For years now, it’s been hard to be a citizen. Cynical and corrupt people appeared to be succeeding in using modern media tools to bamboozle and subvert the political desires of normal, rational folks. In short, it has seemed as if there’s no penalty for lying, deception, and outright lawbreaking. I have wanted to believe…
We’re not paying enough attention to the financing of Elon Musk’s Twitter purchase. It explains why he’s flailing now, and points to a shocking future for the social network. Where did Musk get the money to buy Twitter, and why does it matter? Of the $44 billion it took to buy Twitter, about $24 billion…
You may have thought the results of yesterday’s midterm elections were about the candidates who were running and the voters who were voting. Nope. They were about former President Donald Trump, who has decided this is his moment to return to the spotlight. In an interview with a new news organization, NewsNation, on Election Day,…
The U.S. Department of Justice filed a response to a recent Donald Trump request regarding the raid of Mar-a-Lago. Its filing is full of passive voice, a means of expression I’ve continually railed against. Why is it passive, and should the DOJ be writing in the active voice instead? Here’s a passage from the DOJ’s…
Yesterday, I posted a satiric take on the deck for Trump’s just-announced new media venture. Today, I deliver a serious assessment of what’s actually likely to happen with it. Let’s start with the credentials that let me make this assessment. Those of you who know me as a commentator on writing may not know that…
You probably read yesterday that Donald Trump is launching a media company, including a social networked called Truth Social, that will be publicly traded through a SPAC merger. You may even have seen that Insider found a copy of the pitch deck for this new media venture. But pitch decks are just slides. In a…
Donald Trump thinks you’re very dim. When I was a graduate student in the mathematics department at MIT, I heard this saying: Gambling is a tax on the stupid. Unless you have an actual edge (like a card counter), the house always wins. There is no system that will beat the house. You might win,…
I believe Donald Trump’s next book will come out in 2022, will move the needle on his election, and will generate tens of millions of dollars for him. A New York Times newsletter sent today explains how political books continue to sell on both sides of the political divide. Conservatives now have their own publishers,…
Donald Trump’s campaign people send me incendiary emails every day. Most of it is just baiting to get money, but I was intrigued by one of these emails that claimed he was right about ten things that “the media” got wrong. Was Trump actually telling the truth and we missed it? Let’s put it to…