Mother Jones Magazine Cover : January + February 2014

Want to read it now? Stories appearing in gray below have not been published to our website yet. These stories will be added over the coming weeks. In the meantime, you can read all stories from this issue immediately in our digital editions. The complete issue is available from our partners at Zinio, Kindle, Texture, Magzter, and Nook.

  • Cover Story

  • Don’t Tread on Me

    After years of budget-breaking wars, the Pentagon has been ordered to cut the fat.

    By Dave Gilson

  • FEATURES

  • All the Right Moves

    The DeVos family used its Amway fortune to bust Michigan’s mighty unions. Now it’s taking the sales pitch nationwide.

    By Andy Kroll

  • “It Was Kind of Like Slavery”

    Five men return to a reform school full of unmarked graves and dark memories.

    By Nina Berman and Michael Mechanic

  • The Audacity of Soap

    Who says you can’t run a profitable company and get busted planting hemp on the DEA’s front lawn?

    By Josh Harkinson

  • Made in Hell

    Meet the girl who thought she was getting married and made your T-shirt instead.

    By Dana Liebelson

  • The Creative Spirit

    Robert Davidson’s groundbreaking art aims to rejuvenate the once-mighty Haida culture.

    By Mark Follman

  • OutFront
  • Electric Shadyland

    Electric Shadyland

    Spawn of Enron: inside the retail electricity game

    By Stephanie Mencimer

  • To Have and to Hold

    To Have and to Hold

    Kidnapped in Kyrgyzstan

    Photographs by Noriko Hayashi

  • Offensive Fouls

    Offensive Fouls

    From the Zulu Cannibal Giants to the Washington [Redacted]

    By Ian Gordon and Matt Connolly

  • Let's Roll

    Let’s Roll

    Spending big green at the latrine

    By Dave Gilson

  • The Very Angry Caterpillar

    The Very Angry Caterpillar

    Rush Limbaugh. Glenn Beck. For kids.

    By Tim Murphy

  • Sue First, Ask Questions Later

    Sue First, Ask Questions Later

    The gun lobby opens up on small towns.

    By Hannah Levintova

  • Legal Crossfire

    Legal Crossfire

    Gun laws one year after Sandy Hook

    By Mark Follman

Contributors

At age 10, Tim Bower (“Electric Shadyland“) won a three-speed bike in a hotdog maker’s logo contest.

A major Russian newspaper recently—and incorrectly—reported that 1 Hannah Levintova (“Sue First, Ask Questions Later“) has fired an automatic rifle.

2 Dave Gilson is not ashamed to admit that toilet paper was one of the very first things he searched for in a 4,500-row spreadsheet of Pentagon contracts (“Don’t Tread on Me“); the illustration is by 3 Eddie Guy, who also blinged up the cover image.

4 Nina Berman thanks Antoinette Harrell, who researches involuntary servitude in the post-Civil War South, for introducing her to Dozier School alumni (“‘It Was Kind of Like Slavery’“).

Dana Liebelson investigated India’s garment factories (“Made in Hell“) with support from the International Center for Journalists.

5 Mark Follman’s travels through British Columbia have spanned from hiking in the Haida Nation’s island homeland (“The Creative Spirit“) to reporting at a Vancouver heroin clinic; when he’s not roaming the world taking pictures of people who live without electricity, Peter DiCampo lives in Seattle.

6 Lauren Williams—no relation to the Daily Show star (“‘Oh My God! No, Jessica, No!’“)—won hearts as Veruca Salt in a school production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Hannah Levintova