January 7, 2014

Yellen Confirmed as Fed Chair Despite Knee-Jerk Republican Opposition

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Janet Yellen has been confirmed as Fed chair with 56 votes. Bad weather kept a lot of senators out of town, but even if everyone had been present she would have gotten no more than about 66 votes:

It is the thinnest margin of Senate approval for a Fed chairman in the central bank’s history. Mr. Bernanke was confirmed for a second term as chairman with 70 yes votes and 30 no votes in 2010.

Only 11 Republicans voted for Yellen’s confirmation, despite the fact that she’s perhaps the best qualified nominee in history; has demonstrated considerable foresight during her term as vice-chair; and almost literally has provided no reason to vote against her. But it doesn’t matter. She’s Obama’s nominee, so she has to be opposed. If Republicans want to know why Democrats finally got fed up enough to change the filibuster rules, this vote speaks louder than any words possibly could.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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