Mother Jones
What Did ICE Know About David Brouillette?
- Title
- What Did ICE Know About David Brouillette?
- Runtime
- 2:54
- Date posted
- 4 months ago
- Description
- Ashley Brouillette had not heard from her ex-husband, David Brouillette, since November. She says one of their last interactions was a three-minute voicemail in which David told her that someone should slit her and her daughters’ throats.
Then, last week, Ashley got a call from a journalist, who asked if she recognized her ex-husband among the ICE agents photographed after the fatal shooting of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine. She did. The news caught her off guard, so she reached out to David: He told her he’d shot Durán and that he’d acted in self-defense because, he claimed, Durán tried to hit him with a car. Ashley doesn’t believe him. After watching the limited surveillance footage of the incident, she believes her ex-husband “murdered” Durán, a 25-year-old Colombian man whose daughter recently celebrated her third birthday.
Mother Jones reporters spoke with several people who knew David well over the years. They painte...
- Title
- The Man Making Pete Hegseth Richer Also Pushes "Pro-Israel Policies" Like War With Iran
- Runtime
- 2:19
- Date posted
- 4 months ago
- Description
- Meet the man working to make the defense secretary richer—and has helped lay the groundwork for Israeli influence on top Trump officials.
In March 2022, Pete Hegseth, then a Fox News analyst and host, spoke at a dinner put on by the Israel Heritage Foundation, a conservative Jewish group that has worked to boost US support for the Israeli far right.
The mostly unmemorable event was held at a midtown Manhattan restaurant to honor former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, then a potential presidential candidate yet to fall from Donald Trump’s graces. But one notable aside came when Hegseth singled out the IHF’s honorary chairman, Jonathan Burkan, saying they had become friends.
“Jon has a force of personality that you will never underestimate,” Hegseth said, before adding. “He manages my money now. It’s true.”
Burkan, who works at Morgan Stanley, remained Hegseth’s wealth manager after the TV personality became defense se...
- Title
- Pete Hegseth's Iran War Spending Keeps Growing
- Runtime
- 0:31
- Date posted
- 4 months ago
- Description
- "It is a fiscally responsible budget," says Pete Hegseth. Meanwhile, the numbers from his own mouth say different.
🙄
- Title
- Trump Keeps Pushing The SAVE Act. Some Republicans Are Over It Too.
- Runtime
- 0:52
- Date posted
- 4 months ago
- Description
- Trump's SAVE America Act could disenfranchise millions of voters and would severely limit how Americans can register to vote.
And even some Republicans have had it.
- Title
- Trump’s Primetime Speech Was a Dud
- Runtime
- 2:23
- Date posted
- 4 months ago
- Description
- Donald Trump promised “really big news” in his primetime address on election integrity on Thursday night but failed to deliver any.
Instead, he recited a laundry list of disinformation and misinformation but provided no evidence votes were changed or voting systems manipulated in the election he lost six years ago.
Election experts called it “shockingly thin,” “underwhelming,” and “something less than a nothingburger.”
But that doesn’t mean the threat that Trump poses to fair elections has gone away, writes Ari Berman. In fact, the speech makes it more likely that the president will ultimately take drastic action to interfere in the 2026 midterms.
- Title
- Trump pushes for the Save Act in unhinged primetime address
- Runtime
- 2:55
- Date posted
- 4 months ago
- Description
- In a primetime address on Thursday night, President Trump once again made a desperate plea that Congress pass the Save America Act.
"The only reason you wouldn't do it is you want to cheat because your policies are so bad," he said. "Your candidates are so pathetic that you can't get away or can't get elected any other way."
In June, Trump cancelled signing a significant bipartisan bill focused on affordable housing, refusing to move until Congress passes the bill.
The centerpiece of the bill remains a requirement that voters show proof of US citizenship, such as a passport or birth certificate, to register to vote.
Nine percent of American citizens, roughly 21 million people, don’t have ready access to citizenship documents, according to a study by the Brennan Center and other voting rights groups.
Voting rights advocates describe it as quite possibly the worst voter suppression bill ever seriously considered by Congr...
- Title
- DHS Just Bought Two Private Prisons in California
- Runtime
- 2:54
- Date posted
- 4 months ago
- Description
- The Department of Homeland Security has purchased two privately-run detention facilities from the for-profit prison company CoreCivic, the company announced, in a move that may serve to shield the facilities from oversight.
DHS bought the two Southern California prisons, Otay Mesa Detention Center and California City Detention Center, for about $1.5 billion, but the facilities will still be operated by CoreCivic employees, meaning the company will still generate income, over and above the sale price, from both prisons. California law requires that privately held detention centers be subject to oversight by local and state authorities, as well as members of Congress.
