This ain’t no “honeymoon.” It’s a movement!

August 12, 2024

In a recorded interview on Sunday, Robert Costa of CBS News asked Joe Biden, “How do you want history to remember you?”

Biden responded:

“He proved democracy can work.

He got us out of a pandemic.

He produced the single greatest economic recovery in American history [and] we're the most powerful economy in the world.

[And he] demonstrated that we can pull the nation together.

Joe Biden undersold the success of his presidency. The above four points are true, and more. While two points seem generic if taken out of context, we must remember that President Biden assumed the presidency as the ashes of the nation’s first attempted coup and insurrection were still visible at the Capitol. Proving that “democracy can work” and “we can pull together” were not points to be taken for granted in the aftermath of January 6. But the nation did pull together—under the guidance of good and decent man who always put the nation's interests above his own.

Indeed, in his most selfless and wisest act, he withdrew from the 2024 presidential race and endorsed Kamala Harris—an endorsement that surprised many party leaders and former presidential advisers turned pundits.

The entire CBS News segment is here: President Biden on ending reelection bid, and defeating Trump.

In one of his most telling responses, President Biden said that his motivation for running for the 2020 nomination was Trump's remarks approving of white nationalist antisemitic protestors at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017. President Biden said,

I spoke to the mom who lost her daughter as a consequence of those neo-Nazis and white supremacists who came out with torches, carrying Nazi banners singing the same sick, antisemitic bile that was sung in Nazi Germany in the 30s. When her daughter was killed, the press went to then President Trump . . . and he said they’re very fine people on both sides. I knew then that I had to do something. So that’s how I decided to run, because democracy is literally at stake. . . . and now he’s talking about pardoning [January 6 insurrectionists].

Every time that Ku Klux Klan has been involved, they wore hoods, so they are not unidentified. Under Trump's presidency, they come out of those woods with no hoods, knowing they have an ally.

Joe Biden came out of retirement after the death of his son to run against Donald Trump's white nationalism and antisemitism. Among Joe Biden’s many great accomplishments, defeating Donald Trump in 2020 will be counted among his most important. We must continue that work through Kamala Harris.

I hope you will take the time to watch the entire CBS segment on the interview with Joe Biden. He took the time to explain his decision to us; we should take the time to listen. CBS News, President Biden on ending reelection bid, and defeating Trump.

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NPR reports on Trump's 162 lies during last Thursday’s press conference.

The journalists in attendance at Trump's staged press-event last Thursday failed to challenge him when he spouted lie after lie. Some organizations did “fact checks” of the most egregious lies. But only one news organization has published a comprehensive analysis of every lie Trump told during the 90-minute press conference. See NPR, 162 lies and distortions in a news conference. NPR fact-checks former President Trump.

The report by NPR is exhaustive. It required a substantial amount of work and attention to detail. NPR and the reporters who researched the article deserve to be commended for their work. The article begins by noting that Trump told two lies per minute during the press conference!

A team of NPR reporters and editors reviewed the transcript of his news conference and found at least 162 misstatements, exaggerations and outright lies in 64 minutes. That’s more than two a minute. It’s a stunning number for anyone – and even more problematic for a person running to lead the free world.

Politicians spin. They fib. They misspeak. They make honest mistakes like the rest of us. And, yes, they even sometimes exaggerate their biographies.

The expectation, though, is that they will treat the truth as something important and correct any errors.

But what former President Trump did this past Thursday went well beyond the bounds of what most politicians would do.

The byline on the article is Domenico Montanaro, but the text says it was written by a team of reporters and editors. I urge readers to provide feedback to NPR on its editorial decision to invest the time and resources to catalog Trump's lies. We must not allow Trump to exhaust us through the sheer volume of his lies. NPR didn’t let that happen for last Thursday’s staged press event. Kudos to NPR!

An article by Tom Nichols in The Atlantic also deserves attention. See The Truth About Trump’s Press Conference. (This article is accessible to all.) Nichols reviews the headlines in the NYTimes, WaPo, CNN and other media outlets, all of which focused on the impact of the news conference on the horse-race aspect of the election.

Nichols writes,

All of these headlines are technically true, but they miss the point: The Republican nominee, the man who could return to office and regain the sole authority to use American nuclear weapons, is a serial liar and can’t tell the difference between reality and fantasy.

Donald Trump is not well. He is not stable. There’s something deeply wrong with him.

Any of those would have been important—and accurate—headlines.

Sunday presented another opportunity for major media to redeem themselves and finally—finally—acknowledge that Trump is not well. Will they do so in their Monday editions? We can always hope. Read on!

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Trump descends further into conspiracy, delusion, and deceit over the weekend.

Last week, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz visited Michigan in Air Force 2. They disembarked the plane and walked into a hangar that held an overflow crowd that spilled onto the tarmac. Estimates put the crowd size at about 12,000.

On Saturday, MAGA internet trolls began analyzing the “reflections” on the body and engines of Air Force 2 and could not see reflected images of the crowd. The trolls could not see the reflected images because they were examining curved surfaces that reflected light and images from directly beneath the plane—where no one was standing. The trolls should have spent more time in high school science classes than playing multi-player fantasy games online. But I digress.

The trolls immediately concluded that the images of the crowds were generated by AI autofill in Photoshop. That claim was immediately and unequivocally rebutted when video from major media outlets panned the crowd and Air Force 2 in a single shot, proving the crowds were real—not AI-generated images. That should have been the end of the story, right?

