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When asked about how he communicates with his Democratic colleagues Tuesday afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer whipped a fossil out of his pocket—a flip phone.

After doing a bit of research, I’m fairly confident that this is a LG Wine. Which means that Chuck Schumer seems to use a discontinued flip phone that has a 3 star rating to do his business. One troublesome bit: The LG Wine might not have a functional caller ID, according to reviewer Kim1234. “You do not know who is calling until you open up the phone, at which point the call is then answered,” the user wrote. (Kim1234 did not recommend the product.)

Schumer’s office has not responded to a request for comment on the senator’s texting habits, or whether he owns any other phones.

Either way, I can’t shake the image of Schumer hunched over his alphanumeric keypad, trying to eke out a text message using T9 to ask for a vote, hoping not to go over his data limit.

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A full one-third of our annual fundraising comes in this month alone. That’s risky, because a strong December means our newsroom is on the beat and reporting at full strength—but a weak one means budget cuts and hard choices ahead.

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Managing an independent, nonprofit newsroom is staggeringly hard. There’s no cushion in our budget—no backup revenue, no corporate safety net. We can’t afford to fall short, and we can’t rely on corporations or deep-pocketed interests to fund the fierce, investigative journalism Mother Jones exists to do.

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