Now that DHS owns the buildings, finding out what’s going on inside of them is likely to become harder.
Independent journalist @kevinhfoster recently spoke with community members outside of Otay Mesa who have heard from detainees via notes they've managed to get out in bottles throw...
- Title
- The Venice Biennale’s US Pavilion Said... Nothing
- Runtime
- 3:00
- Date posted
- 4 months ago
- Description
- I was on my family vacation in Italy, watching a film where an artist dressed up as a giant talking piece of shit hangs out with friends at a cafe. I quickly started to question my life choices.
I was visiting the Venice Biennale, one of the most prestigious art events in the world. Every two years, nearly 100 countries send work from their most prominent artists. It’s cultural diplomacy dressed up as art—a chance for each nation to make a statement to the world about who they are. And in turn the rest of the world gets to decide what that says about you.
Some countries put forth some pretty bizarre offerings. At Austria's pavilion, you're greeted by an artist hanging naked inside a bell, serving as a human clapper. Inside, visitors are encouraged to pee in an outhouse. The urine gets purified and pumped into a tank where a naked woman scuba dives in it.
But I was most interested in the US pavilion. After a controversial selection process b...
- Title
- Devastated Biddeford, Maine locals react after neighbor killed by ICE agents
- Runtime
- 2:09
- Date posted
- 4 months ago
- Description
- "I knew the guy. He was always around. He got a kid, a little daughter. And that's the most devastating."
On Monday morning, 26-year-old Joan Sebastian Guerrero was shot and killed by ICE agents in Biddeford, Maine. Reports say that not only was Guerrero authorized to legally work in the US, but he wasn't the target of ICE's operations that day. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin claims the victim “weaponized” his vehicle. But similar claims by DHS have quickly fallen apart after video footage of shootings has come to light.
Mother Jones digital producer Anna Yeo (@annnayeo) was on the ground Tuesday in Biddeford and spoke with locals—including one man who knew Guerrero.
- Title
- They Came After Palestinian Activist Mahmoud Khalil. Now He Wants Justice.
- Runtime
- 1:53
- Date posted
- 4 months ago
- Description
- Today, Mahmoud Khalil filed a suit alleging Trump officials entered a “public-private” conspiracy to deport activists.
Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian activist who spent months in ICE detention, is suing a constellation of right-wing figures and organizations that relentlessly targeted him over his involvement in anti-Israel protests at Columbia University. He’s also suing the Trump administration, which he says collaborated with these groups, under the Ku Klux Klan Act, a Reconstruction-era law that sought to restrict government coordination with Southern vigilantes.
Khalil’s suit, filed Tuesday in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleges that federal government officials entered into a conspiracy with ideologically driven groups, including the Heritage Foundation, Canary Mission, and Betar, to “single out Mr. Khalil and other non-citizen Palestinians and their supporters for arrest, detention, and deportation, as punishm...
- Title
- The Supreme Court's Ruling on Birthright Citizenship Was a Warning
- Runtime
- 25:36
- Date posted
- 4 months ago
- Description
- ► For more, visit Mother Jones: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/07/supreme-court-term-wrap/
At the end of June, the Supreme Court affirmed that birthright citizenship is the law of the land. The decision, by Chief Justice John Roberts, upholds the clear meaning of the Constitution and knocks down the Trump administration’s attempt to deny citizenship to thousands of newborns every year.
It’s no exaggeration to say that the case was a test of whether this would remain a nation where everyone is born on equal legal footing, or whether the country would revert to a caste system in which one’s place in society is determined by the status of one’s parents.
And the decision was scandalously close.
This term, the court didn’t move the ball down the field, they scored tournament-changing goals. The country is already feeling the consequences.
After the final decision, Mother Jones reporters Isabela Dias...
- Title
- Why Are Billionaires so Hard to Tax?
- Runtime
- 2:55
- Date posted
- 4 months ago
- Description
- Everyone thinks billionaires should be taxed more—well, except billionaires. In fact, there have been a whole bunch of bills introduced at the federal level to tax billionaire wealth. None have passed, and even if they did, explains Michael Mechanic, a longtime Mother Jones senior editor and author of Jackpot: How the Super-Rich Really Live and How Their Wealth Harms Us All, the Supreme Court would deem any wealth tax unconstitutional.
The Roberts court has even signaled that taxing unrealized income—paper gains on unsold investments, which represents the lion’s share of income for America’s richest families—is constitutionally off limits.
