Morning Political Trivia for July 12

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To swing it in Swampland (Washington, that is), you have to know your stuff. With that in mind, Mother Jones’ DC Bureau is launching a new daily feature on MoJo Blog: morning political trivia. We’ll compete every morning in the office, and we’ll give you a chance to try your hand at answering the question in the comments section (no Googling!). Then, every afternoon (Pacific time), we’ll post the answer and heap praise on the commenters who guess correctly.

As your official quizmaster, I’ll be finding the questions and keeping score. If you have a good one, submit it to mojotrivia@gmail.com. I’ll credit you if we use your question (please let us know if you got it from another source).

But you won’t be the only ones pondering each morning’s question. Back in the capital, Mother Jones’ DC correspondents will be struggling mightily to best each other in a never-ending battle royale of trivia. And there will be accountability in this administration. I’ll let you know who got the question right and who got it wrong, be they intern or editor. So you won’t just be getting the answers every afternoon, you’ll be getting a chance to heap scorn on political reporters who don’t know their political trivia. So, with that in mind, we’ll start you out with a doozie (remember, no Googling!):

Name the four state capitals that begin with the same letter as the states they’re in.

—Nick Baumann

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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