MoJo Wire

Quick hits from the Mother Jones newsroom

  • Democracy Is Hanging By a Thread in Wisconsin. Blame Extreme Voting Maps.

    October 29, 2022

    On a new episode of Reveal, our National Voting Rights Correspondent Ari Berman delves into how Republicans cemented control of the state legislature. In this October 2021 photo, opponents of the Republican redistricting efforts staged a rally at the state Capitol in Madison.Scott Bauer/AP

    On Saturday, former President Barack Obama will be campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for Democratic candidates in close contests for governor and U.S. Senate, urging voters to go to the polls. But when it comes to controlling state politics, Democrats are facing an uphill battle.

    While elections are often decided by razor-thin margins in this pivotal swing state, Republican control of the state legislature is now all but assured. Thanks to rampant gerrymandering, Wisconsin Republicans are within grasp this year of gaining a two-thirds supermajority in the legislature, which would give them remarkable power to override the governor’s veto and implement an extreme and unpopular agenda on issues ranging from guns to education to abortion. It could even give them the ability to overturn the results of elections.

    My recent feature for Mother Jones exploring how the state became the GOP’s laboratory for dismantling democracy is now accompanied by a podcast and radio show produced with Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting. The segment goes deep inside the GOP’s decade-long strategy to make Wisconsin voter-proof and looks at how what happens in 2022 will determine the future of fair elections in 2024 and beyond.

    You can listen to my segment here:

    My reporting trip to Wisconsin is part of a bigger Reveal episode studying how extreme new laws built on Trump’s Big Lie are cracking down on a phantom problem: widespread voter fraud. I hope you will check it out here, or wherever you get your podcasts.

  • January 6 Committee Formally Subpoenas Donald Trump

    October 21, 2022

    AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

    On Friday, the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol issued a subpoena for testimony and documents from former president Donald Trump, ordering him to appear before a panel of lawmakers next month. The subpoena requests that Trump hand over any legally relevant documents by November 4 and testify under oath on November 14. 

    The Jan. 6 committee has reviewed thousands of witnesses and millions of documents piecing together the events before and during last year’s attack on the Capitol. They made clear that Trump is a “clear and present danger,” as my colleague David Corn wrote.

    The committee vice chairwoman Liz Cheney and chairman Bennie G. Thompson released a letter addressed to the billionaire, stating that they’ve come to the conclusion that Trump played a “central role in a deliberate, orchestrated effort” to overturn the 2020 election.

    Earlier this week, Cheney said that if Trump refused to comply legislators would “take the steps we need to take after that.”

  • What Do DeSantis’ Stunt Politics Look Like? This New Bodycam Footage of a Voting Rights Crackdown Shows You.

    October 18, 2022

    Win McNamee/Getty

    Some Republicans would have you believe that voter fraud looks like a nefarious group of computer programmers rigging election machines. Others, like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, say that the fraudsters are convicted felons who have done their time, completed parole, and registered to vote at the suggestion of Florida Department of Motor Vehicles employees.

    On August 18, Florida police officers acting at DeSantis’ behest arrested 20 such people, 12 of whom were registered Democrats and at least 13 of whom were Black, for voter fraud, according to a new report from the Tampa Bay Times. Despite apparently not knowing it, those arrested had violated a provision of the state’s voting laws that outlawed them from participating in democracy.

    In 2018, Florida restored voting rights to people who had been convicted of felonies—except for registered sex offenders and people convicted of murder. As the Times notes, Florida voter registration forms require felons to swear that their rights have been restored, but they don’t clarify that people with murder or sex crime convictions are exempt from automatic voting rights restoration.

    Stunning new police bodycam video obtained by the Times shows police officers, who seem sympathetic to the accused, arresting people who say they were unaware that there were any restrictions on their right to vote.

    “Why would you let me vote if I wasn’t able to vote?” one man who was a registered sex offender said as he sat handcuffed in the back of a police car.

    “I’m not sure, buddy,” the officer said.

    Another man told officers that someone at the “driver’s license place” told him, “Well, just fill out this form, and if they let you vote, then you can. If they don’t, then you can’t.”

    “Then there’s your defense,” an officer said. “That sounds like a loophole to me.”

    It’s unclear whether those arrested will pass the bar, outlined in state law, for “willfully” committing voter fraud. If convicted, they could face up to five years in prison.

    DeSantis originally announced the arrests at an August press conference touting the state’s new Office of Election Crimes and Security. But the new videos show that this heavy-handed ploy for internet points—like his Martha’s Vineyard migrant stunt—had devastating effects on real people’s lives.

  • Here’s the Van Gogh Soup Thrower Explaining the Soup Throw. Seems Fine to Me.

    October 18, 2022

    A Just Stop Oil activist is arrested after Van Gogh's sunflowers had soup thrown on it at the National Portrait Gallery.Martin Pope/Getty

    Here’s a video of one of the two people from Just Stop Oil explaining why they threw a can of soup at “Sunflowers” by Van Gogh last Friday at London’s National Gallery.

    “I recognize that it looks like a slightly ridiculous action; I agree it is ridiculous,” she told the camera. “But we’re not asking the question, ‘Should everyone be throwing soup on paintings?’ What we’re doing is getting the conversation going so that we can ask the conversations that matter. Questions like: Is it OK that [Prime Minister of the United Kingdom] Liz Truss is licensing over one hundred new fossil fuels licenses?”

