Skip to main content

TOP OF THE DAY by Howard Polskin

Jul. 28, 2025

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 100th 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