<You brought it upon yourself, cretin. I simply posed the obvious question using the "facts" you gave to readers.

You responded with your typical manufactured mudslinging as you've done for decades being the ugly narcissist that you proudly are. You probably even tip destitute people your pocket change and think you've done them a blessed favor, patting yourself on the back like your gift is important.

The least you could have done is look up the main line of the Najdorf variation, but no. That would require too much honest effort on your part. So, let me be of some assistance to those readers who expect editors to actually do something useful for members instead of attacking us continuously:

How about the beginners Four Knights Italian that you've misevaluated for years? The Berlin??

And frankly, we're quite surprised that you have not braggadociosly reported how you defeated Mr. Jacobs three straight and drew one down a piece, how you recall every move from four decades ago.

You've slipped a far stretch orange face. Maybe you should take a break from chess through November 6 (or perhaps even January 6) and continue voting early each and every day like you did back in 2020. Such civic diligence would be a big improvement over your current self-absorbed contributions to society.

Or, you could simply join AA for Dishonest Jerks should you desire to continue focusing on yourself:

“Selfishness, self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt. So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making.” ― Alcoholics Anonymous, Jerks Anonymous>

Your nescience is showing, <fredremf>.

Whyn't you shag a prairie dog or do something similarly useful, <pigshit the clown>?

<he only challenge here was limiting myself to 10 arguments against Donald Trump (and one good reason to vote for Kamala Harris). So, drum roll, working toward No. 1:

10: As president, he violated his oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.”

Ask Mike Pence, who forfeited his place as Trump’s ticket mate to Ohio Sen. JD Vance because Pence wouldn’t violate the Constitution; Vance would. Even after leaving office, Trump called for terminating parts of it so he could regain power. No one should think he’d keep the oath if given a second chance, especially when the Supreme Court that he packed has ruled that presidents are virtually immune from prosecution.

9: He still won’t say that he’ll accept the voters’ verdict.

And that is still unprecedented. Trump has gravely eroded Americans’ faith in the elections that are fundamental to democracy. He lied after his 2016 victory in the electoral college that he lost the popular vote only because up to 5 million people voted illegally for Hillary Clinton. His efforts to flip his 2020 loss to Joe Biden got him criminally indicted, another first.

8: He will be held accountable for his alleged crimes as president only if he is defeated.

If reelected, Trump can order “his” Justice Department to bury the two federal cases that he succeeded in delaying past the election — the Washington trial for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election, and the case in Florida for allegedly making off with and hiding top government secrets. A third case in Georgia, state charges for attempting to subvert its 2020 vote for Biden, could well be shelved if he were back in office.

7: He’d be the first president with a serious rap sheet.

Trump has been found guilty or liable for sexual abuse, defamation, civil financial fraud and criminal business fraud to conceal a tryst with a porn star. He’s also the first president to be impeached twice, justifiably. Character counts: Voters should not hire for president someone who wouldn’t be hired by any private employer in the land.

6: He’s unfit to be president.

Take it from scores of former top advisors, including nearly half of the 42 people who served in Trump’s Cabinet. The early Cabinet members he once called “my generals”? James N. Mattis, H.R. McMaster and John F. Kelly all broke with their former commander in chief. Even those who back Trump have damned him: Former Atty. Gen. William Barr said Trump “shouldn’t be anywhere near the Oval Office” and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley called him “unhinged.” Let those two shape-shifters put party over country to vote for Trump. Voters shouldn’t.

5: He’s a threat to national security.

Trump is “the most dangerous person to this country,” Mark A. Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says in Bob Woodward’s new book. He’s more likely to be seduced by murderous autocrats than stand up to them. He’s poised to appease war criminal Vladimir Putin and reward Russia’s lawless invasion by abandoning Ukraine. Woodward reports that Trump has had seven calls with Putin since leaving office, suggesting a treacherous willingness to undermine allies’ support for Ukraine, Europe’s security and U.S. alliances generally. He encouraged Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to NATO members who miss defense spending targets. As Foreign Affairs reported: “His first term tested the transatlantic relationship — but his second would break it.”....>

<....4: He doesn’t know or care how to constructively address the nation’s problems.

The most policy-ignorant candidate in memory, Trump turned to the extremists behind Project 2025 for a blueprint, though he denies it now. Deal maker? He lacks the attention span, grasp of details and spirit of compromise to enact bipartisan laws. In a Wall Street Journal survey, most economists predicted that inflation, interest rates and deficits would be much higher under his proposed tax cuts and tariffs than under Harris’ policies. (And, no, Trump’s tariffs wouldn’t cut child-care costs.) He had Republicans kill an immigration bill to keep the issue alive for his demagogic campaign. His solution: “bloody” deportations of millions of migrants.

3: He’d further pack the federal courts with right-wing ideologues.

To confirm his picks, Trump would be helped, again, by what is expected to be a Republican-majority Senate. Again, he’d choose young nominees to serve for decades: “You don't put old in, because they're there for two years or three years,” he said last week. The Supreme Court’s far-right justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., would likely retire so Trump could seat much-younger, like-minded replacements.

2. He’s a pathological liar.

Trump’s constant lies range from the relatively harmless to life-threatening. Residents of Springfield, Ohio, endured school and hospital closures amid bomb threats after Trump lied that Haitian migrants would eat their pets. Federal hurricane responders in the South were threatened after Trump lied about the Biden administration rescue effort. Local governments are spending tax dollars to protect nonpartisan election workers. Americans prominent and obscure have been forced to get security against death threats after Trump’s mendacious attacks. But more prosaically: Citizens should expect truth from their presidents.

1. He was not, and would not be, a president for all Americans.

Not MAGA? Not worthy. Trump talks of withholding disaster aid from blue states. He assails Democrats, other domestic critics and the free press as “the enemy within,” subject to possible military action.

Finally, the bonus, a positive reason to vote Harris. She’s not only among the most experienced applicants for the job ever, but also: She’s not Trump.>

<Oh, perhidous. We all know you're a full blown, unabashed jerk raised by a whore. You just pissed down your own leg again....>

<Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) said the rhetoric about former President Trump and fascism hurts other Republicans and “needs to stop.”

Lawler joined CBS News’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday morning to discuss the upcoming election, and host Margaret Brennan asked if Trump was deepening divisions in American politics that adversaries may exploit.

“There’s no question that our adversaries exploit our divisions,” Lawler said. “When Democrats say that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy, that Republicans are part of a fascist movement that undermines us as well, all of the rhetoric needs to stop.”

