesOver the past few years, the far-right has made strides across the world. In Europe alone, Italy has elected a member of the country’s neo-fascist party as head of state, far-right parties have had impressive showings in Finnish and Swedish elections, French President Emmanuel Macron has only won office after tight races with far-right candidates, and […]
Mother JonesAt 4:17 p.m. on January 6, 2021, while rioters battled police inside the Capitol, Kimberly Guilfoyle emailed her banker. Guilfoyle—who was a top official on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign—wanted to know if a $60,000 payment for short speeches that she and Donald Trump Jr., her fiance, gave at the rally preceding the attack had hit […]
Mother JonesSet along the Cedar River a two hour drive north of Des Moines lies the small city of Waterloo—Iowa’s Blackest town. The river sharply divides its East and West sides, with a quaint city center astride its banks. For several decades, the headliners at the city’s downtown performing arts center’s open-air amphitheater, its high school […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The American oil lobby launched an eight-figure media campaign this week promoting the idea that fossil fuels are “vital” to global energy security, alarming climate experts. “US natural gas and oil play a key role in supplying the world with cleaner, more reliable […]
Mother JonesFormer President Trump ended his $370 million civil fraud trial in a New York City courtroom today the same way he participated in much of it: by lashing out at the judge and violating court orders. “This is a fraud on me,” Trump said of the case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, […]
Mother JonesLawyers representing South Africa on Thursday said that Israeli soldiers interpreted a biblical reference made by Benjamin Netanyahu during a November speech to troops as a justification to kill Palestinians. The claim, which specifically called out Netanyahu’s invocation of Amalek as well as footage showing IDF soldiers chanting “wipe off the seed of Amalek,” was […]
Mother JonesAnother judge overseeing a trial involving Donald Trump was the target of a swatting call Thursday morning, according to police and a court spokesperson. The timing of the incident came shortly after the ex-president disparaged Judge Arthur Engoron on social media and just hours before Trump is due to appear before Engoron for closing arguments […]
Mother JonesHow bad could it be? In recent weeks, I’ve had several people tell me they are not overly worried about Donald Trump possibly returning to power, noting the republic survived his four years in the White House. These are folks who do not want to vote to reelect President Joe Biden because of his support […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. At this point, it’s common knowledge that bottled water contains microplastics—fragments of the insidious material that can be as small as a bacterial cell. But the problem is much worse than previously known: It turns out that bottled water harbors hundreds of […]
Mother JonesFor the past two weeks, Israeli officials have been embroiled in an appalling debate. A group of far-right extremists within Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition have been calling on the government to encourage the “voluntary migration” of large numbers of Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip. These thinly veiled calls for ethnic cleansing have […]
Mother JonesAs Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis squared off in Wednesday’s Republican presidential debate, one name loomed large—and it wasn’t the man all but certain to defeat them for the nomination. Instead, it was “DeSantis Lies Dot Com.” The website was mentioned relentlessly as Haley attempted to portray her opponent as—you guessed it—a liar. At first […]
Mother JonesAfter a high-profile incident in which a Black teen was punished over the length of his hair, Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) is pushing for federal protections against hair-based discrimination. In a tweet on Friday, Bush called on Congress to pass the CROWN Act, a bill designed to protect marginalized communities from hair-based discrimination in school and […]
Mother JonesOn Wednesday, House Republicans renewed their plan to impeach Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. It is part of a long attempt to pin the failures—both real and imagined—of the immigration system in the United States on supposed Democratic incompetence by warring against Mayorkas. And it would be an extraordinary step. No cabinet secretary has […]
Mother JonesIn March 1911, the segregated Crownsville asylum opened outside Baltimore, Maryland, admitting only Black patients. It was the first to house Black people in the state, but when they arrived, their main role wasn’t to get support—it was to build the asylum. The combination of ableism and sanism—harmful beliefs about the nature and treatment of […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Two thousand twenty-three “smashed” the record for the hottest year by a huge margin, providing “dramatic testimony” of how much warmer and more dangerous today’s climate is from the cooler one in which human civilization developed. The planet was 1.48 degrees […]