Nick Baumann

News Editor

Nick is based in our DC bureau, where he covers national politics and civil liberties issues. Nick has also written for The Economist, The Atlantic, The Washington Monthly, and Commonweal. Email tips and insights to nbaumann [at] motherjones [dot] com. You can also follow him on Facebook.

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Video: Your Supreme Court Obamacare Playlist

10 tunes to listen to while you read the ruling upholding health care reform.

—By Nick Baumann

| Thu Jun. 28, 2012 3:00 AM PDT

UPDATE: The Supreme Court upheld Obamacare.

The Supreme Court will release its decision on the fate of President Barack Obama's landmark health care reform, a.k.a. Obamacare, shortly after 10 a.m. on Thursday morning. No one really knows what they'll do. In the meantime, the Mother Jones DC bureau figured you could use some tunes. So here it is: your Supreme Court/Obamacare Decision Day playlist. Enjoy!

We have to start out with a barn burner to get everyone psyched up. (The great Bob Dylan has his own list of doctor-related songs. We're only going to borrow this one, though.) The White Stripes, "Girl You Have No Faith in Medicine":

This one goes out to Randy Barnett. The Mandates, "Photo in My Wallet":

For the Gen-Xers. The Thompson Twins, "Doctor Doctor":

This one goes out to the previous Democratic attempt at health care reform, Hillarycare, which turned out to be a lot less popular than this song. Spin Doctors, "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong":

This song is dedicated to Justice Samuel Alito, who is from New Jersey and therefore required by law to love Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen. Bon Jovi, "Bad Medicine":

"Killing Me Softly With His Song," the Fugees' version (with Lauryn Hill on lead vocals):

This one's a two-fer. Dr. Dre, "Nothin But a G Thang," going out to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and "Big Egos," going out to the whole high court:

This one goes out to Justice Antonin Scalia, obviously. Dana Carvey, "Choppin' Broccoli."

Our final tune goes out to the members of the DC press corps, who have been waiting for the Supreme Court to give them the news for quite some time now. Robert Palmer, "Bad Case of Loving You (Doctor, Doctor)":

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GOP Candidate Says Tammy Baldwin's Philosophy "Has Its Roots" in Communism

—By Nick Baumann

| Mon Jun. 25, 2012 6:40 AM PDT

Wisconsin Sen. Robert La Follette, Sr. making a radio speech. He was a progressive, not a communist. There's a difference.

Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D) is running for Senate in Wisconsin, where she will probably end up facing former GOP Gov. Tommy Thompson. But Thompson faces a challenge from the right—Eric Hovde, a wealthy former CNBC talking head, who has apparently decided that the best way to win a Republican primary these days is to suggest the Democratic candidate is a communist. Here's Hovde:

"I fundamentally disagree with Tammy on almost everything. She has a more liberal voting record than almost anybody in Congress," he told The Hill in a recent interview. "Her philosophy has its roots in Marxism, communism, socialism, extreme liberalism—she calls it progressivism—versus mine, which is rooted in free-market conservatism."

Needless to say Baldwin, who does not support government ownership of the means of production, is not a Marxist, a socialist, or a communist. And it's especially sad to see a Republican candidate equating progressivism with communism in Wisconsin, a birthplace and longtime stronghold of the progressive movement. Robert La Follette, a leading progressive Republican, was Wisconsin's governor from 1901 to 1906 and one of its senators from 1906 until 1925. LaFollette was succeeded in the Senate by his son, "Young Bob," who served until 1946, when he lost a GOP primary to the infamous red-hunter Joseph McCarthy. Here's a nice explanation of progressivism from the Wisconsin Historical Society:

Progressive Republicans... believed that the business of government was to serve the people. They sought to restrict the power of corporations when it interfered with the needs of individual citizens. The Progressive Movement appealed to citizens who wanted honest government and moderate economic reforms that would expand democracy and improve public morality... In Wisconsin, La Follette developed the techniques and ideas that made him a nationwide symbol of Progressive reform and made the state an emblem of progressive experimentation. The Wisconsin Idea, as it came to be called, was that efficient government required control of institutions by the voters rather than special interests, and that the involvement of specialists in law, economics, and social and natural sciences would produce the most effective government.

The state historical society's site has lots more on progressivism and Wisconsin history, including many primary source documents. Perhaps Hovde should familiarize himself with it.

MoJo to UCLA: Release the Milken Documents!

