Your Daily Newt: A Terrorist Attack Now And Then…

As a service to our readers, every day we are delivering a classic moment from the political life of Newt Gingrich—until he either clinches the nomination or bows out.

Asked in 2008 about the Bush administration’s efforts in the war in terror, Gingrich expressed his frustration that the public wasn’t sufficiently concerned about terrorists on a day to day basis. As he explained: “The better they’ve done at making sure there isn’t going to be an attack, the easier it is to say there was never going to be an attack anyway. It’s almost like they should every once in a while have allowed an attack to go through just to remind us”:

Gingrich was joking—sort of. He really did think serious changes needed to be made to the nation’s law enforcement framework at the expense of civil liberties. That’s why he’d create a new agency, separate from the traditional domestic crime-fighting FBI (which would still be forced to comply with the Bill of Rights). “I would have a small, but very aggressive anti-terrorist agency. And I would give them extraordinary ability to eavesdrop. And my first advice to civil libertarians would be simple: Don’t plot with terrorists.” To quote Jefferson. Or was it Jay?

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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