☕️ HE’S BAAACK ☙ Tuesday, August 13, 2024 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Trump lands back on Twitter and breaks the Internet; FBI digs into Iranian hacking; Mideast war drums continue unrestrained beating; astronauts still marooned; Trump's best lawsuit yet; more.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Tuesday! The week’s news continues to deliver in robust 2024-style fashion. Today’s roundup includes: Trump makes his triumphant return to Twitter, causing a corporate media confusion and panic; FBI is on the Iran hacking case so we can count on nothing ever happening except propaganda; Mideast war updates with gloomier and gloomier headlines but no missiles (yet); Gilligan complicates NASA Starliner snafu; and Trump files the most encouraging lawsuit yet.

🗞💬 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 💬🗞

🔥🔥 You will recall that Trump was suspended from Twitter on January 6th. Elon Musk un-suspended Trump earlier this year, provoking hysterical yips of fear from corporate media. But Trump did not use his Twitter account. Yesterday, he came back. It was a flex, an early sign of a shift in the Trump Campaign. He’s going on offense. Variety ran the first story yesterday, headlined “Donald Trump Returns to Posting on X/Twitter After Year-Long Break Ahead of Elon Musk Interview.” Here is Trump’s first X post since January 6th, 2021:

I’ll get to the historic Twitter Space interview in a moment. But after his first tweet yesterday, Trump kept tweeting (mostly campaign videos) till bedtime. One was this terrific ad (2:31), which inspired me, and it might inspire you, too.

I called Trump’s return to Twitter/X a ‘flex’ because, until yesterday, the Democrats have been running against a candidate who was not on Twitter. Think about that for a minute. If Twitter is, as many report, the most viewed media platform in the world, Trump’s self-imposed Twitter exile was a major handicap.

What else has Trump been holding in reserve?

Setting that aside, Trump set history last night in what was probably the biggest Twitter Space in history. The last record was set when Elon Musk interviewed Ron DeSantis (300K concurrent listeners). Some sources showed over 17 million concurrent listeners tuned in for Elon’s Trump interview:

Corporate media was panicking long before the interview began. At yesterday’s White House press briefing, in a hilarious self-own, a Washington Post reporter actually asked whether the Biden Administration planned to “stop” the Musk-Trump interview (because of misinformation):

CLIP: Media asks White House to censor media (1:19.)

But, despite WaPo’s heroic efforts to prevent it, the interview aired anyway. They were right to fear. The interview crushed all previous records. So the media was, reluctantly, forced to cover that which they’d most feared.

Foreign media had a fairly neutral take. For example, the BBC reported, “Elon Musk hosts friendly chat with Donald Trump on X after tech delays..”

India Today even recognized the interview’s historic nature:

The Wall Street Journal was perhaps the only U.S. platform to report it straight: “Trump and Musk, on X, Discuss Immigration and Shared Vision for U.S..” Having done that much, the Journal maniacially focused on the interview’s initial 35-minute delay (Musk said it was a DDOS attack), and never mentioned how many folks tuned in.

Journalists are well aware Twitter replacing them, and worse, Trump is the Bad Orange Man. So apart from the WSJ, corporate media hated the interview, reaching for their critical thesauruses to find synonyms for failure to describe the historically-successful interview. Here are a few example headlines. First, Politico called it a ‘catastrophe’:

USA Today (op ed) described it as an ‘unmitigated disaster’ (op-ed):

Rolling Stone also deemed the interview was ‘disastrous,’ and said it failed before it even began:

CNN also focused on the technical problems over the interview’s substance or its ratings success, but ran a related article I found intensely interesting. CNN headline, “Analysis: Musk tries to help Trump halt the Harris surge..” Remember that for later.

🔥 In case you missed it, here is a helpful ‘condensed’ version of the interview, boiling it down from just over three hours to only 69 minutes.

CLIP: Elon-Trump interview on Twitter August 12, 2024 (1:09:00).

