Testing the limits in Arkansas

[O]n Christmas Eve, a federal judge struck down a law that put booksellers and librarians at risk of imprisonment if they provided minors with “harmful” material. That includes themes about race and being LGBTQ. The Judge wrote that the law tried to deputize “librarians and booksellers as the agents of censorship” and that if their decision were made in the shadow of “fear of jail time, it is likely they will shelve only books fit for young children and segregate or discard the rest.”

Holly Dickson, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas, called the law “an attempt to ‘thought police,’” and said the Judge’s decision was a “victory over totalitarianism” and “a testament to the courage of librarians, booksellers and readers who refused to bow to intimidation.” Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, “Schools and libraries shouldn’t put obscene material in front of our kids.”

It’s likely we will see an appeal to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals from the state as early as this week.

  Joyce Vance

Poor Marj

Apparently, unlike Don Jr's book, the RNC must not be buying up MTG's to make her look good, because she has pretty much the same fans.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Tell all time again

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 06/29/2023:

"Afterward, Kelly retold that story to me in visible disgust. Trump, he said, was 'a very, very evil man.'"

  Raw Story

But Kelly kept that from the public anyway.

[Trump's] comments are used by Taylor to highlight almost daily instances of sexism in the Trump White House that were so bad one senior female official told the writer, “This is not a healthy workplace for women.”

[...]

Taylor, a former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security who admitted to anonymously writing a 2018 op-ed in the New York Times titled “"I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration,” said, "There still are quite a few female leaders from the Trump administration who have held their tongues about the unequal treatment they faced in the administration at best, and the absolute naked sexism they experienced with the hands of Donald Trump at worst."

So Taylor was the anonymous op-ed writer who claimed to be doing us a favor by staying on in the administration. Staying on until he could write a book, apparently.

He remembered Kirstjen Nielsen, Trump’s former secretary of homeland security, being called “sweetie” and “honey” and having her makeup critiqued by the president.

Taylor said, at one point, Nielsen whispered to him, "Trust me, this is not a healthy workplace for women.”

But you'll stay there for your own enrichment rather than go public to try to halt it. That's how so many women were raped by Harvey Weinstein, isn't it?

"He's a pervert, he's difficult to deal with," Taylor told Newsweek. "This is still the same man and, incredibly, we're considering electing him to the presidency again."

Maybe because you people didn't speak up when he was in office the first time!

He added, “He's setting a very vile tone within the Republican Party, and in a sense has normalized pretty derisive views towards women in general.”

Yeah, with PLENTY of abetting by many, many people.

Much needed good news out of Texas

A federal judge in Texas ruled that at least 12 books removed from public libraries by Llano County officials, many because of their LGBTQ and racial content, must be placed back onto shelves within 24 hours, according to an order filed Thursday.

Seven residents sued county officials in April 2022, claiming their First and 14th Amendment rights were violated when books deemed inappropriate by some people in the community and Republican lawmakers were removed from public libraries or access was restricted.

  CNN

Good for them. I keep wondering why only certain people's (often certain parents') rights matter.

Books ordered to return to shelves include “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” by Isabel Wilkerson, “They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group” by Susan Campbell Bartoletti and “Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen” by Jazz Jennings.

The library system also is required to reflect these books as available in their catalog and cannot remove any books for any reason while the case is ongoing, US District Judge Robert Pitman said in his order.

“Although libraries are afforded great discretion for their selection and acquisition decisions, the First Amendment prohibits the removal of books from libraries based on either viewpoint or content discrimination,” Pitman said.

The fight to protect access to books comes amid a book banning boom, with an alarming increase in attempts to censor books in K-12 schools, universities and public libraries. Many of these efforts seek to pull books with LGBTQ characters or themes and are part of a broader, conservative-led movement to chisel away at the rights and status of LGBTQ Americans.

Many of the book bans have also been aimed at authors of color exploring history, racism or their own experiences in America.

[...]

In 2022, the number of attempts to censor library books reached an unparalleled record high since the American Library Association (ALA) began documenting data about book censorship over 20 years ago, ALA said in a March press release.

ALA cataloged 1,269 attempts in 2022; nearly double the number of challenges in 2021.

Fascism on the rise in America.

It's Sunday

Frustrated by the books being removed from school libraries, a Utah parent says there’s one that hasn’t been challenged yet, but that they believe should be, for being “one of the most sex-ridden books around.”

