May 17, 2017

Islamaphobe Picked to Write Speech on Islam for Saudi Arabia Visit

Rex Shutterstock via ZUMA

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Yesterday the White House announced that President Trump will deliver a speech about Islam when he visits Saudi Arabia this weekend. This sounded very, very bad, sort of like the Ayatollah Khamenei dropping by Wittenberg to deliver a speech about Christianity. Still, maybe we’re overreacting. After all, it’s not as if Trump is going to write the speech himself. It will probably be drafted by regional experts in the State Department who are able to navigate the minefields of—

Wait. What’s this?

Stephen Miller? This guy? The 31-year-old zealot who started his political career working for Michele Bachmann and Jeff Sessions? The guy who makes Steve Bannon look sort of reasonable?

We are doomed.

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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?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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