Mother Jones

Trump’s Bombing Threats Have a Golf Course Problem

On Monday morning, President Donald Trump issued a blunt warning to America’s erstwhile ally: “If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the shit out of them.” It was another one of his un-diplomatic jabs at a longtime friend —this time for the possibility that Oman might prove helpful to Iran in ending the war. But if Trump’s aggressive, crude attitude towards an ally isn’t confusing enough, it’s also

One of Congress’ Most Scandal-Plagued Republicans May Be About to Lose His Primary

On Tuesday, Republican primary voters in central Florida will decide whether Rep. Cory Mills should once again be their party’s nominee for Congress. In doing so, they will weigh the value of the congressman’s “Complete and Total Endorsement” from President Donald Trump versus the reality of voting for a man whose past 18 months look like this: February 2025: Washington, DC, police nearly arrest M

Trump Burns Allies Over Iran. South Korea and Oman Are Next.

President Trump spent the weekend turning on two US security partners. He ordered a cutback in joint military exercises with South Korea, citing his “very good relationship” with Kim Jong Un, the North Korean dictator — and threatened to bomb Oman, one of the countries mediating between Washington and Tehran. On Sunday, Trump posted on Truth Social that based on his “very good relationship with Ki

Also reported by The Hill (Center)

Could the GOP Lose Florida Over Data Centers?

A few years after her husband died, Sandie Slowey moved from Pennsylvania to a mobile home in Hernando, a small town in rural Citrus County, Florida, known for its open green spaces and pristine spring waters. Down the road from her home was a horse ranch, and Slowey enjoyed the serenity of her quiet retirement from her job as a nurse—strolling on lush walking trails and sitting outside in the aft

The International Underwear Model Who Stormed the Capitol Is Now Running for Congress

When Florida congressional candidate John Strand introduces himself to potential voters, he starts with his criminal record. “I’m John Strand, patriot for Congress, the J6 hostage who went to prison on principle so that you don’t have to,” he said at a January debate hosted by the Women’s Republican Club of Naples Federated. The former international underwear model spent about a year in federal pr

The Right Is Targeting Abdul El-Sayed’s Family Members

Since Abdul El-Sayed’s win earlier this month to become the Democratic nominee for Michigan’s US Senate seat, the right has ramped up its attacks on him, condemning his past comments as evidence of him being a “terrorist” and “radical Islamist” or a “jihadist sympathizer” who is “infiltrating from within” . But it has also targeted El-Sayed’s family—including his wife, Sarah Jukaku, a psychiatrist

Florida’s Ambitious “Coastal Corridor” project Is Giving Marine Scientists Hope

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. From disappearing manatees to bleached coral reefs , gender-changing turtles and oyster beds destroyed by hurricanes , no other state’s marine life faces the magnitude of climate-related challenges that Florida’s does. Now, wildlife authorities are attempting to bring some cohesion

Should We Kill One Kind of Owl To Save Another?

The northern spotted owl is in trouble—per usual. This vanishingly rare subspecies of spotted owl earned its iconic status in the late ’80s and early ’90s, during the height of the Timber Wars in the Pacific Northwest. For forest defenders, the spotted owl is a sacred totem. For loggers, it’s been a pest. In 1990, federal officials reclassified the raptor as a threatened species, and greens won th

Warmonger’s Son Mongers War

Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, pushed the United Kingdom into a needless war in Iraq in a wild-goose chase for weapons of mass destruction. Then, he helped British companies make money from that war. Now, his son Nick is carrying on the family legacy. Nick Blair, a 40-year-old former football agent , is seeking funding for a military technology startup called “Pyra” to the tune of

The Trumps’ Crypto Project Just Got One Step Closer to Becoming a Bank

Federal regulators have given President Donald Trump’s family crypto business a conditional approval to operate like a bank. On Friday, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency—led by Trump appointee Jonathan Gould— announced that World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture controlled by the Trump family, was on track to receive a banking charter. This will allow World Liberty Financial to issu

Solar Panels on Storage Units: Illinois Is Going All In on This No-Brainer

This story was originally published by Canary Media and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Krzysztof Wasowicz, mayor of Justice, Illinois, has some concerns about solar: that it takes up farmland and enriches China. But he’s all-in on the community solar array that was recently deployed at a Public Storage facility in his village, a suburb of Chicago. The panels are loca

The Orwellian Company Behind ICE’s New Electric Shock Gloves

In 2022, Assistant Chief Adam Glueck, of the Cape Girardeau Police Department in southeastern Missouri, purchased electric shock gloves for his officers after learning about them at a trade show. And his employees, he said, couldn’t get enough of them. “If I try to take away the gloves from those officers at this point I think we may have a mutiny on our hands,” Glueck joked on a podcast interview

