November 4, 2016

Where Are All the Fake Docs Coming From?!?

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Longtime creep Roger Stone has been occupying himself lately by tweeting golden oldies about the “Clinton Body Count” and how Hillary had Vince Foster killed because he knew too much. Charming as always. But a couple of weeks ago he was busy tweeting this:

OMG indeed. You will be unsurprised to learn that the document in question wasn’t real. Sadly, it contained a telltale clue common to autocrats around the world. Can you spot it?

In the same way that megalomaniacs love to claim that they won re-election with 99 percent of the votes, this fake poll claims that Trump leads Clinton 77-19 percent. The pranksters might have fooled a few people if they’d stuck to something a little less obvious, but I suppose 77 percent must have seemed pretty modest to them. Perhaps this gives a clue about where it came from? Here is Reuters:

The FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies are examining faked documents aimed at discrediting the Hillary Clinton campaign as part of a broader investigation into what U.S. officials believe has been an attempt by Russia to disrupt the presidential election, people with knowledge of the matter said.

Russian officials deny any such effort.

In addition to the Carper letter, the FBI has also reviewed a seven-page electronic document that carries the logos of Democratic pollster Joel Benenson’s firm….The document, identified as a fake by the Clinton campaign, claims poll ratings had plunged for Clinton and called for “severe strategy changes for November” that could include “staged civil unrest” and “radiological attack” with dirty bombs to disrupt the vote.

Nice try, Russia, but you really need to up your game.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

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.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

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.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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