IEDs, Ahmadinejad, and the Climate Bill

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A new ad campaign ties American oil dependence to Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and IEDs, making the security case for Congress to pass a climate and energy bill this year. The ads, from progressive veteran group VoteVets, show Iraq war veteran Christopher Miller over images of explosions and armed insurgents. The argument: this isn’t just about polar bears and melting ice caps. Passing energy legislation is an issue of national defense.

“That’s the type of IED that earned me a purple heart in Iraq six years ago,” says Miller, as images of military vehicles exploding run behind him. And every time oil goes up a dollar, he says, hostile countries like Iran get “another $1.5 billion to use against us.”

“Connection between oil and the enemy couldn’t be clearer,” Miller continues. “We need to break that connection by breaking our addiction. And we can by passing a clean energy climate plan. It would cut our dependence on foreign oil in half.”

The ads are running in eight states and the District of Columbia. VoteVets released similarly provocative ads last month tying the Detroit bomber to energy concerns. Here’s the ad:

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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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