A Hodgepodge From the Supreme Court

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So we have three Supreme Court rulings today. In a nutshell:

  • The court mostly overturned Arizona’s immigration law, but let stand the provision allowing police to ask for immigration papers if they have a “reasonable suspicion” someone is in the country illegally.
  • The court stuck down a Montana campaign spending law, essentially reaffirming Citizens United.
  • The court banned sentences of life without parole for minors.

Can we read any tea leaves here? Probably not. The immigration ruling was a patchwork compromise. The campaign spending ruling is conservative but unsurprising. The sentencing ruling is basically liberal, but also unsurprising given past rulings. There’s not much insight here into how they might rule on Obamacare. But we’ll know soon enough anyway.

UPDATE: More on the Montana campaign finance law here from Andy Kroll.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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