September 3, 2016

Three Super High-Quality Things About Donald Trump

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Donald Trump, the scourge of illegal immigrants who are taking away jobs from hardworking Americans, owns a modeling agency that has knowingly employed…illegal immigrants. MoJo’s James West has all the deets, including this strong and gutsy non-denial:

Trump’s campaign spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, declined to answer questions about Trump Model Management’s use of foreign labor. “That has nothing to do with me or the campaign,” she said, adding that she had referred Mother Jones’ queries to Trump’s modeling agency. Mother Jones also sent detailed questions to Trump Model Management. The company did not respond to multiple emails and phone calls requesting comment.

Elsewhere, the Washington Post’s David Fahrenthold and Rosalind Helderman compare and contrast Trump’s charitable giving with that of the much reviled Clinton family’s:

How much money have Clinton and Trump each donated to charity?

For Hillary and Bill Clinton, the total is $23.2 million between 2001 and 2015. That figure comes from the Clintons’ joint tax returns, which the Democratic nominee has released….Clinton and her husband donated about 9.8 percent of their adjusted gross income.

Trump says he is worth far more than the Clintons. He recently claimed his net worth as more than $10 billion….The Washington Post has identified about $3.9 million in donations since 2001 from Trump’s own pocket.

Fahrenthold also makes it clear that the Clintons are (a) more transparent about their donors than Trump, (b) more transparent about their giving, and (c) far more generous. I guess that’s why the Clinton Foundation has gotten so much more scrutiny.

Finally, I love this tweet from Trump’s social media guy:

A beautiful prayer indeed. Note that while everyone else has their head bowed, Trump sits there staring blankly into the middle distance, obviously bored by the whole thing. Such a religious guy.

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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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