November 10, 2015

Tonight’s GOP Debate Will Be All About Pressing Hard on Tax and Budget Proposals

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Tonight’s Republican debate starts up at 9 pm Eastern.1 One of the moderators has some advice for the candidates:

Fox Business Network anchor Maria Bartiromo believes the Republicans are not helping themselves by whining about the moderators at the primary debates. “President Obama said it, and it was true,” she said during a conversation at the FBN offices in midtown Manhattan a few days before she takes the stage for the channel’s Nov. 10 primary debate in Milwaukee. “If these guys can’t deal with the moderators, how are you going to be able to deal with Russia and China?”

“I guess it’s become cool to slap around the moderator. That’s OK,” said Bartiromo….Her approach will include pressing the candidates for details on their tax and budget proposals. “I’m clear on where the holes may be in their plans so I can try to solicit information and help the viewer,” she said. “As far as worrying ‘what if he says this to me, what if he does that to me’ — I don’t have time for that.”

Amusingly, both of the moderators of tonight’s debate used to work for CNBC, which got trashed by Republicans for its performance a couple of weeks ago. So they have an extra special incentive to show that they can do better.

Anyway, I’m eager to hear Bartiromo press the candidates on their phantasmic tax and budget proposals, and I’m especially eager to hear her ferociously attack the holes in their plans. I wonder how that’s going to go?

1Of course I’ll be liveblogging it. What else would I be doing with my evening? First, though, I need to figure out what channel my cable provider has consigned the Fox Business Network to. For those of you who don’t get FBN, they will be livestreaming the debate on FoxBusiness.com. No cable subscription required.

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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.

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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.

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