So they’ve submitted a request for their school district in Davis County to now review the Bible for any inappropriate content.

“Incest, onanism, bestiality, prostitution, genital mutilation, fellatio, dildos, rape, and even infanticide,” the parent wrote in their request, listing topics they found concerning in the religious text. “You’ll no doubt find that the Bible, under Utah Code Ann. § 76-10-1227, has ‘no serious values for minors’ because it’s pornographic by our new definition.”

  Salt Lake Tribune

Well, it's about time. (Of course, what teen is checking out the Bible from the school library?)

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Poverty, By America

After Matthew Desmond won the Pulitzer for Evicted, about families struggling to stay housed, the Princeton sociologist realized he still didn't understand why the U.S. has more poverty than any other advanced democracy.

His new book Poverty, By America, provides a provocative and compelling answer: It's because the rest of us benefit from it, and act to keep it that way.

[...]

Desmond lays out public policies, laws, and tax breaks to show how the U.S. actually spends big on social programs — second only to France! — but gives the most to those who need it the least.

[...]

One example among many he offers: In 2020, the federal government spent more than $193 billion on subsidies for homeowners — "most families who enjoy this benefit have six-figure incomes and are white" — but just $53 billion on direct housing assistance for low-income families.

[...]

Desmond notes that more affluent Americans also disproportionately benefit from subsidized retirement and college savings plans. Exclusionary zoning laws keep their segregated neighborhoods prosperous with well-funded schools, while concentrating poverty elsewhere.

Meanwhile, lower-income families locked out of those neighborhoods — disproportionately Black and Latinx — pay more at every turn. Higher interest rates on mortgages when they can get one — and higher rent when they can't. Desmond's analysis finds U.S. landlords in poor neighborhoods typically make double the profit as those in richer ones. Poor people are also hit with billions in bank overdraft fees every year, a policy that became more widespread after banking deregulation in the 1980s.

[...]

Two of the biggest U.S. anti-poverty programs are the Earned Income Tax Credit and housing vouchers to subsidize rent. But Desmond says writing this book has forced him to see how they "rescue millions of families from a social ill, but they do nothing to address its root causes."

[...]

"We could just about fill the entire poverty gap in America if the richest among us simply paid all the taxes they owed," he says.

  NPR

And those they should owe would probably cover it and have some to spare.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 10:45 am:

JFC

“Letters to Trump,” set to be released on April 25, features correspondence between the former president and “some of the biggest names in history,” including Princess Diana, Oprah Winfrey, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, per Winning Team Publishing. The collection of letters will go for $99, or $399 for an “original signed bookplate edition.”

[...]

“I think they’re going to see a very fascinating life,” Trump told Breitbart News of the book. “I knew them all — and every one of them kissed my a–, and now I only have half of them kissing my a–.”

  The Hill

Will that help book sales?  Oh, yeah, his PAC is buying them all anyway.

One letter included in the book reportedly penned by John F. Kennedy Jr. thanked Trump for visiting the offices of his magazine “George.”

“Our staff thoroughly enjoyed your remarks and I trust you found the questions thought-provoking,” Kennedy Jr. said in a copy of the letter published by Breitbart News. “You were most generous to make the time.”

When asked about the letter, Trump told Breitbart that Kennedy Jr. was a “great guy” and a “friend of mine.”

“Even though we were of a different persuasion, I believe he would have run for the Senate and that he would have been president someday,” Trump added. “He was a handsome guy. He was a fantastic guy. He had the ‘it factor,’ and he would have gone to the top of the world in the Kennedy family.”

Wait a minute. That sounds like Trump kissing Kennedy's ass.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Brilliant

NYT Bestseller lists need revamped

This is absolutely meaningless for political books.  The RNC bought up enough Don Jr books to make it a "bestseller" on the NYT list and gave them out to people who made donations to the RNC. Mike Pompeo's PAC bought his memoir in bulk, to the tune of over $42,000, on the day it was released for sale. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that's what's happening here with a DeSantis PAC. And Trump is releasing a coffee table book (for $99) of love letters to him from various celebrities - including the famous Kim Jong Un letter - which his PAC will buy up to make a "bestseller" out of , no doubt.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

MAGA

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Alvin Bragg is afraid Letitia James will beat him to the prize

"Potential".  Yeah. Whatever.  I'll believe he pays consequences for his crimes when I see it.  So far, the only person near or in on Trump's many crimes to remotely pay anything for it is his ex-attorney, Michael Cohen.  And in fact, this particular crime is the one Cohen ended up serving time in jail for.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 01/31/2023:

Keep talking, pal.

