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Our ambassador to Ukraine has testified that she was fired because Rudy Giuliani was upset about her anti-corruption efforts. Why did this upset him? Because there was no corruption involved in Hunter Biden’s activities, and this meant that an anti-corruption effort wouldn’t do anything to help him smear the Biden family. He therefore recommended that President Trump get rid of her, and Trump happily agreed.

Elsewhere, Trump decided not merely to pull a small number of American troops out of northern Syria, but to do it in precisely the way that would cause the most chaos to both the United States and its allies. And that’s what he’s gotten. The Turks are shelling positions near the American troops that still remain, so Trump has now decided to pull them all out. As a result, our erstwhile allies, the Kurds, are now teaming up with the Russian-backed Assad government.

And in yet other news, after blowing up negotiations with the Taliban in Afghanistan because he didn’t understand what was going on, Trump is now trying to start them up again. Good luck with that.

Oh, and Trump’s buddy who served as roving ambassador to Ukraine is apparently prepared to testify that the only reason he said there was no quid pro quo required for Ukraine to receive its military aid is because Trump told him to say that. He himself, it seems, has no idea if it was true or not.

And that was just over the weekend. We now have a whole new week ahead of us. I hope you enjoy it.

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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.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist 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 need readers to show up for us big time—again.

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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