Open Caskets?

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Yesterday the Pentagon agreed to continue releasing official photos of the stateside arrival of dead soldier’s coffins. The legal settlement comes more that a year after a Freedom of Information Act request filed by The Memory Hole‘s Russ Kick resulted in the release of about three hundred such photos taken at Dover Air Force base, the country’s only military mortuary.

But the agreement still doesn’t allow the media to come onto the bases and film or photograph the arrival of coffins. So it seems that if the Army is still worried about passing the “Dover test“—the point at which the populations stomach for the war is over taken by the sight of flag-draped bodies—all it would have to do is stop taking its own pictures, right?

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I'm hopeful because of readers like you. Will you pitch in today?

We see 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 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 thanks to a $50,000 match. So when you make a donation, it’ll go twice as far.

Your support keeps us going. If you’re able, donate today.

Thanks for reading.

—Monika Bauerlein, CEO

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