Lawler argued that there are threats facing the U.S. from China, Russia and Iran, in addition to the “crisis at our southern border.”

“These are the challenges we need to focus on as an American people and as government officials, and that’s my commitment, regardless of the outcome of this election in November,” Lawler said.

The New York Republican said he is focused on international threats and has worked across the aisle in Congress. Lawler said he would continue to do so if Trump were elected.

Democrats often label Trump as a fascist threat. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the former president’s ramped-up attacks on migrant populations across the country have become “blatantly fascist.”>

He should look to the 'candidate' touted by his own party for such comments.

<The blatantly biased CGs operators shut FTB down again while editors continue to spew constant personal attacks and ramble absurd Socialist-Marxist propaganda non-stop. CGs editors can dish it out, but they cannot take it, and refuse to support the FREEDOM OF SPEECH which they enjoy by abusing the guidelines. That is the very definition of HYPOCRITS [sic] in action. You're not a real American if you cannot support basic freedoms for all members, not just your idiotic far left thugs. Communist rule be damned!

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<When New Jersey hotelier Curtis Bashaw decided in January to run for the Senate, he had never donated to Donald Trump and instead helped fund Christie Christie’s anti-Trump presidential run.

But within three months of declaring, he endorsed Trump and was shaking hands in the stands at the former president's rally in South Jersey. He did so even as Trump endorsed Bashaw’s Republican primary rival, a MAGA loyalist, at the same event.

Now Bashaw is once again attempting to put distance between himself and Trump as he tries to become the first New Jersey Republican in half a century to win a Senate seat.

Bashaw’s see-sawing support illustrates the challenge for blue state Republicans trying to simultaneously win over the MAGA base and moderate voters. It’s a struggle that’s become familiar in the GOP since Trump’s ascendance a decade ago and can now be seen in competitive congressional races from New York to California: Candidates need Trump to win the general election, but won’t go so far as to embrace him.

“Each one of us as citizens has a binary choice in our elections and our vote. I think people struggle with their choices at the top of the ticket each year,” Bashaw said in a phone interview. “I don’t think we can have four more years of the same. That’s why I’m doing that.”

On paper, Bashaw looks like the kind of candidate Republicans need to have any hope of winning a Senate race in New Jersey for the first time since 1972. He’s a wealthy, openly gay married man whose businesses employ over 1,000 people. He has bipartisan credentials, having donated to candidates from both parties over the years. And he was among the close circle of people around Democratic former Gov. Jim McGreevey — who had named him executive director of the state’s Casino Reinvestment Development Authority — as McGreevey prepared to announce he was gay and resign from office.

But Trump has proven politically toxic in New Jersey, where backlash to his rhetoric and policies has turned many reliably red New Jersey suburbs into blue bastions. And now Bashaw is caught between alienating the Republican base by distancing himself from the former president and alienating the larger New Jersey base of voters by supporting him against Kamala Harris.

“Bashaw’s only play here is to try to win over independents and moderate Democrats, and you can’t do that if you’re seen to be in bed with Donald Trump,” said Dan Cassino, director of Fairleigh Dickinson University poll.

Bashaw faces steep odds against Democratic Rep. Andy Kim to fill the seat opened by the conviction this summer of Bob Menendez. Bashaw is down in limited public polling, lags in fundraising despite putting $2 million of his own into the race and is trying to win a seat that hasn’t been won by a Republican since the Nixon administration.

Bashaw’s Republican primary opponent, Mendham Borough Mayor Christine Serrano Glassner —whose husband, Michael Glassner, was COO of Trump’s 2020 campaign — has not endorsed her former adversary and has privately criticized him. She declined to comment to POLITICO. And despite an early independent poll showing Kim leading a head-to-head matchup with Bashaw by a somewhat closer-than-expected 9 points, there’s little indication of any help on the way from national Republicans save for a $35,000 donation from the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Republican hopes were further deflated Menendez, convicted of corruption and facing years in prison, dropped his plans to run for reelection as an independent, which would have threatened to draw some Democrats from his base in Hudson County.

Kim, the clear frontrunner in the race, hasn’t publicly engaged Bashaw much. But at the debate, he sought to knock off his rival’s moderate credentials by contrasting them with his support for Trump.

“We’ve seen three justices put on the Supreme Court from Donald Trump. We’ve seen the Supreme Court take the most extremist turns, certainly in my lifetime, and something that is going against so many of the fundamental beliefs that people in New Jersey hold,” Kim said. “So I am worried about Mr. Bashaw’s ability to make decisions about Supreme Court justices, as we’ve seen him make a decision about who should be the next president.”....>

<....Bashaw calls himself “pro-choice” but also agrees with the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which allowed many states to enact broad bans on abortion. He told POLITICO that he would work on a bipartisan federal bill to “protect a woman’s right to choose in all 50 states.”

Kim in a phone interview said Bashaw is “being an opportunist” on abortion rights. “During the Republican primary, he’s highlighting in particular how he supports the Dobbs decision, supports going back to the states to decide,” Kim said. “And as soon as the primary’s over, he pivots and says now ‘I support federal legislation.’”

Despite putting distance between himself and Trump, Bashaw’s top campaign issue mirrors the Trump campaign’s: Undocumented immigration. “I think New Jerseyans are really, truly freaked out about the open border. When I realized it’s 894,000 illegals living in our state centered in five counties,” Bashaw said. (Most sources, with the exception of the Federation for American Immigration, which pushes to reduce all immigration, put the number at about half of that).

“Why wouldn’t you lock your back door at night?” Bashaw said.

Bashaw also said he wants to be “a common sense voice in D.C. that’s as a political outsider and a business perspective” and repeal the cap on the State and Local Tax Deduction — which Trump instituted. And he criticized Kim for calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, for joining the Congressional Progressive Caucus and for acting as a “rubber stamp” for Democrats.

Bashaw also pushed back against the idea that he criticized Trump by posting on Twitter a letter published in Harpers that called the former president a “threat to democracy." Instead, he said, he was more concerned about the “erosion of liberal values” in academia.

Bashaw said his is a “sleeper race” and that he expects national Republican help will come “as things shake out in the marquee races.”

But Kim said it’s disingenuous for Bashaw to say he’ll govern as a moderate while also backing Trump.

“We’ve seen other Republicans say they’re not willing to vote for Donald Trump, including some Senate candidates,” said Kim, pointing to Larry Hogan’s campaign in Maryland.