Wrong! On Sunday, Trump posted a rant on Truth Social in which he claimed that Harris and Walz were resorting to AI to make it appear that their crowd sizes were larger than Trump's. With apologies, I am going to reprint Trump's rant in full. Read as much as you can, and then meet me on the other side:

Has anyone noticed that Kamala CHEATED at the airport? There was nobody at the plane, and she "A.l'd" it, and showed a massive "crowd" of so-called followers, BUT THEY DIDN'T EXIST! She was turned in by a maintenance worker at the airport when he noticed the fake crowd picture, but there was nobody there, later confirmed by the reflection of the mirror-like finish on the Vice Presidential Plane. She's a CHEATER. She had NOBODY waiting, and the "crowd" looked like 10,000 people! Same thing is happening with her fake "crowds" at her speeches. This is the way the Democrats win Elections, by CHEATING - And they're even worse at the Ballot Box. She should be disqualified because the creation of a fake image is ELECTION INTERFERENCE. Anyone who does that will cheat at ANYTHING!

One of two things is true: Trump believes that the images are faked (despite video by major new organizations) or he does not.

If Trump has fallen into delusion and conspiracy, that fact deserves front page treatment from every news outlet in America.

If Trump knows the images of the crowd are true, then he is setting up a claim that Democrats can only win the 2024 election by cheating, and that fact deserves front page treatment from every news outlet in America.

As I said, we shall see if the Monday editions of major news outlets say (a) Trump is descending into delusion, or (b) Trump is setting up an attack on integrity of presidential election for the second time!

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The curious case of the Trump campaign hack

The Trump campaign and the media are still treating the hack of the Trump campaign as an attack by Iran (because the Trump campaign says so). That might be true, but the facts are ambiguous. Microsoft reported to the Trump campaign that an Iranian group attempted to hack the Trump campaign in June. WaPo, Trump campaign hack could indicate wider election disruptions. (Paywalled; see note below.)

Per the WaPo article, the only entity that has confirmed the hack was by Iran is the Trump campaign—which lies about everything.

Moreover, the source of the hacked documents given to Politico and WaPo was from an AOL email account by a leaker who said his name was “Robert.” (To be clear, it is not me!) If the Iranians are using an AOL email account to cover their hack, they have a keen sense of American culture, history, and humor.

But here is the weird part:  On Sunday, Trump took to Truth Social to defend his stalling campaign as follows:

My team is doing a great job despite the constant 8-year obstacle of dealing with the Fake News and low self-esteem leakers.

The reference to “low self-esteem leakers” is oddly specific. It sounds (to me) like Trump knows that members of his campaign staff are leaking information to the media—including possibly (??) the research file on JD Vance, which is what the Iranian hackers allegedly stole. Is the Iranian hacking story a cover to explain leaks by Trump campaign officials? We don’t know. We may never know.

One final point: WaPo has possessed the leaked materials for three days. It has not published or described their contents—unlike its treatment of the hacked emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign or the contents of Hunter Biden’s stolen laptop.

If WaPo has now decided that it is wrong to publish stolen or hacked materials, congratulations to WaPo for finding—at long last—its journalistic ethics! If true, it is unfortunate that WaPo waited until Trump was the victim of hacking to decide to take the high road with stolen materials. And if WaPo has changed its policy on publishing stolen materials, perhaps it could find the decency to issue an apology to Hillary Clinton and Hunter Biden.

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A note about “gifted” articles

As you know, I make articles available from major publication on a “free” or “gift” basis to the readers of this newsletter. Most major publications allow paying subscribers 5 to 10 “gifted” articles per month.

Recently, readers have begun reporting that articles that I describe as “accessible to all” (which are “gifted” articles) require non-subscribers to set up a “free” account to read the gift article. That hardly seems like a “free” gift because readers are forced to exchange private information—email address, name—in exchange for reading the article.

I am investigating this issue. In the meantime, I will pause using my monthly allotment of gift articles—because I don’t want to be a party to the subscription generation efforts of the major outlets to which I subscribe.

I will keep you posted!

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Concluding Thoughts

Much of the press is describing Kamala Harris’s surge in the polls as a “honeymoon” period that will quickly fade. I think the media is wrong. The media is engaged in equal parts wishful thinking and studied ignorance. Let me explain.

In the past, many candidates have enjoyed a brief “honeymoon” period with the press after they have been nominated. That is NOT what is happening here. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have raised half a billion dollars in three weeks (directly and through PACs). Grassroots volunteer rates have skyrocketed. Voter registrations increased sharply. And Kamala Harris has erased Trump's lead nationally and in five swing states.

It is silly and shallow to describe the record-breaking fundraising, volunteerism, voter registrations, and polling increases as a “honeymoon”—a term that previously referred to a brief period when the press “took it easy” on a new nominee. That is not what is happening here.

The press is refusing (or failing) to understand that American politics is engaged in a major transition. Over the last eight years, Trump rode a wave of reactionary anger and resentment that emerged in response to the election of our first Black president. Trump employed the politics of fear and grievance to propel his personal pursuit of power and money. In the process, Americans lost personal liberties and rights that were hard-won over the prior 75 years.

With the endorsement and nomination of Kamala Harris, Democrats have reclaimed control over the arc of history as it bends towards justice. They know they can defeat Trump. They are no longer fearful or anxious. Instead, they see Trump for the bumbling, incoherent, small, pathetic, insecure man that he is.

Democrats see the path to victory, recognize their power, and have risen to the moment. That is no honeymoon—it is a movement. Every media outlet that runs a story about the “honeymoon” period coming to an end is exposing its own ignorance to the seismic shift that has rocked American politics over the last three weeks.

Achieving victory will not be easy, quick, or free of setbacks. But if we do the work, we will win. It is just a matter of time.

Now, more than ever, we have every reason to be hopeful but no reason to be complacent.

Talk to you tomorrow!

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Heart Nebula, 6,200 light-years from Earth, 107 light-years across.