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In 2002, AOL Time Warner, Inc. obtained AT&T Corporation’s stake in their cable television, film production, and programming partnership in exchange for it.

About five years ago, Enron and their partners stole it from California’s electricity and gas customers.

Duke Energy recently agreed to acquire Cinergy for its value in stocks.

Harrah’s bought Caesar’s for it.

Because of Bush’s tax cut, in 2001, the federal government took it from Social Security in order to pay the government’s bills.

It is more than four times the annual revenue of Ghana, 80% of the annual revenue of Nigeria, 20% of the annual revenue of Poland, and more than half the annual revenue of Iraq.

It is $9 billion, exactly the amount that is still unaccounted for in the reconstruction of Iraq because of what the U.S. Inspector General has labeled “severe inefficiencies and poor management.”

Once again, the business-minded, management-oriented “reformers” in the White House proved to us that their idea of management is one that is pretty much on par with Bush’s idea of scholarship when he was studying for his Harvard MBA.

The mystery of the missing $9 billion is just one more item the news media found too boring to cover. But while that money was building someone a really nice house in Baghdad, Bush was cutting veterans’ benefits, and Rumsfeld was lying about the Pentagon’s having requisitioned safer vehicles for the troops.

But hey–it’s no big deal. It’s just a lot of stolen money and dead soldiers. God bless America.

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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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