June 9, 2017

You Say Cutter, I Say Kuhtar

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Here’s your Qatar timeline so far:

June 5: Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations blockade air, sea, and land traffic into Qatar.

June 6: Donald Trump praises the blockade. “So good to see the Saudi Arabia visit with the King and 50 countries already paying off. They said they would take a hard line on funding extremism, and all reference was pointing to Qatar. Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism!”

June 8: Apparently having been told that Qatar is an ally which hosts both CENTCOM and a huge US military base, Trump offers up Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to mediate the dispute.

June 9: As directed, Tillerson steps in. He asks the Gulf nations to “de-escalate the situation” and ease the blockade against Qatar. “There are humanitarian consequences to this blockade. We are seeing shortages of food, families are being forcibly separated and children pulled out of school….The blockade is hindering US military actions in the region and the campaign against ISIS.”

One hour later: Trump escalates the conflict for no apparent reason at a press conference with the president of Romania. “The nation of Qatar, unfortunately, has been a funder of terrorism at a very high level. I’ve decided, along with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, our great generals, and military people, the time has come to call on Qatar to end its funding. They have to end that funding. And its extremist ideology in terms of funding.”

I dunno. Trump is playing good-cop-bad-cop? Trump was pissed off about the rumors that he didn’t realize Qatar hosted CENTCOM? Trump had no idea what Tillerson had said? Here’s the official White House spin:

LOL. Roger that.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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