Adam Weinstein

Engagement Editor

I'm Mother Jones' engagement editor and Tumblrizer, specializing in explanatory journalism and new-media reporting. As a Navy vet and ex-Iraq contractor, I'm also committed to articulating all things martial—good, bad, and weird—to new audiences.

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Adam Weinstein is Mother Jones' engagement editor, having previously served the magazine as its national security reporter and copy editor. Before that, he worked at the Wall Street Journal, the Village Voice, and the Tallahassee Democrat. He's written for the New York Times, New York magazine, GQ, and Newsweek. A Navy veteran, two-day Jeopardy champion and ex-political scientist, he also did a recession-fueled stint as a military contractor in Iraq. For more about Adam and his writing, click here.

Sharron Angle Is Happy the GOP Followed Her to Crazytown

—By Adam Weinstein

| Thu Aug. 30, 2012 8:51 AM PDT

She's baaaaack. Courtesy of Dullard Mush

Back in the heady tea party days of 2010, it seemed even a wet noodle could have beaten Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the beleaguered Senate majority leader and perennial butt of conservative jokes. But then the Republican Party nominated Sharron Angle, a maverick "Oath Keeper wanna-be" and anti-fluoride activist who stood up for BP, called unemployed Americans "spoiled," and railed against "an unscientific hysteria over the man-caused global warming hoax." Fox News laughed at her, she lost the race, and it seemed the GOP had finally found a heap of crazy that even they couldn't carry.

But she's back, baby. Ducking into a ladies' room at the Republican convention in Tampa Wednesday, Las Vegas Sun reporter Karoun Demirjian ran headlong into a chipper Angle, who exulted in the party's continuing embrace of her brand of crazy wisdom. Demirjian reports:

"In 2010, when I was running, everybody said 'No, you're too extreme,'" Angle said. "But now look, it's where everybody is going."

She mentioned specifically the push to audit the Fed, a rallying cry for the pro-Paul camp that they managed to get on the Republican platform last week. Angle had called for it in her 2010 campaign.

Beyond that, the new GOP platform also calls for the United States to study a return to the gold standard, and Angle has long advocated "making a basket of commodities (metals, oil, etc.) as a basis for maintaining the value of the U.S. currency"—call it the "gold, pork bellies, and frozen concentrated orange juice standard."

Angle—a longtime Ron Paul sympathizer—supported Rick Santorum in the primaries and is a lukewarm Romney backer now, according to Demirjian. She was joined in the bathroom by two organizers of a group called Tea Party and Republicans Uniting Nevada Conservatives, and at this convention, it seems they're realizing their dream of one party, under Sharron. Said one of the organizers: "She was ahead of her time."

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Condi Rice to Rescue Romney on National Security?

—By Adam Weinstein

| Wed Aug. 29, 2012 3:04 PM PDT

On Wednesday night, Republicans are hoping to burnish Mitt Romney's and Paul Ryan's national security credentials by trotting out one of George W. Bush's top lieutenants, Iraq war hawk Condoleezza Rice, who was Bush's national security advisor and then his secretary of state. She's got her work cut out for her. Neither Romney nor Ryan has ever worked in foreign policy, or served in uniform—a veritable rarity among Republican executive nominees.

In a preemptive strike Wednesday, three top Obama campaign supporters and foreign-policy pros blasted the GOP ticket for being weak on defense. Though they're probably not the Biden, Roemer, and Wilson you expected to hear from, the three Democrats—speaking to reporters on a conference call hosted by the progressive Truman Project—pulled no punches in criticizing the GOP ticket as neoconservative, incoherent, and anti-veteran. "On defense and national security, what we are hearing out of Romney and Ryan is an example of the hollow force," said retired Assistant Defense Secretary Douglas B. Wilson. "All sound bites and theory with no grounding in reality and nothing substantive to back it up."

See our full coverage of the 2012 Republican National Convention.

"The Republicans have a very long history of experienced candidates" on military and veterans' issues, said Tim Roemer, a former Indiana congressman and ambassador to India from 2009 to 2011, but "Governor Romney does not have that experience."

Beau Biden, who served in Iraq in 2009 and is Delaware's attorney general and the vice president's son, said the Romney-Ryan ticket wants it both ways on defense spending: Supporting costly wars and expensive weaponry provided by contractors, while undermining benefits for those who serve in uniform, even as vets are getting hard with disabilities and unemployment. Citing a Veteran's Day 2011 campaign appearance by Romney in South Carolina, Biden said, "He chose that day to propose his voucherization of the [Department of Veterans Affairs], which is a not-so-elegant euphemism for privatization of the VA." (Here's a video of Romney's privatization speech.)

Governor Roemer cast the Republicans' security policy as trading on tax cuts for the rich. "Romney has threatened to turn health care for veterans into coupons for veterans," he said. "You cannot put a pricetag on a veteran who has served overseas." Wilson hit Ryan's unpopular budget proposals: "Ryan's plan cuts everything from defense that isn't a gun," he said. "I think you have some quesions from returning vets and their families on just what that means for them."

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

#FutureMittJokes: We Built That

—By Adam Weinstein

| Fri Aug. 24, 2012 1:18 PM PDT

When Mitt Romney had his birther moment this morning, some defenders tried an age-old tactic to shift attention off the candidate's remarks: react to the reaction to the remarks. In this case, the conservatives in question worked at Michelle Malkin's website, the Twitchy, and their outrage was directed at a hashtag meme that had taken off on Twitter:

When you've been dealt a bad hand, you can still play the race card. At least that’s the strategy liberals subscribe to. After Mitt Romney cracked a birth certificate joke earlier today, the Left experienced nothing short of a major meltdown. Bereft of any rational thought, they decided to birth a ludicrous hashtag game, #FutureMittJokes.

