Greenpeace Spoofs Offshore Drilling in New Ad

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Greenpeace’s PolluterWatch brings us a new love story, this one bringing new meaning to the phrase, “Drill, baby, drill.” In their latest, “Rex” (a spoof of ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson) meets “Bob” (Virginia’s new Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell), and the two realize that they’re a match made in offshore heaven.

“I do have exotic tastes, if you know what I mean,” says Rex, referring to his previous lovers from the Middle East. But now he’s looking for “something closer to home.” Via PolluterHarmony, he meets Bob, who’s “Full of energy, ready to drill.” And Bob’s OK with an open relationship, though he helps Rex see the beauty of the idea “Think globally, drill locally.”

The ads, of course, are meant to spoof McDonnell’s pledge to open up Virginia’s coast line to drilling, and Tillerson’s desire to drill more domestically (an opportunity he may get via climate and energy legislation). McDonnell campaigned on the issue, and has been pressing the Department of Interior to approve drilling in the region. Earlier this month signed off on plans to develop the coast.

Here’s the latest PolluterHarmony spot:

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

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