Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Yesterday I read Mitt Romney’s attack on the New-START treaty with Russia, which cuts back on both sides’ nuclear arsenals, and even though I don’t know much about this stuff I was left scratching my head. A commission can broadly amend the treaty? (Not likely.) We aren’t allowed to load ICBMs on bombers? (ICBMs don’t go on bombers, do they?) We aren’t allowed to convert ICBM silos into missile defense sites? (Do we even want to?) Etc. etc.

Well, it turns out it’s even worse than that. Fred Kaplan does know a lot about this stuff, and his epic takedown is here. There is, almost literally, not a single meaningful word in Romney’s entire piece. But I guess that’s a feature, not a bug. It’s a great bit of base pandering for the Republican Party’s 2012 primaries, and that’s pretty obviously what it’s aimed at.

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate