Last week I described our plan of selling Prime subscription credits. The full post is here. But the gist is this: We’ve built Prime as a premium version of TPM designed for our core readers. It allows us to create and fund things that aren’t possible in the ad-supported part of the site. And it’s also a critical revenue driver that keeps TPM stable, strong and thriving. (The fee is $50 a year or 14 cents a day.)
But not every reader can afford it. So we came up with a plan fits with our financial needs and also our values as a publication: a twist on the standard holiday season concept of getting people to purchase gift subscriptions. Instead of buying a subscription for your spouse or your niece or your uncle, buy one for someone you don’t know and won’t ever know. We’ll take that credit – good for a full year’s subscription just like the one you’d purchase for yourself – and assign it to another reader for whom the subscription fee would be a financial hardship.
(Of course, you may get to know the person as a fellow reader in The Hive, for instance. But the transaction itself remains anonymous to both parties.)
This is a quick description and it’s sort of an outside the box concept. So if you’re scratching your head trying to make sense of this, I really encourage you to read this fuller description here. You can buy one credit or two or however many you want and you can be certain that it’s going to a fellow reader who would otherwise be excluded and helping support TPM and enabling us to do what we already do better.
It’s quick, easy. And if you’re sold on the idea, click here to purchase one or more right now.
In epic interview ‘Duck Dynasty’ star rants against “homosexual behavior”, “Islamists” and the “Shintos”.
Unfortunately on the tolerance and diversity front. But you’ve never really arrived as a new community in the US before you show up in the right-wing paranoia-sphere.
As I mentioned earlier, we’ve kicked off a membership drive to sign up as many of you as we can for TPMPrime by the end of the year. We think you’ll love what you find – exclusive longform stories, a faster, cleaner site with fewer ads, special site features and tools, our members only discussion forum and a lot more. Your support also helps keep TPM strong, thriving and growing. Can I get a few moments of your time to make my pitch? If so, please click here.
Sort-a-Mayor Rob Ford dances to Bob Marley at new bizarre Toronto City Council meeting. Watch.
I guess John Podesta won’t be in charge of GOP outreach. He calls the GOP House caucus a “cult worthy of Jonestown.”
Actually who am I kidding? I think she blew past self-parody a while ago. Liz Cheney attacks NRSC (the GOP Senate campaign committee) as the “Washington Establishment.”
Tired of progressives/pro-diversity forces being on defense, Al Franken ups the ante: Maybe Santa’s Jewish. Listen.
From TPM Reader MS …
Kudos, Josh Marshall, for an insightful essay today. Although you are not Catholic, you perfectly expressed what many of us are feeling: simple wonder and amazement about Pope Francis and his direct expression of Gospel values.
I’m from the demographic that the Pope’s survey is talking about: a same-sex married person who is raising my adopted children as practicing Catholics. The little parish that we belong to is an oasis and an anomaly: we have been enthusiastically welcomed and supported, sacramentally and socially, with no questions asked. In return, we hold nothing back … we actively volunteer, give financial support, participate in hours of religious ed and social justice committee meetings, and go to Mass with enthusiasm.
From TPM Reader TS …
I am not religious, and in fact consider myself to be an atheist. But, I was raised Catholic – baptized, first communion, and confirmation and attending mass every Sunday was a responsibility, not an option. Even went to a Catholic high school. So, I have a pretty good understanding of the values of the church overall as well as the specific teachings.
For those of you following our discussion of Pope Francis’s decision to remove arch-conservative Cardinal Raymond Burke from a key Vatican council charged with vetting would-be bishops for the Pope to appoint, check out this article. It’s from the National Catholic Reporter and gives a feel for the backdrop to this move. The general thrust is the depth of entrenched institutional opposition to the Pope’s proposed reforms of the Curia and particularly how vocal Burke himself has been in second-guessing the direction Francis is taking the Church.