Jim Bunning, Please Don’t Go Anywhere

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Jim Bunning, the slightly daft Republican Senator from Kentucky who revealed over the weekend that he knows exactly when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will die, is threatening to sue his own party if it supports a primary challenger against him in his 2010 reelection campaign. Bunning, who is 77 years old, is (1) so old and (2) so peeved at his own party that he is apparently willing to say anything about anyone. Check out this broadside against fellow Republican senator John Cornyn, who controls the GOP party organ that oversees Senate racess:

“I don’t believe anything John Cornyn says. I’ve had miscommunications with John Cornyn from, I guess, the first week of this current session of the Senate. He either doesn’t understand English or he doesn’t understand direct: ‘I’m going to run,’ which I said to him in the cloakroom of our chamber.”

That is fantastic. I hope Bunning is around for seven or even 13 more years, launching attacks on everyone who crosses him. Now that Ted Stevens is gone, the Senate needs a new curmudgeon.

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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.

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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.

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