“Sure, he might have some more moderate viewpoints than some of his Republican colleagues, but he’s going to support a Republican majority leader,” Kim added. “That’s going to prevent any type of federal legislation when it comes to codifying abortion rights. It’s going to push in extreme ways. It’s going to work with potential president Donald Trump to move things in that direction.”>

<Members of the “Central Park Five,” now known as the “Exonerated Five,” have filed a defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump over false claims he made about them during last month’s presidential debate with Kamala Harris.

In 1989, Trump took out an ad calling for the return of the death penalty in the state of New York after five Black and Latino teenagers were falsely accused of a brutal assault. And he has continued pushing false claims about them even after they were exonerated. When Harris called him out for this at the debate, Trump falsely claimed that the five had pleaded guilty.

Here’s the quote:

A lot of people ... agreed with me on the Central Park Five. They admitted, they said — they pled guilty. And I said, ‘Well, if they pled guilty, they badly hurt a person — killed a person, ultimately.’ And if they pled guilty — then they pled, ‘We’re not guilty.’

The lawsuit, which requests that a trial be held to determine damages, notes several inaccuracies in Trump’s remarks — none of the teens pleaded guilty before they were wrongfully convicted, for instance, and the victim of the crime didn’t die. (A Trump campaign spokesperson dismissed the lawsuit as “frivolous.”)

Their stories are a reminder of the threat to equal justice under the law if Trump returns to the White House.

New York City Councilman Yusef Salaam — one of the Exonerated Five — was in the spin room with reporters after the debate and confronted the former president. Judging from Trump’s quick exit from the encounter, I don’t think he wanted the smoke. After all, this is someone who apparently resists face-to-face tension and reserves his most pointed attacks for social media posts.

Four members of the Exonerated Five starred in a recent ad for the Harris campaign and also appeared onstage at the Democratic National Convention. Their stories are a reminder of the threat to equal justice under the law if Trump returns to the White House. They are proof that so long as one is deemed a criminal in Trump’s eyes — facts be damned — there is virtually nothing they can do to clear their name.>

<Normally, the period after an American presidential election is a time for cooling off and winding down tensions, and is often a bit of a political “honeymoon” for the winner. But as in so many things, we are not living in an era of electoral normalcy.

Luckily, we do have some new guardrails, enacted in response to the attempts to overturn the 2020 election. The Electoral Count Reform Act (ECRA), signed into law in 2022, updates and shores up many of the antiquated procedures from the old Electoral Count Act of 1887, which proved so unhelpful in 2020. The 2024 election will be ECRA’s first test, and it may well be a trial by fire. And unlike the 2020 election, the stress test might come from both sides of the aisle.

In deciding a possible dispute over the most powerful office in the world, the rule of law is paramount. The process of an American presidential election is intricate and complex, with thousands of state and federal officials having a role in the final outcome. But the legal parameters of how any potential disputes will play out are reasonably clear and worth reviewing in advance.

The first question answered by ECRA is deceptively simple: When is Election Day? As is tradition, this date remains set at the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, which this year is Nov. 5. But as hurricanes and their aftermath continue to batter states in the Southeast, the question of an election-disrupting emergency is not entirely hypothetical. The same issue arises from the possibility of a terrorist attack, mass shooting or other disruption to polling places on Election Day. ECRA provides an answer for how such emergencies can be fairly and lawfully handled.

Under the newly reformed federal law, Election Day is defined as the usual date, except that voting may be extended “as necessitated by force majeure events that are extraordinary and catastrophic.” By qualifying election emergencies in this manner, ECRA makes clear that litigation or other legal disputes over a state’s administration of the election do not qualify. (Using force majeure in this manner was a particular suggestion I’d advocated during ECRA’s drafting). Only events outside of the state’s control, such as a natural disaster, are sufficient to extend the deadline otherwise set according to Congress’ constitutional power to determine the “time of choosing electors.”

As with most other matters under ECRA, states must apply their election laws as they stood on Election Day, with no later alterations permitted, such as by the legislature convened in a special session. In each state, a possible emergency invocation of these extended voting procedures is assigned to a designated official, who may be the governor, secretary of state or a state elections board. This rule also forecloses the idea, advocated by some during the 2020 election, of state legislatures or other officials attempting to overturn the results of the state’s popular vote.

The next step in the process is the counting of votes and the ascertainment of a winner in each state. Here, ECRA provides a remedy intended to address problems not just from 2020 but also from the notorious 2000 election. Instead of the usual cumbersome procedure for federal litigation, where lawsuits must be filed first in a district court and then appealed to one of the circuit courts before finally reaching the Supreme Court, a special three-judge panel is provided, consisting of two circuit judges and one district judge. This court’s rulings are then directly appealable to the Supreme Court, ensuring a prompt resolution of both legitimate legal objections and possible rogue actions by state officials. If any state official refuses to comply, the courts are empowered to order another official to provide the necessary certifications.

It is this procedure that would come into play if, for example, a state’s governor refused to certify the properly chosen members of the Electoral College, or if a secretary of state refused to certify the popular vote totals on which that certification depends. The final “certificate of ascertainment” from each state naming its electors must be finalized no later than Dec. 11, six days before the Electoral College meets.

Once each state’s popular election result is finalized, the state then appoints its members of the Electoral College. These electors, nominated by each party in advance, meet in their respective state capitals on Dec. 17 to officially cast the votes that will actually determine who has won the election. In most states, as upheld by the Supreme Court in the 2020 ruling Chiafalo v. Washington, these electors are bound by state law to vote for their party’s nominees. The candidate who wins an absolute majority of the electoral votes, currently 270, thereby becomes the president-elect....>

<....The next stage of the process comes when these votes are transmitted, as required by the 12th Amendment, to the president of the Senate, otherwise known as the vice president — currently Kamala Harris. She will not be the first vice president to preside over a certification of her own victory or defeat, a task previously carried out by Al Gore, Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush, among others.

But contrary to theories rejected by then-Vice President Mike Pence in 2020, ECRA affirms that the vice president’s role is purely ceremonial and entails no discretion whatsoever. Instead, the limited range of possible disputes at the electoral count on Jan. 6 must be decided by Congress.

Here, ECRA makes an important change from the old Electoral Count Act. Previously, only one member of each house of Congress was required to object to electoral votes, sending the matter to a debate and vote. It was under this provision that some Republican members objected to the electoral votes for Joe Biden in 2020, a procedure interrupted by the attack on the Capitol.