40 Acres and a Lie Part 2

Skidaway Island, Georgia, is home today to a luxurious community that the mostly white residents consider paradise: waterfront views, live oaks, and marsh grass alongside golf courses, swimming pools, and other amenities. jQuery(document).ready(function(){prx("https:\/\/play.prx.org\/e?ge=prx_149_e1dcdd9e-b991-479c-8e07-c04dd6b596d3&uf=https%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.revealradio.org%2Frevealpodcast", "prx-1",

It’s Time to Talk About Billionaire Math

Let me tell you about the very rich. They own yachts that have yachts. They leave Earth just to feel something. They buy art they don’t like and tout books they don’t read and play God with things they don’t comprehend. Above all, they live by their own set of rules. There is a crude but undeniable logic to the rise of the American Oligarchy. As I argued in a cover story for the magazine earlier t

Trump Just Lost Joe Rogan With His New Money Making Scheme

“He’s just on a grab!” Joe Rogan is not exactly the paragon of good sense. So you know things are bad when even he is outraged about Trump’s latest moneymaking scheme. The president introduced a new Truth Social feature this month that sells early access to his posts to subscribers willing to shell out up to $100,000 a month. Trump has used his social platform as an official White House channel to

Documents Reveal the Federal Government’s Vast Minnesota Surveillance Dragnet

Newly released court records show the Department of Homeland Security conducted a months-long surveillance campaign against left-wing groups in Minnesota after the January killing of Alex Pretti by a federal agent. The records were released Thursday as part of an ongoing criminal case the DOJ filed against 15 Minnesota activists for “felony conspiracy to impede or injure federal officers.” In Janu

The Tate Brothers’ Lawyer Is on an Aggressive, AI-Riddled Quest to Win Their Release

It seems extremely unlikely that accused rapists and sex traffickers Andrew and Tristan Tate will be released from Miami’s federal detention center, where they’re being held. For one thing, the brothers are awaiting extradition to the United Kingdom to face sprawling charges related to sex trafficking, rape, assault, and indecent images of a child, and the Trump administration has declined to step

A Young Immigrant’s Deportation Nightmare

The plane was stuck on the tarmac of a Louisiana airport, but Yurin Quiroa Ralda, 21, was not particularly eager to take off. He was being deported, based in part on misinterpreted records. And not to his birthplace, Guatemala, but to Ecuador, where he’d never even been. That alone was a nightmare, but Yurin’s situation was even more frustrating: After he’d crossed the US-Mexico border alone at ag

Scientists Have Created a New Category of Heat Waves: “Snow Eaters”

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Matthew LaPlante doesn’t have to go to a lab to see his research in action. On some mornings, he can just look out his own window in the mountains high above Salt Lake City. After a warm night when the temperature stays above freezing, he’ll wake up and see that the snow level has dropped

A Trump Judge Called Mail-In Ballots a Threat to Democracy

On Wednesday, the conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a ruling blocking key measures of Texas’ sweeping voter suppression law, SB 1. A lower court previously ruled that the law, which effectively made it harder for people to vote with assistance, violated disability civil rights laws. It also created more barriers to voting by mail. “It has long been established that mail-in bal

AI Helped Me Build a Killer Drone

Can an average guy build a killer drone in his garage? That’s the question reporter Matt Smith set out to answer over the course of 11 months, armed with zero engineering background and only a handful of AI chatbots to guide him, in this collaboration between Mother Jones and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists . His goal: a fully autonomous self-guided drone , one a theoretical evildoer could w

Legal Filings Allege Rep. Max Miller Made “False Statements” to an Ohio Court

On February 27, Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) stood before the Cuyahoga County Court to request an emergency civil protection order (CPO) requiring that his ex-wife Emily Moreno stay away from him. Miller’s rationale, he said, was that Moreno was harassing him with serious accusations that were untrue. Under penalty of perjury, he said he had evidence to prove it. “I filed today because my ex-wife is m

Flock’s Answer to Its Surveillance Scandals: Trust Us

On Thursday, the surveillance technology company Flock announced that it will limit access to its network of over 120,000 automatic license plate readers following disturbing reports dating back to at least 2021 of police officers abusing the technology for criminal activities like stalking. In his blog announcement , Flock CEO Garrett Langley did not mention the widespread public backlash against

Senators Sound Alarm on Voter Intimidation in Nursing Homes

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, under Trump appointee Mehmet Oz, changed their guidance on voting in nursing homes last month. Now, a group of senators is saying that these changes are designed to disenfranchise America’s two million nursing home residents. “On July 20, 2026, CMS issued a memo that appears to be an attempt to intimidate nursing home staff from assisting residents i

Elon Musk’s DOGE Promised Savings, But It’s Cost Us a Fortune

The US government doesn’t have many watchdogs left. Donald Trump fired a whole bunch of them shortly after returning to power, and many others have been pushed out since. We do still have a Government Accountability Office (GAO), for what it’s worth, and one week ago, that office published a report detailing the remarkable lack of transparency in how Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency

Can’t Pay Preschool Teachers More? Try Giving Them a Free Place to Live.

