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.

Meet the Astroturfer Planning to Swift Boat Obama

"Yes, it's the swift boating of the president," says the founder of a dark-money group claiming to speak for ticked-off Navy SEALs.

—By Adam Weinstein

| Fri May. 4, 2012 3:00 AM PDT

Veterans for a Strong America describes itself "a grassroots action organization committed to ensuring that America remains a strong nation by advancing liberty, safeguarding freedom and opposing tyranny." Founded in 2010, the ostensibly nonpartisan group kept a low profile until earlier this week, when it posted a splashy online ad that uses statements from President Barack Obama to suggest that the commander-in-chief boasted about his role in killing Osama bin Laden, dishonoring America's military in the process.

"Heroes don't politicize their acts of valor," the ad declares amid shots of American soldiers and quotes criticizing Obama's "shameless" and "despicable" attempt to claim credit for bin Laden's death. Not all of those quotes are in context: The video flashes "Obama Spikes the bin Laden Football," a headline from a post in which Mother Jones' Kevin Drum wrote that the bin Laden raid proved Obama's "leadership."

Karl Rove praised the ad on Twitter, calling it "powerful," and it rapidly burned up the right-wing blogs. "The swift boating of Obama has begun," The Atlantic announced. "One thing that's clear from this advertisement, if more current and former SEALs decided to come out of the woodwork in opposition to Obama, it could do real damage to him."

Joel Arends, Veterans for a Strong America's founder, chairman, and sole staffer, tells me he's proud of his organization's viral video, even if it's characterized as swift boating. "Yes, it's the swift boating of the president, in the sense of using what's perceived to be his greatest strength and making it his greatest weakness."

The 2004 Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign featured some ex-sailors (though none had been shipmates of Sen. John Kerry), but for now the VFSA does not have any actual Navy SEALs speaking on its behalf. Arend says he's working on recruiting disgruntled current and recent commandos. "I've been in touch with a number of Navy SEALs and special operators. There is discontent, I believe, among them about Obama's excessive celebration," he says. "We're gonna be rolling some of those folks out soon."

It's impossible to know how many of America's 22 million veterans are actually represented by VFSA's political activities. "We don't pretend to speak for all veterans," Arends says. There is no doubt that Arends, a decorated Iraq War vet and longtime Army Reserve and National Guard member, cares deeply about his comrades in arms. But there's little evidence that VFSA is more than a dark-money group with connections to the Republican Party, the tea party group Americans for Prosperity, and Islamophobic activists.

[Read the full article]

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Obama Wants to Send Our Guns Overseas

—By Adam Weinstein

| Thu May. 3, 2012 11:52 AM PDT

(Yeah, yeah, we know it's a Glock.)

Barack Obama's stealth war on guns continues apace: The White House is currently working to ease restrictions on exports of guns and other American-made weaponry, a move that could be a boon for domestic gunmakers.

The Department of Homeland Security has reservations about the rule changes, stating in a memo that they could make it harder "to prevent or deter the illegal export/transfer of lethal items such as advanced firearms to criminal groups, terrorist organizations or enemy combatants." Gunmakers, however, are pleased as punch. "Our industry supports the White House Export Control Reform Initiative," a lawyer for the firearms manufacturers' lobby group, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, told the Washington Post.

How is the National Rifle Association going to spin this? The 4-million-member pro-gun group has put an electoral target on Obama's back, but it also needs to do right by arms manufacturers like Colt, Smith & Wesson, and Ruger, which have given the NRA as much as $39 million since 2005, according to the Violence Policy Center (PDF).

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

The 9 Worst Lies Right-Wingers Tell About the Bin Laden Raid

Torture got the goods, Cheney really did the work, and Obama was so totally photoshopped into the Situation Room.

—By Adam Weinstein

| Tue May. 1, 2012 6:35 AM PDT

Pete Souza/White House Flickr

It's May 2012, and as Chevy Chase would say, Osama bin Laden is still dead. And now the vanquished Al Qaeda leader is a political football, being bandied by both parties to score election-year points. The GOP, having slipped a bit from its perch as the national security party, seems content to let its faithful run with some pretty odious BS about President Obama's involvement in the raid that killed bin Laden. Here are the nine worst lies still in circulation about Obama and Osama:

Obama took credit for Seal Team Six's killing of bin Laden, even though the president once called them "Cheney's private assassination team" and said bin Laden deserved a trial. Fact or crap? Total crap. Don't believe everything you read in your great uncle Bernard's email forwards.

