Suddenly Very Important Abramoff Goes to Prison NOW

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A Florida judge who has granted federal prosecutors several delays in the actual incarceration of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, so prosecutors can continue their investigation of corrupt members of Congress, has had enough, quite frankly. He has unexpectedly ordered Abramoff to report to a prison tomorrow, and it looks like it’s for real. Abramoff’s convict profile page on the Federal Bureau of Prisons website has him labeled as “in transit.”

A ploy by Republican overlords to hamper the investigation of vulnerable Republicans, you say? Wrong! Says ABC’s “The Note“:

Sources close to the investigation say Abramoff has provided information on his dealings with and campaign contributions and gifts to “dozens of members of Congress and staff,” including what Abramoff has reportedly described as “six to eight seriously corrupt Democratic senators.”

For Mother Jones on the Abramoff saga, see Barry Yeoman’s “Fall of a True Believer.”

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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.

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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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