April 12, 2010

Wishing for Christie’s Death

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, wants to slash state education funding. The state teachers' union isn't thrilled. |Flickr/<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/cwalker71/4073779929/">cwalker71</a> (<a href="http://www.creativecommons.org">Creative Commons</a>).

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A memo released by the New Jersey Education Association, New Jersey’s state teachers’ union contained this “prayer”: 

Dear Lord: This year you have taken away my favorite actor, Patrick Swayze, my favorite actress, Farrah Fawcett, my favorite singer, Michael Jackson, and my favorite salesman, Billy Mays … I just wanted to let you know that Chris Christie is my favorite governor.

Stay classy, folks! Christie, New Jersey’s Republican governor, wants to reduce state aid to school districts by $820 million and has asked teachers to accept a one-year pay freeze. According to the New York Post, the “prayer” first appeared on “an NJEA Facebook page called “New Jersey Teachers United Against Governor Chris Christie’s Pay Freeze.” NJEA President Barbara Keshishian has apologized, awkwardly, to Christie: “Language such as that has no place in civil discourse. It was intended as humor, but it’s not funny.”

h/t Daily Intel, which adds, in response to Keshishian’s statement, “That might be a little much. It was at least a little funny.”

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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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