Obama was totally Photoshopped into that situation-room photo. I can't really say what's the saddest thing about this rumor, except that it apparently started because right-wing bloggers aren't up-to-speed on the Sad Keanu meme.

Obama was ready to blame the military if the raid failed. Thank the tin-foil hat platoon at Blackfive, the right-winger's milblog of choice, for this one. The other day, they performed a postmodernist deconstruction of the now-famous Panetta memo detailing Obama's orders on the raid, and fantasized about how Obama would shift the blame if all hell broke loose. But just try to find a reputable political analyst who thinks Obama could have avoided responsibility if the mission had been botched. Here's David Frum, author of Bush's "Axis of Evil" speech, giving POTUS mad props: "Obama can claim credit for its success, not because he planned the raid, but because he would have had to wear the blame if the raid had failed."

Obama commissioned an opinion poll before ordering the raid. To tell him what? That the American people might like to see bin Laden brought to justice? According to Blackfive blogger Uncle Jimbo: "John Weisman said in his book Kill bin Laden, and confirmed to me personally, that Obama had a poll taken on the potential fall out if the public found he didn't pull the trigger, and that this delayed the raid while he waited on the answer." Perhaps Jimbo should have noted somewhere that Weisman's book is a novel. Even the right-wing Washington Times knocked Weisman's use of fiction to exact "ill-conceived revenge on members of the administration."

[Read the full article]

10 Things You Need to Know About Marco Rubio

DC is all abuzz about the wunderkind Florida senator and possible Mitt veep. But does he help Romney's flip-flop problem?

—By Adam Weinstein

| Fri Apr. 27, 2012 3:00 AM PDT

Ten Things You Need to Know About Marco Rubio

When it comes to Veepstakes 2012, one name towers above them all: Marco Rubio. The freshman Florida senator vaulted to national prominence when he rode the tea party wave to power two years ago. Team Romney sees a lot to like in Rubio: He's Latino, young, fiercely conservative, from a battleground state, and backed by powerful political and corporate allies with names like Bush.

In recent weeks, Rubio has endorsed Romney, tagged along on the presidential campaign trail, and delivered a high-profile Brookings Institution speech calling for "a more forceful foreign policy." (Apparently, wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya and sanctions on Iran and Syria aren't forceful enough.) The Rubio-a-go-go has gotten so feverish that he consistently leads all vice-presidential hopefuls among Intrade oddsmakers and has even been called "this election's Sarah Palin."

But how well do you know the fresh-faced Floridian? Turns out he's got a lot in common with Romney: He'll say anything to pander to the right, even if it contradicts what he's said before. Here are 10 facts about Rubio that might surprise you:

[Read the full article]

Florida Gov. Rick Scott Slashes Rape Counseling During Sexual Assault Awareness Month

—By Adam Weinstein

| Tue Apr. 24, 2012 9:05 AM PDT

Gov. Rick Scott

With a flick of his pen, Florida's tea party Republican governor, Rick Scott, used a line-item veto to cut funding to the state's rape crisis centers last week—in the middle of Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

The centers in all of Florida's 67 counties, coordinated by the Florida Council Against Sexual Violence, are supported by a trust fund made up of fines levied on sexual offenders. But the fund, established in 2003, isn't yet large enough. "Fewer than 10% of sexual violence programs are able with current resources to provide the standard services identified as those most needed by rape victims," the group's site states. "As a result, many programs have waiting lists."

The state legislature had approved $1.5 million to help close the gap so the centers could keep serving the approximately 700,000 women in Florida who've been victims of rape. But in reviewing the state's $70 billion budget, Scott decided last Tuesday that the .002 percent slated for the crisis centers was just too much. He used his line-item power to veto the funds, alongside $141 million in other cuts targeting a wide range of projects, including an indigent psychiatric medicine program, Girls Incorporated of Sarasota County, the Alzheimer's Family Care Center of Broward County, and a state settlement for child welfare case managers who were owed overtime. The entire list of vetoed programs is available here (PDF).

[Read more in the MoJo blog]