    That seems pretty straightforward. There has been much consternation that this is not the right kind of protest—with condemnation even elevating to a proposal from the UK Home Secretary to crack down on actions in order to put the “safety and interests of the law-abiding majority first.” But as far as protests go, this one could be considered ordinary, even staid. Young people enraged about the climate crisis sought to garner media attention to fight it. Just Stop Oil wants to ensure “the government commits to ending all new licenses and consents for the exploration, development, and production of fossil fuels in the UK.” Even that demand, in the grand scheme of protests for climate action, is rather basic.

    This is Dog Bites Man stuff: Activist group pulls stunt for media attention garnering mass media attention.

    And yet, there was the usual outrage and hand-wringing. “Merely getting publicity for a cause doesn’t automatically translate into generating support for it,” investor Paul Graham tweeted. “If you get publicity for a cause in an obnoxious way, you’ll generate opposition to it.” Even the Associated Press snuck in a note from a climate scientist that vandalism “alienates many people we need to bring into the fold.”

    One could argue the opposite. That this protest could be viewed as a brilliant attempt to bring forward the problem we face: The destruction of beauty. And it’s always worth repeating the obvious thing about all protests. The spectacle is the point.

    But, personally, I find the whole “getting the conversation going” conversation when it comes to protesting sort of silly.

    I don’t need to defend the soup protest as a great act of civil disobedience (and don’t think it was) in order to recognize the response to it is indicative and more important. The rapid-fire impulse to condemn seems to suggest that any protest that doesn’t fit within the narrow framework of the same politics that has enmeshed us in the current climate crisis will be deemed unreasonable, alienating, and counter-productive. And in the end, isn’t that—well—counterproductive in itself?

    The supposed concern that throwing soup at expensive art may alienate some unnamed group evades the truth: You don’t like it. It is alienating you. And you should ask yourself, perhaps, why. What is so offensive about some soup hitting a frame of a masterpiece? 

    Maybe it is even simpler. A lot of people hate young people and they hate direct action and they especially hate young people directly acting. The political efficacy as deemed by whether or not that set approves is a dumb goal. In fact, maybe the action isn’t recruiting those who would be offended by tossing a can of soup or seemingly any protest at all. Maybe the whole point is the recruitment of another set of people.

    Either way, these are debates about the merits of a protest. Action can always be critiqued. It is a silly attempt to find the perfect way to do something that should be constantly done—fight back. And it is a cover for what many actually want to say: Don’t boo, vote; leave it to our elected betters; propose policy solutions.

    Yet the existential reality is that all our lives are likely to be altered, fundamentally and likely for the worse, by climate change. To admit that is terrifying. In art speak: To admit that is to gaze upon death.

    So, the more important point is probably for those who didn’t like the soup can protest: Get used to it. The world is getting hotter; the kids are getting angrier. Protests will erupt that seem cringe, annoying, and dumb. If this small episode bothers you excessively, you may need to buckle up. It will be a rough ride when it’s time to blow up a pipeline.

  • Elon Musk Has Tried for Years to Make Nathan Fielder Laugh—and Probably Failed

    October 11, 2022

    Imago/ZUMA

    I no longer find the overwrought drama over whether Elon Musk will acquire Twitter interesting. The showdown has simply overextended itself, featuring more inexplicable legal jargon with each new development. So, until some sort of resolution emerges, I’ll be ducking every headline dedicated to the billion-dollar saga.

    Still, I am all in for gossip generally. So when the New York Times published a delicious report this morning examining how the richest man in the world fills his social calendar, I clicked. Much of it reaffirms the story of a bullied schoolboy who now mixes with other extremely rich, middle-aged men, as well as the public evidence already available that Musk desperately wants you to find him funny.

    But I found this nugget extremely telling:

    Mr. Musk has, in particular, pursued a friendship with one comedian whose public image revolves around the outrageous steps he takes to relate to other people: Nathan Fielder, who first became famous for his Comedy Central show “Nathan For You,” which turned a series of preposterous business ideas, including excrement-flavored frozen yogurt and athletic apparel dedicated to raising Holocaust awareness, into the definitive parody of modern American entrepreneurship.

    Mr. Musk—a huge fan—invited Mr. Fielder to lunch at SpaceX in 2016.

    For years afterward, the famous businessman invited the famous fake businessman to his parties and would strain to make the deadpan Canadian laugh.

    Several layers of fascination are at play here: Elon Musk and Nathan Fielder sharing a meal at SpaceX; Musk trying his darnedest to get Fielder to laugh. (From the way it’s written, it sure doesn’t sound like he succeeded.)

    Has Musk—knowingly or otherwise—been the subject of an elaborate Fielder plot? Does Angela think that Twitter, like Google, is the work of Satan?

    I can only hope for a future episode to provide a glimpse into this surprising relationship. Either way, as a fellow fan of Mr. Fielder’s genius, this might be the only time I’ve related so deeply to a tech billionaire.

  • Watch Jon Stewart Calmly Excoriate the Arkansas Attorney General on Anti-Trans Legislation

    October 8, 2022

    TV Host Jon Stewart received a flurry of praise on Friday for his unyielding interview with Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, who fought for legislation denying anyone under 18 access to gender-affirming treatments. The law, passed last year, is the subject of a legal challenge by the American Civil Liberties Union. A trial on whether to permanently block the legislation is scheduled for later this month before a federal appeals court.

