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Email of the day, from a regular correspondent:

Glenn Beck was in rare form last night….For all practical purposes, he claimed that the fall of the Roman Republic — and the roots of the Roman Empire and its version of National Socialism — was precipitated by redistribution of wealth, by land-grab from the rich that was then given to the poor. This is so preposterously stupid, I believe the only reason that we don’t hear of mass suicides of historians during Beck’s broadcasts is because historians simply don’t watch the show.

….If you have a chance to get hold of the recording, this one is really worth watching. Needless to say, you will learn something you never knew — and probably should never know, if it were not so much fun… I’ve had a two month break from the daily barrage as I had no TV while away from home, but, judging from what I’ve seen earlier in the year, I would nominate this one the Episode of the Year. If you recall the BBC show Connections, it was exactly like that — except that the script and the plans were prepared by those proverbial monkeys typing Shakespeare.

Well, two months away from Glenn Beck is like two decades away from any normal person. To me, this sounds like a pretty standard episode. Still, it’s good to see that Beck is working his way backward through history. The Victorian stuff was getting tedious. Soon we should be able to get his take on whether the invention of agriculture was a great leap forward for capitalism or the beginning of the end of human history. It could go either way depending on which pamphlet catches his eye next.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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