So how does one tax a billionaire? There may indeed be a way, as Mechanic explains in this short video. For all the details, be sure to read his story “How to Tax a Billionaire,” available for free (!!) at MotherJones.com.
- Title
- The Messy Plaintiffs in the Texas Anti-Abortion Movement
- Runtime
- 3:00
- Date posted
- 4 months ago
- Description
- In court records, Jerry Rodriguez appeared to be a deeply aggrieved man who had pleaded with his girlfriend to not go through with her abortions, but to no avail. According to Rodriguez, she ended her pregnancies from abortion pills mailed to her from an out of state physician.
Demanding justice on Rodriguez’s behalf was anti-abortion legal mastermind Jonathan F. Mitchell, who was seeking an injunction to stop the physician —and all other medical providers—from sending pills to Texas, where abortion is banned. Mitchell amended the lawsuit to incorporate a new Texas law which he helped to draft, House Bill 7. The bill allows private “bounty hunters” to sue abortion-pill providers for at least $100,000 per violation. But there are some restrictions. The bill prohibits lawsuits from anyone who was found by a court to have committed “family violence”.
The San Francisco Chronicle looked into Rodriguez’s past and found that the Galveston man had ev...
- Title
- Did birth control make my depression worse?
- Runtime
- 2:32
- Date posted
- 4 months ago
- Description
- Last summer, senior reporter Julia Lurie noticed a shift: She was calmer and happier than she’d been in years.
But it took her a while to realize that these changes synced up with something else that had happened recently: the removal of her IUD.
For years, studies in reputable scientific journals have found that people on hormonal contraceptives—and, it seems, especially people on non-oral contraceptives, like IUDs—have significantly higher levels of depression, anxiety, insomnia, and other mood issues.
And while it’s important to note that the likelihood of dramatic mood changes is still quite low, with this research out there, why did the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists call them a "myth"?
This story comes at a fraught time for hormonal birth control, which is under attack from a bunch of different directions. Misinformation on contraceptives is rampant on social media. The birth control conversation fee...
- Title
- You'll Never Believe What Kevin McCarthy Just Said With a Straight Face
- Runtime
- 0:13
- Date posted
- 4 months ago
- Description
- You'll never believe what former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy just said on national television... with a straight face.
Yeah... I'm just going to leave this here for the people who care about the facts.
- Title
- US Soccer Doesn’t Need a Big, Orange Thumb on the Scale
- Runtime
- 2:17
- Date posted
- 4 months ago
- Description
- Three phone calls and one mysteriously cancelled red card later, we’ll never know if the US could have won fairly.
As the US soccer team prepares to face off against Belgium, the question isn’t whether their aggressive and quick play style can defeat an opponent that humiliated them back in March—it’s what Donald Trump’s role in the decision to suspend star striker Folarin Balogun’s one-match ban means for the integrity of the World Cup.
And, well, the integrity of the US.
- Title
- I Took the Train to Better Understand Trump Voters (Part 2)
- Runtime
- 2:35
- Date posted
- 4 months ago
- Description
- From Newark to D.C. to Pittsburgh, I met people across political lines.
People who love Trump, and people who want to invoke the 25th Amendment. People who hope cuts to trains and other services will change conservative hearts and minds, and people who can imagine passenger rail funding going to things they view as more important.
Across these differences, one common theme emerged: Daily life in the US right now costs way too much.
To me, it underlined the way power has worked before Trump and will work after. If people who have been deprived of wealth and influence unite against the power players leveraging those things against us, then what could we achieve?
- Title
- I Took the Train to Better Understand Trump Voters
- Runtime
- 2:30
- Date posted
- 4 months ago
- Description
- If you want to understand U.S. politics, take the train.
The Trump administration’s federal budget request for the next fiscal year includes steep cuts to passenger rail. According to an analysis by the High Speed Rail Alliance, a pro-rail advocacy group, the budget proposal would slash Federal Railroad Administration funding by 81 percent. This includes a 69 percent funding cut to Amtrak.
But rural Republicans have historically relied on passenger rail. They also elected the same administration now cutting this service that they rely on. At this point, this paradox is nothing new: From cutting healthcare subsidies to immigration dragnets to costly and devastating wars, President Donald Trump’s assault on human rights and domestic programs has ensnared the very people whose support he has relied on.
So, how is this playing out with voters in real time, particularly ahead of the midterm elections?
Chris Vazquez took the train to f...
- Title
- I Took a Train Ride. It Explained a Lot About US Politics.
