With $90,000 In His Freezer, What’s Not To Love?

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New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin has endorsed the candidacy of Louisiana Rep. William Jefferson, the man who gave a new meaning to the term, “cold hard cash.” Jefferson is the target of a federal bribery investigation. Those he has not been charged, one of his aides and a Kentucky businessman have already pleaded guilty. During the course of the investigation, agents found $90,000 in cash hidden in Jefferson’s freezer.

The surprise isn’t so much that Nagin would lend his support to someone under investigation who looks pretty guilty, but that he would so enthusiastically support a Democrat. Nagin, a lifelong Republican who suddenly “became a Democrat” a day before his first mayoral campaign began, has governed like a Republican, and even endorsed Bobby Jindal (now a Congressman) for governor. Jindal is not merely Republican, but is on the extreme right wing end of things.

Nagin’s endorsement of Jefferson adds one more item to the list of things he has done that cast doubts on his ability to lead. From waffling about whether a landfill should be in the middle of a residential area to bungling the towing of trashed cars after Katrina to recently making a questionable deal with a trash pickup company, the mayor has caused New Orleanians to question his re-election. However, they have only themselves to blame.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

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