January 4, 2017

Last-Minute “Scandal” Drove Yet More Defections From Hillary Clinton

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I had no idea this happened, but apparently there was a last-minute scandal that made the rounds of right-wing circles at the end of the election:

The only U.S. newspaper that reported the story was the New York Post, which ran this print-edition headline: “Bridal $weet for Chelsea; Foundation cash for nups.”…The story also was picked up by British tabloids, Fox News, Russian news agencies and various right-leaning websites….But otherwise the story did not get mentioned on other networks or newspapers, except for reference to it by conservative columnist Hugh Hewitt on MSNBC.

For the record, the scandal was that the Clinton Foundation paid for Chelsea Clinton’s wedding. There’s no evidence for this, of course, though there is an email chain that confirms the fact that Doug Band is a moron. I wonder how much more of this crap was making the rounds completely invisible to the rest of us?

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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.

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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