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I know I said that last night’s Palin-palooza would “hold me for a year,” but I guess I was wrong. Palin’s son Track was arrested Monday on domestic violence charges, and today Palin addressed this:

My own family, my son, a combat vet having served in the Stryker brigade… my son like so many others, they come back a bit different, they come back hardened, they come back wondering if there is that respect… and that starts right at the top.

I’m not happy with liberals who use Track’s problems as a way of snickering at Sarah. Yes, when you use your kids as campaign props, you open yourself up to some of this. But parents do their best, and kids sometimes have problems. Whatever Track’s problems are, he and his family should be allowed to deal with them in their own way.

That said, if you decide to use your son’s problems as a political cudgel, you can hardly expect to others to hold back forever. Palin should be ashamed of herself.

But leave Track alone anyway. He doesn’t deserve outsize attention just because his mother is such a creep. I only hope he gets the help he pretty obviously needs.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

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.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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