—By Nick Baumann

| Wed Jun. 20, 2012 4:30 AM PDT

Last August, the University of California-Los Angeles announced that it had accepted a $10 million gift from Lowell Milken, a key figure in the junk bonds and savings and loan scandals of the 1980s, to launch a "Lowell Milken Institute for Business Law and Policy." The University did not disclose that Milken, who is among the richest people in the world, has been banned for life from the securities industry. It also did not mention that Lowell's brother and business partner, Michael Milken, was jailed on multiple federal felony counts related to his work at Drexel Burnham Lambert, a now-defunct investment bank where Lowell also worked. Lowell was Michael's "closest confidant and adviser" at Drexel, the Los Angeles Times reported at the time.

Like the University's press release, initial coverage of the Milken's donation from the Daily Bruin, the Associated Press, the Los Angeles Times, and the Los Angeles Daily News also neglected to mention his past.

On August 18, the week after the donation was announced, I reported on Milken's history. The New York Times and other outlets picked up the story a few days later. When I first learned about the Milken gift, I asked a Mother Jones intern, Lauren Ellis, to file a document request with UCLA under the California Open Records Law. We asked for documents and emails related to the Milken deal and, crucially, the donor agreement between Milken and the university.

On October 5, UCLA finally responded, providing two letters from UCLA officials thanking Milken for his gift. The university refused to disclose the donor agreement or any other documents, arguing that it needed to protect "the personal privacy of its donors" and that releasing any documents beyond the two letters would "bring about a chilling effect on UCLA's Foundation, in that the personal privacy of its donors, prospective donors, and those who volunteer their time to the Foundation would no longer be protected." As Madeleine Buckingham, the CEO of Mother Jones, noted in a letter to UCLA last week, California courts have rejected both of these arguments for withholding information about donations to public universities.

We believe that UCLA's decision to withhold the Milken documents represents a violation of California open records laws. You can read the letter (and our full argument) below:

Mother Jones UCLA Letter June 15 2012 (PDF)Mother Jones UCLA Letter June 15 2012 (Text)

"Game of Thrones" Attack Ads

What would it look like if super-PACs and dark-money groups existed in the world of the HBO hit series?

—By the MoJo news team

| Wed Jun. 20, 2012 3:00 AM PDT

In HBO's hit show Game of Thrones, there are dragons, sword fights, and zombie armies. But the heart of the show is intense political intrigue. Alliances are forged and broken; backroom deals are cut; principles are sacrificed. It's a dirty game. Yet imagine how much more unsavory it would be if super-PACs and dark-money outfits existed in the Seven Kingdoms. We did—and here are the results. Mild season 2 spoilers to follow.

Daenerys Targaryen: Wrong for Dragons, Wrong for the Realm

Joffrey Baratheon: What a Bastard!

Robb Stark: The Biggest Celebrity in the North

Created, written, and directed by David Corn, Dan Schulman, Nick Baumann, Adam Serwer, Tim Murphy, and Asawin Suebsaeng. Videos edited by Ethan Elliott-Williams and David Mullins. Narrated by Jason Williams. Actors: Jennifer Cutting, Patrick Plunkett, and Stephen Winick.

Click here to check out other TV and movie features from Mother Jones.

Document Shows US Government Knew About American Locked Up in Yemen

A document obtained by Mother Jones corroborates key elements of an alleged proxy detainee's story about his overseas ordeal.

—By Nick Baumann

| Wed Jun. 20, 2012 3:00 AM PDT

Sharif Mobley

Sharif Mobley, an American who alleges he was arrested and interrogated by a foreign security service at the behest of the US government, has long claimed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation visited and questioned him when he was first imprisoned in Yemen in early 2010. US government officials have long refused to comment about Mobley's case on the record. Now, an extensively redacted FBI document obtained by Mother Jones confirms US agents did indeed visit Mobley in prison. It also shows that the government was aware of Mobley's detention while US officials were telling his wife that they did not know his whereabouts.

Mobley, whom US officials have said was in Yemen to pursue terrorism, has admitted to contacting Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born Al Qaeda propagandist who was killed in a US drone strike in September. But Mobley and his lawyer, Cori Crider of the London-based human rights organization Reprieve, say that the two men spoke about religious and personal matters, not terrorism, and that Mobley was in Yemen to learn Arabic at the country's cheap language schools. Crider claims Awlaki and Mobley met in person once in 2008, more than a year before Mobley was picked up by Yemeni security forces on January 26, 2010. (Security forces in American-allied countries including Yemen are often trained and funded by the US government.)

[Read the full article]