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From the Pew News IQ survey, on partisan differences in knowledge of current events:

Across the 12 knowledge items tested, the biggest gap between Democrats and Republicans comes over awareness of the current level of the Dow.

That’s a shocker, isn’t it?

In fairness, Pew reports that Republicans, men, old people, college graduates, and the upper middle class are more knowledgable in general than Democrats, women, young people, high school dropouts, and poor people.  So it’s not just the Dow.  But lest you get too impressed with the overall scores on this multiple choice survey, Steve Benen points out that “the same Pew Research Center report found that 11% of Americans still think President Obama is a Muslim, which is practically unchanged since the presidential campaign. About one-fifth of all white evangelical Protestants continue to buy into this obvious falsehood.”

Take the test here if you dare.  I expect all my readers to score 100%.

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December is make or break for us. A full one-third of our annual fundraising comes in this month alone. A strong December means our newsroom is on the beat and reporting at full strength. A weak one means budget cuts and hard choices ahead.

The December 31 deadline is closing in fast. To reach our $400,000 goal, we need readers who’ve never given before to join the ranks of MoJo donors. And we need our steadfast supporters to give again today—any amount.

Managing an independent, nonprofit newsroom is staggeringly hard. There’s no cushion in our budget—no backup revenue, no corporate safety net. We can’t afford to fall short, and we can’t rely on corporations or deep-pocketed interests to fund the fierce, investigative journalism Mother Jones exists to do.

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