Like many others, I continue to be baffled and unnerved at how transactions that seem like definitional signs of a bubble (or possibly even fraud) are now so thoroughly baked into the very structure of the AI industry. This morning, Semafor’s Liz Hoffman starts a piece with this overview: “OpenAI and Anthropic need to borrow a lot of money but they don’t have profits or a track record of creditworthiness. Enter Jensen Huang.”

It goes on from there …

Lawyers for former Olympian David Hearn, charged with felony vandalism of Trump’s already falling apart Reflecting Pool refurb, went to court today and asked the judge in the case to allow them to review records of the grand jury that charged Hearn with a felony. (I first saw this referenced in an NBC article by TPM alum Ryan Reilly.) You’ll remember the basic details here. Trump’s botched Reflecting Pool job was already visibly peeling up from the bottom of the pool. Hearn appeared to touch one of the peeled up areas. And the Feds charged him with causing at least a substantial amount of the damage.

What’s notable about this is that the Trump DOJ has already been caught on several occasions either committing serious grand jury misconduct or improperly instructing grand jurors so as to secure indictments. That’s what Hearn’s lawyers say happened here. And they make a pretty good case.

Sorry for the brusque headline. But we really need your help here. We’re at the hardest part of our Annual TPM Journalism Fund Drive. I’ve spoken to a lot of you who tell me you’re going to contribute but haven’t found the right moment. Please make right now or whenever you see this post the moment. We need to keep building the total to get to our goal in the time we have. Simple as that. Believe me, I’d much rather be writing news and commentary posts. But this Drive is what makes it all possible. It would be HUGE if we can get to $350,000 today.

Especially if you’re a member, we’ve made contributing super, super easy. Just take a moment right now from your routine. Click here and just get this out of the way today. We appreciate it so much, and it’s so needed. If you make a contribution now it helps us get back to full time posting more quickly. Thank you from all of us.

Update: $8,157 to go! Making progress!

Update II: A very larger contribution has put $360,000 in range for today. This is very exciting. A huge thank you to this large contributor and thank you to everyone. Math is math. The big contributions are a big part of the equation. But the much larger number of smaller ones are even more important. So thank you to everyone. Every contribution is a critical part of what makes this possible. We’re now $2,974 from hitting $360,000 today. We can do this!

Update III: Wow! Now over $360,000. THANK YOU! Let’s keep this going. Can we get to $370,000 tonight?