Mother Jones: Posts

Mother Jones

This week on Reveal: From Victim to Suspect

Nicole Chase was a young mom with a six-year-old daughter to support when she was sexually assaulted by her boss while working at a Canton, Connecticut restaurant. When she decided to report the attack, she knew she was risking a lot—her livelihood, for one, but also the reputation she’d build in her small, close-knit town. […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

It Shouldn’t Be This Hard to Vote When You’re Disabled

Disabled and chronically ill voters: What was your experience casting a ballot in person, either this week or in early voting? Civil and voting rights protections like the Voting Rights Act and the Americans With Disabilities Act are supposed to protect disabled people’s right to vote in person, which means having the right accommodations: wheelchair-accessible […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

It Shouldn’t Be This Hard to Vote When You’re Disabled

Disabled and chronically ill voters: What was your experience casting a ballot in person, either this week or in early voting? Civil and voting rights protections like the Voting Rights Act and the Americans With Disabilities Act are supposed to protect disabled people’s right to vote in person, which means having the right accommodations: wheelchair-accessible […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen Holds Onto Her Nevada Senate Seat

Jacky Rosen, Nevada’s incumbent Democratic senator, has won reelection in the battleground state, defeating Republican Sam Brown. Though Republicans haven’t won a Nevada senate seat in a dozen years and Rosen had a considerable cash advantage, the race was unexpectedly tight, emblematic of the rightward shift in Nevada and across the country. Trump won Nevada […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

The Best Way to Restore a Rainforest Is Simply to Leave It Be

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Johnny Appleseed’s heart was in the right place when he walked all over the early United States planting fruit trees. Ecologically, though, he had room for improvement: To create truly dynamic ecosystems that host a lot of biodiversity, benefit local people, and […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Racist Trolls Celebrated the Election By Texting Black Voters to “Pick Cotton”

The day after Election Day, predominantly Black recipients in at least six states received racist, trollish text messages telling them they had been “selected” to “pick cotton at the nearest plantation.” The messages were sent from varying numbers and area codes, and sent to recipients in at least eight states, including Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Exclusive: RFK Jr. Is Crowdsourcing Cabinet Picks for Trump

Just days after former President Donald Trump won the presidential election, his onetime-opponent turned supporter, the anti-vaccine superstar Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has set up a website to solicit suggestions for key Cabinet roles. Anyone can submit a name and vote for their favorite nominees across 12 areas of government, including health, food and agriculture, […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

How John Roberts Brought Back Donald Trump

There will be endless ink spilled over the 2024 election, trying to sort out the overlapping reasons why the world’s oldest democracy placed its fate in the hands of a would-be strongman who promises to dismantle democratic norms. There are many culprits—rising costs, raw white supremacy—but among them, let’s not forget the role of Chief […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Five Christian Nationalist Action Items for Trump’s Next Term

Over the last few months leading up to the election, I’ve been writing about an ascendant fundamentalist religious movement whose leaders believe that the United States is a Christian nation, that the Constitution is based on the Bible, and that Christians are called to take over the government. These figures have found a powerful ally […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

The Super-Rich Are Using Private Jets “as Taxis” for Short, Wasteful, Polluting Trips

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Private jet flights have soared in recent years, with the resulting climate-heating emissions rising by 50 percent, the most comprehensive global analysis to date has revealed. The assessment tracked more than 25,000 private jets and almost 19 million flights between 2019 and […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Trump’s New Chief of Staff Is No John Kelly

Donald Trump announced Thursday that Susie Wiles, who as his de facto campaign manager is credited with imposing a measure of discipline that helped him win on Tuesday, will serve as his chief of staff. Wiles has earned a reputation as a smart, pragmatic, and effective campaign operative. For critics of Trump’s agenda—which includes deporting […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Three-Term Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey Just Lost

Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey, a stalwart moderate who rose to power on the heels of his late father’s political legacy, has lost his reelection bid, the Associated Press has called. The three-term incumbent was challenged by former hedge fund executive Dave McCormick in what became a surprisingly competitive race. In many ways, McCormick was a […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Anti-Vaccine Organization Hopes He’ll Take Their Wildest Dreams to the White House

The elites of the anti-vaccine, “medical freedom” world saw the presidential election unfold at a hotel watch party in West Palm Beach, with a giddy, rising sense of what was unfolding. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s most famous anti-vaccine activist turned presidential candidate turned Trump booster, turned up at the event before heading to […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Biden and Harris Do What Trump Refused: Support a Peaceful Transfer of Power

Since Donald Trump won reelection, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have both done what the now-president-elect and his fellow Republicans refused to do in 2020: publicly accept loss and advocate for a peaceful transition of power. In a Thursday morning speech outside the White House, Biden told Americans, “We accept the choice […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Why Did Trump Really Win? It’s Simple, Actually.