Now, objections require the co-sponsorship of at least one-fifth of each house, or at least 87 representatives together with at least 20 senators. None of the objections attempted at the last electoral count would have cleared this threshold. Lacking enough support, frivolous objections will instead be gaveled down as out of order.

ECRA deliberately pushes most possible disputes over election results into the courts. In particular, objections to the identity of the proper electors based on who actually won each state’s popular vote are to be litigated in advance, with a definitive court ruling then binding on Congress. This would cover the objections advanced by Donald Trump supporters in the last election, which essentially alleged that the wrong slate of electors had been certified in several key swing states. No longer will Congress play any role in deciding between competing slates of supposed electors, and only one legitimate slate’s votes will be presented during the joint session.

Another set of objections remains within Congress’ purview, as required by the Constitution. These cover whether the votes by otherwise legitimate electors were improper, or in the legal term of art, “regularly given.” This would include, for example, a hypothetical objection to electors’ failure to cast their votes on the prescribed day, which the Constitution requires to be the same in every state. It would also cover, somewhat less hypothetically, an objection that the votes were cast for an ineligible presidential candidate.

It is on this point that objections from Democratic members of Congress are possible, on the basis that Trump is disqualified under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, a provision adopted after the Civil War to bar oath-breaking insurrectionists.

Though the Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that states may not kick Trump off the ballot on this basis, the question of whether he is actually disqualified remains for Congress to decide. This objection might be raised to votes cast for him even if he has already lost, and would require majorities in both the House and Senate to sustain.

Once Congress completes the electoral count on Jan. 6, the process is over and its results are final, except in the unlikely event that no candidate has won the necessary majority of 270 electoral votes. In this scenario, under the 12th Amendment, a “contingent election” would be held, with the House electing the president (under an unusual procedure where each state delegation casts one vote) and the Senate would choose the vice president.

To the maximum degree consistent with the Constitution, ECRA sought to put electoral disputes into the courts rather than being decided by Congress. Any arguments over which candidate, and thus which party’s slate of electors, has won a state’s popular vote is to be decided in federal court prior to when the Electoral College meets in December. In all cases, state law as it stands on Election Day is decisive, and states may not change the rules after the fact.

Congress, with the vice president presiding ceremonially but having no say in the matter, is empowered to address only a narrow set of questions about whether the otherwise valid electors have cast their votes in a permissible manner under the Constitution, such as for a candidate who is not a natural-born citizen or who is not at least 35 years old. But the role of Congress will not be to relitigate disputes over how each state conducted its election.

<U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s call for a national divorce has met widespread condemnation, but some on the Left find themselves agreeing to her proposed divorce “in the interest of the kids.” There’s no actual risk of a split today, unlike in the 19th century. But Greene’s antics, and the reaction to them, fit into a long tradition of anti-Lincoln voices of Right and Left, and are symptomatic of a very real danger—that the United States succumbs to a universal weakness of democratic forms of government, as increasingly polarized factions tear society apart. As the American nation navigates this challenge anew, Abraham Lincoln is a sober and somber guide.

Twenty years ago, Lincoln scholar Barry Schwartz asked why Lincoln was not as revered as he had once been. Nevertheless, he could still conclude that most Americans saw Lincoln, and the Founders, as “admirable but imperfect.” This is no longer the case. Vocal and growing groups at both ends of the political spectrum are maligning Lincoln, and his proponents must work harder to recover his legacy. But this defense necessarily means taking seriously the critics’ arguments against him.

Many southerners and southern sympathizers hated Lincoln, while abolitionists looked with horror at Lincoln’s willingness to compromise with the South. His goal was slow, firm progress toward the extinction of slavery; and to preserve the Union, he was willing to see slavery continue in the South for another generation or more. Lincoln came to the presidency with the pledge of union at all costs, but with the one hard line that there be no extension of slavery—that it be confined to the southern states that already had it. Even this was a non-starter for what would become the Confederacy, while for abolitionists it reflected an unacceptable moral weakness.

It wasn’t just fire-eating southerners who wanted secession—abolitionists also preferred to split up into two countries. William Lloyd Garrison, the most famous abolitionist of them all, had long called for a referendum among the free states for a peaceful dissolution of the Union. Lincoln and the Republicans thought disunion would be a disaster. Lincoln ally Hamilton Fish put it bluntly: “Doubtless there are men, both at the North and at the South, who contemplate, and some who even desire a dissolution of the Union. Our jails and Lunatic Asylums are of sufficient capacity to accommodate them.”

It’s difficult for Americans today to understand the existential nature of this debate. More than historical knowledge, it requires imagination. What if, after separating from Great Britain, all thirteen states had continued more or less independent, under a weak umbrella-like confederation (as existed before the Constitution)? Or, what if a couple of generations later someone like Lincoln hadn’t emerged, and the country had split up? Would a free North have been able to share a stable border with an enslaving aristocracy to its south? Our subsequent history, our world today, would be very different. Only think of the positive and indeed crucial role of the United States in both world wars in the 20th century. Would the United States have been able to rise to such a role, if it hadn’t been melded together by the Constitution, and if the Union had not survived the trial by fire of the Civil War? If the United States had split up into two nations, would they have been able to avoid squabbling and fighting with each other, engaging in an arms race, backing opposite sides in European conflicts, and weakening each other for some opportunistic outside power to exploit? For all its problems, the Union has been utterly necessary.

Many disagree, especially anti-Lincoln voices of Right and Left. The most extreme anti-Lincoln right-wing view sees Lincoln as a psychopathic dictator and the Ku Klux Klan as harmless and patriotic citizens. But even in a more diluted form, some on the Right who would never speak well of the Klan are still very anti-Lincoln. Former U.S. Representative Ron Paul, for example, has called the Civil War senseless, saying that Lincoln could have ended slavery without war. Lincoln’s real aim, according to Paul, was to “get rid of the original intent of the republic”—in other words, he thinks Lincoln didn’t care for the Founders or the Constitution.....>

<....Meanwhile, for those on the anti-Lincoln Left, Lincoln was too soft and conciliatory to southern interests. Historian Lerone Bennett Jr., for example, spent 600 pages demonstrating that Lincoln was first and always a white supremacist. Even more influential is Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, which teaches that the Constitution was a sordid betrayal of the democratic ideals of the Revolution (echoing Garrison’s characterization of the Constitution as “a covenant with death, and with Hell”). For Zinn, Lincoln’s Republican party and the Democratic party of Jefferson Davis were morally equivalent, as were the United States and Nazi Germany during World War II.

