December 3, 2015

Pentagon Approves Women in All Military Roles, Including Combat

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This is pretty big news:

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Thursday he will formally end the Pentagon’s ban on women serving in combat jobs…. “There will be no exceptions,” Carter told a Pentagon news conference. “This means that, as long as they qualify and meet the standards, women will now be able to contribute to our mission in ways they could not before.”

First blacks, then gays, now women. And mirabile dictu, Republican opposition so far appears to be fairly muted. Next up: will women be required to register for the draft on their 18th birthday? Carter says that will be evaluated within a few weeks.

This is yet another big win for our lame duck president. He’s making quite a go of things in his last two years.

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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?

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