Watch: DC’s Stockholm Syndrome

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We’ve getting emails all weeekend from friends, family, MoJo readers, and random strangers about David Corn and Kevin Drum‘s turn on Bill Moyers’ Journal. It was really an astonishingly good show, and well worth watching in the context of… just about everything happening in Washington right now. Take your pick: Today, there’s a kerfuffle about the shadow of the possibility of a financial transaction fee, a tiny amount the government could collect from banks to get a little something back for taxpayers–or, more to the point, for our children, who will be paying for the deficit we ran up for the bailout. (Yes, some banks are repaying TARP money, but do you know just how tiny fraction of the total bailout that is? Our handy chart, along with lots more data geekery on shameless bonuses and such, is here. The “Too Big to Jail” package that inspired Moyers to ask Kevin and David to come on is here.) As with every other proposal to make Big Finance bear any part of the burden for the disaster it has caused, this won’t fly unless politicians feel they have more to lose from satisfying Wall Street than they do from offending it. So watch the show and forward it to your friends. It’s as informative as it is outrage-building—and on this topic, we could use more information and more outrage

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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