These anti-Lincoln positions contradict each other, but they have traction. Social media has amplified the white supremacy narrative, and Zinn’s book has become, in California and elsewhere, a textbook in many high school history classes and in a range of university courses. In the most progressive pockets of the United States, the American flag is seen as a Republican or even a fascist symbol. It’s up to Lincoln’s advocates, both progressive and conservative, to make a stronger case in his defense by facing such criticisms head-on.

First, the charge that Lincoln was a southern-sympathizing white supremacist: opponents of Lincoln on the Left often cite his support of colonization of freed slaves to Africa, and the compromised nature of the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed only the slaves in states and territories then in rebellion. Over and over as a teacher, in public schools and in universities, I’ve seen students, when first confronted with these charges, shoot towards the anti-Lincoln Left. This is understandable—we like our heroes to have the moral high ground. But it was precisely this moral high ground that Lincoln couldn’t afford.

He feared that if he had freed all slaves when the war started, the border states would join the Confederacy, and the war would be lost. He was performing a delicate balancing act in dogged pursuit of an anti-slavery policy. For the abolitionists, this policy was far too little—but for the most committed Southerners, it was too extreme. Abolitionists had the moral high ground, but they cared little or nothing for the Union. Lincoln’s course preserved the Union.

Lincoln’s advocates must also take seriously the charge that he was acting against the Constitution. Southerners and southern-sympathizers charged that Lincoln had made himself a dictator when he suspended habeas corpus, an ancient principle of English law that protects against arbitrary arrest and imprisonment. Lincoln justified it as a wartime necessity, citing the Constitution, which allows for suspension in case of rebellion.

This curbing of civil liberties was a drastic action, and many Lincoln apologists don’t face it directly. For example, George Fletcher of Columbia Law School argues that Lincoln in his heart rejected the Constitution and rule of law, but couldn't say so openly because it would have undermined his legitimacy. Without going that far, Mark Neely’s Pulitzer-winning The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties agrees that Lincoln was concerned less about the Constitution than about the Declaration of Independence, especially the line “all men are created equal.” A case of “strange bedfellows” ensues, where pro-Lincoln scholars and anti-Lincoln conservatives or libertarians agree that Lincoln to a greater or lesser extent didn’t value the Constitution.....>

<....Nevertheless, Lincoln was a hard-headed lawyer who had taken an oath to “preserve, protect, and defend” the Constitution. He knew the wrong of slavery, and he also knew that the unintended consequences of good intentions could end up making the wrong worse. In the wake of the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act, while William Lloyd Garrison was burning a copy of the Constitution, Lincoln pointed out “how much the great body of Northern people do crucify their feelings, in order to maintain their loyalty to the Constitution and the Union.” The Emancipation Proclamation meticulously listed the southern counties, parishes, and cities which were not then in rebellion, and whose slaves were therefore not freed—it was the states and territories then in rebellion which had forfeited their constitutional protections, and whose slaves were therefore freed. Lincoln later led the effort to pass the Thirteenth Amendment, which finally abolished slavery throughout the United States. It was a halting path, but his commitment to working within the framework of the Constitution cannot be in doubt.

The challenges facing the United States today are different from those facing Lincoln and his generation. Despite Marjorie Taylor Greene’s rhetoric, we do not risk splitting apart along the Mason-Dixon line, or even into coastal and heartland countries. Before the Civil War, we were “these United States”, “these States United”, and it was counted as a plural. After the Civil War, we became “the United States,” a singular entity. Americans don’t risk becoming two nations anymore—the risk lies in succumbing to the universal weakness of democratic forms of government, as polarized factions corrode and erode society, and a dictatorship emerges.

The historical relationship between democracy and dictatorship offers valuable lessons. After the French Revolution of 1789, it took a decade before Napoleon seized power in a coup. In Russia in 1917 the process took only seven months to progress from tsar to liberal democracy to dictatorship. In Germany at the end of World War I, fifteen years elapsed from the fall of the Kaiser through the Weimar Republic to Hitler’s rule.

These are relatively recent examples. In 1787 when the American Constitution was written, the French Revolution hadn’t yet happened. The American Founders carefully studied older examples of factionalism tearing ancient societies apart—and Americans have reaped the fruits of their labors, steering clear of the cycle from monarchy to democracy to dictatorship that has plagued other parts of the world. Though far from perfect, the Constitution is robust and adaptable, and not coincidentally, remains the oldest written constitution in the world.

Yet today, Americans are so divided that many wonder if the United States will soon follow the same historical cycle followed by the French, the Russians, the Germans, and by so many others. Rival political tribes accuse each other of being fascist. Both sides see themselves as the stalwart defenders of democracy, and indeed sometimes of goodness itself, against a malevolent or deluded foe. The truth is less tribal and more disturbing.

A wrenching but necessary synthesis will help to recover the common good, and it begins in schools. There is a vast and messy middle ground between the rival anti-Lincoln extremes, which often become mired in ethical and historical illiteracy. Making the pro-Lincoln case means colonizing this messy middle ground, reacquiring a respect for the Constitution, and taking the flag back from would-be secessionists and insurrectionists. For all its flaws, Americans have something special with their country, and must work to preserve it.

How can we better balance the zeal for change and justice with an equally essential sobriety and awareness of the law of unintended consequences? Some questions can only be answered, if at all, one human mind and heart at a time. But some questions must be answered collectively. With Lincoln’s example, we have the opportunity to renew this great and flawed republic—and we’ll do it together or not at all.>

<When President Biden passed the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris in July she immediately changed the momentum of the 2024 election and energized the Democrats' base voters. The Democratic National Convention reflected this new energy and excitement. It was a joyful event, especially compared to the Republican convention, which was like a funeral and cult meeting mixed with a coronation. Public opinion polls since then have suggested a historic reversal of momentum as Harris rapidly caught up with Trump.

Harris successfully channeled a high-dominance leadership style, and in her one and only debate with Trump she publicly humiliated him by being smarter and sharper, exposing his fake alpha-male persona.

Unfortunately, Harris and the Democrats have lost their momentum in recent weeks. They were like an army on the counterattack but are now bogged down in the mud in what has seemingly become a battle of attrition.

