March 14, 2008

Dumpster Diving with the Defense Department

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Ah, the Friday document dump, where governmental bad news goes to die.

You have to love the hubris behind the federal assumption that, because it’s Friday at 5 pm in Washington, DC, all the politerati have gone home for the weekend, abandoning their listservs and laptops for—what, the beach?

For those of you who don’t already subscribe to all 20-plus Pentagon email alerts, here are three of this afternoon’s offerings:

—A 29-page report on “Sexual Assault in the Military,” conducted by the Defense Manpower Data Center, which found that “34 percent of active duty women and 6 percent of active duty men indicated experiencing sexual harassment, while 6.8 percent of women and 1.8 percent of men indicated experiencing unwanted sexual contact.” Download the PDF here.

—A video of today’s House Armed Services committee Mental Health hearing “to look into how the military is dealing with stress on the force.” Watch the hearing here.

—An announcement that “approximately 3,500 U.S. servicemembers will be deploying to Afghanistan this summer.”

Happy diving.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

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