December 16, 2015

Carly Fiorina Really Likes to Make Shit Up

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Carly Fiorina said this last night:

One of the things I would immediately do, in addition to defeating them here at home, is bring back the warrior class—Petraeus, McChrystal, Mattis, Keane, Flynn. Every single one of these generals I know. Every one was retired early because they told President Obama things that he didn’t want to hear.

In real time, I mentioned that David Petraeus wasn’t “retired early” because he told Obama something he didn’t want to hear. He resigned after it was discovered that he was having an affair. And how about Jack Keane? Here’s what he said on Fox Business:

STUART VARNEY: Did you in fact, general, give advice to President Obama, which he didn’t want to hear and didn’t take?

JACK KEANE: No, I have never spoken to the president. That’s not accurate, and I never served this administration. I served the previous administration.

McChrystal, of course, famously resigned after he and his aides trashed a bunch of civilian officials in the pages of Rolling Stone.

Remarkably, though, Mattis and Flynn really did have disagreements with the White House. So Fiorina was 40 percent right. That kind of dedication to accuracy explains a lot about her tenure at Hewlett-Packard, I guess.

And as long as we’re on the subject of explicit lies, how about Donald Trump doubling down on his claim that he “strongly” opposed the Iraq War? Why is it that none of the other candidates have ever called him on that? Are they really that afraid of him?

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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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