- Runtime
- 4:58
- Date posted
- 4 months ago
- Description
- ► For more, visit Mother Jones: https://www.motherjones.com/
If you want to understand U.S. politics, take the train.
The Trump administration’s federal budget request for the next fiscal year includes steep cuts to passenger rail. According to an analysis by the High Speed Rail Alliance, a pro-rail advocacy group, the budget proposal would slash Federal Railroad Administration funding by 81 percent. This includes a 69 percent funding cut to Amtrak.
But rural Republicans have historically relied on passenger rail. They also elected the same administration now cutting this service that they rely on. At this point, this paradox is nothing new: From cutting healthcare subsidies to immigration dragnets to costly and devastating wars, President Donald Trump’s assault on human rights and domestic programs has ensnared the very people whose support he has relied on.
So, how is this playing out with voters in real time, particularly a...
- Title
- I Went to the Great-American State Fair. It Was a Flop
- Runtime
- 2:57
- Date posted
- 4 months ago
- Description
- "Loitering is not permitted in this area," an audio recording sternly warns, as uniformed National Guard troops patrol Washington's iconic, algae-plagued reflecting pool. "Please proceed to a designated location."
Journalist Amanda Moore's dystopian video, shot last weekend just steps from the Lincoln Memorial, instantly went viral—a perfect 8-second encapsulation of American democracy under Donald Trump. Amanda has spent the past 18 months documenting the chaos and brutality of the administration's militarized takeovers and immigration raids in cities across the country. Her footage has been shocking, often horrifying. But it's never before been quite so absurd. (Well, maybe once.)
In her latest video report for Mother Jones, Amanda takes us on a tour of the Trumpified National Mall as the nation attempts to celebrate its 250th birthday. Not far from the reflecting pool's nanobubblers and security theater, there's a very different scene: Trump's Great Ameri...
- Title
- Justice Jackson Rebukes Justice Thomas for Birthright Citizenship Dissent
- Runtime
- 2:07
- Date posted
- 4 months ago
- Description
- The largest part of the Supreme Court's 194-page decision on birthright citizenship is Justice Clarence Thomas's dissent—a massive alternate history of citizenship, the Civil War, and Reconstruction.
To Thomas, the 14th Amendment applied only to the freed people after the Civil War because they were domiciled in the US and owed no allegiance to a foreign power—interpreting the rule as limited to one period and one population.
In a concurrence that spotlights the role Black people played in shaping the 14th Amendment, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson takes on Justice Thomas. “The Reconstruction Amendments were an anticaste, antisubordination reset for the Nation,” she wrote, “not a mere spot treatment for the dark stain of slavery.”
"The teacher who scolds a student for bullying a classmate hopes the student learns the broader lesson of treating everyone with kindness," Jackson writes. "Not just that one kid."
Watch Mother Jo...
- Title
- The Supreme Court's 5-4 majority on birthright citizenship is too close for comfort
- Runtime
- 1:28
- Date posted
- 4 months ago
- Description
- The Supreme Court affirmed on Tuesday that that birthright citizenship is the law of the land in a 5–4 majority.
But that math is too close for comfort.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh would have struck down Trump’s executive order based on Congress’ previous codification of birthright citizenship, but does not believe it is required by the Constitution. Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Samuel Alito dissented.
The very fact that the country came within one or two votes of undoing our system of birthright citizenship is a sign of how far the Trump administration has succeeded in throwing into contention the country’s most basic freedoms.
Supreme Court reporter Pema Levy talks to Garrison Hayes about the ruling.
- Title
- I’d Seen It From The Ground, But Wait Until You See It From The Sky
- Runtime
- 2:56
- Date posted
- 4 months ago
- Description
- Reporter Nate Halverson took to the sky to get an aerial view of forestlands sprayed with the world's most controversial herbicide, glyphosate.
The imagery from above was startling, as the extent of the barren land sprayed with glyphosate became apparent.
The practice of spraying glyphosate—AKA Roundup—in the woods is now the fastest-growing market for the world's most widely used herbicide, according to 5 million state records analyzed by Mother Jones.
An April investigation by Halverson that revealed the extent of the spraying has sparked a national debate over the practice and elicited pointed questions from members of Congress overseeing the Forest Service, leading some to call for an end to spraying in sensitive forestlands.
The World Health Organization has called glyphosate a probable carcinogen, and the EPA has said it likely harms 93 percent of endangered species and is especially detrimental in areas like forests.
The man...
- Title
- Monsanto’s Ghostwriting Just Infiltrated the Supreme Court
- Runtime
- 3:00
- Date posted
- 4 months ago
- Description
- Monsanto’s ghostwriting just infiltrated the Supreme Court.
