Mother Jones
While Gov. Ron DeSantis traveled the country promoting his state’s effort to ban everything from books to student pronouns in what turned out to be a failed presidential campaign, Black community educators felt swamped by an energized public ready to learn the history their state is intent on denying them. “It has been overwhelming,” says […]
Mother JonesTania Culver Humphrey has spent most of her life grappling with her father’s secrets. In public, her father, Ellsworth Culver, cultivated a reputation as a globetrotting Christian do-gooder. He taught schoolchildren in Cuba, ran missionary programs in the Philippines, and, in the early 1980s, co-founded the humanitarian nonprofit Mercy Corps with friends from the international […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. In the early 2000s, as climate denialism was infecting political institutions around the world like a malevolent plague, an Australian epidemiologist named Anthony McMichael took on a peculiar and morbid scientific question: How many people were being killed by climate change? McMichael’s […]
Mother JonesOn Tuesday, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed legislation broadening the state’s definition of rape, eliminating the penile penetration requirement. The bill, “Rape Is Rape,” expands the law to include nonconsensual anal, oral, and vaginal sexual contact. Starting in September, New York will be like many other states: The penal code will not limit rape to only forced vaginal […]
Mother JonesOn Tuesday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed legislation broadening the state’s definition of rape, eliminating the penile penetration requirement. The bill, “Rape Is Rape,” expands the law to include nonconsensual anal, oral, and vaginal sexual contact. Starting in September, New York will be like many other states: The penal code will not limit rape to only forced […]
Mother JonesYou probably have noticed all the recent hubbub about Taylor Swift, because we all notice all the hubbub about Taylor Swift. But this spate of hate, though ludicrous, casts a light on an essential feature of right-wing America: It is deeply tied to the world of conspiracy theory. Let’s start with the word on Swift. […]
Mother JonesHouse Republicans have taken another step towards their unprecedented efforts to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who they blame for a migrant crisis at the US-Mexico border. On Tuesday, the Homeland Security Committee held a hearing to consider two articles of impeachment accusing Mayorkas, the first Latino and immigrant to ever lead DHS, of “willful and […]
Mother JonesThe farm bill is one of the most important but least understood pieces of US legislation, and it’s overdue for renewal. The 2023 omnibus law, which costs upwards of $100 billion a year, and which governs food stamps and most aspects of the US agricultural system, was supposed to be in place by October 1. […]
Mother JonesThe farm bill is one of the most important but least understood pieces of US legislation, and it’s overdue for renewal. The 2023 omnibus law, which costs upwards of $100 billion a year, and which governs food stamps and most aspects of the US agricultural system, was supposed to be in place by October 1. […]
Mother JonesThe farm bill is one of the most important but least understood pieces of US legislation, and it’s overdue for renewal. But Congress couldn’t pass a new version in the fall, reflecting partisan dysfunction and also a contentious debate about what the bill ought to be—a debate that has become ensnared in the nation’s culture […]
Mother JonesThe farm bill is one of the most important but least understood pieces of US legislation, and it’s overdue for renewal. But Congress couldn’t pass a new version in the fall, reflecting partisan dysfunction and also a contentious debate about what the bill ought to be—a debate that has become ensnared in the nation’s culture […]
Mother JonesBack in 2011, the New Yorker published a Charles Barsotti cartoon that I, as a scholar of wealth power in liberal democracies, found brilliant: A rotund executive in a business suit is saying to his C-suite pal: “‘Oligarch’—terrible word, we’ll need a new one.” Barsotti’s caption alluded to the post-Great Recession battle—exemplified by Occupy Wall Street […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The fossil fuel industry funded some of the world’s most foundational climate science as early as 1954, newly unearthed documents have shown, including the early research of Charles Keeling, famous for the so-called ‘Keeling curve’ that has charted the […]
Mother JonesOn Sunday, Nancy Pelosi suggested on national television that the FBI investigate pro-Palestinian protesters over her suspicion that some are being financed by Russia—a hunch the powerful Democrat presented without evidence. Later, she defended it, again without evidence. The remarks, with their whiff of Hooverite conflation of protesters with foreign threats, were instantly condemned by the Muslim civil […]
