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On Friday I told David Corn that on odd days I was optimistic about the prospects for healthcare reform and on even days I was pessimistic.  Since it was Friday the 17th when we talked, I was optimistic.  The AMA is on our side!  The House Tri-Committee Bill is pretty good!  Hoorah!  He just laughed.  On Saturday, I was again pessimistic.  The centrists Dems are screwing everything up!  There’s no way to pass a tax increase to fund it!  We’re doomed!

On Sunday I was going to write about this.  But shortly after Tom Watson’s epic meltdown at the end of the British Open, our power went out.  And stayed out.  It didn’t come back on until 4:30 this morning.  Turns out that was mostly good news, though.  I did get to see all the golf, after all.  And the power outage spared you all some aimless musings about the politics of healthcare.  And since I had nothing else to do, I pulled Moby-Dick off the shelf and decided that dammit, I’d actually read it this time.  I haven’t quite done that yet, but I’m about halfway through.

As for healthcare, I don’t really know what I think.  It’s an even day so I supposed I’m pessimistic.  We landed a man on the moon 40 years ago but we can’t even pass a national healthcare plan?  What a screwed up country.  But check back with me tomorrow for another opinon.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

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