That condensed ‘super cut’ version removes all the rambling, chit-chat, and throat-clearing, and makes for a quicker, more engaging listen. Also, YouTube thumbnail designer David Altizer created a handy ‘table of contents’ guide to the clip, which I include here for your convenience:

🔥 Early this morning (2:30 am EST), Elon Musk reported the stunning news that, adding the people who tuned in to the interview to the folks who listened afterwards, Trump’s interview had been heard more than an astounding billion times.

That astonishing figure will increase today, probably by a lot. This news is extremely significant, and it took the fretful elite media completely by surprise. For weeks it’s appeared as though corporate media successfully froze Trump out of the public eye, swamping even negative coverage with its fawning reporting on Kamala “Plan B” Harris. Recall CNN called the coverage a “Harris surge.”

But Trump flexed. It didn’t take money or time or ad buys or teams of paid-off influeners. Trump merely returned from his self-imposed Twitter exile, crushing the Internet in what might be the single biggest media event in history. They can deny it. They can report it badly, focusing on the DDOS attack. But it happened — and millions of people heard the President for themselves.

I’ll concede how fortunate Trump appears. This couldn’t have happened had Elon Musk not bought the failing social media platform eighteen months ago. It couldn’t have happened had California not driven Elon’s companies to Texas and turned him conservative. It’s another sort of miracle.

🔥🔥 Good news everyone! The FBI is on the case. The Washington Post ran the story yesterday headlined, “FBI probing alleged Iran hack attempts targeting Trump, Biden camps.” Whew! I know I feel better now. How about you?

And guess what! The FBI is talking about it. This time, it’s not claiming an “ongoing investigation” as an excuse. This time, the FBI is practically gushing about the insidious Iranians infiltrating and interfering with the elections. (And you know what we do to election interferers, I mean insurrectionists.)

This time, the FBI is leaking like a pink, crocheted hat.

All the usual white-coated, bowtied experts agree. They are 100% certain this could only be an electronic elections attack by Iran, which also just happens to be the Biden Administration’s biggest political headache right now. Purely coincidentally.

Anyway, WaPo’s article revealed the target of the mysterious hacker’s scheme: Roger Stone.

Iran denied it tried to hack President Trump’s campaign, as you would expect if they were phishing for political ammunition. So who knows? It could be anybody. Iran, Deep State, your guess is as good as mine.

In a wild understatement, Stone suggested, “It’s all very strange.” Touché, Roger, touché.

🚀🚀 War Update: The good news was that Iran has not (yet) attacked anybody. But yesterday, the media relentlessly beat the war drums of bad news until media’s parents told it to stop making all that ruckus and go to bed. Here are four quick headlines to get you up to speed. First, the UK Guardian reported the Iranians are wondering why every time they get attacked, people always tell Iran to use restraint:

Next, in a bit of accidental journalistic honesty, Politico reported that the wars in Ukraine and Israel are linked, as I’ve been saying for over a year now:

Of course the two wars are linked. Russia’s recent alliance with Iran began after the ritualistic torching of its relationship with Israel, when Team Biden forced Israel to side with Ukraine.

Never forget that in 2022, the Ukrainians were blowing the Dickens out of Russia using cheap drones, at a time when Russia had no domestic drone industry of its own, and was staring at defeat in the Proxy War. So Russia reached out to Iran:

Russia made some kind of deal with Iran, a desperate deal, which in 2022 provided the Russians with the most advanced drone technology in the world. Now, we are watching the Russians have to cough up the steep price:

Iran didn’t just give Russia thousands of drones. Iran also gave Russia the blueprints. Iran also lent Russia some Iranian drone engineers. Now, Russia is making its own cheap and effective drones. It owes Iran a lot.

Nor did it help any when Team Biden let the Ukrainians use American weapons and our satellite targeting to strike civilian targets inside Russian sovereign territory. Russia is pretty sore about that. One day, we may come to realize that our decision was a foolish error of Bidenic proportions.

Here is a fact: Biden’s Proxy War is driving every major conflict in the world right now.

