Live 2010 Election Day Chat on Social Media + Politics

This was the first live chat I’ve helped plan and participated in. Although I got bumped from my afternoon slot to the end of the night by Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, I did succeed in getting him to comment on my review of the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. Here was the chat line [...]

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Will Scientists’ Calls For Climate Action Fall on Negotiators’ Deaf Ears?

This post was linked to in a Washington Post column on the Cancun climate summit. With only days remaining until diplomats are due to arrive in Tianjin for the final round of climate negotiations before the Cancun summit, scientists have provided a grim reminder of how little progress governments have made in addressing the threat [...]

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Did Obama Ignore the Mess at MMS?

As I was writing up my TAP test post “Job Openings for Inspectors General,” I was shocked to discover that Interior, the agency responsible for offshore  drilling, was among the departments that lacked a presidential-appointed watchdog. I looked into it further for this, my second piece for The New Republic and first bit of reporting [...]

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The American Prospect: Job Openings for Inspectors General

The Prospect liked my previous pieces enough that they gave me the opportunity to take a follow-up writing test. This time around, they requested that I pitch a story for the mid-term elections and write three posts that could have been featured on the magazine’s group blog TAPPED. For the blog pieces, which I am [...]

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Was Obama’s Drilling Move Aimed At… Iran?

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, talking, and reading about Obama’s embrace of drilling off America’s coasts. And one connection I found most people seem to have missed is its utility in his push for Iranian nuclear sanctions. I ran the numbers, called up some experts, and put it all together for The New [...]

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Where Have All The Whistleblowers Gone?

I started working on this article during my last month at Mother Jones. Although it took longer than I had hoped to get it published–and required a revised lede–I’m happy this bit of reporting finally made it into the top story box. (Unlike, say, my body armor piece.) Clocking in at some 1300 words, this article [...]

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How to Cripple the Capital

Just add snow—the more, the messier. A few wet, white flakes in the Washington metro area are all it takes to wash away the veneer of efficiency local politicians try to maintain. When faced with nearly 30 inches of snow, as it was last weekend, America’s seat of government freezes up. As the virulent debate [...]

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Mother Jones on TV: Moyers, Maddow, and Countdown

I volunteered to fill in for one of the San Francisco editors on weekend website duty and got stuck writing this post on a Saturday. I will not make that mistake again. One highlight: Bill Moyers asked a question regarding the Wall Street-bashing article from Rep Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), about which I had previously blogged. [...]

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The Forecast for Alaska: Extreme Weather

When Mother Jones posts stories from the magazine to the Top Stories box, they like to have a post on the blogs drawing attention to the piece. This was my write-up of a long-but-interesting story I fact-checked for the November/December issue. Although the process was excruciating, the people it features and the author who wrote it [...]

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Obama’s Jobs Speech Raises Troubling Questions

UPDATE: My review of the speech was picked up by the AtlanticWire and prominently featured on today’s Need to Read list. President Barack Obama has spent much of his term, from the stimulus bill pushed through shortly after he took office, up to this morning’s speech on jobs at the Brookings Institution, trying to show [...]

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