September 9, 2009

What’s Really Behind the Van Jones Attack

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The political smear campaign against Van Jones didn’t begin in the paranoid brain of Glenn Beck. The wildly distorted attacks that ultimately brought down President Obama’s green jobs czar on Saturday were fed to Beck by Phil Kerpen, the little-known policy director for the polluter front group Americans for Prosperity. Taking credit for the effort in jubilant, surprisingly frank blogs and tweets, Kerpen describes Jones’ resignation as the first blow in a new fight to derail the climate bill.

This post continues at Mojo Blog.

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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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