Monika Bauerlein

Editor in Chief

Since taking the helm at Mother Jones in 2006, Monika and her co-editor, Clara Jeffery, have won two National Magazine Awards, launched a nine-person Washington bureau, relaunched the website, given birth, and forgotten what it’s like to sleep.

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Monika Bauerlein is co-editor of Mother Jones, where, together with Clara Jeffery, she spearheaded an era of editorial growth and innovation, marked by two National Magazine Awards for general excellence, the addition of a seven-person Washington Bureau, and an overhaul of the organization’s digital strategy that tripled MotherJones.com's traffic. Previously she was Mother Jones' investigative editor, focusing on long-form projects marrying in-depth reportage, document sleuthing, and narrative appeal. She has also worked as an alternative-weekly editor (at Minneapolis/St. Paul’s City Pages), a correspondent for US and European publications in Washington, D.C. and at the United Nations, an AP stringer, corporate trainer, translator, sausage slinger and fishing-line packager. She lives in Oakland.

Bush's Great Awakening (And Great Smelling of Coffee)

—By Monika Bauerlein

| Wed Sep. 13, 2006 2:15 AM PDT

Don't miss Peter Baker's story about Bush telling conservative reporters that the nation is going through a "Third Awakening" of religious devotion as a result of the war on terror. This will come as news to some historians who believe we're already due for the Fourth or the Fifth in the Great Awakenings series. Then again, there's Robert William Fogel, the University of Chicago Nobel laureate who maintains that we're witnessing the political consequences of the Fourth Great Awakening, the rise of charismatic, evangelical, and pentecostal expressions of faith in the second half of the 20th century. The thrust of this movement includes, according to Fogel, an "attack on materialist corruption; rise of pro-life, pro-family, and media reform movements; campaign for more value-oriented school curriculum; expansion of tax revolt; attack on entitlements; return to a belief in equality of opportunity." Among Fogel's devotees, it seems, is Karl Rove. Now for that "return to a belief in equality of opportunity" part...

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Torture Insurance: An Idea Whose Time Has Come

—By Monika Bauerlein

| Wed Sep. 13, 2006 1:50 AM PDT

CIA officers are getting--and the government is paying for--insurance to cover their legal costs and any civil judgments should they get sued by people alleging they were abused in secret agency prisons (or, presumably, not-so-secret facilities like Baghram and Abu Ghraib). Granted, so far the only CIA-related case along those lines was that of David Passaro, a private contractor found guilty of killing an Afghan detainee who died after being severely beaten with a flashlight. But many at Langley are worried, reports the Washington Post, that a Justice Department that encouraged them to stretch the law won't be there for them when the hammer comes down from the courts or Congress (something our own Jim Ridgeway suggests could happen on a number of scores).

"There are a lot of people who think that subpoenas could be coming" from Congress after the November elections or from federal prosecutors if Democrats capture the White House in 2008, said a retired senior intelligence officer who remains in contact with former colleagues in the agency's Directorate of Operations, which ran the secret prisons.
"People are worried about a pendulum swing" that could lead to accusations of wrongdoing, said another former CIA officer.

It's a Good Day to Take Out the (9/11) Trash

—By Monika Bauerlein

| Sat Sep. 2, 2006 1:11 AM PDT

In yet another classic Friday-afternoon "take out the trash" maneuver to bury bad news on a slow news day (how much slower can it get than the Saturday of Labor Day weekend?), the Transportation Department's Inspector General is recommending discipline for FAA executives who gave the 9/11 commission false information, reports the New York Times. Conspiracy theorists will have a field day with this; for our part, CYA looks like a perfectly good explanation, especially from an agency that has a lot of A to cover when it comes to 9/11. For more on that, see Jim Ridgeway's summary of FAA failures as part of his call for nine new congressional investigations in the most recent issue of Mother Jones; for even more, check out Michael Scherer and Barry Yeoman's MoJo piece, which among other things shows how much of this was known well before 9/11, here.

Stop Global Warming and Get Rich Too? Only in California

—By Monika Bauerlein

| Thu Aug. 31, 2006 1:55 AM PDT

California legislators really do seem to be poised to pass the modestly named Global Warming Solutions Act, which would require the state to bring greenhouse gas emissions back to 1990 levels (and how sad that that's an ambitious idea). The Assembly has signed off and the Senate is expected to by midnight today; Arnold is on board. No doubt there's a downside to this somewhere, but until we find it, it looks a lot like saving our species from extinction comes with an economic bonus: A new University of California-Berkeley study finds that going back to 1990 emission levels would boost the annual Gross State Product (GSP) by $74 billion and create 89,000 new jobs by 2020.

Blackwater Update: How They Got Those Contracts

—By Monika Bauerlein

| Mon Aug. 28, 2006 11:45 PM PDT

Yesterday (okay, very early today) we noted that military-contracting giant Blackwater may have to go to court after all to defend its claim that it's not liable when its guards get killed in places like Fallujah. Over at TPM Muckraker, Justin Rood points out another interesting bit of Blackwater news, namely a tale about how you get started running one of the world's largest mercenary firms. Hint: It helps to have a friend at Langley.