Heartland’s Tips For A Taut Tummy


Sure. From time to time we’re all a little distracted by that stubborn Winter padding. Too much New Year cheer. Now it’s nearly March! And goodness knows we’ve all done some light non-work-related Googling at the office desk on an otherwise quiet Friday afternoon.

But in the middle of an all-out international PR-offensive against alleged “fraud”; and “theft”; leveled at several quarters of the “lamestream media”, maybe it’s best to not only minimize, but close a few browser windows? Even if it was a pop-up ad.

A string of emails released Friday afternoon by the Heartland Institute, in the form of screenshots, details how scientist Peter Gleick obtained sensitive documents by posing as a board member.But they also reveal divided attention at a crucial moment in the Institute’s PR campaign. An open browser window at the bottom of many of the screengrabs is titled “42 Best Ways To Lo…”

A quick Google reveals pages and pages of referring links to 42 Best Ways To Lose Stomach Fat Fast.

The Guardian also points to other areas of carelessness in the email release:

… it does not appear, from Friday’s release, that Heartland has had a security overhaul. Despite redactions, one of the emails contained a list of board recipients, including one email address.

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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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