    In the interview, which is part of the Apple TV series, The Problem With Jon Stewart, Stewart points out that the state law overrides guidelines developed by major medical associations. (The American Medical Association, for example, says that gender-affirming care is key to improving health outcomes for transgender individuals. The care is associated with dramatically reduced rates of suicide, depression and anxiety, substance use.) 

    “It’s surprising that the state would say ‘we want to make a decision for your family and your child, to protect them,’ even though the American Medical Association, the American Association of Pediatrics, the Endocrine Society, the American Association of Psychiatrists all recommend a certain set of guidelines for children that are expressing gender dysphoria,” says Stewart. “So I guess my surprise is why would the state of Arkansas step in to override parents, physicians, psychiatrists, endocrinologists who have developed guidelines. Why would you override those guidelines?”

    Rutledge claims that, for every expert who supports gender-affirming care, “there’s another expert to say we don’t need to allow children to take those medications.”

    “But you know that’s not true,” Stewart says. “You know it’s not ‘for every one, there’s one.’”

    A clip of the interview shared on Twitter received praise from many journalists, politicians, and celebrities on Twitter. 

  • The Reviews For That Conservative Dating App Are In—and They’re Thrilling

    October 6, 2022

    Ryann McEnany, sister of the former White House press secretary, who developed the app

    I met my husband in 2008 and therefore skipped the whole online dating universe that dominates how we hook up and fall in love in 2022. So I was pretty excited to try out The Right Stuff—the Peter Thiel-backed dating app for conservatives—you know, for journalism, and end my personal streak of dating-app virginity. “Inae falls in love with a patriot and divorces her husband,” my esteemed colleague Abigail Weinberg had predicted for me. Yeah, I was pumped.

    But after filling out the questionnaires and selecting photos to build my profile, I got stuck on the last step requiring an invite. I had no choice but to hit delete; my status as a dating app virgin remains intact. But it turns out I wasn’t the only one disappointed by the system—a bunch of reviewers in the app store, first spotted here, also had complaints. Now, are these reviews all verified? One may never know for sure, a few of them seem like the work of clever liberal trolls. Still, I urge you to join me and take a tour of some of the comments. They are thrilling.

    Low-Key Elitist 

    This has been, by far, the most common complaint against The Right Stuff—and I get it. Since I can pretty much guarantee no one in my social circles is on the app, it doesn’t look like I’ll ever be invited to this exclusive world. That makes me sad.

    A Democratic Cabal

    I have a hard time taking this one seriously. It’s just a bit…much. But what I can almost believe is genuine is the conspiratorial accusation that “this app is actually funded by Bill Gates” and that tech elites, liberals, you name it are plotting to use The Right Stuff to “exterminate all of us conservative Christians.” That’s the sorta stuff we expect from a growing number of Republican candidates out there, so why not this user? Sold.

    Privacy Concerns

    As the Supreme Court looks to decimate privacy rights for ordinary citizens, this conservative is saying enough—at least regarding The Right Stuff. They even nod to “liberal web sites” that don’t seem to ask as many personal questions. Do I see a potential political convert? No, I don’t. But happy to see credit where credit is due.

    Only Dudes

    I can’t verify the user makeup of The Right Stuff—and I’m pretty sure this particular one is satire—but another common complaint seems to be that the app skews heavily toward men. That’s likely problematic for love-hungry, right-wing dudes. But if true, the lack of women on the platform could be revealing. Sure, gender politics go far deeper than a simple liberal/conservative split. But maybe even conservative women aren’t exactly jumping at the opportunity to date fellow patriots?

    A Misinformation Cesspool

    This might be the most authentic review on there. No notes. I salute your honesty.

  • Lauren Boebert Might Lose In Colorado. But Don’t Bet On It.

    October 5, 2022

    Lev Radin/Pacific Press/Zuma

    After Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) clinched the Republican nomination for Congress in the state’s right-leaning third district, it seemed like she was a shoo-in for the general election. But recent polling suggests that Boebert’s re-election isn’t as sure as it appears.

    A new poll by Keating Research has shown Boebert to have the support of 47 percent of likely voters, to her Democratic opponent’s 45 percent, Axios reports. There’s a catch: The poll was commissioned by Boebert’s challenger, Adam Frisch. Keating Research, a Democratic firm, has a B/C rating from FiveThirtyEight, which places Boebert’s odds of winning at 98 percent.

    All polling should be taken with a grain of salt. Polling from Boebert’s opponent? Add some extra sodium.

    Still, the Colorado congressional race is worth keeping an eye on. During her reelection campaign, Boebert has repeatedly touted legislation that she voted against, denied that her husband exposed himself to a minor (he pled guilty), and complained that she was “tired of this separation of church and state junk.”

    She has also come under investigation in Colorado for her alleged misuse of campaign funds. Voters might be ready for a low-key, anti-“angertainment” Democrat after all.

  • Mother Jones Congratulates Judge James Ho on His Decision to Boycott Yale

    October 1, 2022

    Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Getty

    Have you been following what’s going on at Yale? I haven’t, because I’m 35 years old and didn’t go there. But James Ho, a Trump-appointed judge who sits on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, has, and he’s pissed. So pissed, in fact, that he has announced in a speech on Thursday that he will no longer hire any clerks from Yale Law School, and is encouraging other judges to do the same.

    According to National Review, which broke the story, Ho was upset about a string of recent events at the university where students disrupted conservative speakers, and another incident last year in which the administration censured a member of the campus chapter of the Federalist Society for inviting classmates to a party at his “trap house.”

