A record remarkably unblemished by anything resembling accomplishment

This is national Banned Book Week. The American Library Association has a list of the top ten most challenged books for 2022. This time they list the number of challenges. There are thirteen books in the list because there is a four-way tie for 10th place. All thirteen books in the list say they were challenged for “claimed to be sexually explicit.” I note the first word in that phrase and suspect a great number of the challengers haven’t read the books they challenge. They work from lists put out by conservative organizations, such as Moms for Liberty (a name that always has me asking: Whose liberty?). Seven are challenged because they have LGBTQ+ content. I see three that tackle racial issues, though race isn’t one of the things they’re challenged for, which is profanity or depictions of abuse. At the top of the list is the expected Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe with 151 challenges, All Boys Aren’t Blue by George Johnson with 86 challenges, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison with 73 challenges, and Flamer by Mike Curato with 62 challenges. More about the House Speaker vacancy. Kos of Daily Kos did a takedown of McCarthy’s words at a press conference. There’s a lot to rebut. A big part of McCarthy’s words were blame hurled at Nancy Pelosi. There was a claim Pelosi would always back him up – like the claim he never challenged her when she had the job – and when the vote came she didn’t. If McCarthy challenged her position the vote would have gone her way – she was actually good at the job. Democrats didn’t call this vote and when it happened they voted the exact same way they did in January. And then there’s the impeachment inquiry and investigation into Hunter Biden. Also, if Pelosi had his back why did he court the Freedom Caucus? If she said she had his back he could have blown them off. And when the vote was threatened he didn’t try to court any Democrats. “And crying about Pelosi is just about the most pathetic thing that this pathetic spineless man can do on his way out the door.” Walter Einenkel of Kos has some reactions to this week’s events, some from Republicans (nasty guy for Speaker? Eww. Hunter of Kos explains why he wouldn’t want and couldn’t handle the job). A few of note, ones that rebut the claim that it was the Democrats’ fault. From Elie Mystal:

Just a little journalism note: Look at the people trying to turn the "Kevin McCarthy refused to make a deal with the only people who could help him, the Democrats" story into a "Democrats screwed up by not saving the guy who lied to them" story. Those are the bad people.

And from Tea Pain:

GOP (Sunday): “Dems are pedophiles!” GOP (Monday): “Dems are Communists!” GOP (Tuesday): “Dems are fascists!” GOP (Today): “Why didn’t Dems help us?”

And from Sawyer Hacket:

Kevin McCarthy: *agrees to far-right Speaker demands* *gives January 6 footage to Tucker Carlson* *holds debt ceiling hostage* *blocks Ukraine $ for border wishlist* *launches impeachment of Biden* *blames govt shutdown drama on Dems* Media: “Why won’t Democrats save McCarthy?!”

Kerry Eleveld of Kos gives another reason why Democrats didn’t help McCarthy. It was a reason given by Pramila Jayapal, head of the Progressive Caucus. Just after the Capitol attack McCarthy said the nasty guy “bears responsibility.” But just three weeks later, about a week after the nasty guy left Washington McCarthy posed for a picture with him, one that was widely released by the nasty guy’s super PAC, saying McCarthy agreed to work with him to retake control of the House. McCarthy supported the insurrectionist president. Democrats don’t trust him. As for the temporary guy in the Speaker’s chair, Mark Sumner of Kos wrote Patrick McHenry is known for a couple things. He “has a record remarkably unblemished by anything resembling accomplishment.” And he’s “consistently rude to everyone.” Sounds like a Republican. I had mentioned the two guys who have declared to be candidates for Speaker – Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise. I had mentioned Jordan is leading the investigations into Biden, looking for grounds for impeachment and also into Hunter Biden. No, we don’t want this guy in charge. I’ve read that Scalise is described as David Duke without the baggage. That makes him a white nationalist. We don’t want him in charge either. The nasty guy fraud trial continues, though I don’t think he showed up today. His humiliation today was that he was dropped from the Forbes List of 400 wealthiest Americans. Charles Jay of the Kos community filled in the details. The guy at the bottom of the list has $2.9 billion and the nasty guy’s fortune is estimated at only $2.6 billion. Before I go further – There are four hundred Americans with a net worth of nearly $3 billion and higher? Another sign of inequality and why democracy is in so much trouble. Back to Jay’s story. This will upset him a lot because he bases everything else on his being rich. So where did the money go? Part of it is he is on trial because he inflated his worth. Part of it his Truth Social network is pulling in a lot less money than he claimed it would. Because of the pandemic and working from home his office buildings are worth a lot less, though his golf courses are doing well. Jay gives us some history. Back in 1982 when the top 400 list was started the nasty guy was on the list in a spot he shared with his father because he claimed he owned more of the business than his father did. From the rest of Jay’s story it sounds like the nasty guy was on the list more because he was good at spinning tales than actually having a big pile of money. Jay quoted Jonathan Greenberg, a Forbes reporter, who wrote a piece in the Washington Post in 2018. Here’s a bit of it:

This was a model Trump would use for the rest of his career, telling a lie so cosmic that people believed that some kernel of it had to be real. The tactic landed him a place he hadn’t earned on the Forbes list — and led to future accolades, press coverage and deals. It eventually paved a path toward the presidency.

Ever hear of Schrödinger’s cat? That analogy is used to demonstrate some of the weirder aspects of quantum mechanics and quantum superposition (Want more details? You know how to search the internet). In this thought experiment a cat, unobserved in a closed box can be considered simultaneously both alive and dead. Ruben Bolling, in a Tom the Dancing Bug cartoon for Kos, explains that quantum superposition applies to the nasty guy. A sample:

Trump’s boxes of documents are not either classified or unclassified – they are both! Trump doesn’t value Mar-a-Lago itself at either $28 million or $1.8 billion – he values it as both!