February 23, 2012

Newt: Killing Bin Laden Doesn’t Count!


Another Republican debate, another opportunity to call out Barack Obama’s alleged softness on national security.

Toward the end of Wednesday night’s presidential debate in Mesa, Arizona, when the conversation shifted to foreign policy, newly minted back-runner Newt Gingrich tossed out some tried-and-true applause bait:

As long as you’re America’s enemy, you’re safe.

Gingrich was talking about the president’s supposed proclivity for appeasing the United States’ enemies abroad. Mitt Romney readily concurred.

That’s one thought. Here’s another:

Here are a few more:

Kim Jong Il didn’t do so well during the Obama years, either, but we’ll be fair and chalk that one up to coincidence.

So there you have it: A whole bunch of America’s enemies, now in a terminal state of not being safe.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

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