    “Yale not only tolerates the cancellation of views, it actively practices it,” Ho said in his address. Per NR, his remarks continued:

    “We’re not just citizens. We’re also customers. Customers can boycott entities that practice cancel culture. . . . I wonder how a law school would feel, if my fellow federal judges and I stopped being its customers. Instead of millions of customers, there are only 179 authorized federal circuit judgeships, and 677 authorized federal district judgeships.”

    Ho is mad at the ways in which some students at a private college campus are using their speech to criticize other people’s speech, and so his response is to actually ban anyone from that law school from working in his specific fiefdom of the federal government. It’s a pretty nice illustration of the gulf between what “cancel culture” looks like on television and what it means in practice in 2022.

    But I don’t come to criticize Judge Ho, I come to praise him. The highest levels of the federal judiciary have for too long been dominated by graduates of the same handful of select law schools, and it’d be a mistake to say we’re better for it. The illusion of meritocracy they sell has, if anything, helped to sustain the conservative legal movement’s own illusion of balls-and-strikes impartiality and the “originalism” that purportedly guides it—the Supreme Court’s majority bloc has cultivated an aura of exclusivity and scholarly diligence even as it increasingly resembles nothing more than an appendage of the Republican Party.

    Yale in particular has been a feeder program and networking pen for the men (mostly) who have done the most to weaponize the legal system for conservative ends. I’m referring to people like Samuel Alito, whose belligerent opinion in Dobbs ended the federal right to abortion by leaning on literally medieval texts, and his colleagues Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh. Josh Hawley, who led the congressional opposition to certifying the 2020 election results, would not be a senator from Missouri today had he not been a Yale Law School graduate and Supreme Court clerk years ago. I don’t know that Ho is doing this for the soundest reasons, but it’s about time someone recognized Connecticut’s preeminent pedigree-mill for what it is and tried to shut the whole thing down. We could at least try unplugging it and then plugging it back in.

  • Survivors Are Preserving the Dark History of Native Boarding Schools

    October 1, 2022

    Jan-Michael Stump/AP

    Six-year-old Phyllis Webstand wore an orange shirt to her first day of school. It was shiny, she remembers, and laced up the front—more importantly, it was a gift from her granny.

    At the St. Joseph’s Mission Residential School in Williams Lake, British Columbia, it was taken from her, as were all the personal belongings she had known and loved. None were ever returned. That year, 1973, Webstand became one of hundreds of thousands of Indigenous children in Canada and the US to suffer at state-run and religious boarding schools designed to assimilate by force. In the words of Richard Henry Pratt, the first superintendent of the infamous Carlisle Indian School, it was possible to “kill the Indian in him, and save the man,” often by coercive conversion to Christianity and the forbidding of Native language.  Physical and sexual abuse were common.

    In the United States, such schools operated for 150 years, the last closing in 1969. They have had a lasting impact on Native communities, from cultural and linguistic loss to intergenerational trauma. Children of people who attended the “residential schools” are more likely to have poor health outcomes, experience depression, and encounter abuse. Their story isn’t widely taught in schools. With “critical race theory” serving as grounds to ban works from Maus to a picture book by Ruby Bridges, the fight to change that may be a long one.

    Friday marks the second US observance of the Day of Remembrance for Indian Boarding Schools, or “Orange Shirt Day,” which Webstand and fellow survivor Chief Fred Robbins started a decade ago, on the land now known as Canada. “The color orange has always reminded me of that,” Webstand told other Canadians in 2013, on the country’s inaugural Orange Shirt Day. “How my feelings didn’t matter, how no one cared and how I felt like I was worth nothing. All of us little children were crying, and no one cared.” The observance became a federal statutory holiday in Canada last year. It lacks official status in the US, but a resolution calling for federal recognition of Orange Shirt Day, sponsored by Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), recently passed the Senate.

    The United States has dragged behind Canada in recognizing boarding schools’ role in Native genocide. In 2007, the Canadian government established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to address residential schools’ legacy. That commission assembled a historical record of the schools and their impact, concluding in 2015 with 94 calls to action to facilitate “reconciliation” between Indigenous peoples and others on the land. But even that commission was the product of a settlement between Canada’s government and approximately 86,000 Indigenous people sent to residential schools between 1879 and 1997.

    The United States has had no similar process, and it’s fallen to Indigenous women in office to act. Interior Department Secretary Deb Haaland, of the Laguna Pueblo, is the first Indigenous woman to run the agency that once oversaw residential schools. In May, her department released the first report in a multi-part investigation of their abusive practices; though not yet complete, it’s already the most comprehensive effort of its kind. Over 408 of these schools existed in the US, including in what are now the states of Alaska and Hawaii. Children as young as four were ordered to execute military drills and carry out manual labor, had their hair forcibly cut, and were made to use English names. Rules were often enforced through physical punishment, including solitary confinement, whipping, and starvation. To date, the investigation has found marked and unmarked graves on the grounds of 53 schools—the likely burial places of children who perished from disease or mistreatment. In Canada, investigators discovered the bodies of thousands of Indigenous children on the former sites of residential schools. The Interior Department appears likely to find the same.

    In June, Kansas House Rep. Sharice Davids, a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation, introduced legislation to create a “truth and healing commission” on the residential schools, which would complement the Interior Department’s work and serve to advance the nation’s understanding of the lasting damage inflicted by Native boarding schools. Native people, of course, have preserved the memory of those atrocities. But much of the story has been buried, sometimes by survivors reluctant to reopen their wounds, and often by whitewashing campaigns like the “critical race theory” panic—which the US could begin to undo by acknowledging and documenting the record of genocide. 