Last week, the Supreme Court, in a 7-2 ruling, made it harder for people to sue the manufacturer of glyphosate - aka Roundup - when they believe it caused their cancer.
The court ruled that Monsanto (now owned by German chemical company Bayer) could not be held liable in the case of a Missouri man who argued that Roundup’s maker had not revealed on its label that it could cause cancer.
SCOTUS agreed with Monsanto that the Environmental Protection Agency declared glyphosate, Roundup’s key ingredient, safe, and it therefore did not require a warning label.
But reporter Nate Halverson uncovered and published that the EPA has known for nearly a decade that Monsanto ghostwrote one of the key studies the Agency was relying on to call glyphosate safe. That peer-reviewed 2013 study, which highlighted the herbicide’s safety, was deemed ghostwritten by the EPA’s own Inspect...
- Title
- The Supreme Court upheld birthright citizenship today
- Runtime
- 1:29
- Date posted
- 4 months ago
- Description
- The Supreme Court upheld birthright citizenship today.
In the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the court sees no reason to depart from United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the landmark 1898 case that decided virtually all children born in the United States are US citizens.
We sat down with Wong Kim Ark's great-grandson earlier this year. Here's a snippet of our conversation with Norman Wong, a 76-year-old retired carpenter living outside San Francisco.
- Title
- The Supreme Court actually protected voting rights today
- Runtime
- 1:32
- Date posted
- 4 months ago
- Description
- On Monday, the Supreme Court actually protected voting rights. Yup, you read that right.
In a 5-4 decision by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the Court upheld a Mississippi law allowing mail-in ballots to be counted up to five days after Election Day, as long as they had been postmarked by the day of the election.
Watch the latest from voting rights reporter Ari Berman:
- Title
- Monsanto's 5-Step Plan to Make Their "Science" Mainstream
- Runtime
- 3:00
- Date posted
- 4 months ago
- Description
- This week the Supreme Court sided with chemical giant Monsanto, ruling that the developer of Roundup is shielded from lawsuits claiming that people must be warned that glyphosate might cause cancer under state laws.
SCOTUS ruled that only the federal EPA could require warning labels. It said the EPA was responsive to new information.
However, the court cited multiple EPA reports that relied on peer-reviewed research that Monsanto had secretly orchestrated and ghostwrote. The company presented that research as “independent.” It was part of the company’s effort to convince regulators and the public that their billion-dollar herbicide was safe.
The EPA relied on those secretly ghostwritten studies, and continued to rely on them even after records showed they were ghostwritten. And, now, so as has the Supreme Court.
Reporter Nate Halverson breaks down how these reports went from Monsanto's hands to the mainstream.
- Title
- The sportswashing of Trump's World Cup
- Runtime
- 3:00
- Date posted
- 5 months ago
- Description
- "While the term 'sportswashing' hasn’t often been applied to the United States, I think it very much should."
Autocracies have long used international sports events, like the World Cup or the Olympics, as platforms to whitewash abuses of power. Aptly, human rights advocates coined the term “sportswashing” to describe it.
Reporter Alex Nguyen spoke with Jules Boykoff, a professor of politics at Pacific University in Oregon and former professional soccer player, on how Trump—like Putin before him—is the World Cup’s biggest winner.
- Title
- The Cover Stories That Put Mother Jones on the Map
- Runtime
- 0:27
- Date posted
- 5 months ago
- Description
- It’s been 50 years of fearless reporting at Mother Jones.
So we thought we’d take a trip down memory lane and revisit some of our most memorable—and cringey—issues from the past half century.
Now, for our 50th anniversary issue, we did something that we try every once in a while: We produced two covers, one for subscribers and one for the newsstand.
The idea behind a split cover is to give different types of readers different experiences. In this case, subscribers got a rich, celebratory collage from artist Max-o-matic, stitching together some of the most iconic and aberrant figures of our half-century in print. For the newsstand, our art team took inspiration from Nirvana’s legendary second album to tease Casey Michel’s investigation of Jared Kushner’s (self-)dealings. With the help of ace illustrator Justin Metz, we had an insta-classic: Nevermind the Corruption.
Both covers blend stunning visuals and sharp design wit...
- Title
- Donald Trump Is Going After Disabled Americans
- Runtime
- 1:58
- Date posted
- 5 months ago
- Description
- “I am not going to let this administration move us back to a time when people were ripped out of their communities, ripped out of their homes against their wills, and forced into institutions,” @senduckworth told Mother Jones.
