February 14, 2008

Dems Win on FISA! (Momentarily)

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It looks as though House Democrats are going to head into the President’s Day recess without acting on FISA, meaning that the Protect America Act will expire in a few days.

Most Democrats were happy to pass an extension of PAA, which allows the federal government to spy on foreign-to-foreign communications routed through the United States without a warrant, but the White House insisted it would veto the bill if it didn’t include retroactive immunity for telecom companies that have helped the Bush Administration spy on Americans. (Chris Dodd recently lost this fight in the Senate.)

The House leadership (which is getting ballsier and ballsier) decided to risk the political attacks Republican will surely launch about leaving America unprotected instead of caving and passing a bad bill that helps undermine the Constitution. Kudos to them!

More info here.

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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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