Greetings! In the wake of Joe Biden’s bestselling 2017 memoir  Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose that chronicled the death of his eldest son Beau, the  Hachette Book Group dropped $10 million for the ex-president’s tome about his four years in the White House  Newsmax says the publisher made a bad deal. “To cover a $10 million advance, at a 10% royalty rate, an author would need to sell approximately 3.3 million books,” observes Newsmax’s Michael Reagan. “Can you in your wildest imagination see Sleepy Joe selling that many books? We have a great deal of sympathy for the ghost writer, if there is one. Talk about having your work cut out for you!” Newsmax points out that Hillary Clinton’s 2017 memoir What Happened sold only 300,000 copies. Worth noting: The Wall Street Journal predicts that the Biden memoir “is bound to be dull”....This month marks the 100^th anniversary of the Scopes trial in which Tennessee school teacher John Scopes was accused of violating the Butler Act that made teaching evolution in public schools is illegal.  The trial pitted evolutionists against creationists, with the legendary Clarence Darrow defending Scopes and with three-time  presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan prosecuting the case.  Scopes was found guilty. If this trial was held today, I wonder what side President Trump would be on (Associated Press). Worth noting: The marvelous 1960 movie about the Scope trial, Inherit the Wind, starring Spencer Tracy, is available for free on YouTube... Learn something new every day: More than two-thirds of California’s electricity comes from clean energy sources, including  wind, solar and geothermal.  That’s according to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s op-ed  in the Wall Street Journal. Glad someone in power is a clean energy advocate...If you keep reading, I’ll keep Righting. Howard

Greetings! The Federalist has identified seven “media  mouthpieces who repeated the lie that Russia ‘hacked’ the 2017 election.” They include Jen Psaki, Jake Tapper and (naturally) Stephen Colbert...The Trump Slump finally hits the book market. Fascinating Politico piece by Daniel Lippman reveals soft sales for most Trump tomes and the 2024 election. Among those with lackluster sales: 2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America, by Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and Isaac Arnsdorf. Sales: 6,000 hardcover copies in its first week. Trump in Exile, by the Wall Street Journal’s Meridith McGraw: Sales: 2,000 copies.  Revenge: The Inside Story of Trump’s Return to Power, by Axios’ Alex Isenstadt: 3,000 copies. All or Nothing: How Trump Recaptured America, by Michael Wolff: Sales: 11,000 copies since March.  One outlier is conservative commentator Salena Zito’s Butler: The Untold Story of the Near Assassination of Donald Trump and the Fight for America’s Heartland. That generated 23,000 copies sold  since its July 8 release.  Notably,  Original Sin by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’s Alex Thompson has been a hit, with  97,000 books sold. I’ve included links to all the books in case you want to buy a copy and help a deserving journo...The new The Fantastic Four film received a big thumbs-up from Hollywood in Toto, which called the latest in the Marvel superhero franchise “pro-family, pro-life and pro-MCA”...Weekend Watch: The finale of HBO Max’s excellent  two-part documentary Billy Joel: And So It Goes drops tonight. After watching part I last Friday, I’ve been belting out “Say Goodbye to  Hollywood,” “Piano Man” and “New York State of Mind” all week. Fortunately for my family, I’ve kept my Billy Joel karaoke jamboree to the shower...If you keep reading, I’ll keep Righting. Howard