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Since I live in California, you’re probably all wondering whether I’ve bought a lottery ticket yet. Answer: no, I haven’t. But I tried! Marian and I wandered up to our local drug store last night to get some Easter stuff, and I figured it would be a good night to buy my first lottery ticket ever. But the machine was broken. Or out of paper. Or out of numbers. Or something. No ticket for me! And the story was the same at the neighboring supermarket. So I have nothing.

Now, it turns out that Marian did sign up to be part of a lottery pool at work, so all is not lost. However, a little quick arithmetic suggests that even if our pool wins we’ll only take home something like $5 million after taxes. In other words, peanuts. Hardly worth the bother of picking up the check, is it? Maybe next time.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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