On Thursday, Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) will introduce a resolution that calls for the Department of Justice to rescind a memo issued last week that contests the longstanding interpretation of the Supreme Court’s 1999 Olmstead v. L.C. decision, a landmark case that limits states’ power to compel people to live in psychiatric and other institutions, such as nursing homes.
The DOJ memo itself does not change the law, but it may influence how the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services approach agreements and programs that help disabled people live in their communities, outside institutions. Following the release of the memo, HHS took down its webpage on Olmstead and community living.
The slip opinion, w...
- Title
- Why the World Cup is more unaffordable than ever
- Runtime
- 2:28
- Date posted
- 5 months ago
- Description
- ► Listen to the Reveal episode here: https://revealnews.org/podcast/world-cup-soccer-football-FIFA-ticket-prices-Infantino-Haiti/
The World Cup is here.
For the first time, the tournament is happening in three countries at once: the United States, Mexico, and Canada. It’s bigger than ever, with more teams, more games, more viewers, and more money on the line.
This special World Cup episode of Reveal looks beyond the spectacle of the beautiful game to the organization behind it: FIFA. The global soccer body stands to take in billions from the tournament, while fans face soaring ticket prices and host cities pay massive sums for transportation, security, and infrastructure.
“Sport is this incredible glue that brings people together,” human rights advocate Mustafa Qadri tells Reveal. But he says that also makes it “highly vulnerable to cynical people coming in and exploiting it for their own gain.”
This we...
- Title
- Bryan Stevenson on Confronting America’s Legacy of Slavery
- Runtime
- 31:13
- Date posted
- 5 months ago
- Description
- When Bryan Stevenson moved to Montgomery, Alabama, in the 1980s, the city—one of America’s most prominent slave trading spaces before the Civil War—had dozens of Confederate monuments and memorials, but nothing commemorating slavery. Today, thanks to Stevenson’s efforts, the city looks much different.
Over the last decade, the executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative has transformed parts of Montgomery through markers acknowledging the legacy of slavery while also building the Legacy Sites, a series of museums and memorials that commemorate America’s dark history of lynching, slaveholding, and racial terror across the South.
“I’m really proud that we have made Montgomery, Alabama, arguably the most truthful space in America when it comes to confronting the legacy of slavery and the legacy of lynching,” Stevenson says. “If we can lift up truth in the heart of Dixie, then there’s not a place in America that can say, ‘Well, they ...
- Title
- Yes, the tech bros are funding genetically engineered genius babies
- Runtime
- 2:26
- Date posted
- 5 months ago
- Description
- Some of the same billionaires who bankrolled AI now admit the technology could one day kill us all.
And they’re funding a new plan to stop it—genetically engineered genius babies.
Read the full investigation from reporter Abby Vesoulis here: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/04/gene-editing-optimization-thiel-altman-armstrong-andreessen-ai-iq/
- Title
- Lawmakers Demand Answers About Spraying Roundup All Over Public Lands
- Runtime
- 2:52
- Date posted
- 5 months ago
- Description
- GLYPHOSATE UPDATE: Lawmakers are demanding answers from the US Forest Service after our investigation into their use of the chemical in forests around the country.
"The Forest Service is regulated by Congress," Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME) told us. "And shouldn't be doing any of these things behind our back."
You can find all our reporting on the developments—including our bombshell investigation into the Monsanto paper the US government is still relying on—head to our investigations on MotherJones.com.
- Title
- Gerrymandering is bad for democracy, but...
- Runtime
- 1:31
- Date posted
- 5 months ago
- Description
- Since last year, Republicans have drawn 16 new US House districts favoring their party, while Democrats have only been able to draw six.
That means, as a result of redistricting alone, Republicans have a 10-seat advantage heading into November.
But even against these odds, Democrats could still come out ahead in the redistricting wars by 2028.
Watch to learn how:
- Title
- Inside New Jersey's Infamous ICE Facility
- Runtime
- 9:18
- Date posted
- 5 months ago
- Description
- Delaney Hall has been many things: a jail, a halfway house, a rehabilitation facility. For the past year, however, it's been something more fraught: an ICE detention center and the site of ongoing clashes between federal law enforcement and protesters. Reporters aren't allowed in, health inspections are rare, and congressional oversight has been obstructed—as my recent interview with Rep. LaMonica McIver revealed. She's now a year into a battle against criminal charges stemming from her attempt to inspect the facility.
So much of what we know about the inner workings of Delaney Hall comes from the letters that detainees have smuggled out with allegations of wormy food, denied medical care, and unsafe working conditions. In December 2025, 41-year-old Jean Wilson Brutus, died inside.
