A National Disgrace

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The country seems to be coming apart at the seams over Katrina and the total disaster that has fallen upon Mississippi and Louisiana.

Just to give you an idea, here is a small sampling:

  • People in the Superdome have been without food and water for days. The toilets are overflowing and people are desperately waiting for medical supplies and transportation. Many people have died waiting in the Superdome – including several babies – as the number of trapped has ballooned to over 30,000.
  • A chemical depot exploded this morning in New Orleans along the Mississippi River, sending black plumes of smoke hovering over the city.
  • Under the Same Sun points out that President Bush’s main concern seems to be “insurance fraud.”
  • Flagrancy to Reason mentions that there are still hospitals that have not been evacuated – once again, the main concern seems to be rescuing flat screen TV sets rather than the sick, the elderly, and the homeless.
  • Majikthise notes that the Department of Homeland Security first rejected aid workers from Canada bringing fresh water and medical supplies. Happily, the DHS finally caved in but now that the rescuers have reached the scene things are too out of control for them to do any good.
  • And as I noted last night, Michelle Malkin – apologist for torture and police brutality – actually said she was “heartbroken” when cops in New Orleans failed to arrest looters who were stealing food. It is important to keep in mind: she said she was heartbroken not because they were stealing food, but because the cops didn’t arrest them.
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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 canā€™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 wonā€™t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureā€”you.

    And we need readers to show up for us big timeā€”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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