    Correction, October 3: An earlier version of this story misquoted residential school superintendent Richard Henry Pratt on the forced assimilation of Native peoples.

  • An Iranian Journalist Who Reported on Mahsa Amini’s Death Is Now in Solitary Confinement

    September 28, 2022

    A photo of Mahsa Amini displayed at a protest in Berlin, GermanyMarkus Schreiber/AP

    An Iranian journalist who reported on the death of Mahsa Amini has been thrown into solitary confinement, with no information about the charges against her, amid a major crackdown on the press in the country.

    Niloufar Hamedi, a reporter at the Tehran-based Shargh newspaper, was among the first to write about Amini, 22, who fell into a coma and died on September 16 after Iran’s morality police apprehended her and brought her to a “re-education” center for not wearing her hijab properly. Authorities say Amini died after a heart attack, but her family says she had no prior health problems and accuse the police of beating her.

    The 22-year-old’s death ignited massive protests across Iran, organized primarily by women, whose rights have been heavily restricted since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Her name has also gained global recognition, with world leaders condemning her death and the subsequent violence toward protesters. “We call on the Iranian authorities to hold an independent, impartial, and prompt investigation,” experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council said in a statement last week.

    Hamedi took a photograph that went viral of Amini’s grief-stricken parents hugging in the hospital, according to the news site IranWire, which wrote about the reporter’s incarceration on Monday. At least 18 journalists have been arrested in Iran since the demonstrations began, according to the nonprofit Committee to Protect Journalists. Press freedom groups have called for their immediate release. “They were doing their jobs,” the Association of Iranian Journalists said in a statement. The country has also experienced a near internet shutdown and disruptions to phone and social media networks that have made it more difficult to share news. “[T]he Iranian authorities are sending a clear message that there must be no coverage of the protests,” the Middle East desk of Reporters Without Borders, another nonprofit, said in a statement. “We demand the immediate release of these journalists and the immediate lifting of all restrictions on Iranians’ right to be informed.”  

    The protests in Iran began with demands to end the mandatory hijab laws that likely led to Amini’s death, but the demonstrations have grown to more broadly oppose Iran’s leaders and clerical establishment. Thousands of people in dozens of cities have taken to the streets, with Kurdistan as the epicenter of dissent: Amini was Kurdish, part of a Sunni Muslim ethnic group that has long suffered under Iran’s Shiite government and has waged a separatist movement for decades.

    Nationwide, at least 1,200 people have already been arrested in connection to the demonstrations, according to CNN, which cited a report from state-backed news agency Tasmin. Dozens of protesters have reportedly died at the hands of security forces.

    Hamedi, the journalist who took the photograph, was arrested by Ministry of Information agents last Thursday, according to IranWire, and is now being held in Evin Prison. Other arrested journalists may also be stuck in isolation, a way for authorities to keep them separate from the political prisoners in the prisons’ general population units. In any case, they and other protesters likely face brutal conditions in incarceration: One Iranian woman told the BBC that she was detained in a small room with 60 women, with no space to sit or move. “They said we could not use the bathroom, and that if we got hungry we could eat our stools,” she said. “After almost a day, when we shouted and protested inside the room, they started threatening us that if we didn’t keep quiet, they would rape us.”

    Hamedi’s husband, Mohammad Hossein Ajorlou, was reportedly able to talk with his wife on Monday, and says she is trying to stay calm in solitary as she waits for more information about her case.

  • Rail Bosses Said No to Paid Sick Leave—So We’re Still on Track for a Strike

    September 25, 2022

    Paul Hennessy/SOPA/Zuma

    Earlier this month, when railroad workers threatened to strike over “grueling” conditions—like formal discipline for taking any time off at all—the Biden administration brokered a tentative deal, avoiding a work stoppage that could have crippled supply chains and cost the US billions of dollars a day. Crisis averted.

    Or not. As more details of the deal come to light, it’s unclear that union members—who have to vote on the deal—will get on board. Workers had complained of weeks on call without a day off, overwork after staff cuts, and underpayment amid high inflation. One engineer told my colleague Noah Lanard that workers were “just fighting for the basic right to be able to be people outside of the railroad”—not for the $10 million–plus pay packages of top rail CEOs.

    The current proposal offers raises, limits the rise of health care premiums, and tweaks a tight scheduling system used to cut staffing. But the sticking point in negotiations has been sick time. Despite rail workers’ unpredictable schedules, they’re penalized for sick days, medical visits, and family emergencies. The consequences of the strict sick-day policy can be fatal: In June, the Washington Post reported, a locomotive engineer died when he suffered a heart attack on the job—after postponing a doctor’s visit because he’d been called into work.

    The tentative agreement removes penalties for up to three routine medical visits a year—but only on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, or Thursdays, and only if scheduled 30 days in advance. As some union members pointed out to the New York Times, you can’t always know a month ahead of time that you’ll need care, and unions already often manage to undo the discipline workers receive after unpaid leaves for health care.

    Formalizing the deal will be an uphill battle. As the Post points out, some 115,000 union members have to ratify the contracts to avoid a strike. Two major unions haven’t accepted the agreement, and a third, smaller one already rejected it, aiming to make improvements by the end of September. The remaining votes are expected to take place across the following two months.