With Delaney Hall now thrust into the national spotlight, there's still so much we don't know. That's why I wanted to talk to two reporters who have been watching this closely.
- Title
- Trump Booed While Attending NBA Finals Game in NYC
- Runtime
- 0:31
- Date posted
- 5 months ago
- Description
- BREAKING NEWS: Wildly unpopular president met with "thunderous boos" from thousands of onlookers.
- Title
- How the American Oligarchy Went Hyperscale
- Runtime
- 2:46
- Date posted
- 5 months ago
- Description
- If the economic story of the last two decades was the consolidation of wealth and power in Silicon Valley, the story of the last few years is what tech billionaires want to do with it.
Since the summer of 2024, America’s richest have been on a building spree with few precedents in recent history. The scale of the investment, in the hopes of winning the AI race, is so vast that proponents have turned to previous eras of reckless extraction and technological advancement to describe it.
Senior Reporter Tim Murphy took a road trip to see these monstrosities in action: "These are the physical manifestations of that oligarchic consolidation."
- Title
- Watch MAGA gush about Trump's foreign policy
- Runtime
- 0:55
- Date posted
- 5 months ago
- Description
- On Wednesday, four House Republicans broke party lines to join Democrats in passing a measure to withdraw US forces in Iran.
Most other Republicans voted no, keeping alignment to President Trump. Here are some those GOP lawmakers' past thoughts on Trump's approach to foreign policy:
- Title
- In Alabama, the Roberts Court Hands Republicans Yet Another Shocking Gerrymandering Win
- Runtime
- 2:21
- Date posted
- 5 months ago
- Description
- Last night, the Roberts Court once again handed Republicans another shocking gerrymandering win in Alabama.
For the second time in three weeks, the Court’s Republican-appointed majority green-lit an Alabama congressional map that a lower court has repeatedly found intentionally discriminates against Black voters.
The ruling is another stark example of how far the Supreme Court’s Republican-appointed majority will go to give their party additional seats in Congress and erase Black representation in the South.
- Title
- Trump's Loyal Stooge Is in Charge of Our Intel Agencies
- Runtime
- 1:59
- Date posted
- 5 months ago
- Description
- ► For more, visit Mother Jones: https://www.motherjones.com/
Bill Pulte may not know anything about overseeing the CIA, but he seems well-equipped to carry on the mission of using the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to target Trump’s critics.
That’s clearly the job the president has in mind.
#Trump #BillPulte #News #Intelligence #TulsiGabbard
--
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- Title
- Is Trump’s Party Stranglehold Actually a Death Grip?
- Runtime
- 1:33
- Date posted
- 5 months ago
- Description
- ► For more, visit Mother Jones: https://www.motherjones.com/
It pays to earn an endorsement from Donald Trump.
Across 118 endorsements, the president boasts a perfect score in 2026’s midterm primaries, ousting a number of longtime Republican lawmakers in the process.
In Texas, election-denier Ken Paxton took out Sen. John Cornyn. In Kentucky, Trump-backed Ed Gallrein unseated Rep. Thomas Massie—one of members of Congress who forced the release of the Epstein files—in the most expensive House primary in history. In Georgia, Brad Raffensperger—the secretary of state who refused to “find” 11,780 votes for Trump in 2020—lost his gubernatorial bid to two election deniers.
On paper, Trump is winning.
But these victories might, just might, be losses in disguise. In Georgia, more Democrats than Republicans voted in the primary for the first time since 1998. Texas saw a similar Democratic turnout surge a few mont...
- Title
- ICE Chaos Comes to New Jersey
- Runtime
- 2:59
- Date posted
- 5 months ago
- Description
- For the past week, anti-ICE activists have been protesting at Delaney Hall, an immigration detention facility where detainees have reportedly engaged in a hunger strike. As journalist Amanda Moore explains in a new Mother Jones video, the demonstrators have erected barricades and are attempting to stop law enforcement vehicles.
The feds have responded with force, using vast amounts of noxious pepper spray and driving demonstrators into a road full of semis and buses. "ICE agents regularly push protesters into the street, even when trucks are driving by," Moore reports. One protester "was shoved into the wheel well of a truck, which then ran over his foot."
You can watch Amanda's shocking story here, and be sure to follow her for more reporting as the situation develops.
- Title
- Republicans are moving to eliminate majority-Black districts in the South
- Runtime
- 3:00
- Date posted
- 5 months ago
- Description
- In the wake of Louisiana v. Callais, Republicans are moving to eliminate at least half a dozen majority-Black districts in the Deep South between now and 2028.
