Monster of 2022: Moynihan Train Hall
Mother Jones; John Lamparski/NurPhoto/ZUMA Manhattan’s new Amtrak hub occupies the ground floor of an old Post Office sorting facility across 8th Avenue from Penn Station, and compared to the claustrophobic, sewage-strewn warren next door, Moynihan Train Hall feels like a revelation. Natural light floods through the elegant glass ceiling; at night, you can look up…
Hero of 2022: The Woman Who Defeated Two Anti-Abortion Ballot Measures
Mother Jones; John Hanna/AP When I asked Rachel Sweet, a political operative from flyover country, what motivated her to pursue a career of fighting for reproductive rights, she couldn’t pinpoint a specific moment or life experience. She grew up in a politically engaged family that often talked about liberal values. She interned at Planned Parenthood…
Hero of 2022: The Movement to Bring Brittney Griner and Pay Equity Back Home
Mother Jones; Charlie Neibergall/AP On December 8, grainy footage showed WNBA star Brittney Griner landing in San Antonio after being released from 294 days in Russian detention. Griner wore a beanie over her hair that had been chopped off to avoid freezing conditions at the remote Russian penal colony in which she was, until recently, expected to…
Monster of 2022: J.D. Vance
Mother Jones; Michael Conroy/AP In October 2016, less than a month before Donald Trump would be elected President of the United States, J.D Vance sat down for a conversation at the American Enterprise Institute. This was Vance in his most Atlantic-friendly era, when he was chiefly the author of Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family…
Hero of 2022: Those LA Police Funding Billboards
Mother Jones; Kenneth Mejia About a month after President Joe Biden declared in his State of the Union address that the answer to crime is to “fund the police, fund them, fund them,” a mint green billboard appeared above a gas station one block from a northern Los Angeles Police Department precinct. Passersby who happened…
Hero of 2022: The New Three-Digit National Mental Health Crisis Hotline, 988
Mother Jones; Jefferee Woo/Tampa Bay Times/ZUMA I imagine (hope?) I’m not the only person who momentarily forgets my sister’s phone number when the doctor’s office requests my emergency contact information. Hell, sometimes I even forget my own number when the grocery store clerk asks me to plug it in to claim rewards and fuel points.…