  • Liz Cheney: I’ll Quit the GOP If Trump Runs Again

    September 25, 2022

    Bob Daemmrich/Zuma

    House Rep. Liz Cheney, the lame-duck Wyoming Republican and longtime anti-Trumper, said this weekend that she’ll leave the Republican Party if it nominates Donald Trump a second time.

    “I’m going to do everything I can to make sure he is not the nominee,” Cheney said at the Texas Tribune Festival on Saturday. “And if he is the nominee, I won’t be a Republican.” She pledged to oppose Kari Lake, her party’s Trump-backed, election-denying contender to govern Arizona—even if it meant campaigning for a Democrat.

    Still, Cheney’s attitude toward the Democratic Party is at best lukewarm. She didn’t concede that she wanted Democrats to keep control of the House after the midterms, and criticized the Biden administration’s “bad policies.” As my colleague Tim Murphy has pointed out, Cheney spent years demonizing Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and endorsed Trump before his movement ousted her: “By the time she decided that orange man, in fact, bad, the damage had long since been done.”

    “Donald Trump is the only president in American history who refused to guarantee a peaceful transition of power,” Cheney said Saturday. That the GOP “has refused in the months since then to stand up to him,” she continued, “does tell you how sick the party is.”

    After being ousted from House Republican leadership, losing her primary to a self-styled witch who relishes environmental destruction, and hearing that the Wyoming GOP no longer calls her a Republican anyway, Cheney is locked in an identity crisis, unable to shake the shackles of her party affiliation. Given what she’s been through, another Trump primary win seems like an arbitrary line in the sand.

  • “Sets This History Right”: David Corn’s “American Psychosis” Is a Hit

    September 14, 2022

    Drew Angerer/Getty

    This week, my colleague, DC Bureau Chief David Corn, released his new book, American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy. And early reviews are coming in.

    “I have been dying to read [American Psychosis] since I heard it was coming out,” MSNBC host Rachel Maddow raved during Monday night’s broadcast. “What David Corn is writing about—in his irreducible, ineffable David Corn way—is this cautionary tale for what’s happened today. And also a reminder that we’ve dealt with some of these dynamics before.”

    During the hand-off with MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell, Maddow added: “[Corn is] a great journalist. I love the way he thinks. I love the way he writes. I’m so glad he’s done a super-readable, modern history of the right… We just need smart, digestible history about this stuff right now.”

    David also appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe to discuss the book’s main point: For over 70 years, the GOP has been exploiting and encouraging far-right extremism. That is, it didn’t start with Donald Trump. David noted he was particularly interested in the response of host Joe Scarborough, a recovering Republican, to the book’s account of the dark side of the GOP. “It was never this bad. How did it get this bad?” asked Scarborough.

    Watch David’s response:

    Other praise for American Psychosis is coming in. MSNBC’s O’Donnell noted that with American Psychosis, David “did the full homework to take us all the way back to where it really begins.”

    “It’s important and compelling,” journalist Jonathan Alter said. “And true!”

    Mary Trump observed, “In his brilliant new book American Psychosis, David Corn reveals the historical roots of our current crises and the GOP’s decades-long descent into extremism and paranoia. An important, timely, and excellent read.”

    But wait there’s more. 

    Rep. Adam Kinzinger, the Illinois Republican who sits on the January 6 committee, said, “The name American Psychosis is perfect for the moment we’re in.”

    The book quickly landed on the Amazon bestseller list ahead of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. (Yes, that’s still a bestseller.)

    And don’t miss David’s description of his new book in the latest edition of Our Land, his exclusive, twice-weekly newsletter that delivers a no-BS analysis of the news of the day. (Make sure you sign up here!):

    I just realized that the subtitle is a bit of a misnomer, for the book, which chronicles how the GOP has encouraged and exploited right-wing extremism for at least seven decades, shows that the Republican Party has always been somewhat crazy—at least since World War II. That is, if you define “crazy” as the acceptance and promotion of irrationality, bigotry, paranoia, conspiracy theories, and other elements of fanaticism. This has been part of the Republican brand and its strategy since the Red-baiting days of Nixon and McCarthy. Donald Trump just placed it front and center and made the red meat even bloodier. If you want a taste—of the book, not the red meat—check out the cover-story essay adapted from American Psychosis in the latest issue of Mother Jones here. As I researched the history of the GOP’s dance with extremism, I came to see that an article could not do it justice. It took an entire book.

    One point from the book that seems especially relevant these days is that the GOP and the right has long employed a diabolical and demagogic tactic: accusing Democrats and liberals of purposefully seeking to destroy the United States. This was the heart of McCarthyism. Americans—who happened to be Democrats—were actively in league with the evil Soviets and plotting to bring about the downfall of the nation. McCarthy wasn’t referring to a small spy ring here or there. He pointed his crooked finger at the whole class of elites and Democratic officials, including members of the Cabinet. It was a lie, but millions believed him. Ronald Reagan embraced the New Right and the religious right that each denounced liberals, Democrats, and gay people for scheming to demolish America and Christianity. Both George Bushes did the same with the Christian Coalition, led by Pat Robertson who pushed the loony, antisemitic conspiracy theory asserting that a cabal of bankers, top government officials, the Rothschild family, and others were conniving to impose a one-world, collectivist dictatorship on the entire planet to assist Lucifer. The tea partiers—endorsed and exploited by John Boehner and other Republicans—declared that Obama was a secret Muslim socialist conspiring to annihilate the US economy so he could then impose a dictatorship. (Death panels! Concentration camps!) Trump in the 2020 election assailed Joe Biden for joining with antifa, Marxists, radicals, Black Lives Matter activists, and others to drive the country into “far-left fascism.” In each of these instances, Republicans vilified Democrats as internal and subversive enemies aiming to raze America. The threat within—it’s been a common theme for Republicans for decades. We see it today, as the right pushes panics over CRT and the Great Replacement Theory and accuses Democrats of pedophilia.