Third, for what it’s worth, ABC ran a story yesterday reporting that the US and Israel ‘expect’ an Iranian attack soon:

Fourth, and finally, Israel said it has no intention of showing restraint either. The Times of Israel:

In other words, even if Iran misses, or even if it only blows up another desert cactus, Israel will strike back.

So.

🔥 Yesterday, Aviation Week ran a story headlined, “NASA Renames International Space Station to the ‘SS Gilligan’s Island.” Haha, just kidding. The headline actually said, “NASA Delays Starliner Crew Return Decision.”

For nearly two months, NASA and Boeing have been plagued by an 8-day tour that turned into an indefinite space vacation on a desert spaceship. Boeing built the Starliner spacecraft, which is rapidly nearing its expiration date, since in just a few days, the docking port where it is camping out will be needed for other missions, and the Skipper has about reached his breaking point after he told Gilligan to prepare for docking, but Gilligan thought he said “ducking” and hid in the aft lavatory.

Gilligan!

Anyway, yesterday’s news was that NASA has again refused to announce any details about how it plans to get the two stranded U.S. astronauts back home, except to say they are currently conducting tests involving two coconut husks with a string tied between them.

I’m not sure who is more stuck, the astronauts or the NASA bureaucrats, who are confounded by difficult-to-solve and quite thorny technical problems raised by the election season. The only way to get fired from the Biden Administration is to embarrass them. Just ask former nuclear waste director, unattractive cross-dresser, and convicted luggage thief Sam Brinton.

(Sorry. I’m digressing into unrelated areas of high entertainment. Back to the story.)

Last week, Reuters reported that, if NASA gives up on the failing project, and the docking port lease expires, Boeing will try returning Starliner home on autopilot. I hope they read the manual first. In related news, a week ago, a SpaceX rocket delivered extra food and clothes to the marooned spacemen. I bet the astronauts were glad Elon Musk was running that operation, even if they can’t afford to say so.

🔥🔥 Finally, yesterday produced a breaking legal story that was so exciting and so encouraging that I’ll screenshot the headline for you, so you can enjoy seeing it as much as I did. Forbes:

Boom. Yes! Yesterday, President Trump served the DOJ with a notice of claim —a required pre-suit procedure— saying he intends to sue the Department of Justice for $115 million dollars. Trump’s claims include malicious political prosecution and abuse of process.

Forbes’ article dripped with skepticism, pointing out that, since the DOJ gets 180 days to respond, Trump won’t likely file a suit until after the election. And, if Trump wins, Forbes groused, he might be unlikely to sue an agency he controls.

But to me, on the other hand, an agency Trump controls might also quickly settle with him, or it might not put up much of a defense. Either way, I thought it was telling that Forbes imagined Trump’s successful election. In its own article, NBC’s sub-headline was similarly suggestive:

Not only that, but Trump’s case has been buoyed by Judge Cannon’s recent decision to dismiss the Mar-a-Lago raid suit, a magnificent setback for the DOJ, which has appealed the decision. Forbes is hoping against hope. It reported that “other courts” rejected the legal grounds on which Judge Cannon relied, but Forbes ignored Supreme Court Justice Thomas’ lengthy concurrence making those exact same legal arguments.

Trump is an expert at making news despite corporate media’s best efforts to ignore him. Trump’s notice of claim joined the other recent signals that, after three difficult weeks of being the media’s human punching bag, Team Trump has quit playing defense. Now, it’s starting its offense.

Onward and upward!

Have a terrific Tuesday! Coffee & Covid will be back tomorrow morning with another informative and enlightening essential news roundup.

We cannot do it alone. Consider joining up with C&C to help move the nation’s needle and change minds.  I could sure use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope, if you can:  ☕ Learn How to Get Involved 🦠

How to Donate to Coffee & Covid
Twitter: jchilders98.
Truth Social: jchilders98.
MeWe: mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.
Telegram: t.me/coffeecovidnews
C&C Swag! www.shopcoffeeandcovid.com