Sunday Coffee: Building a Fire Hose of Truth

Hey everybody. Thanks for joining me for our Sunday Coffee post together.

As you know, this is my favorite post I do every week, where we get to have a cup of coffee together, reflect on the week, and look at what’s ahead.

I think this was one of the most important weeks in the history of the MeidasTouch Network. I’m so proud of our editorial team and our collaborations, which got out news that we’re really not seeing anywhere else.

The report by Aaron Parnas and Ken Harbaugh of Valor Media for the MeidasTouch Network on the true conditions at U.S. military bases in the Middle East, and on the experience of service members, contractors, and their families, is one of the most important stories of the year.

We shared video footage that had never been seen before of the Iranian ballistic missile and drone strikes on U.S. bases in Jordan, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates, bases that were left largely undefended against these strikes. And we told the stories of these service members before, during, and after.

When I think about getting this story out, I think about the vision for this network. It’s decentralized, but it links the entire independent media landscape. People have their own platforms, and they also come together under the MeidasTouch umbrella to get out these critical stories.

When it comes to cutting-edge independent reporting, there’s really no reporter today with a bigger or more dedicated following than Aaron Parnas. Then you have Ken Harbaugh and Valor Media, which has built a strong and loyal audience in the veteran and military community because it’s run by veterans. They’re speaking with members of our military every day. And it’s about trust.

That’s what we’ve set up across every discipline. When it comes to economics, who better to get us the best information than Justin Wolfers? When it comes to legal news, who better than Michael Popok, Judge Luttig, and Harry Litman, who clerked for two Supreme Court justices and served as a U.S. Attorney? Or Karen Friedman Agnifilo, one of the top lawyers in private practice today, who was the acting district attorney in Manhattan.

When it comes to health, we have Dr. Gupta leading MeidasHealth.

It’s important to have people who actually walk the walk, who can now talk the talk while still walking the walk, if that makes sense. Our reporters are in the field doing the work.

And then we have this broader network to distribute it across all of the Meidas platforms, from MeidasTouch itself with our YouTube channel and our reach, to the other platforms linked with us, just like we did with this story working with Aaron and others.

I wanted to lay out that vision because I want you to know it’s very intentional. The architecture is intentional. We’ve analyzed this landscape, and we need a fire hose of truth to fight the fire hose of disinformation, especially when oligarchs control the algorithms. We need a guerrilla warfare of truth that builds vast repositories of information and truth, so that we’re everywhere. Local and embedded in the communities we talk about, national, and global too. That’s why MeidasCanada and our international expansion matter so much.

As we talked about in WTF America, and thank you to everybody who’s gotten it, right-wing media has been building for more than half a century. The Roger Ailes memo in 1970, talk radio, Fox News in the 90s, and the whole right-wing propaganda ecosystem. It’s a system. So the way we fight it is by building systems and structures, and then focusing on carrying them out generation after generation.

One of the problems we’ve diagnosed is that people on the pro-democracy side took for granted that people would always support democracy. They assumed what was coming out of right-wing propaganda was so outrageous that it would be dismissed as absurd. But repetition works. Right-wing authoritarian propaganda spreads those lies over and over again. The right wing built systems and structures while the pro-democracy side was talking about winning an election 90 days out or 60 days out.

And by the way, winning elections matters. It’s important to have a game plan and finish strong in those final 60 days, the way you preserve your energy in a marathon so you can finish strong instead of burning out early. But we have to recognize this is a marathon and not a sprint. We have to be there not just for the first few miles, which can be exhilarating, but for miles 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20. Otherwise people won’t recognize you when you show up for the final stretch.

That, to me, is building independent media. It’s relentless. It’s getting out the truth every single day, a fire hose of truth every single day. That’s what we’re doing at this network, and that’s what we’re focused on.

So those are my ruminations. Now, where are we as we approach the election? Folks, we’re here. This is the home stretch, and now we push harder than ever.

We’re seeing Trump flail. We’re seeing MAGA get nervous and more and more desperate, and desperate people do desperate things.

We’re seeing an unprecedented, corrupt action by Trump’s DOJ in Alaska, demanding that a federal judge decertify election results before the results even come in. We’re seeing Trump harass and attack California, and they’re going to go state by state. They’re going to do what they did in 2020 and 2021, but on a much grander, Project 2025 style scale, because they’re pathetic fascists. But they’re going to lose.

And in their desperation, they’re going to turn more and more people against them. That’s what we’re seeing.

So as we head into these final days before the election, I want us all to take inventory of where we are. It was not a foregone conclusion that we’d get here, but we’re actually stronger than ever. I think you all feel more confident. We all feel more confident having each other, even if we’re tired. Let’s admit it, we can be tired. Going back to the marathon, it’s exhausting at mile 26. That’s normal. But we’ll lean on each other, and we’ll get across the finish line.

And the cavalry has arrived. Obama is out traveling the country, and it’s incredible to see his speeches. But you can’t expect him to be out there every day for the years leading up to an election. That’s why we have to take the power ourselves, so that when he comes in at the end, which he’s doing now, we’ve already mobilized. We’ve already gotten out the word. We’ve been ambassadors of truth for a long time.

And we’ve been covering all of these rallies. Whether it was President Obama in Cleveland with Sherrod Brown, who’s running for Senate, and Dr. Amy Acton, who’s running for governor. Or President Obama in Detroit with Jocelyn Benson, the Democratic nominee for governor, and Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for Senate. Or Senator Bernie Sanders in Duluth, Minnesota, with Senate candidate Peggy Flanagan and Attorney General Keith Ellison. Or Senator Sanders in Michigan, joining Abdul El-Sayed for a rally in Grand Rapids today. With our massive platform, we’ve been putting all of these rallies out for people to see, which really hadn’t been done before.

So look, Trump will keep doing these rallies where he talks about cognitive exams and men’s asses and makes weird grunting noises.

But we’ll stay focused every day on building the structures and systems, not just for a good result in one election cycle, but for generations. That’s what we’re building here. That’s the plan. That’s what this community is all about, and we’re so grateful for all of you.

So let’s keep on fighting. Subscribe to the Substack, and become a paid subscriber if you can. I’m going to put down my coffee and go do a video. Thanks, everybody.