Clinton Workers Taken Hostage; Rightwingers Fast To Exploit the Crisis

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This afternoon, Hillary Clinton’s Rochester, NH, campaign office was taken hostage by a man claiming to have a bomb duct-taped to his chest. He is demanding to speak to Senator Clinton, who is supposed to speak here in Virginia, but has canceled her appearance. We all hope it is resolved quickly with everyone safe.

It certainly would be tasteless for anyone to exploit this event. But that hasn’t stopped the nutcase commentors at the rightwing Free Republic. Here are some of their responses to this:

– “Oh this should be good………….”

– “Someone trying to get their testicles back?”

– “popcorn…check… coffee….check…”

– “Staged?”

– “I wonder what nutjob they paid to pull this stunt…. like all the people who they get to hang nooses to make people think conservatives are radical haters”

– “Could be a CNN plant…”

– “From the latest Fox poll, she is leading in New Hampshire, so it would be stupid for her to have anything staged at this point. OTOH, I don’t put anything past her.”

– “Pray it’s a Ron Paul supporter.”

And that’s just in the first five minutes of the posting thread. It goes on and on and on.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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