    Spending over a year researching and writing American Psychosis has bolstered my belief in the importance of understanding history. In retrospect, this pattern—and others—is obvious. But once you recognize and acknowledge it, the task of countering such reckless and irresponsible political warfare becomes a tad easier. As I’ve noted before, at the start of this project I didn’t envision this book being so timely and relevant. Yet as a debate has ensued over the role of MAGA extremism in the GOP and the value of dubbing Trumpism a fascist—or semi-fascist—enterprise, this history provides a crucial context for this moment and for figuring out what should be done.

    Grab a copy of American Psychosis at a bookstore near you. Or we recommend heading over to Bookshop.org, which represents independent booksellers. And of course, there’s always Amazon. 

    Happy reading!

    (Just to let you know, we have an affiliate deal with Bookshop.org, so if you click and buy through that link, a small share of the proceeds supports our journalism.)

  • Tina Peters Can’t Keep Her Mouth Shut

    September 13, 2022

    Thomas Peipert, File/AP

    Tina Peters—the Republican Colorado county election official who tried to prove that the 2020 election was stolen by allegedly orchestrating a plan to copy election software from voting machines—is in big trouble.

    Last week, the election-denying Mesa County clerk (who lost her bid for the state’s top election position) pleaded not guilty to a slew of felony and misdemeanor charges related to her alleged breach of her office’s election equipment.

    As I wrote in June, here’s what Peters supposedly did:

    In an effort to prove that the election had been rigged against Donald Trump, Peters attended an election equipment software update and obtained copies of election information, which later wound up online, according to an indictment…To perpetrate the scheme, Peters allegedly used a local IT consultant’s ID card without his knowledge. Peters has been charged with three misdemeanors and seven felonies, including conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation and identity theft.

    The wise thing to do, when charged with seven felonies, would be to lie low and listen to your lawyers. But Peters, who is not known for her competence, just can’t stop talking to the press.

    In June, she told the New York Times that Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) had “encouraged me to go forward with the imaging” of the voting machine data. While Boebert denies this, it’s difficult to understate just how reckless this comment is for someone accused of illegally copying election information.

    But that’s not all. After her arraignment last week, Peters appeared on MyPillow guy Mike Lindell’s TV network to announce that she had been subpoenaed by former Dominion Voting Systems director of product strategy and security Eric Coomer in his defamation case against Lindell. After Coomer posted a series of anti-Trump messages to Facebook, conspiracy theorists accused him of rigging the election on Biden’s behalf. Coomer is now suing the biggest proponents of the conspiracy theory, including Lindell, for defamation. But the ongoing litigation hasn’t stopped Peters from repeating the very lies that are landing her allies in court.

    “Eric Coomer, I won’t even call him a gentleman, I will call him antifa,” Peters said. “He was the one that was in charge of the patents for the algorithm that is inside the Dominion voting machine and actually bragged on an antifa call that he was a member of that he would make sure that Trump wouldn’t get in, that he made effing sure of it.” That alleged “antifa conference call” probably never happened, according to a Denver District Court judge. Instead, it was likely fabricated by podcaster Joe Oltmann before being amplified by Peters and Lindell.

    Typically, when you’re subpoenaed in a defamation case, you don’t go on television repeating the very claims over which the case has been filed. But, again, Tina Peters is anything but typical.

    Her trial will begin March 6, 2023.

  • Abolish the Monarchy, But Keep This Goat

    September 12, 2022

    You've heard a lot about the Queen's corgis. But we need to talk about the goats.Ben Birchall/PA Wire/AP

    Apologies, Brits: The only royal bloodline I care about is that of the Kashmir goats that have been roaming the Scottish seaside since the 1800s.

    After the death of Queen Elizabeth II, the world has debated the need for keeping the monarchy around. I am anti-monarchy. But I have a confession to make. I am smitten with Shenkin the royal goat.

    This morning, I saw a photo of Shenkin leading the 3rd battalion of the Royal Welsh in a procession for the King’s proclamation at Cardiff Castle. Shenkin, it turns out, is the battalion’s official mascot—and carries the rank of lance corporal. He is also very beautiful, and very fashionable.

    The royal goat tradition dates back to the Revolutionary War and the Battle of Bunker Hill (1775), when a wild goat purportedly led a group of Welsh soldiers from the battlefield. Yes, this irks the Bostonian in me. But we wound up securing our independence, the goat’s intervention notwithstanding. I can forgive the goat his indiscretion.

    Now, the military goats are selected from a herd that lives in Llandudno, Wales, descended from a flock which was said to be a gift from the Shah of Persia to Queen Victoria. Goat selection is apparently an intensive process, requiring the devotion of a full-time Goat Major who trains the kid.