This story was co-published with The 74 , a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on education in America. Sign up for their early learning Substack . A few years ago , Eric Gil was living at his uncle’s place in Waterbury, Connecticut, where he shared a bedroom with his brother and cousin. With eight people in the house, it was crowded. He was trying to get out, but rental prices in Wa

A DSA Candidate Lost a Messy Race for Wisconsin Governor

Following a chaotic race for Wisconsin governor, moderate Democrat David Crowley defeated progressive Francesca Hong on Tuesday night. Although Hong held a convincing lead in many of Tuesday’s polls, she lost by about 4,000 votes—a narrow 0.5 percentage point. As someone presenting herself as a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and without endorsements from key progressive Sen. Bernie

I Asked AI to Write a Novel. It’s Not So Bad.

A version of the below article first appeared in David Corn’s newsletter, Our Land . The newsletter comes out twice a week (most of the time) and provides behind-the-scenes stories and articles about politics, media, and culture. Subscribing costs just $5 a month—but you can sign up for a free 30-day trial . Like many offbeat ideas , this one originated in a bar. I was drinking with a fellow autho

Fauci, RFK Jr., and the Latest in American Health

Lettuce contaminated with cyclospora. Cruise ship passengers contracting a deadly form of hantavirus. Legionnaires’ disease (yet again) in big cities. RFK Jr. refusing any responsibility for measles outbreaks. That’s just a brief list of public health stories in America this summer. And we haven’t even mentioned Dr. Anthony Fauci being held in contempt of Congress during a hostile Congressional he

How Michigan Became the Most Expensive Democratic Primary Ever

Next Tuesday’s contest in Michigan between Abdul El-Sayed and Rep. Haley Stevens holds a dubious distinction: No Democratic congressional primary in history has ever attracted so much super PAC cash. The overwhelming majority of the outside money has gone toward ensuring that Stevens, a moderate, pro-Israel Democrat, defeats El-Sayed, a Bernie Sanders-endorsed champion of Medicare for All and Isra

How Can US Factories Get Cleaner Heat? These Ideas May Help.

This story was originally published by Canary Media and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. American households are all too familiar with the pain of high electric bills, which are climbing nationwide. The same problem is quietly hindering the country’s factories from cleaning up their operations, too. Hundreds of thousands of US manufacturing facilities burn fossil fuels

She’s Remaking the Abortion Landscape One Pill at a Time

For most of the three years it’s existed, the second-largest telehealth abortion provider in the country has operated out of an office not much bigger than a lot of bathrooms. “That is what half a million dollars of mifepristone looks like,” Dr. Angel Foster tells the Tufts University medical students crowded around the conference table, nodding toward the cubicle across the hall. The bins lining

Can Opposing Data Centers Help Progressives Win?

When Donald Trump came to Michigan last week to speak at a General Motors vehicle-testing facility , he likely expected to find a friendly crowd. That wasn’t entirely the case. A group of protesters holding yellow signs that read “stop data centers” interrupted the president, chanting, “Data centers no, people pay the bill,” until they were removed by security. Will Lawrence, a progressive Democra

The Next Victim of Trump’s Political Prosecutions? Congressional Oversight.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, who helped lead the national response to the Covid-19 pandemic as the country’s longtime chief infectious disease expert, invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination at least 90 times Wednesday in a contentious hearing focused on the origins of the virus in China. Fauci was clear about his reason for pleading the 5th: He believes the hearing was a set-up for a p

How Anti-ICE Protesters Became Prisoners in Trump’s War on Antifa

Savanna Batten got her first call from the FBI the year she turned 18. It was 2011, and the Animal Liberation Front had set fire to a fur store in Idaho and raided mink farms in Iowa and Washington . The feds were cracking down, just as Batten had been chosen as president of Animal Connection of Texas . Her mother, Cynthia Lokey, says the group she and her daughter belonged to confined its own act

The Kushner-Backed FIFA Takeover Tearing the Soccer World Apart

For a long time , Gianni Infantino, the ubiquitous president of FIFA, and Jared Kushner, the businessman and Middle East peace envoy, have seemed inseparable. When the US was awarded a joint bid to host this year’s men’s World Cup, all the way back in 2018, Jared was quick to take credit. It was Jared who arranged Infantino’s first meeting with Trump, at the White House in 2018, where the presiden