Public opinion polls show that, barely two weeks before Election Day, Harris and Trump are basically tied both nationally and in the key battleground states. Early voting in the battleground state of Georgia has shown high levels of turnout. This can be interpreted as either a positive sign for Harris (energized voters who want to stop Trump) or as a positive for Trump (his “quiet” or “secret” voters are turning out in droves). Trump continues to dominate the news headlines for his escalating threats against democracy and freedom, promises to be a dictator on “day one,” and plans to imprison his and the MAGA movement’s “enemies.” In what many mainstream political observers and professional centrists have described as foolish given the importance of the battleground states, Trump is also planning rallies and other events in blue states. I believe, however, that Trump’s blue-state rallies are a stroke of tactical and strategic genius.

During an interview last Sunday on Fox News, Trump transparently stated that he is prepared to defy the Constitution by using the military to crush “the left” and his other opposition: “I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within… totally destroying our country… [I]n terms of Election Day, I think the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the big — and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by [the] National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen.”

Harris is pushing back against aspiring dictator Trump by publicly warning about his apparent mental and emotional instability and the extreme danger to the country and world. But with early voting already taking place and a highly polarized public discourse, in which too many Americans, despite the existential stakes, remain disengaged and undecided about this election and politics in general, can Harris leverage her high-dominance leadership energy to defeat Trump?

M. Steven Fish is a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley. He has appeared on BBC, CNN and other major networks, and has published in The New York Times, The Washington Post and Foreign Policy, among others. His new book is “Comeback: Routing Trumpism, Reclaiming the Nation, and Restoring Democracy's Edge.”

In this conversation, Fish explains how and why Harris and the Democrats lost their momentum against Trump and the MAGAfied Republicans and offers specific advice for how Harris can defeat Trump by emphasizing his alliance with America’s traditional enemies and his escalating fascist threats. Fish counsels that Trump’s appeal among alienated men in the so-called manosphere presents an opportunity for Harris to undermine his appeal among that group.

We have about two weeks before Election Day. How are you feeling? Where are we?

In the weeks following the debate on Sept. 10, the Harris-Walz campaign lost momentum, and you can see it in the deadlocked swing-state polls that were earlier trending their way. The main reason is that the Democrats again grew skittish about delivering provocative, attention-grabbing messaging that controls the news cycle and drives home a narrative of strength, success and optimism. This represents a change from the first two months of Harris’ campaign when the Democrats were dominating both Trump and the news. Consequently, the headlines again shifted to Trump’s shock-and-awe attacks on democracy and the Democrats and Harris’ struggles to strike back. Fortunately, there are signs over the past week that the campaign may be shifting back into a higher-dominance mode. Harris is stepping up her media appearances, the messaging seems to be getting tougher and Presidents Obama and Clinton are finally hitting the campaign trail.....>

<....What does that worst and most negative version of a high-dominance leadership style look like? For Harris and other defenders of and believers in democracy what does the more ideal and good version of it look like?

We’re seeing the worst of high-dominance leadership in Trump, just as we have seen it in Putin and just as we saw it in Hitler. But high-dominance leadership is just a tool, and it can be used for good or ill. FDR, Harry Truman, JFK, LBJ and MLK deployed their dominance skills to crush Hitler, halt Stalin, slap down bigots like Charles Coughlin, George Wallace, and Barry Goldwater and enact practically every piece of progressive legislation that the Democrats are fighting a rearguard action to salvage today.

These Democrats called it like they saw it and aimed to make opinions rather than just reading polls and telling voters what they thought they wanted to hear. They embraced risk and played to win big rather than striving not to offend and hoping to squeak by. They inspired generations of Americans and people around the world with their grand plans, visions of America leading the world and ferocious devotion to justice. They defined the American Way in their own terms and brought the blessings of full citizenship to countless millions for whom it had earlier been a mirage.

The Democrats don’t lack high-dominance leaders today. Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett has a brilliant mind, but what’s propelled her from obscure first-term congresswoman to Democratic headliner over the past two years is her gleeful, high-dominance chutzpah. Ruben Gallego is turning MAGA charlatan Kari Lake into finely minced meat and will certainly thrash her in Arizona’s Senate race. California Rep. Adam Schiff is sailing to the Senate on the strength of his hardcore defense of democracy and forceful anti-Trump leadership. Gov. Andy Beshear often seems like a soft touch. But he’s governing like a progressive in deep-red Kentucky and never failing to tell people what he believes and Kentuckians love him and reelected him for it. Then there are Govs. Wes Moore, Gretchen Whitmer and Josh Shapiro; the list goes on. We saw plenty of evidence early on that Harris and Walz also belong in this group and there are signs that they are trying to recapture the strength and emotional appeal of their earlier messaging. The question on which democracy hinges is: Will they pour it on now?

Trump is acting even more authoritarian and fascist. At his return rally in Butler, PA, the site of the assassination attempt, he returned to his fascist narrative that the “enemy from within” is more dangerous than any foreign adversary. Now he is invoking the Alien Enemies Act that was used to put Japanese Americans in concentration camps. He wants to crush “the leftists” and his other “enemies.” What’s his next move, escalation?

Change the name of the capital from Washington, D.C. to Trump, D.J.? Replace Lady Liberty with a statue of Hulk Hogan? Promise to zoom Putin into his national security briefings? Hard to say for sure, but yes, he’ll probably keep escalating. That should just make it easier for Harris and Walz to put him away, but they’ve got to take advantage.

What we’re seeing lately is Trump being Trump, no shocker there. Since all I care about is that the Democrats win, my thoughts are all about the unexploited opportunities being handed the Democrats to take Trump out. The statement you cite from the Butler rally, for example, gave the Democrats a great chance to scorn him for telling his fellow Americans that they pose a more dangerous threat to national security than do our worst foreign adversaries— who Trump openly calls his best foreign friends.

Harris hammered Trump at the DNC and during the debate—"Putin would eat you for lunch,” “World leaders are laughing at Donald Trump”—we need much more of this now. Pointing out that Trump supplied Putin with COVID tests is good but isn’t nearly enough. On Charlamagne Tha God’s radio show last week, Harris got it right by finally agreeing that MAGA is fascism and then saying of Trump: “The man is really quite weak. He’s weak. It’s a sign of weakness that you want to please dictators and seek their flattery and favor.”

