Thank You, Mr. President

An oil company kisses up to Bill and his weak global warming proposal

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The environmentalists are pissed and the oil companies are pleased — last month Bill Clinton announced the U.S. negotiating position for the U.N. global warming treaty, and it was the weakest one on the table. His White House advisers had split on the issue, the enviros urging the strongest cuts in emissions, the Wall Street types urging the weakest. Guess who won.

The big oil firms are more than relieved; some of them seem downright enthusiastic. From a source in Washington, the MoJo Wire obtained this letter written by Sunoco CEO Bill Campbell, thanking the president profusely for going so easy on his polluting industry. You might say he gushed.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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