April 9, 2010

Obama Probably Won’t Nominate Cass Sunstein to Replace Stevens

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On Friday, John Paul Stevens, the oldest justice on the Supreme Court and the leader of its liberal wing, announced he would retire this summer. The news immediately fueled speculation that President Barack Obama might nominate his friend and former University of Chicago colleague Cass Sunstein to the vacant seat. Sunstein is currently serving as Obama’s regulatory czar.

Eric Posner, a colleague, told Slate that Sunstein is “the most important legal scholar of his generation.” That’s the problem: as a uniquely prolific and creative legal scholar, Sunstein comes with a lot of baggage. In 2009, Jonathan Stein reported on a big business front group’s effort to paint Sunstein as a “radical animal-rights activist.” We’re republishing that piece today. If Sunstein was getting this kind of flak when he was a nominee for an obscure regulatory position, imagine the controversy if he was nominated to the nation’s highest court. Anyway, read Jonathan’s piece.

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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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