Khashoggi Coverup Story Still in Progress

Still all smiles!State Department via ZUMA

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This is remarkable:

The Trump administration and the Saudi royal family are searching for a mutually agreeable explanation for the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi — one that will avoid implicating Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is among the president’s closest foreign allies, according to analysts and officials in multiple countries.

That’s from the Washington Post and it’s presented as straight news. The leadership of Saudi Arabia has been appalling for a long time, so it’s not especially surprising that they’d order the murder of a political activist they found annoying. But even the most cynical critic of American foreign policy has to be gobsmacked that our president is all-but-publicly casting about for some kind of semi-acceptable coverup. I guess there’s no need to keep it discreet since he knows that no matter how preposterous the story is, Fox News and congressional Republicans will just shrug and then get back to the important business of confirming corporate-friendly judges.

I try not to let my depression and discouragement become too obvious. A lot of it is due not to current events, but to the temporary fatigue and tiredness I get from the chemo drugs I take. I know that. But damn. Between Kavanaugh and Khashoggi and the degeneracy of the Republican Party and just the unbelievable fact that Donald Trump is president of the United States,¹ I barely feel like getting out of bed anymore.

¹I mean, WTF? Donald Trump? Seriously?

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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.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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