Law & Order and Campaign Finance (Or: What Will TNT Do Without Fred Thompson?)

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In the campaign finance system, there are two separate yet equally important groups: candidates who have a myriad of film and television credits to their name and the networks who broadcast them. These are their stories:

Wondering why Fred Thompson is taking achingly long to throw his hat in the ring? Well NPR had a nice bit this morning on what role “Law & Order” might have to do with it. Seems that according to “equal time” provisions of campaign finance law, NBC would have to provide Thompson’s competitors commercial time that would amount to the time Thompson is on camera in each episode.

Which isn’t a lot. According to the formula of “Law & Order,” the DA figure (now played by Thompson) typically appears three or four times. One: to urge Jack McCoy to take a deal/and or bemoan how the case will hurt his reelection changes. Two: to yell at Jack when he/the cops screw up. Three: Twist in case requires sage insight and/or reprise point one. Four: Witty bot mot at end of episode, typically over a glass of what looks to be mighty fine bourbon.

Still, that probably adds up to 5 minutes. And if NBC had to give all of Thompson’s primary opponents 5 minutes of prime time, that could add up. So NBC has decided to stop airing any repeats that contain Thompson once he announces (all hail, Adam Schiff!), and next season Sam Waterson (aka Jack McCoy) will be promoted to DA. (Which, I might add, makes no sense, given how Jack has done everything in his power to piss off the political establishment and voters low these many, many, many years.)

TNT, however, since they are not a broadcast network is taking the stand that it does not have to provide equal time, and is free to continue running “Law & Order” episodes containing Thompson over and over and over and over and over….

To say nothing of The Hunt for the Red October, which they play with mind-boggling regularity.

But there’s some chatter that the cable exception to equal time could be challenged and the Thompson campaign would be the test case. So if you’re with Fred, the actor, better watch him now, before everything from In the Line of Fire to No Way Out to Curly Sue to old episodes of “Bonanza” get scrubbed from TV Land. The concept, not the channel. Wait, that too!

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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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