July 13, 2017

Conservatives Have a New Free-Speech Warrior

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We have news from National Review today:

National Review Institute is launching the Center for Unalienable Rights, created to be the home of free-speech warrior David French, whose new podcast, The Liberty Files, is a must-listen for anyone who cares deeply about combating the leftist assault on the First Amendment, whether on our campuses or in any other place patrolled by the ruthless Thought Police.

….The Left wants to gag, marginalize, intimidate, shut up, and, if they can, even criminalize conservatives for what we think and what we say. We intend to fight the intolligentsia, in a more focused way. We intend to beat the determined enemies of our unalienable rights. Help us prevail.

You are expecting me to mock this, aren’t you? But I’m not! Instead I have a serious suggestion.

Believe it or not, there are plenty of liberals who are concerned about this stuff too. The safe spaces/microaggressions/heckler’s veto/trigger warnings movement is not entirely beloved on the left. If this project were toned down and aimed at free speech repression on both sides, it might actually attract some bipartisan support.

I know that’s not really plausible these days. I just felt like mentioning it.

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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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