Earlier this month, prosecutors met with Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney and fixer who was convicted of federal charges in 2018 for paying the hush money to Daniels and ex-Playboy model Karen McDougal.

[...]

National Enquirer’s former publisher David Pecker was spotted heading into the Centre Street building in the morning as part of Bragg’s revived efforts to charge Trump, 76, according to sources.

Pecker was involved in the $130,000 payout to Daniels .

[...]

Prosecutors want to interview other witnesses, like Dylan Howard, the Enquirer’s former editor, and Jeffrey McConney and Deborah Tarasoff, two workers at Trump’s company, sources told the New York Times. The three have not yet testified before the grand jury.

[...]

Trump could face charges of falsifying business records, as federal filings show Cohen was reimbursed for the hush-money payment as a legal expense.

[...]

One of the [former] prosecutors, Mark Pomerantz, has since penned a book, “People V. Donald Trump: An Inside Account,” whose impending publication has prompted Bragg to issue a warning to Simon & Schuster that the book could prejudice his investigation.

  NY Post

A mystery solved

I have always wondered how Trump went from belittling Kim Jong Un and rattling the nuclear sabres to "falling in love" with him and treasuring (not to mention stealing from the White House records) a flattering letter from Kim.  I found out today when Charlie Sykes (and Molly Jong-Fast) interviewed Michael Schmidt (of the New York Times) about the new afterward to his book wherein he discusses John Kelly's woes as Trump's Chief of Staff.

Schmidt tells the story of how Kelly and Pentagon officials attempted to talk Trump down from firing nukes on North Korea or push Kim to starting a war.  They told him thousands of people would die, and that didn't bother him.  They told him it could destroy the economy, and that didn't bother him.  Finally, Kelly hit on the only thing that has ever made an impact on Trump: flattery.  Kelly talked to Trump about how he's the ultimate dealmaker, and if he could placate Kim, it would make Trump the only president in history to be able to do it.  Voilà!  Also explains Trump's ensuing bragging that we would have gone to war with North Korea under Obama, but he, Trump, saved us.

Schmidt says Kelly's days consisted entirely of dealing with a man who was dumber and more narcissistic than he could have ever imagined ("I didn't know they made people like that."), and who would come down to the Oval Office late every morning obsessed with whatever he had seen on TV that morning.  Kelly gets up at 3:30 am every day to watch cable news in order to be prepared.

I suppose the world is lucky Kelly lasted as long as he did in that position.  It must have been absolutely excruciating and exhausting.

He's gonna sue!

Always he's gonna sue.  

[Bob] Woodward has released raw audio of a score of interviews he did with Trump in 2019 and 2020. Trump has responded by saying on Fox News that he will sue Woodward (calling him "very sleazy"), not because the tapes are inaccurate but because Trump says they belong to him and he needs to be compensated for their sale.

  NPR

Also, bullshit.  They don't belong to him.  They're a work product of the author.  And he was fully aware of the fact that he was being taped and why.  There's no lawsuit here.

Initially conducted in the Oval Office, the series continued for months with Trump often making surprise phone calls to Woodward at home or on his cellphone.

In these hours of Trump's recorded voice, we hear him striving to court Woodward's favor, praising him as "a great historian" and "the great Bob Woodward."

[...]

The interviews were arranged to inform Woodward's second book on the Trump presidency, Rage, which appeared just before Trump lost his bid for re-election. The president had not cooperated with the reporter's earlier Trump book, Fear, a highly critical study that appeared in 2018.

[...]

Trump spends considerable time seeking Woodward's acknowledgement of the "breakthrough" with Kim Jong Un, the youthful and curious dictator of North Korea. Trump can scarcely contain his fascination with the way Kim eliminated his rivals for the dictatorship, including the beheading of an uncle. Trump offers to share Kim's letters (which are classified information) with Woodward but asks him not to say how he got them.

[...]

Trump's rhetoric remains as it has been since his emergence as a candidate in 2015, delivered drenched in a sense of victimhood that endures even now in his messages on "Truth Social." The main difference is that here his frequent profanities are left intact.

