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You may be wondering what I think of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. All the cool kids are talking about it these days. Unfortunately, I don’t really have a position because I haven’t studied it enough.

But perhaps that will change soon. You may not have noticed, but yesterday was a miniature milestone for me. My post about Paul Ryan and Obamacare was the first time in months that I wrote a fairly analytical piece based on actual research. It was hardly an academic white paper or anything, but it’s the kind of post I haven’t really trusted myself to write ever since chemo brain took over my life. However, this week seems to have been a bit of a turning point. I still expect ups and downs, but I feel a bit better and sharper and able to write more. My concentration is a little more acute and I have a bit more energy. Progress! (I hope.)

Anyway, that’s a long way of saying that until now I just haven’t been up to the task of seriously evaluating the TPP. So I’ll say just this much: I am in favor of fast-track promotion. If it were up to me, I’d make it permanent, since it’s obvious that no treaty can ever be negotiated without it. But am I in favor of actually passing TPP? I’m not sure.

Bottom line: yes to an up-or-down vote, because that’s just common sense. But I’m unsure about how I’d like to see that vote go. Maybe I’ll dig into it a bit over the weekend.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

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