December 13, 2013

The Tea Party Takes One On the Chin

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We have a budget:

In their final action of the year, the House approved the budget 332 to 94, with 169 Republicans and 163 Democrats voting in favor….

Not bad! I guessed “at least 150 Republican votes,” and we got 169. And with that, I shall retire from the vote-counting game. This is likely to be my high point.

So is this the beginning of the end for the tea party, as their frothing charges of treason earned them nothing but a dressing down from John Boehner and the rest of the House leadership? Or does crossing the tea party just make Boehner and Ryan and the rest more vulnerable to future shakedowns? Stay tuned.

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We've never been very good at being conservative.

And usually, that serves us well in doing the ambitious, hard-hitting journalism that you turn to Mother Jones for. But it also means we can't afford to come up short when it comes to scratching together the funds it takes to keep our team firing on all cylinders, and the truth is, we finished our budgeting cycle on June 30 about $100,000 short of our online goal.

This is no time to come up short. It's time to fight like hell, as our namesake would tell us to do, for a democracy where minority rule cannot impose an extreme agenda, where facts matter, and where accountability has a chance at the polls and in the press. If you value our reporting and you can right now, please help us dig out of the $100,000 hole we're starting our new budgeting cycle in with an always-needed and always-appreciated donation today.

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