[...]

On substance, Trump dwells on an agenda that ranges from his grievances to his notions of his greatest hits.

Who would have expected anything else?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

JFC

Remember when the right was outraged because of fake accounts of the Obama administration removing all the W's from keyboards when transitioning to George W Bush?

A Trump administration staff member crammed pictures of President Biden’s son Hunter Biden into the White House’s air conditioning unit during the presidential transition, breaking it, according to a new book set to be released on Tuesday.

The action by the employee, who worked for then-Presidential Personnel Office Director John McEntee, was one of several examples of ways members of the Trump administration sought to undermine the incoming administration, according to New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman’s book, “Confidence Man,” Politico reported based on excerpts it reviewed.

[...]

he Biden team were delayed in getting information from the Pentagon and obstructed in getting access to COVID-19 vaccines at the start of their rollout, according to Haberman. [Trump Chief of Staff Mark] Meadows also refused to give them access to a computer system to start working on Biden’s budget, saying that they “can’t expect us to endorse your spending plans.”

[...]

Haberman additionally reported that Meadows texted Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife Ginni Thomas, who was involved in efforts to dispute the results of 2020 election in multiple states, that “this is a fight of good versus evil,” according to Politico.

  The Hill

Yeah. With Meadows' side being the evil.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The best indoctrination starts early

They appear to be at a carnival, which would be appropriate.

I won't link to that piece of shit.

Wizards are smarter and more important than kings, aren't they?  LOL.  The author is the hero of his story, as he should be, I suppose.  If the Trumps ever cracked that book open (unlikely, since they don't read), they wouldn't be happy Kash is the hero.

"The Holy Grape."  ROFL

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

He knew

The question still seems to be out there whether Trump actually believed he won the 2020 election.

[New York Times reporter Maggie] Haberman’s book, titled “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America,” will be released early next month.

[...]

Haberman writes in her new book that Trump in the immediate aftermath of the election asked advisers to tell him what went wrong, telling one adviser “we did our best,” CNN reported, adding that he also told junior press aides, “I thought we had it.”

  The Hill

Let's get those aides on record before the January 6 Committee.

But later, Trump reportedly began expressing his intention to not leave the White House in January 2021 upon the start of Biden’s term as Trump’s team began attempts to overturn the election.

“Why should I leave if they stole it from me?” Trump asked during a conversation with Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, CNN reported.

Somebody convinced him HE could steal the election, and he believed them.

Also, fuck Maggie Haberman who, like so many others, held onto material information for a book when it would have perhaps put an end to the nightmare we're living a long time ago.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Yet another case of holding the truth for a book deal later

During the Trump administration, Geoffrey Berman was the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) until he was abruptly fired in June 2020. It was widely viewed as one of many examples of Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr trying to politicize the Justice Department.

Now, Berman has written a book giving his version of what happened behind the scenes.

  Vox

Everybody wants to tell on Trump when it's too late to matter.

As president, Trump often publicly and privately said he wanted prosecutors to lay off his allies and go after his perceived political enemies.

[...]

Trump’s demands for prosecutions were usually legally dubious if not utterly groundless, and even many of his own DOJ appointees were reluctant to pursue them.

[...]

Once [Berman] concluded no charges were merited, top Trump appointees working under the attorney general simply reassigned each case to another US Attorney’s office in the hope of a different outcome.

Of course, he was the good guy in a pit of vipers.

Back in May 2018, the Boston Globe reported that Kerry, who left public office at the end of the Obama administration, had recently engaged in “some unusual shadow diplomacy with a top-ranking Iranian official” — specifically, he’d met Iran’s foreign minister to discuss Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, which Trump was about to withdraw from.

Trump was furious about this report, tweeting on May 7 that this was “possibly illegal” for Kerry to do. Two days later, Berman claims that Justice Department officials assigned an investigation of Kerry to his US Attorney’s office.

[...]

After another Trump tweet on the matter in April 2019, Berman writes that Justice Department officials called members of his team and peppered them with questions about the Kerry investigation’s speed. A few months later, after Berman told DOJ higher-ups that he wouldn’t pursue charges in the matter, he was informed that they would send the case to a different US Attorney’s office, in Maryland (which did not end up pursuing charges either).

[...]

