I saw this tweet and it struck me as one of the more powerful indicators of the need to untether ideology from “fight” in intra-Democratic battles. The party is very united on fight, very divided on ideology. So you unite on “fight”, let different constituencies/states find their center of gravity on ideology.

Here in the U.S., we’re looking at the Iran War in terms of whether the U.S. should have started it in the first place, how it’s affecting oil prices, how it’s going to affect the midterms and a bunch of other things. But there’s another way to look at it, which is that Iran is putting on a global performance of standing head to head with the full might of the U.S. military and pulling it off. By their actions, we can see pretty clearly that the Iranian government does not fear Donald Trump. They’re not acting scared. If anything, they’re upping the rate of their provocations, as the state of war and effective stalemate transitions to a new normal of sorts.

It is fair to say that this is not actually the full might of the U.S. military in a theoretical sense. The president could order the U.S. military to mount a full scale ground invasion of Iran, occupy the country, dismantle the state’s system of command, control and repression. Those things are very likely possible, albeit at vast cost. But the real test of a military is not what it can do in some theoretical sense, the precise armaments it has and so forth but what the country which controls that military is able and/or willing to do in a specific economic, geopolitical, and political context. And the U.S. is clearly not willing to do those things. So in a practical sense — not the abstract power and capabilities of the U.S. military but the country’s ability to do those things — this is the full force of the U.S. military.

We’re right on the cusp of a big Drive milestone – $400,000, 80% of the way toward our goal of raising at least $500,000 in this year’s Annual TPM Journalism Fund Drive. Who can help us cross this threshold today? You can be that person by clicking right here and making a contribution in any amount. $3,017 to go! Thank you to everyone who has contributed so far!

Update: Now just $546 to go!

Thanks so much to everyone who came out to our event at Crystal Lake bar last night in collaboration with Marisa Kabas of The Handbasket! It was great to see some of you again, meet some local readers making it out to their first TPM event, and connect with readers who traveled just for this show. (Shout out to the lovely couple from Berkeley, California!)

It looks like we are going to get a big test of some cardinal (possibly outdated) assumptions about American politics. I’m thinking first about the Michigan Senate race (though we might have something similar in the Wisconsin governor’s race). Several recent polls show Abdul El-Sayed holding a consistent, substantial lead over Rep. Haley Stevens. The primary is on August 4. This has been presented as a prototypical Democratic establishment vs Bernie progressive/insurgent race. And in key respects it is.

El-Sayed has all the Bernie/progressive positions. He’s run a campaign that places a heavy emphasis on the Israel-Palestine issue. And he’s centered AIPAC in his campaign in a way that even for many longtime critics and haters of AIPAC (including myself here) has a distinct whiff of antisemitic conspiracy theories. To wit, yes, AIPAC sucks. They’re a blight. They are functionally a Republican operation these days. But they are not the secret hand guiding things in the background every time there’s a bad news story or reverse of fortune for some progressive candidate, which is basically the role they’re playing in El-Sayed’s campaign.

Thank you to everyone who contributed yesterday. A big day of contributions that has gotten us near one of the biggest milestones on the way to our goal. TPM Publisher Joe Ragazzo and I have developed – both statistically and instinctively – a feel for the cadence of the Annual TPM Journalism Fund Drive having run them now for several years. $0 to $250,000 is a sprint. There’s a lot of energy. $250,000 to $400,000 is a slog. Like pushing a boulder up a hill. Once we hit $400,000 it’s a bit like getting to the top of the hill and rolling the boulder down is a lot easier. Not easy. It’s still essential to remind people, make the case. (I have moments wondering: does it make sense to show how the drive sausage is made? Well, in for a time in for a dollar: knocking down that fourth wall has always been the essence of TPM’s reporting and how we communicate with the TPM community.) We’re now $21,350 from that $400,000 milestone. Can you help us get there? If you haven’t had a spare moment to join us this year today would be a great time. Just click right here.

Here’s a brief follow up, genetically if not literally similar to my post from earlier today about AI bubbles. Axios has a report on the public comments on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposal to “ease” (i.e., get rid of) the requirement that public companies issue quarterly disclosure reports. The SEC has received almost a quarter million comments (orders of magnitude more than normal) and they are almost universally against it. Some of this is organized, organizations or company that represent or advocate for investors trying to get people to write in. But it’s mainly that there is simply zero constituency for this: retail investors, institutional investors, former SEC chairs, academics who study business. According to Axios, the pro side was “the Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable and Exxon Mobile.” As they note, the agency has to consider the comments. It’s not a vote. They can move forward regardless.

What struck me here is that it’s almost impossible to look at the current state of the U.S. economy, equity markets, trends in retail investing, the widespread public exposure to mutual funds and index funds, and the increasing inattention to white-collar crime and think that what the economy needs is less transparency. The current head of the SEC, Paul Atkins, has pitched these changes as a way to “make IPOs great again.” First of all, it’s not entirely clear why IPOs should be great again. We want new companies. New companies finding new points of market need, devising new services, finding ways to chip away at the dead wood of monopoly and bureaucratic sclerosis is important to the economy. But that’s not the same as a high-octane culture of IPOs. Indeed, to the extent there are fewer IPOs, it’s more tied to the growth of monopolies. If there are new ideas to be nurtured, it’s happening within the monopolies, or they’re bought out or snuffed out early by those monopolies to ward off future competitors.

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?