July 22, 2009

CREW Sues Secret Service Over Visitor Logs

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Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a DC non profit, announced Wednesday that it is suing the Secret Service because the Obama administration is following Bush-era practice and refusing to release White House visitor logs. CREW wants to know which health care executives were visiting the White House, and when. The Most Transparent Administration EverTM doesn’t want to tell. So now we get a lawsuit. The White House doesn’t really have a leg to stand on here: even if it could make the legal case that it should be able to withhold the visitor logs, there’s no way it can make the good government case. The president serves the public; the public should know who has his ear. The only reason the White House is getting away with withholding these records for now is that the media (and Congress) don’t seem to care enough to draw attention to it.

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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.

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