Actually, Twitchers, there's no need to blame liberals for spotlighting the presidential candidate's racial blindspot with some pointed tweets: You can just blame us. #FutureMittJokes was the brainchild of MoJo's Adam Serwer, who spontaneously tweeted:

Maybe Mitt could weave some more jokes about being a white dude who doesn't face racist assumptions into his stump speech.
— AdamSerwer (@AdamSerwer) August 24, 2012

He got it warmed up with:

"I never get stopped and frisked in New York City either." #futuremittjokes
— AdamSerwer (@AdamSerwer) August 24, 2012

From there, it just sort of took off. With writers from:

The American Prospect:

“No one has ever left a noose on my door!” #futuremittjokes
— Jamelle Bouie (@jbouie) August 24, 2012

Wired:

Everyone assumes I earned my college diploma. #futuremittjokes
— attackerman (@attackerman) August 24, 2012

Gawker:

im white im white im white im white hahahaha *points at skin* the other guy is black #futuremittjokes
— max read (@max_read) August 24, 2012

Here's my personal favorite, because it sounds like the kind of joke I could really hear Romney saying:

#futuremittjokes Birther? I don't even know her!
— Katie Halper (@kthalps) August 24, 2012

So, yeah, we built that. (We can take no credit, however, for American Bridge, a liberal-connected super PAC, taking the ball and sticking one of their campaign plugs on the hashtag's search page as a "sponsored tweet." Way to piggyback on a good thing, dudes.)

Apparently, this is all outrageous! and shocking! to conservatives—who, as quick as they were to condemn Rep. Todd Akin's luddite notions of female assault and reproduction earlier this week, quietly dismissed Romney's birther shoutout as a cute, banal, not-at-all-racially-coded joke. Apparently the only thing that's more offensive than racial pandering is being accused of racial pandering. "Those are fighting tweets, sir!"

But, whoops, a couple folks didn't get the memo and tried to highjack the hashtag and use it to dump some anti-Obama barbs:

@justplainbill#FutureMittJokes I hear now that Obama's out of office he's going to be on a sitcom "The Fresh Prince of Bill Ayers".
— Mike Barr (@maxnrgmike) August 24, 2012

I like dogs, but I don't think I could eat a whole one. #futuremittjokes #obamajokes
— Corr Comm (@corrcomm) August 24, 2012

@aggedor_hobbit #FutureMittJokes Guy came up to me & said he hadn't had a bite in 3 days, so I got him a dog costume and Obama bit him.
— JLThorpe (@JLThorpe) August 24, 2012

"Pretty sure that's a win, right there," the Twitchy's anonymous blogger wrote of the attempted highjacking. Hmm... Depends on what your definition of "win" is.

Tampa's Only Gay-Owned Bathhouse Offers GOPers Free Admission

—By Adam Weinstein

| Thu Aug. 23, 2012 1:30 PM PDT

Screenshot courtesy of Ybor Resort and Spa

Good news, conservatives! If the Republican National Convention gets a little too stressful, you can always unwind—gratis—in "Tampa Bay's only gay owned and gay operated, private club, resort & bathhouse." From now until August 31, the Ybor Resort and Spa, located in the heart of Tampa's sultry Ybor City party district, is offering a super promotion: "ALL RNC DELEGATES GET IN FREE!" Tea party, anyone?

"All guys 18 & up" are welcome to sample Ybor's recently opened steam room, not to mention the spa's brand-spanking new dark room, dubbed "A Shot In The Dark." Just bear in mind the house rules: It's a private men's health club; no drugs, pets, or prostitution; and always wear your towel!

(h/t Molly Ball)

Fox News Outs Navy Seal, Confirms Double Standard on Secrecy

—By Adam Weinstein

| Thu Aug. 23, 2012 9:18 AM PDT

Just posted by writer Justin Fishel on Fox News' website:

EXCLUSIVE: Bin Laden raid tell-all author revealed, questions raised whether ex-Navy SEALs have freedom of speech

The author of a recently announced insider account of the raid that killed Usama bin Laden has been identified to Fox News as a 36-year-old former Navy SEAL Team 6 member from Alaska who also played a role in the high-profile rescue of an American captain kidnapped by Somali pirates.

The book, "No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden," is set to hit shelves on Sept 11. It is penned under the pseudonym "Mark Owen," according to the publisher, but multiple sources told Fox News his name is in fact Matt Bissonnette, 36, of Wrangell, Alaska...

Here's Fishel last year, flogging the Obama administration for leaking details of the OBL raid, on Fox's site:

Navy SEALs Want to Protect Their Identity Following UBL Kill

Members of Navy SEAL team 6, the Special Operations unit responsible for killing Al Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden in Pakistan last Sunday, have expressed concerns about their safety and the safety of their families now that details of the mission have been made public.

...Rather than keeping the details secret, intelligence officials and senior administration officials briefed members of the press. It quickly leaked out that the mission was performed by 24 members of the elite and classified counterterrorism SEAL squadron, known as SEAL team 6. Despite that leak, Gates says the government continues to protect their identities.

Shorter Fox News: In order to save operational security, we had to destroy it.

UPDATE, 2:30 p.m. EDT, Thursday, Aug. 23: Mother Jones just received this email from the publisher of No Easy Day:

For Immediate Release

Mark Owen, like every SEAL he has served with, has put his life on the line time and again for his country for more than a decade. Sharing the true story of his personal experience in NO EASY DAY is a courageous act in the face of obvious risks to his personal security. That personal security is the sole reason the book is being published under a pseudonym. We respectfully request that all news organizations and all Americans consider these facts when deciding whether to pursue or publicize his real identity.

Contact: Christine Ball
VP, Director of Marketing & Publicity
Dutton
duttonpublicity@us.penguingroup.com