Mother JonesIn October, I wrote about how bounty-hunter-turned-far-right-livestreamer Stew Peters was using the conflict in Gaza as an excuse to indulge in flagrantly antisemitic rhetoric. Back then, Peters mostly used coded language, ranting about “Zionists” and the “globalists.” In the past few weeks, though, Peters has dispensed with the euphemisms, instead leveling his accusations against “the […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The White House has announced that it is temporarily pausing the federal approval process for all pending export terminals of liquified natural gas, or LNG, marking a significant win for environmentalists who had been fighting the projects for years. President […]
Mother JonesThe afternoon of July 4, 2023, in Edgartown, Massachusetts—one of the six towns that make up the island of Martha’s Vineyard—was muggy and threatening rain. Near the top of Main Street, the participants of the local parade mustered, eying the sky. There was a tractor from Morning Glory, the popular farm stand on the edge […]
Mother JonesLast week, Brittany Watts, a 34-year-old Black medical receptionist from Ohio, made national headlines when she gave her first television interview after being charged with a felony for how she handled miscarrying a pregnancy at home at the end of last year. The case sparked an outcry from reproductive justice advocates, who have long been […]
Mother JonesWhen the US targeted Russia’s oligarchs after the invasion of Ukraine, the trail of assets kept leading to our own backyard. Not only had our nation become a haven for shady foreign money, but we were also incubating a familiar class of yacht-owning, industry-dominating, resource-extracting billionaires. In the January + February 2024 issue of our magazine, we […]
Mother Jones“The Federal Government has broad constitutional powers in determining what aliens shall be admitted to the United States, the period they may remain, regulation of their conduct before naturalization, and the terms and conditions of their naturalization…Under the Constitution, the states are granted no such powers.” —Takahashi v. Fish & Game Commission (1948) For decades, the […]
Mother JonesAt a December rally in Reno, Nevada, GOP frontrunner Donald Trump made his regular promise: To treat immigration as if the United States is at war. He accused President Joe Biden of launching a “military invasion” against the United States by allowing “drugs, criminals, gang members, and terrorists” to cross the US-Mexico border. He vowed to […]
Mother JonesIn 2009, when Facebook changed its newsfeed significantly for the first time, there wasn’t much uproar over “the algorithm.” Now we’re all talking about it—whatever “it” is. The algorithm and its ramifications have been the focus of congressional hearings and scholarly debates. In an article on the collapse of Twitter, writer Willy Staley noted “vague […]
Mother JonesAs protesters continue to disrupt Democratic campaign events with calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, Rep. Nancy Pelosi now says the Biden administration should use the FBI to investigate the activists’ “financing,” which she baselessly suggested might be coming from the Russian government. The former speaker of the House made her chilling comments Sunday on […]
Mother JonesAfter appearing to shrug off E. Jean Carroll’s sexual abuse and defamation lawsuits against Donald Trump, Nikki Haley is now suddenly paying attention. On Sunday, the former South Carolina governor said that she “absolutely” trusted the jury’s decision last week to order Trump to pay $83.3 million for defaming Carroll after Carroll accused Trump of having […]
Mother JonesThe United Nations agency that serves Palestinian refugees is in tumult after Israel accused a dozen of its employees of participating in Hamas’ October 7 attack, a stunning claim that has since prompted eight of the agency’s biggest donor countries to halt funding. Those countries include the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, Finland, Italy, […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. What a difference a year makes in the Brazilian Amazon. At the start of 2023, I wrote about the green shoots of the rainy season and feelings of hope inspired by the new president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who promised to […]
Mother JonesNikki Haley is the latest politician to have been “swatted”—a term used to describe a form of harassment in which a hoax call is made to emergency services to try to spur a SWAT team to show up at a person’s home. The incident occurred last month when a man called 911 and said he had shot a […]
Mother JonesDisgraced and once-imprisoned former West Virginia coal magnate Don Blankenship is hoping to occupy Senator Joe Manchin’s soon-to-be-vacated seat, as the long-time Democratic lawmaker retires in 2024. Having run unsuccessfully in 2018 as the GOP Senate candidate, and in 2020 as a candidate for the Constitution Party, this time, the Appalachian strip-mining baron, who once […]
Mother JonesA group of Muslim and Arab-American voters and community leaders in Michigan have decided to pass on the meeting with President Joe Biden’s campaign that had been planned for Saturday. Leaders say that they’ve canceled the meeting because of the President’s apparent unwillingness to restrain Israel in its months-long attack on Gaza. Following weeks of […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The 85-mile stretch of land along the lower Mississippi River in Louisiana is among the most studied industrial corridors in the country. Over the past several decades, advocates, scholars, and journalists have published numerous reports detailing the dangerous concentrations of toxic chemicals […]