The Hidden History of Juneteenth.

Why Changing The Way We See The Civil War Will Help Us Preserve Our Country

It’s looking like we’ll hit the $300,000 milestone today in this year’s TPM Journalism Fund drive. So big thanks for that. This isn’t just a pro-forma comment. It’s a big deal. So thank you. I noted that we recorded a special extra episode of the podcast this week with Kate and I and special guest Joe Ragazzo, TPM’s Publisher, talking about how TPM operates on the inside, our business model, how it’s changed over the years, lots of the nuts and bolts of operating a small media organization. You can listen to that here, and, if you don’t already, subscribe to the pod through iTunes or Spotify or some other service. You can even watch the video version here.

Since some of you have asked, I thought I’d share some details about how the drive has gone. Just because you might find it interesting. Now, one small caveat. A few of these numbers were compiled yesterday. So a few are slightly out of date. But pretty close. So here goes.

As of this moment, we’ve had 2,877 individual contributors.

I know these pushes may seem like a distraction from the news you come here for. But I assure you they’re essential. We’re pushing hard to get to the next milestone in our drive — 3/5ths of the way to our goal. We’re currently at $267,607 and we need to push as hard as we can to get to $300,000 by the end of the day. The way drives work is we get a surge of contributions at the beginning, and then weeks two, three and four are the slog. I’ve spoken to many of you who plan to contribute and are waiting for a convenient moment. Please make the convenient moment today if you can. Just click right here and we’ll keep focused on bringing you the latest on the ten different things that are unfolding in the news today.

Late Update: We are now at $278,952. We can really get there today.

Later Update: Now at $283,530.

Even Later Update: Now at $287,700.

Still Later Update: Now at $291,483

So Much Later It’s the Next Morning Update: Now at $295,731!

A new bonus episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! Josh and Kate are joined by TPM publisher Joe Ragazzo to talk the business side of journalism, and how TPM has both survived and thrived in such a perilous media landscape. (If you’re able, please donate to the journalism fund and help keep TPM humming!)

You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.

We need to keep our momentum going in this year’s TPM Journalism Fund drive. I know it’s easy to put things off. I do it all the time. So I wanted to ask if you can take a two-minute time out from whatever you’re doing at this moment and contribute to this year’s drive. Like literally right now. If you’re a member you don’t even need to get out your credit card. It’s super simple and fast. Just choose whatever amount you feel comfortable giving. It helps us so much. Just click right here.

If you’re interested in how TPM functions as an organization and a business and the history of the operation, including the radically changed business model, you’ll want to check out this special episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast. My cohost Kate Riga and I were joined by Publisher Joe Ragazzo to discuss how the place operates, what moved us from an advertising to a subscription business model and some ways that may not be obvious in which we differ pretty dramatically from other media organizations. Along the way I even discuss a few things I haven’t gotten into before: like how exactly do I know so much about how the advertising economy is the taproot of bothsidesist journalism? And what was I thinking when staff came to me and said they wanted to form a union? You can listen to the episode here on the site or on your device if you already subscribe to the pod through one of the standard services.

Jeffrey Clark, the man who sought to become attorney general in the tail days of the Trump administration so that he could steal the election, has teamed up with another former Trump administration official to put forward a plan to remake the DOJ the next time we have a Republican president.

Now that Miami Mayor Francis X. Suarez has filed paperwork to seek the Republican presidential nomination, I’m finally going to write about something that’s been bugging me and making me laugh for a few weeks. Just to keep up on things, I subscribe to a number of papers in swing or swingish states around the country. One of those is the Miami Herald. For several weeks the Herald has been advancing a story about Mayor Suarez and his relationship with one of the city’s rising real estate developers, Rishi Kapoor. In these cases “relationship” usually means a shadowy and uncertain series of ties. But in this case it’s not shadowy: the mayor is literally on Kapoor’s payroll. It’s started with people raising questions about the fact that Kapoor had been working to get a series of accommodations from the city for a major development project and had also been paying Suarez $10,000 a month for vaguely defined consulting services.

We’re approaching a key milestone: halfway to our goal in this year’s TPM Journalism Fund drive. We started this year’s drive on Wednesday June 7th. Today, one week later, we are coming up on $250,000, halfway to our critical goal of raising $500,000. As of this moment we are at $243,034. That total is made up of contributions from fully 2,172 TPM readers and supporters. We’re just $6,966 from the halfway point.

If you’ve been considering doing so please take a moment to make your contribution today by clicking right here. Thank you.

Late Update: Now $3,432 to go!

For now I’ll put this out there simply as an impression, an intuitive or atmospheric one. I think Donald Trump is going to have trouble keeping up the unified support and defense facing these indictments. To be clear, I’m still very confident that Trump will be the nominee. The basic dynamics are the same. The indictments all but seal the nomination for him; they hurt him in the general. But look close and the ship is taking on water, hemorrhaging a bit at the seams.

In the upside-down world of Trump the day he gets indicted, gets called into court and taken, albeit briefly, into custody is the high point. It’s the day of maximum unity.

But it wasn’t quite perfect.