Six Arrested in New Jersey for Worst Plot Ever

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If you’ve scanned the news today, you’ve probably seen the story about the six men who were arrested before they could execute a plan to attack New Jersey’s Fort Dix Army base and “kill as many soldiers as possible.”

According to a federal spokesman, four of the men were born in the former Yugoslavia, one was born in Turkey and one was born in Jordan. A report on this that I saw earlier had a quote from a federal official calling their plot a potential act of terrorism, but that quote has been removed — this is where definitions get murky — and currently there is no evidence that a foreign terrorist organization was involved.

I will say this: Worst. Plan. Ever. Not to make light of a plot to kill American servicemen (or anybody, really), but is there a worse place for six random dudes to attack than a United States Army base? Why not rob the police station while you’re at it? They couldn’t think of something that might have a higher chance of success and lower than a 100% chance of death?

I guess that’s the point — martyrdom — but seriously, folks.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

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