Trump is doing his own circuit on right-wing podcasts, supposedly apolitical comedy shows (which mostly are not), YouTube shows and other parts of the "manosphere" and right-wing media universe. Trump hinted that he would be on Joe Rogan. Trump will potentially reach many millions of people, mostly disaffected men who may not be politically engaged but are certainly feeling like they are "victims" and searching for role models and guidance about how to be a "real man."....>

<....First, the Democrats should use these interviews with Trump as fodder not just to spotlight his misogyny, but to ridicule his small-handed, insecure manhood. Call it his Outreach to Incels Tour. Yes, the incels will rage but they’ll also be deflated and much of politically disengaged bro-land will snicker at Trump rather than rushing to the polls to vote for him. We know how Trump will react to that, which will give the Democrats even more to ridicule.

Second, Harris should go on Rogan herself. She’s got what it takes to charm and impress Rogan and his manosphere minions. She should also consider going on something like the Huberman Lab podcast. Andrew Huberman is a jacked Stanford neuroscientist who brings science to the masses and his show rates as the top health-and-wellness podcast in the world. He is apolitical, respectful of guests and free of the taint of bigotry. He also has an enormous, admiring audience among guys who bench over 250.

There are two dueling narratives as I see it among liberals, progressives and especially the hope-peddlers. Trump is done for as Harris’ lead is undercounted and we can’t determine the silent rage and outrage towards Trump and MAGA. All these closet anti-Trumpists among the GOP will supposedly come out in force. The other story is that Trump has silent voters and that “the economy” and “inflation” and immigration will carry it for Trump. Anecdotes are not necessarily reliable data but when I ride the bus with other working-class Black and brown folks, I hear lots of discontent about migrants and “illegal aliens,” jobs, how "Trump is crazy but sometimes tells the real truth" and some coolness towards and distrust of Harris. Where do you stand on this divergence of analysis and conclusions?

In polls taken in the last two weeks before the 2020 election, the average error in the vote margin was too favorable for Biden by about four percent in both national and statewide surveys. Of course, it’s possible that Trump is currently over-polling and Harris is under-polling, but that would represent a sea change from the past two presidential contests. We do know that Democrats are much more enthusiastic about Harris than they were about Biden when he dropped out and Harris is bringing in much more from small donors than Trump is. But I think the key variable here that isn’t getting as much attention is the possibility that enthusiasm for Trump might be declining, even if we are not yet seeing it in the polls. Harris’ high-dominance messaging when she first became the nominee delivered a serious blow to Trump’s tough guy image and undermined Trump’s morale. He no longer looked like he was having fun or was owning his opponents like he used to. He refused further debates and interviews outside friendly media outlets and his mood turned even darker and his energy fell. All these factors could put a dent in turnout for him.

But in order to continue to deflate Trump and support for him, Democrats have to keep making him look weak and pathetic and show themselves to be confident leaders who never avoid the truth, never fear Trump and never pander. Here their game could use some work. Let’s look at immigration, which you raise in your question. Harris is constantly being grilled on whether she and Biden should have moved earlier to stem the flow of undocumented migrants and her evasions are just leading to more embarrassing questions rather than getting the monkey off her back.

The truth is that illegal immigration was a problem early in the administration, but then she and Biden largely fixed it earlier this year. Harris could just say: You live and learn. Joe and I wanted to get this right and we weren’t going to do it by separating tear-soaked toddlers from their parents and putting them in cages like Trump did. So we did our homework and then took executive action to enact the tough legislation that Trump and the Republicans had derailed. Now we’re on the case and there are fewer illegal crossings than there were under Trump. Period. Next question. In other words, she could suck the power out of Trump’s demagoguery with a truthful, disarming mea culpa, display a capacity for learning and follow with a forceful declaration of victory. This would help counter the opinions of the folks you mention on Trump being a truth-teller, no matter how crazy, while being uncertain about Harris. Of course Harris is a person of the highest integrity, which you might expect in someone with her professional background. But demonstrating that overtly, especially to folks who don’t know you well, sometimes requires sticking your own unvarnished truth in their faces....>

<....I also mentioned the people possibly buying Trump’s lies about the economy — on jobs, inflation, and the rest. What do you think is going on with that?

Harris’ messaging on the economy leaves people vulnerable to Trump’s distortions and lies about the superiority of his economy. It also stokes suspicions about Harris’ lack of audacity, grasp of Americans’ aspirations and mentalities, ability to add anything to what Biden has already done and commitment to the truth. This is a serious weakness in her messaging, though it could be corrected overnight.

Practically every time the subject of the economy arises in Harris’ interviews and public statements, she leads with a laundry list of subsidies and plays Santa Claus: I’ll give you $25k in downpayment assistance for first-time homebuyers, $50k for a small business tax credit and a $6k credit for newborns. When asked how she’ll pay for all this, which would add trillions to the deficit, she says that a bunch of Nobel laureates said her program would be less deficit-ballooning than Trump’s. She adds something about making the rich and corporations pay their fair share, without specifying how the additional revenues would offset the costs of her programs. She typically doesn’t even mention economic growth, which is the driver of everything and without which none of her proposals have a chance.

This approach is riddled with weaknesses. First, it fails to declare how much better the economy is now than it was under Trump. Second, most Americans don’t intend to buy their first home, start a small business, or have a child over the next few years. Thus, her core proposals are of little immediate interest to the vast majority. Third, her message sounds redistributionist rather than pro-growth and economic freedom. Most Americans have a libertarian streak and a bootstrap mentality. They seek a policy environment that allows them to provide for and prosper themselves far more than they long to receive government benefits. In practical terms, moreover, most people grasp that raising the corporate tax rate is not a growth plan and it will lower profits and accordingly reduce stock gains. Half of Americans own stocks directly or through their 401k. Fourth, her message lacks a spirit of optimistic, patriotic zeal. It fails to proclaim and claim credit for America’s economic dynamism and global preeminence, which have deepened under the Biden-Harris administration....>

<....So what would a winning message on the economy sound like?

First, it would declare victory and assert superiority over the Republicans. Owning your own successes and pounding them into voters’ heads is a hallmark of strong, opinion-shaping leadership. Harris isn’t doing this. She appears to be stuck in the 21st-century Democrat’s habit of fearing that she’ll be seen as uncaring if she crows about accomplishments, so she waits around to do it until polling shows everyone is “feeling the benefits.” But that’s getting it backward. People tend to believe what their leaders tell them. That’s why, in total contradistinction to the facts, most people thought and continue to think that the economy was much better under Trump than under Obama and Biden-Harris. Trump told them and still tells them that he presided over a stellar economy, while the Democrats after Bill Clinton have wrongly believed they score more points — even while they’re in power — by expressing sympathy for supposedly suffering voters.

