First Grandma’s Essence Interview

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Best Nana ever? That would be Michelle’s mama, Marian Robinson.

First Nana and First Lady grace this month’s Essence and ‘Big Mama’ just gets cooler and cooler. There’s just too much good stuff to cut and paste; check the link for the full story. My fave? The First Grandma plans to evacuate the WH with a quickness, once the kiddies are all settled. Why? “I love those people, but I love my own house. The White House reminds me of a museum and it’s like, how do you sleep in a museum?”

“Those people”? Rock on, Nana. She does yoga. She thinks her own daughter is too strict. She’s ready to get back to her own life after tending to her grandkids while her ‘other kids’ do their own thing, White House be damned.

I say: let’s bring Nana Robinson to Burning Man this year!

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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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