In the coming days, you will hear every imaginable take on why Americans voted to put Donald Trump back in office. Pundits will say toxic masculinity was to blame—and men feeling usurped by women. They’ll say it was the Christian nationalism movement. A surprising shift in Latino voting patterns. Sexism. Racism. Transphobia. Elon Musk. Crypto […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

How Trump Plans to Upend Immigration

In January, former President Donald Trump will reclaim the White House after years of vowing to unleash an unprecedented overhaul of the immigration system in the United States. With mass deportation as a central promise of his campaign, Trump will undoubtedly build on the sweeping crackdown that marked his first term. He has already pledged […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Donald Trump “Will Take a Wrecking Ball to Global Climate Diplomacy”

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Donald Trump’s new term as US president poses a grave threat to the planet if it blows up the international effort to curb dangerous global heating, stunned climate experts have warned in the wake of his decisive election victory. Trump’s return […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

How Donald Trump Won the White House, Again

Donald Trump’s return to the White House follows one of the most tumultuous election years in modern U.S. history: one that included an incumbent president dropping his reelection bid, Vice President Kamala Harris thrust into contention a few short months before Election Day, and two attempts on Trump’s life. Harris was unable to build a […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Insurrectionists Are Lining Up for the Pardons Trump Has Promised to Dispense

More than 1,500 people charged with or convicted of crimes related to the January 6, 2021, attack on Congress are now presumably hoping to win pardons and commutations that the now president-elect has repeatedly, if vaguely, promised to give many of them. And they aren’t alone. Numerous people convicted since 2020 of federal crimes in […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Kamala Harris Concedes, Telling Supporters “Do Not Despair”

Kamala Harris conceded the presidential election to Donald Trump Wednesday afternoon in a speech at Howard University. Addressing a crowd of sometimes tearful supporters, Harris emphasized the need to accept Trump’s victory but continue “the fight for our country.” “While I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign,” she […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Lateefah Simon, on Track to Be a New House Dem: “I’ve Never Shied Away From Any Fight”

Inside a museum in Oakland, not far from where Kamala Harris launched her first bid for the presidency back in 2019, Lateefah Simon, a Democrat whom Harris mentored, declared victory in her congressional race on Tuesday night. Early ballot returns showed her with 63 percent of the vote, though results were still coming in Wednesday […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

This Conservative Texas Town Defeated an Extreme Abortion Travel Ban

The city of Amarillo, in the Texas Panhandle, has emerged as one of the strongholds of the anti-abortion movement in that state and around the country, not least because its sole federal judge, a far-right Trump appointee, has been so willing to rubber-stamp conservative challenges to reproductive health options like the abortion pill and birth […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

After Win, Trump Fans Admit “Project 2025 Is the Agenda”

On Wednesday morning, some of Trump’s favorite fans finally felt comfortable joking about what the next president has long denied: Project 2025 has always been the plan for a second Trump term. “Now that the election is over I think we can finally say that yeah actually Project 2025 is the agenda. Lol,” right-wing podcast […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

I Spent Last Night With Arizona Dems As Their World Fell Apart

The problem with holding a election-night watch party in the mountain time zone is that by the time people start to roll in, the night will have already taken a turn. After racking up historic wins during the Trump era, Arizona Democrats entered the 2024 election hoping to keep the positive results coming. But at […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Elon Musk Just Became One of the Most Powerful Men in the World

There’s no overstating how good election night was for Elon Musk. With Donald Trump’s victory, Musk—already the richest man in the world, thanks in part to lucrative federal contracts—has also made himself a major force in politics. During a Spaces conversation hosted on his X platform on Tuesday night, Musk said that America PAC, the […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

New Tax on Firearms Will Help Domestic Violence Victims in Colorado

Colorado voters on Tuesday brought to victory a ballot measure that will provide millions of critical dollars to organizations supporting victims of domestic and sexual violence through the creation of a new tax on firearms and ammunition. With nearly three-quarters of the votes counted as of this morning, the measure, known as Proposition KK, passed with […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Tim Sheehy Might Have Lied About Getting Shot. He Won a Senate Seat Anyway.

Last week, Megyn Kelly, a former Fox News anchor and Donald Trump supporter this year, wanted to give Montana Republican Senate candidate Tim Sheehy a chance to explain himself. For the past year, in a pivotal campaign to flip the Senate, Sheehy had been embroiled in a scandal involving potentially stolen valor. Sheehy says he […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Arizona Passes Measure to Arrest Immigrants Who Enter the US Illegally

Arizona voters passed Proposition 314, a measure that will allow state and local police to arrest people crossing the border outside ports of entry and empower state judges to order deportations. The ballot measure passed with just over 62 percent of the vote. Advocates, including ACLU Arizona and the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project, […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Donald Trump, Candidate of Retribution, Is Restored to Power

Former President Donald Trump was poised to return to the White House for a second time late on Tuesday, ending the evening at the brink of victory over Vice President Kamala Harris. After running on a dark campaign of retribution, Trump tried to strike a conciliatory tone in a rambling victory speech at the Palm […]

Continue Reading…

Mother Jones

Republicans on Track to Take Senate Control

The Republican Party is on track to win control of the Senate, a significant victory that will allow the GOP to exercise power over judicial appointments and executive branch appointees. If Trump retakes the White House, GOP Senate control will clear his path to make significant changes to the judiciary, including possibly appointing multiple Supreme […]

Continue Reading…