Democrats Call For Ethics Investigation into Congressman Max Miller

Several Democratic members of Congress are requesting the House Ethics Committee investigate their colleague, Congressman Max Miller (R-OH), over allegations that he assaulted his ex-wife, Emily Moreno, and possibly injured their child. “The recent reports of domestic violence and child abuse against Representative Max Miller are deeply disturbing, and Congress can’t ignore them. Allegations of vi

France Had Never Seen a “Fire Cloud” Until This Month’s Record-Smashing Blazes

This story was originally published by Wired and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Firefighters in France are confronting a phenomenon never seen in the region before: fire clouds. It’s a sign of the intensity of the blazes burning—and how climate change is upping the odds that they appear. A wave of fires has swept over France and Spain, sending hundreds of thousands f

California Does Medicaid Home Care Well. They’re Being Punished For It.

On July 21, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Mehmet Oz, who heads Medicaid programs federally, announced they’re deferring over $850 million from the state of California over its Medicaid-funded home and community-based services program called In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS). The Trump administration has attacked IHSS for the program’s growth over the past decade. Their argument: the

Covid Truthers Are Claiming Fauci’s Diary Was “Scrubbed”

On Tuesday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) released a trove of diary entries from Dr. Anthony Fauci, the 85-year-old immunologist and public health veteran who led the US response to the Covid pandemic in 2020. On X, Paul posted an AI-generated image of a grinning, pastel-sweater-clad Anthony Fauci lying on his stomach on a purple shag carpet, poring over a unicorn-themed diary and surrounded by teen girl

Maine Just Told ICE to Get Out

A suite of new laws restricting cooperation between Maine law enforcement and Department of Homeland Security agents is set to take effect today , less than three weeks after an ICE agent shot and killed 25-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine. These “ICE Out laws,” as they’re collectively known, will limit collaboration between state and local police and federal agents, and

What “You Only Get 18 Summers” Gets Right About Parenting

Technically speaking, August is not the last month of summer; the season officially ends on September 21. But among faithful disciples of the fun season, it prompts urgency, for it contains what seems like the final stretch before grim responsibility sets in and the self-serious soup fans come out in earnest. It is during these weeks when last-minute beach trips are summoned. When we commit oursel

Big Oil Is Getting Sued for Heat Deaths. It’s Fighting Back With an Army of Immunity Laws.

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Could the oil industry be held responsible for fueling the extreme heat that led to a woman’s death? That’s the question at the heart of a novel lawsuit in Washington state. Misti Leon’s mother died from overheating during the hottest day in state history in June 2021, when temperatures c

The Rapid Rise of Right-Wing Militias

A photo went viral on Independence Day this year. It showed a Black woman on a Metro train in Washington, DC, surrounded by members of Patriot Front, a far-right white nationalist group. The picture, taken on America’s 250th anniversary, seemed to encapsulate not only the continuing story of race in America, but also this current moment when right-wing groups seem louder, prouder, and more public

A For-Profit Hospital Slashed Costs. Then a Patient Froze to Death on Its Roof.

Chelsea Adolphus had been bleeding for a week. She told Danny Gyal, her best friend, that it was like a period that wouldn’t end. It was getting worse, and she felt so weak she couldn’t stand. Adolphus’ mother eventually convinced her to call 911, and early on the morning of January 22, 2025, an ambulance took her to the only emergency room in town: Vista Medical Center East. After so much blood l

Trump’s New Ridiculous and Dangerous Red-baiting

A version of the below article first appeared in David Corn’s newsletter, Our Land . The newsletter comes out twice a week (most of the time) and provides behind-the-scenes stories and articles about politics, media, and culture. Subscribing costs just $5 a month—but you can sign up for a free 30-day trial . History repeats “the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.” So wrote Karl Marx,

The History of the NEA Is the History of the Culture Wars

In 2020, four major museums were set to showcase the first retrospective of painter Philip Guston’s work in over 15 years. Spanning five decades, the Canadian American’s work responded to injustices in an ever-evolving style of painting. His art includes a series of paintings made during the ’60s that feature a cartoonish hooded Ku Klux Klansmen as a commentary on the social upheaval Guston saw ha

Trump Administration Moves to Open American Samoa’s Waters to Deep-Sea Mining

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The Trump administration is moving closer to opening up US waters for deep-sea mining—a contentious and largely untested industry focused on extracting mineral-rich deposits from the ocean floor containing cobalt, copper, nickel, and manganese. Last week, the Department of t