August 24, 2012

BREAKING: Todd Akin To Say Something Today

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UPDATE (Friday August 24, 5:33 p.m. EDT): Rep. Todd Akin took five press questions. Nothing has changed, he is still in the race, and his family is still running his Senate campaign. That was fun, guys. Happy Friday.

On Friday afternoon, embattled Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) announced that he is holding a press conference at 5:15 p.m. EDT.

After stepping into some mess with his strange account of female reproduction, Akin missed the first deadline earlier this week to drop out of his Missouri Senate race against Democrat Claire McCaskill, and vowed to fight on—even after the GOP money machine choked off financial support to his campaign. At the moment, it appears as though this presser is designed to remind reporters of the candidate’s audacity: 

In other news:

Akin has been under fire from scores of liberals and conservatives after he posited last weekend that female victims of “legitimate rape” are unlikely to become pregnant.

On Friday afternoon, shortly before his planned press conference, his campaign changed his Facebook banner to: “WE PROVED THE PARTY BOSSES WRONG“:

We will update this post after his planned statements, and as new information flows in.

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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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