    And Shenkin is quite the trainee, according to the Royal Welsh Museum:

    The most recent recruit is Fusilier Shenkin IV of the 3rd Battalion who is a Kashmir goat and was selected from the royal herd on the Great Orme Country Park in 2018. The army, along with an RSPCA vet, set out to find the next Shenkin, but it was no easy task as it took four weeks and many attempts to catch this cheeky kid! Shenkin IV was taken to Maindy Barracks in Cardiff for six months of training which included day trips to Cardiff city centre to get him used to crowds and noise. He made his first official public debut at the National Armed Forces Day in Llandudno on June 30th 2018.

    Shenkin is not the only royal goat. Different battalions have their own mascots. A notable one is the 1st battalion’s William Windsor, who made a name for himself when he got cheeky and tried to headbutt a drummer at Queen Elizabeth’s 80th birthday parade. (He was briefly demoted for “lack of decorum,” but he was promoted again a few months later.)

    After he retired in 2009, William Windsor was replaced with a five-month-old kid. A Wikipedia page that doesn’t appear to have been substantively edited in more than a decade cites a BBC article from 2009 and notes that William Windsor’s successor “will receive a ration of two cigarettes per day, which he eats, but will not be permitted Guinness until he is older.”

    The monarchy? I could take it or leave it. But we cannot let the royal goat tradition die. I’d go to war to defend it.

  • People Are Getting Arrested for Peacefully Protesting the Monarchy

    September 12, 2022

    Lafargue Raphael/ZUMA

    In the days following the “astonishing moment” when a cloud vaguely resembling the recently departed Queen Elizabeth popped up in the heavens, many on both sides of the Atlantic have giggled over the notion of a king in the 21st century. Others, aghast at the lighthearted ridicule of the British monarchy, descended into racist tirades. Here at Mother Jones, we largely respected the loss of a notable 96-year-old woman while acknowledging the United Kingdom’s self-inflicted global irrelevance, as well as the general weirdness in how we as a society consume celebrity death.

    But the official ceremonies surrounding King Charles, which entailed solemn proclamations and the observance of centuries-old traditions, have produced sufficient reason to start singing: abolish the monarchy. Let’s take a look at what happened on Sunday.

    The Guardian reports that two protesters who had been peacefully registering their disapproval of all things royal were arrested, with one woman in Edinburgh charged with “breaching” the peace for holding a sign that read, “Fuck imperialism, abolish the monarchy.” The other, Symon Hill, said he was arrested for shouting, “Who elected him?” as King Charles’ official proclamation was announced. Hill has reportedly since been de-arrested but more continue to be getting into trouble with the police.

    Outside the halls of Buckingham Palace, the arrests come amid increasingly anti-democratic tendencies in the UK and elsewhere. But these instances go beyond your run-of-the-mill turns at authoritarianism to land in the kingdom of downright deranged. Handcuffing folks for saying some mean words about the king? That’s absurdly medieval, certainly anti-modern, and once again an example of the anachronism—even immorality— featured in a country clinging dearly to royal spectacles in 2022. 

    It’s unclear how the new king feels about the arrests. And no one expects Charles, who finally got his chance to ditch the title of longest-ever king-in-waiting, to burn the whole thing down because we say so. But perhaps he could channel the 21st century and denounce the recent arrests? And while we’re at it, do as my colleague Tim Murphy suggests here and arrest the real baddie: Prince Andrew. 

  • We Now Interrupt Nothing to Bring You News of the Queen’s Death

    September 9, 2022

    NURPHO/AP

    The news of Queen Elizabeth’s death sent off a wave of tributes, shitposts, and denunciations for the departed monarch from people around the world. We all waved goodbye; Ireland even did it with just its middle finger.

    As I watched the outpouring of grief and antipathy, one thing was notable: our inability to shut up.

    Historically, when major news happens, the broadcast is stopped for a special announcement. A reverent halt begins. Now, the opposite appears to have swallowed that tradition. Major news sparks a worldwide bang in the content machine. The queen’s death did not stop us. It got us started—and now we’re in frenetic overdrive.

    Our entire new way of intaking information can basically be summed up in this video:

    House beats go bang, queen dead, house beats go bang bang.

    Often, this social media overload is bemoaned as the decline of culture. I’m not sure about that. But it should at least be noted that if the queen had died in 1992 I don’t think you’d have outlets, celebrities, your mom’s friend all locked in an arms race to best each other in reverence or hatred. And so major news events, and especially this one, have secretly been extremely revealing. How we have consumed the queen’s death is how we consume everything: All at once, at high volume, jammed next to all the other things going on. 

    Gawk, below, at how the major news event had to be commented on, in some way, by everyone, despite many having nothing to actually say. Behold our new world. Graceless? Maybe. But it is good to know nothing will stop us—no death, no tragedy—from being dumb idiots. That’s what life is all about.

  • Masks Are Now Optional on New York City Transit

    September 7, 2022

    Anthony Behar/Sipa USA/AP

    If you ride the bus or take the train in New York City, you can say goodbye to your mask.

    New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced today that masks are no longer required on mass transit, marking the end of an era for one of the last nationwide.

    Compliance was already low, and some New Yorkers say the change won’t make much of a difference. Still, others are concerned that the state has been too quick to let its guard down with the virus still circulating.

    Hochul has also caught flak for the public messaging campaign accompanying the announcement. The “mask optional” signs are a play off a previous ad campaign that encouraged proper mask usage.

    The decision brings New York in line with the federal government, whose nationwide airplane and public transit mask mandate was overturned in April. Now, will San Francisco be next?