February 11, 2019

Democrats and Republicans Say They’ve Agreed on a Border Deal

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Apparently we have averted another government shutdown. The Washington Post has the details:

The framework would provide $1.375 billion for barriers along the border, including 55 miles of new fencing, with certain restrictions on the location, according to a congressional official familiar with the agreement….Democrats backed down from their demand on tight limits on detention beds that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement could use to detain undocumented immigrants, pulling away from a push that that led to a breakdown in talks over the weekend.

Huh. An earlier version of this story provided hard numbers: detention bed funding would go down from 49,000 beds to 40,000 beds, but there would be no other subsidiary caps. That’s now missing from the story, so maybe those exact numbers turned out to be wrong.

Anyway, now it’s up to President Trump. If his word is good, he’ll support what the committee has produced. But as usual, that’s a crap shoot. Stay tuned.

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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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