John Bolton wrote in his memoir that Trump was “obsessed” with it, mentioning it “in meeting after meeting in the Oval” to Barr “or anybody listening.” But it was not known that the Department had actually investigated Kerry, or reassigned the case to a separate office.

[...]

Despite Trump’s many efforts to bend the Justice Department to his whims, officials resisted many of his demands. None of his big targets — Clinton, Kerry, the Bidens, Comey, and McCabe — were prosecuted, and the Department largely did not assist him in his attempts to overturn the 2020 election result.

But if Trump should return to power after 2024, there’s no guarantee that resistance will continue. He would no longer need to constrain himself for reelection, and after January 6, he’s embittered against traditional Republican establishment forces he believes abandoned him.

So Trump and his team may well become more skilled at identifying and empowering true loyalists who really would act in Trump’s personal interests, defying law or tradition. Indeed, his recent legal peril will make that of paramount personal importance to him.

[...]

Furthermore, Trump allies have recently been floating a plan to purge many career government officials, including at the Justice Department and FBI, should he return to power.

I think we can all agree that a second Trump term would be a Stalinesque revenge tour.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  On the rounds.

Speaking of Jared

The New York Times Book Review is considered " one of the most influential, if not most august, institutions in American letters," as The Nation put it.

[...]

That's why social media is all over the Times' review of Jared Kushner's new book, "Breaking History: A White House Memoir." Kushner, a real estate executive, rose to public attention first by meeting and marrying Ivanka Trump. He then became a senior adviser to president Donald Trump despite having no political experience. Nonetheless, Kushner has nothing but good memories of his time there, including his hand in negotiating the Abraham Accords between Israel, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates. His book quotes colleagues who call him "a genius" and "one of the best lobbyists I've ever seen." 

Times columnist Dwight Garner begs to differ.

[...]

Reviewer Dwight Garner called the book  "a slog" and "a queasy-making book." [...] He adds that the writing is akin to "a college admissions essay."

Garner's critique called the author "a pair of dimples without a demographic" and noted Kushner's devoted loyalty to Donald Trump: "Reading this book reminded me of watching a cat lick a dog's eye goo." 

[...]

On the bright side, Kushner's book has gotten a rave from his wife. "I love my husband's amazing new book and I know that you will too!" Ivanka Trump tweeted.

  The List

“Kushner almost entirely ignores the chaos, the alienation of allies, the breaking of laws and norms, the flirtations with dictators, the comprehensive loss of America’s moral leadership, and so on, ad infinitum, to speak about his boyish tinkering … with issues he was interested in.

“This book is like a tour of a once majestic 18th-century wooden house, now burned to its foundations, that focuses solely on, and rejoices in, what’s left amid the ashes: the two singed bathtubs, the gravel driveway and the mailbox,” Garner continues.

[...]

The Times review mocks Kushner for including in his memoir “every drop of praise he’s ever received” for his work in the West Wing.

“A therapist might call these cries for help,” Garner writes.

[...]

“You finish ‘Breaking History’ wondering: Who is this book for? There’s not enough red meat for the MAGA crowd, and Kushner has never appealed to them anyway,” Garner concludes. “He’s a pair of dimples without a demographic."

  Yahoo

If you have a NYT subscription, you can read the review here.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

A better view

Check this out:

If you want to read his book, you can get it as a pdf here:

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Kushner memoir panned in the Times

[New York Times] Critic Dwight Garner said in his review that [Jared] Kushner’s memoir, “Breaking History,” is a “peculiarly selective” examination of the Trump administration, ignoring “the chaos, the alienation of allies, the breaking of laws and norms, the flirtations with dictators, the comprehensive loss of America’s moral leadership, and so on.”

Garner said the book repeatedly uses political cliches like “Even in a starkly divided country, there are always opportunities to build bridges,” and has the tone of a college admissions essay.

He said a typical sentence is “In an environment of maximum pressure, I learned to ignore the noise and distractions and instead to push for results that would improve lives.”

  

So he didn't use a ghost writer.

Garner said Kushner consistently refers to praise he has received, such as that he is a strong lobbyist and played a role in developing the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, a free trade agreement that went into effect in 2020.

[...]

“He seems to have no beliefs beyond carefully managed appearances and the art of the deal,” Garner said of Kushner’s memoir. “He wants to stay on top of things, this manager, but doesn’t want to get to the bottom of anything.”

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.