That would trigger the largest drop in Black representation since the end of Reconstruction.
While their attempts to erase Black representation have recently hit roadblocks in Alabama and South Carolina, that shouldn’t distract from the damage the Supreme Court’s decision has already done to multiracial democracy.
- Title
- Republican-Appointed Judges Just Rebuked the Roberts Court
- Runtime
- 1:38
- Date posted
- 6 months ago
- Description
- A panel of federal court judges just issued a stunning rebuke to the Roberts Court.
They found that an Alabama congressional map green-lit by the Supreme Court intentionally discriminated against Black voters.
That means the state will have to use a map with two majority Black districts this November, preserving a Democratic seat in the US House.
And get this: the three-judge panel that rebuked the Supreme Court was made up of all Republican appointees.
Two of the judges were appointed by Donald Trump and another by Ronald Reagan.
- Title
- Spraying Roundup Near Lake Tahoe? A Gold Medalist Is Fighting Back
- Runtime
- 2:44
- Date posted
- 6 months ago
- Description
- “I think we're more than pissed. We're ready to come out with our pitchforks,” three-time Olympian Hannah Teter told Mother Jones’ Nate Halverson. “How the heck did they get this approved?”
Snowboarder Hannah Teter, who won gold in the halfpipe at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy, and silver at the 2010 games in Vancouver, has voiced her opposition on Instagram, where she has 275,000 followers, as well as on her Facebook page.
Public uproar has echoed across the Tahoe area since April, when our yearlong Mother Jones investigation revealed that, in California, the fastest-growing use of glyphosate—the main ingredient in Roundup—is to spray forested areas, including this massive new US Forest Service project around Lake Tahoe.
"When I first saw the article that it's coming to Tahoe, my heart sank and I actually prayed like, God, how do we fight this? It's so worrisome because like I do care about nature. From the animals to th...
- Title
- Donald Trump Is Using a Dark Money Group to Spend Tax Money on Vanity Projects
- Runtime
- 2:52
- Date posted
- 6 months ago
- Description
- Trump is using our tax money to fund his vanity projects, all thanks to a dark money group embedded in the Interior Department.
Critics contend that the Trump administration is breaking laws, and dodging congress, by diverting funds appropriated for America250, a nonprofit organization set up by Congress to organize the country’s 250th birthday, to Freedom250.
Unlike America250, Freedom250 is not legally required to hold bipartisan events. Nor is it informing lawmakers how it spends funds.
- Title
- They Opposed a Billionaire’s Data Center—So He Called Them Chinese Spies
- Runtime
- 2:48
- Date posted
- 6 months ago
- Description
- Earlier this month, billionaire and Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary went on Fox News to defend his Utah data center. His strategy? Calling critics Chinese government operatives. He name-checked political strategist Gabi Finlayson, who told us what it was like to be in his crosshairs.
- Title
- Watch former Meta employee’s scorched-earth goodbye to the company as they lay off thousands for AI
- Runtime
- 1:37
- Date posted
- 6 months ago
- Description
- This week, Meta laid off 8,000 employees—10 percent of the company’s staff—and reassigned another 7,000 to train AI models. Fear of the layoffs had been building around the company for weeks, compounded by the way that Meta has taken a sharp turn from a company built by coders to a company that has staked its future on AI. So when a Meta software engineer named David Frenk posted a farewell parody video to the tune of “American Pie” in an internal message board, staff thought it perfectly captured how the culture of the company has fundamentally shifted.
- Title
- The government has started spraying a toxic chemical near Lake Tahoe
- Runtime
- 3:00
- Date posted
- 6 months ago
- Description
- Locals didn’t think Roundup was being sprayed near Lake Tahoe. So @natethecurious went to find out.
Nate dug up maps from the Forest Service's website, and headed to a spot where one of them indicated spraying might already be happening.
Public uproar has echoed across the Tahoe area since April, when our yearlong Mother Jones investigation revealed that, in California, the fastest-growing use of glyphosate—the main ingredient in Roundup—is to spray forested areas, including this massive new project around Lake Tahoe.
As the public outcry grew over the past few weeks, news begin circulating on social media that the Forest Service was backing off. “They cancelled the plan!" one person wrote. "People showed up to meetings, called our representatives and it’s finally cancelled. OUR VOICES MATTERED ON THIS ONE.”
But that wasn't true. At Sierra-at-Tahoe, Nate stood on a mountainside that clearly had been doused in glyphosate....

