Thanks to so many of you for writing in in response to yesterday’s post about SCTV. It hadn’t occurred to me that lots of the sketches and maybe whole shows are on YouTube. But of course that makes perfect sense. One of the interesting things about those notes is that many of you mentioned something that I didn’t say explicitly in my post but was likely implicit, which is that being a fan of SCTV was a bit like joining a secret club. About half way through it’s run it got picked up by NBC and then it ran I think after Saturday Night Live. That’s a helluva time slot. But still, that’s network TV. Before that, though, you had to be a bit of a freak to even have found it. It would only be available as a syndicated show on one of the non-affiliate channels picked up from whatever rando station produced it in Toronto. (And yes, for you youngs, this was back when there were like 5 to 7 channels total, the three affiliate channels, PBS and then two or three low budget local channels that probably ran mostly repeats of like I Love Lucy and Brady Bunch.) So it really was a bit like being in a secret club. The few, the elect, the viewers of a show that was legit funnier than SNL.

Here’s a recollection from TPM Reader PK … (and God is he right about John Candy)

We’ve signed up 759 new members since we kicked off this year’s annual TPM membership drive. That’s just over 3/4 of the way toward our goal. I really want to thank everyone who has signed up so far. Truly. Thank you. If you’ve been considering signing up, please take the plunge today. We’re so close to hitting our goal of 1,000 new members. With your help we can probably get to 800 today. Just click here. We really appreciate it.

I wanted to share a few thoughts with you about the pretty big news out of Florida this afternoon. If you haven’t already heard, the state Supreme Court signed off on two ballot initiatives which will now appear on the ballot this November: one legalizing abortion and another legalizing marijuana. This is a big deal both for the rights in question and the potential impact on the general election. So starting with the correct assumption that this is a big deal I want to note a few complexities and complications.

I mentioned last week that Truth Social — Trump’s social network — only had a bit more revenue than TPM. And needless to say, TPM doesn’t have a multi-billion dollar stock valuation. (If anyone disagrees on this point, contact me.) Today the company released its first 8-K, basically one of the many SEC-mandated disclosures for public companies in which lying means committing a crime. There’s a bit more there on the inflows and outflows. TS brought in about $4.1 million last year and spent $58 million. So that means that TS had about 30% more revenue than TPM and roughly 20 times the expenses. Not great! There’s some other interesting details, like the fact that $39 million of that $58 million went to interest payments. Go figure.

These data points are pretty good evidence that this company is a joke. And they make for good fun. But it’s not proof. A social network in its early stages can be bleeding lots of money and still be legitimately worth a ton of money. This isn’t just hypothetical. Facebook had already become a force of nature before Mark Zuckerberg turned his attention to monetizing the engine of value he created. So there was a time when Facebook was also spending way more money than it made and investors were dying to buy in. Those who did made tons of money.

So the revenue and expenses aren’t the proof. But the proof is there.

Keep an eye on the events out of Israel. It seems possible they’re reaching some kind of turning point, though one hesitates to use that phrase about a country which has been in such an extended political paralysis for so long. The key to understand is that whatever crisis or shift may be in the works isn’t driven by the issues animating coverage in the U.S. To the extent it is tied to the Israel-Hamas war it is about the hostages and the widespread belief that the Netanyahu government isn’t that focused on striking a deal to get them home. Hovering around this is the fact that the government has at best tended to ignore and shun the hostages families. The communities along the border with Gaza tend to be made up of left-leaning Kibbutznik types. So they’re not Netanyahu’s people by any stretch of the imagination. That’s been a subtext to much that has happened over the last six months.

You also have the anti-judicial coup coalition which was holding massive weekly protests for almost a year before October 7th going back to the streets. All of that had stopped cold on October 7th. It’s been slowing reassembling since. But the protests this weekend are bigger than any since just before the massacres in southern Israel. They are now a coupled message for the government to resign and to bring the hostages home.

We are still in the running to hit 700 new TPM Members by the end of today. We’re currently at 644. 56 more of you on a Friday afternoon is a tall order. But it’s possible. Please listen to this: If you’ve been considering joining during our drive, please choose to do it today, right now. It will take just a couple minutes tops. Click right here and let’s see if we can do this together.

Late Update: We might actually get there! 668!

Later Update: 11:56 PM on the east. But we’re at 680 and there’s still time out West. In range! Become part of our club!

Even Later Update: 687! Saturday is the new Friday! 700 is within reach!

Let me add a brief follow-up to my post from last night which seems to have resonated with people. I’ll say it again: I don’t think this is going to happen. But this isn’t just a caveat or covering myself if it doesn’t. It’s kind of why I did the post. In life and political analysis (and so many other things) we’re constantly having to be on the look out for new data which challenges our assumptions about what’s happening. In this case, the data points I mentioned definitely challenge my assumptions about what’s happening. And I’m still sticking with my assumptions! But those data points are high volume enough, not random little edge case things, that it’s at least worth me clearing my throat and telling myself I’m seeing a bunch of things that don’t square with my assumptions, sort of a punditing note to file if you will.

As I said, I’m sticking with my assumptions. But keep it in the back of your head, or write your own note to file.