Now It’s an Obama Surrogate’s Turn to Mouth Off

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maxim-thorne.jpg I’m tired of these muthaf—–g surrogates on this muthaf—–g campaign!* First Power, then Ferraro, now this! Here are snippets of an email from Maxim Thorne, a member of Obama’s LGBT leadership council:

Hillary Clinton is a disaster for the democratic party. Now she prefers McCain to Obama…. We cannot tolerate her lies and stolen election.

Time for all of us democratics [uh, sic?] to wake up to this disgusting turn. As democratics [again, sic] this should affirm the end of her campaign.

At 3am, Hillary said she and Bill were in bed and she knows of all the calls a President gets at different times of the day and night. Really? So much involvement – so much togetherness. Where was she when Monica was having sex with Bill? 35 years of experience? When he was intimidating Katherine Wiley and Paula Jones? Where was the judgment on the cattle futures and white water. Do we forget Mark and Denise Rich? This was an impeached President who lost his licence to practice law. He committed perjury. They settled with Paula Jones for the full amount of her lawsuit. I haven’t forgotten and none of us should.

It continues in that vein for some time. The whole thing is here. Asked for comment, the Obama campaign said, “These comments have no place in this campaign.” It has accepted Thorne’s resignation.

How hard is it to tell these people to shut up and behave themselves? Bob Kerrey, Billy Shaheen, Bob Johnson, Jesse Jackson Jr. — just stop talking.

* I’ve been asked to explain the cursing. See the video below. Careful: profanity included. Plane, campaign — they rhyme! Kinda.

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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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