Notices by James Gleick (jamesgleick@zirk.us)

I’m surprised the American press hasn’t picked up Kurt Andersen’s vivid first-hand revelation that RFK Jr. was a cocaine dealer at Harvard. As Andersen points out, it’s fair to ask why Bobby is supporting someone who says that he and his ilk should be executed.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/08/rfk-jr-endorse-trump-execute-drug-dealers/679597/?gift=vgcKXZKCrHTQr6wr7_bnjfbFT62mk7XRlXItflrh3wE&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

No, NYT fact-checker, attacks on his military record are not “dogging” Tim Walz. Attacks don’t dog. They have no agency.

Vance keeps attacking Tim Walz with a lot of made-up nonsense, and you are joining in.

Why would the NY Times choose the day the Democrats publish their highly detailed 91-page platform to complain that Harris is "light on policy"? This approaches self-parody. How about, instead, reporting on the numerous and specific policies expressed in the Democratic platform and comparing them to whatever policies you can find Trump and his party advocating?

https://democrats.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/FINAL-MASTER-PLATFORM.pdf

Here the NY Times assures us that it’s going to be all snark, all the time. They won’t even pretend to the neutral stance they used to espouse.

“When you mention Jeffrey Epstein, sir, are you referring to the friend of Donald Trump who entertained him at parties, flew him on his jet, and procured young girls for him?” https://www.threads.net/@aaron.rupar/post/C-0EKzwgbDN

Notice how comfortable the NY Times is, favorably comparing Harris to Biden. Can they favorably compare her to Trump? No, they cannot. It is forbidden.

He really said this. Think about it.

“We gave Miriam [Adelson, billionaire donor] the Presidential Medal of Freedom … It’s the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor— it’s actually much better because everyone gets the Congressional Medal, they’re soldiers. They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead. She gets it and she’s a healthy beautiful woman.”

https://wapo.st/3WR0Q4w

The American taxpayer has paid to enrich Elon Musk, an oligarch poisoning our political discourse—and we’re still subsidizing him. It’s time to stop.

https://open.substack.com/pub/robertreich/p/time-to-stop-musk?r=g7z5&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

If you watched, you could see Trump alternate between his weirdly smug rambling (“They wanted to do a speech on the economy … so we’re doing this an an ‘intellectual’ speech, we’re all ‘intellectuals’ today) and reading carefully from the teleprompter. https://journa.host/@pbump/112966603749519555

Little known fact: Trump flew for months during his campaign in 2015 and 2016 in one of his aircraft with an expired registration (it would have cost $5 to renew it properly). When the FAA grounded it, Trump evaded the rules by selling the aircraft from one of his shell companies, DJT Operations CX, to another, DT Endeavor I.

The FAA knew this and did nothing. https://journa.host/@w7voa/112951222063547784

#Mastodon question.

If someone you follow vanishes, leaving no trace, removed from your lists and bookmarks, what do you think happened? Did they decide to close their account? Were they blocked by your instance? Something else?

Let’s fix this, Washington Post. “Does DEI training discriminate against white people?” The answer is no.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are valuable goals. They benefit everyone. That’s almost self-evident.

Attempts to rectify discrimination against disadvantaged groups is NEVER discrimination against the advantaged group.

If some judges find otherwise, they will be wrong.

https://wapo.st/4cmtGzm

I know people think the New York Times is “fascist” or whatever. I don’t think that. I think they’re talented professionals, mostly leaning liberal, who have been sucked into a race for page views. Everything is clickbait—everything.

Example. The S&P average ended the week exactly where it started. But here’s the headline that led the paper when I woke up this morning. “Tailspin”? Nothing in the story justifies it. Everyone seems pretty sanguine about the market.

Mainstream journalists right now: “Can we say ‘rambling’? ‘Disjointed’? ‘Incoherent’? ‘Confused’? ‘Nonsensical’? ‘Delusional’?

“Can we say “lies”?

A great sage once called this, “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.”

This is some seriously good news:

“The ruling is a harsh verdict on the rise of giant technology companies that have used their roots in the internet to influence the way we shop, consume information and search online — and indicates a potential limit of Big Tech’s power. It is likely to influence other government antitrust lawsuits against Google, Apple, Amazon and Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/05/technology/google-antitrust-ruling.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Ak4.5YFq.BNXgssAZjWWq&smid=url-share

“A lot of the journalists in this room are Black,” Donald Trump informed the National Association of Black Journalists today.

This laughing thing needs more attention. When Trump says “You can tell a lot by a laugh,” he’s not wrong. Harris’s laugh is charming and genuine. Now let’s talk about his:

It doesn’t exist. Trump doesn’t laugh. Think about it. He smirks, he sneers, and he snickers, but he lacks whatever brain function is responsible for laughter.

Is it a neurological problem? Voters need to know

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/kamala-harris-laugh-criticism-trump-women-color-emotions-rcna164069

Biden’s program for Supreme Court reform is a big deal. It ends years of Democratic timidity and gives the party one more historically important issue to run on this fall.

If Harris wins and the Democrats take over Congress, they will have been given a mandate to make this happen.

#Scotus https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/07/29/fact-sheet-president-biden-announces-bold-plan-to-reform-the-supreme-court-and-ensure-no-president-is-above-the-law/

The political press is honing a new line of attack against Harris: They challenge her to break with the policies of her own administration. If she does, she is disloyal. If she doesn’t, she is Biden’s lapdog.

She must! says Peter Baker in the #NYtimes: “Neither silence nor agreeable head nods are sufficient any more,” he has decided.

He (Peter Baker) will be watching. He uses the pundit-passive voice to let her know: