December 7, 2006

Bush Prepares to Talk to MORE Axis of Evil States; I Feel Like I’m Taking Crazy Pills

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Did I miss a memo? Are the terrorists winning? Continuing a trend mentioned earlier today, President Bush is giving indications that he may open up discussions with Iran and Syria as part of regional talks on how to stabalize Iraq. There are rules, however. For Iran to come to the table, it has to “verifiably suspend” its nuclear program. For Syria, it has to “stop destabilizing” Lebanon’s government.

Now, this gives Bush a ton of wiggle room. Iran and Syria can say in upcoming weeks and months that they are hemming to Bush’s rules, and Bush can always respond by saying, “Our evidence indicates the opposite.” So, in essence, Bush can decide to allow Iran and Syria to join regional talks whenever he’s good and ready.

So, in the end, the Bush Administration continues to present the image of progress, while hedging on any genuine change. I wonder if this is part of Bush’s grand plan to make bloggers question why they bother going through the trouble…

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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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