August 15, 2016

The Trump Campaign Is Off the Rails Again—And It’s Only Going to Get Worse

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The New York Times reports today on the latest about Paul Manafort, favored lobbyist of sleazy dictators worldwide and currently Donald Trump’s campaign chairman:

Secret Ledger in Ukraine Lists Cash for Donald Trump’s Campaign Chief

Handwritten ledgers show $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr. Manafort from Mr. Yanukovych’s pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to Ukraine’s newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau.

…The papers, known in Ukraine as the “black ledger,” are a chicken-scratch of Cyrillic covering about 400 pages taken from books once kept in a third-floor room in the former Party of Regions headquarters on Lipskaya Street in Kiev. The room held two safes stuffed with $100 bills.

That sounds pretty bad. Still, I suppose it could be worse. For example, Manafort could—eh? What’s that, Adam Weinstein?

Well, so much for the latest pivot to normalcy for the Trump campaign. It was already in pretty tattered shape after his Sunday Twitter rant about how unfairly the media mistreats him. Unsurprisingly, a lot of Republicans are finally concluding that a Trump pivot away from uncontrolled ranting and raving will never happen. Politico reports that “party leaders have started talking about cutting off support to Trump in October and redirecting cash to save endangered congressional majorities.” I can’t say that I blame them. I only wonder why they’re planning to wait until October.

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From the desk of Mother Jones CEO, Monika Bauerlein...

Newsrooms can be funded in many ways. One of the most controversial (and volatile) ways is by a for-profit corporation or a billionaire owner. We see it across the headlines on a weekly basis: the claw backs in public media, the gutting of The Washington Post, the bending over backwards to appeal to Trump and his allies.

But not here.

When Mother Jones first started publishing 50 years ago, our founders made a critical decision: to be a reader-supported nonprofit. They knew that no corporate owner would be interested in a muckraking newsroom; they also knew that no muckraking newsroom would be interested in following the agenda of a corporate owner.

And so, we’ve been reader-funded for half a century. We rely on contributions from our readers—readers like you—whether it’s $50, or $15 a month, or whatever fits your budget. People give what they can, and every donation makes a difference for our newsroom, which has grown tremendously—in size and reach and renown—since its inception in 1976.

You may be wondering: What does it take to publish an investigation? And what does my donation actually fund? The answers are one and the same: It takes people, resources, and time. And that’s what your donation funds directly.

Every donation Mother Jones receives from readers fortifies our newsroom, whether we’re covering underreported scandals out of Washington, DC, or the most important news of the day. And right now, each donation will be doubled because of our $50,000 match. So when you make a donation—$5, $50, any amount—it’ll go twice as far.

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