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.

Tom Coburn's Viagra Switcheroo

—By Adam Weinstein

| Wed Mar. 24, 2010 10:50 AM PDT

Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn (or, as his website refers to him, Tom Coburn, M.D.) hates it when his colleagues stuff bills with pork-flavored amendments. But he's not above doing the same when the matter is one of principles, rather than profits. And oh, what principles.

Coburn announced yesterday that he's sponsoring nine amendments to the Democratic health care reform bill that's now back in the Senate for reconciliation. His suggested contributions to this historic legislation include the Congress Should Not Lecture Americans About Fiscal Responsibility amendment and the If You Like the Health Plan You Have, You Can Keep It amendment. And if his website's listing of the amendments is any indication, none is more important to him than Amendment No. 3556, the No Erectile Dysfunction Drugs to Sex Offenders provision. Good lord, one wonders. Why would anyone oppose a law that prevents molesters from getting Viagra?

That's exactly what Coburn wants people to think...on first glance. On his website, Coburn says: "This amendment also prohibits coverage of Viagra and other ED medications to convicted child molesters, rapists, and sex offenders, and prohibits coverage of abortion drugs."

Wait—what? Abortion drugs? Yep, that's in the the provision's actual language. Don't remember hearing that in the name No Erectile Dysfunction Drugs to Sex Offenders. But sure enough, it appears Coburn is using the bogus issue of Viagra to rapists as a Trojan horse subterfuge to ban coverage of RU486 and possibly morning-after pills.

If you follow the link on Coburn's page to "additional background" on the amendment, you'll learn that the Viagra-for-rapists issue is a non-issue, and has been since 2005, when federal Medicare and Medicaid administrators told the states to put the kibosh on covering ED drugs for sex convicts. But that's not the real issue here. In his backgrounder, Coburn tackles abortion more directly, exposing it as the real matter of concern in his amendment. "There is no prohibition on abortion coverage in federally subsidized plans participating in the new health care exchange," he asserts, adding that the "abortion pill" costs more than an average American's routine visit to a general practitioner. "When many Americans are struggling to afford basic doctor for medically necessary care, taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize abortion pills provided by health care exchanges."

The only question now is: Will pro-choice senators have the cojones to vote against the measure, knowing fully well that conservative challengers in future elections will accuse them of "being soft" on sex offenders' hard-ons?

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GOP Rep Wants to Ban Elections

—By Adam Weinstein

| Tue Mar. 23, 2010 4:36 PM PDT

Though they still intend to make health care reform the focus of their midterm election campaigning, many Republicans have rolled back their doom-and-gloom rhetoric on the legislation passed Sunday. Many, but not all. Almost alone in the vanguard of mad-as-hell conservatives stands Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), who thinks the health care debate has exposed democracy's biggest enemy: Democracy itself. And Gohmert is demanding that swift action be taken against this internal threat.

Gohmert argued Monday that the direct election of US senators by the American public has led to "the usurpation of the rights of the states and of the people," which culminated in Sunday's health care vote. You see, 39 states don't like the health care ~~bill~~ law by Gohmert's count (apparently because at least one disgruntled legislator in each of those states has suggested a bill barring local enforcement of the new federal law). And if those state legislatures could simply anoint their US senators, rather than leaving the choice to voters, then the voters' will could win the day. If only it weren't for that doggoned Constitution!

"Ever since the safeguard of state legislatures electing US senators was removed by the 17th Amendment in 1913, there has been no check or balance on the federal power grab for the last 97 years," Gohmert said in a press release. Later, in House floor remarks, he added that the Amendment enabled the "usurpation of states' rights...Let's get an amendment that gets the balance back into the country and the Constitution, before this Congress destroys what's left."

The merits, as they were, of Gohmert's argument have been well analyzed elsewhere: The irony of taking away the franchise in order to enfranchise America; the fact that, since 27 state legislatures are currently Democratic-run, it's unlikely Gohmert will actually be able to muster the 39 states needed to edit our nation's founding document; and the fact that this kinda sorta undercuts the GOP's contention of recent weeks that Sen. Scott Brown's election in Massachusetts—you know, by, like, voters—represented the Highest Will of the People.

