Kim Davis Is Either Big Winner or Big Loser, Depending on Your Perspective

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It looks like I have my answer about what will happen when Kim Davis reports back to work in the Rowan County clerk’s office:

One of Davis’ deputy clerks, Brian Mason, said he will continue to issue licenses even if Davis instructs him to not do so. “Because of the federal court order,” Mason said when asked why he might buck his boss when she returns to work.

….Mason patiently answered a dozen reporters’ questions Wednesday when the clerk’s office opened for business, displaying the license he and five other deputy clerks have used since they assured Bunning they would comply with his order. Those revised licenses do not include Davis’ name, instead indicating the license is authorized by “the office of the Rowan County Clerk,” where it once indicated “the office of Kim Davis, Rowan County Clerk.”

….“It was an office decision,” Mason said when asked who authorized the change.

Davis will not have to personally issue marriage licenses to any gay couples, and the licenses themselves no longer have her name on them. This is what she asked for in the first place, so she ought to be satisfied. Right?

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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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