“Beyond My Pay Grade”: When Pete Buttigieg Had a Chance to Stand Firm on Abortion Rights, He Dodged
Mother Jones illustration; Getty; Zuma Mayor Pete Buttigieg was keeping a low profile. It was last spring, and he was in the middle of deliberating what he would later call “one of the hardest decisions” he’s had to make during his tenure in South Bend, Indiana. An abortion clinic—which was hoping to offer service to…
Wasted Funds, Destroyed Property: How Sheriffs Undermined Their Successors After Losing Reelection
This story was originally published by ProPublica, which produced the article in partnership with AL.com, a member of the ProPublica Local Reporting Network. Shortly after Phil Sims became the sheriff of Marshall County, Alabama, at 12 a.m. on Jan. 14, he found a cardboard box in a storage closet containing five government-issued smartphones, each with multiple holes…
Joe Biden Just Released His Green New Deal. He’s Targeting Net Zero Emissions by 2050.
In a 10,400-word campaign policy proposal, the presumptive front-runner for the next Democratic presidential nomination laid out plans to ramp up renewable energy and electric car investments, spurring 10 million jobs over a decade, and ending fossil fuel subsidies. “As president, I will lead America, and the world, not only to confront the crisis in…
Can a Prosecutor Ever Truly Be Progressive? Ferguson May Be the Ultimate Test Case.
Credit: Mother Jones; Jeff Roberson/AP On the night Wesley Bell unseated longtime St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch, Kayla Reed celebrated a progressive electoral victory and a personal promise fulfilled. Reed has been protesting and organizing in the St. Louis area ever since Darren Wilson, a white cop, shot Michael Brown, a black 18-year-old, in…
Activists Couldn’t Get Facebook to Tackle Its Discrimination Problem—Until the Russia Scandal Hit
Mother Jones illustration On April 10, 2018, Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg did something he had managed to avoid in his 14 years at the helm of the tech giant he had built: He testified before Congress. His company had been battered in the preceding months, first by revelations that Russia had used the…
Climate Activists Have Their Next Target: The DNC Debates
Joe Raedle, Getty Images No city better embodies the challenges of climate change than the setting for the first Democratic debate in June. At least 10 candidates who meet the Democratic National Committee’s set of polling and grassroots fundraising criteria will take the stage in Miami, a city that will face the threat of encroaching…