Fact-Checking Sarah Palin

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Listening to Palin’s speech, I was a little awed by how far she stretched, or outright obliterated, truths about herself and Obama. One example: “In politics, there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers. And then there are those, like John McCain, who use their careers to promote change.” Did she forget that she ran both her mayoral and gubernatorial campaigns on being different from the incumbent? Here’s a nice summary of other untruths Palin broadcast to the nation last night. For the convention crowd, Palin’s speech may have been a “home run,” but from a fact-checker’s perspective, it was a strikeout.

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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.

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