Amazingly, Louie Gohmert was a judge before he was a congressman. In Texas. Also amazingly, he's not the first Republican in this Congress to want state legislatures to get veto power over Senate candidates.

Even as colorful ideologues go, Gohmert is a fascinating study. Lest you suspect he doesn't reflect deeply on his convictions, Mother Jones has compiled the recent highlights of his House tenure:

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

ACORN Finally Cracks For Good

—By Adam Weinstein

| Mon Mar. 22, 2010 3:35 PM PDT

Congratulations, Andrew Breitbart and James O'Keefe. You killed ACORN. Who's next? The Salvation Army?

Yes, it's true. The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now—known by most of America as ACORN, and by Inner America as "that dastardly evil fifth column of race-baiting, socialist election racketeers"—is officially kaput, having announced its own demise just a day after Congress passed sweeping reform that would provide health insurance—for the first time—to many of the same urban poor ACORN sought to help.

"It's really declining revenue in the face of a series of attacks from partisan operatives and right-wing activists that have taken away our ability to raise the resources we need," ACORN spokesman Kevin Whelan said in announcing the group's intentions to fold.

This was not a terribly surprising move; last month, we at Mother Jones predicted as much after ACORN's biggest state organizations—in California and New York—shuttered. And while no one's shocked that the overwhelming tide of right-wing rancor made the group's business—mostly advice and voter registration—impossible, it's still mystifying why this group got retrogressives' goat to such a grand extent.

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

The Tea Parties Will Persist

—By Adam Weinstein

| Mon Mar. 22, 2010 12:20 PM PDT

No, they're not going away.

This morning, our estimable DC bureau chief, David Corn, explained how both political parties will persist in pretty much the same war posture they'd sustained before Sunday's health care vote. But those politicos' fortunes continue to be tied to the guerrilla theater of the patriot set: the Tea Party movement and allied groups like the Oath Keepers, who vow that they'll destroy the union in order to save it. And there's much destroying left to do. As the Washington Independent's David Weigel described the protesters' zeitgeist on the National Mall late Sunday: "Just because the bill had passed didn’t mean they couldn't kill it."

The Tea Parties' enduring contribution to the American pageant, though, may be to bring about a massive electoral reaction against their positions. As time passes, more Americans may realize that Sunday was not "the day that America turned its back on our unique system of democratic capitalism," as ex-Sen. Rick Santorum put it. Rather than joining Santorum's "freedom-loving patriots" in a "fight against this tyranny to reclaim our birthright," more Americans may focus on the loudest, most unnerving elements in the patriot crowd: the politically illiterate, paranoid, and racist. The party will live on, to be sure—but unless its tack changes considerably, it may live on in mainstream politics as a punch line; in textbooks, as a cautionary tale; in gun shows, as a vehicle for bumper-sticker and shotgun sales.

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

Ex-General: Gays Cause War Crimes

—By Adam Weinstein

| Fri Mar. 19, 2010 10:51 AM PDT

It's been a busy week in the battle over "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," including a bogus third-party outing and a stunning photo exhibit of gay service members. More on those developments in a minute, though, because first we have to deal with the big news in DADT stupidity today: The notion that gays cause war atrocities.

As a former sailor, I tend to avoid speaking ill about United States Marines, unless it's good-natured ribbing. I respect the institution and its members, who have proven their character and professionalism time and again.

Retired Gen. John Sheehan is an exception.

This week, news broke that Sheehan—the onetime supreme allied commander of NATO forces—told the Senate Armed Services Committee that gay troops were to blame for the massacre of civilians at Srebenica, Bosnia, in 1995—Europe's worst war crime since World War II.

No, seriously, bear with us for this. CNN quotes Sheehan at length:

[Read more in the MoJo blog]