Here is what Harris should be saying, though not necessarily with this much detail unless it’s an economy-policy speech: Even if we drop the 2020 COVID-induced slowdown, the economy has grown faster under Biden-Harris than it did under Trump. The stock market has been setting records, soaring far above Trump-era highs. Today it topped 43,000. Dream on, Donald. Biden-Harris’ economy has added an astonishing average of 12,000 jobs per day on average, twice as many as Trump’s economy added even before COVID hit. Inflation spiked a couple of years ago, but that was due entirely to COVID-induced supply-chain effects. We’ve hammered inflation down to two percent. The growth of wages has exceeded inflation every month for the past 18 months and counting. Our American companies are powerhouses of innovation, growth and job creation; as a result, we’re leaving the other big economies around the world, including China, in the dust. I want salaried employees and workers to get a fair share of the profits. Under my leadership, they will; under Trump, they won’t. Trump’s insane tariffs would also reignite inflation, stifle growth and leave our workers and companies struggling to keep up. During my presidency, we’ll supercharge growth, boost wages and companies’ profits and make Biden’s good economy pale by comparison. Like under Bill Clinton, our economy will grow so strongly that we’ll be able to slash the deficit as we go.

Harris could then add her plans on small business loans, down payment assistance for first-time buyers and the newborn tax credit. But her messaging architecture should lead with a powerful statement that speaks to — and glorifies — the entire nation while expressing wild optimism about our prospects under her leadership and contempt for Trump’s Paleolithic policy plans.>

<The Texas Freedom to Read Project is a parent-led organization dedicated to safeguarding the rights of Texans — especially young people — to freely access information. We collaborate with local residents to combat censorship attempts across our state. Although we are frequently disheartened by these attempts, rarely are we surprised. But a decision made this month in a county near Houston left us stunned. The Montgomery County Commissioners Court ordered librarians there to reclassify the nonfiction children’s book “Colonization and the Wampanoag Story” as fiction.

The Montgomery County Commissioners Court ordered librarians there to reclassify the nonfiction children’s book ‘Colonization and the Wampanoag Story’ as fiction.

Written by Linda Coombs, a historian who is Wampanoag, the highly regarded book is classified as nonfiction by the Library of Congress and all major Texas library systems. Because that’s what it is: a book about actual historical events and the true story of America from the Indigenous perspective. If government officials can arbitrarily dismiss a well-researched, factual account of history as fiction because it challenges a dominant narrative, then what other truths will they try to silence? If they can decide that a history told from the perspective of an Indigenous writer should be treated like some kind of fabrication, then what other perspectives will they move to disregard?

What prevents them from reclassifying books on other nonfiction topics — politics, health, religion, climate change — simply because they disagree with the ideas or viewpoints presented?

This reclassification decision is a consequence of a contentious policy change in March. Right-wing activists pressured the Montgomery County Commissioners Court to remove librarians from the review process for challenged children’s, young adult and parenting books. Documents obtained through a public information request by Teresa Kenney, a Montgomery County resident, library supporter and local small bookstore owner, revealed that Coombs’ book was challenged by an unidentified individual on Sept. 10.

Shortly thereafter, the newly formed Montgomery County “Citizens Review Committee” reclassified “Colonization and the Wampanoag Story” as fiction. The committee reviewed the book in a closed meeting — all its meetings are closed to the public — and it offered no explanation for its decision. The new policy does not allow decisions made by the Citizens Review Committee to be appealed.

Again, we’re rarely surprised by censorship efforts in Texas, but the Montgomery County decision to arbitrarily reclassify the book as fiction sends an unmistakable and troubling message that perspectives different from those of people in political power are not only unwelcome, but may be falsely labeled as make-believe. This decision is viewpoint discrimination, and the implications extend far beyond a single book....>

<....The current censorship movement spreading across Texas and the U.S. is not a grassroots movement, but part of a well-funded, highly coordinated political machine. Far-right political action committees and politically motivated billionaires dominate endorsements and campaign finance reports for candidates across the nation, from local school board races to the presidency. These candidates pledge to “save the children” from “woke indoctrination” by removing or restricting what they deem “inappropriate” or “woke” from libraries. Since the onset of this censorship wave in 2021, the efforts to restrict and remove books have focused on eliminating identities, viewpoints and ideas that oppose the political agenda of those behind the movement.

Also, characterizing censorship efforts as being about “parents’ rights” is deliberately misleading. Parents advocating for censorship argue that it’s their right to restrict what their children are exposed to. But they’re attempting to make these decisions for entire communities and school districts, and they disregard the rights of young people and parents who want their children to have access to diverse and inclusive books.

While it should go without saying, no one is advocating for putting inappropriate materials into the hands of children. Parents have a right to play a crucial role in guiding their own children’s reading choices to ensure they are suitable for their age, interests and maturity level. Students themselves also have a right to access ideas and information. But no individual or political group has the right to make those decisions for everybody else.

Characterizing censorship efforts as being about ‘parents’ rights’ is deliberately misleading.

We believe it’s important that people outraged by censorship efforts like these make their voices heard by supporting candidates who support the freedom to read, especially in local elections. We encourage concerned citizens to join and strengthen local anti-censorship groups and to speak out against censorship and attacks on the freedom to read at school board and local government meetings.

A healthy democracy relies on a well-informed citizenry. We are currently facing a dangerous disinformation epidemic, and public libraries serve as sacred institutional havens where citizens can access resources and information based on centuries of curated collection practices guided by library science — not by the latest viral conspiracy theories rooted in disinformation.

The government should not be declaring what is fiction or nonfiction.

UPDATE (Oct. 22, 2024 7:05 p.m. E.T.): According to Chron.com and The Texas Freedom to Read Project, Montgomery County officials returned “Colonization and the Wampanoag Story” to its appropriate nonfiction section Tuesday.>

<The Texas review board that mandated public libraries move a book about the mistreatment of Native Americans to the "fiction" section has been suspended, as have all of its recent decisions, in response to widespread pushback. That means historian Linda Coombs' Colonization and the Wampanoag Story will be returned to the non-fiction section at public libraries in Montgomery County. "It needs to go back," County Commissioner James Noack said at a Tuesday meeting of the Commissioners Court, per Lonestar Live. "And just for the record, there should be no confusion. Something is either true or it's not true."

The court issued a stay against all actions by the citizens' review committee since Oct. 1 and said future decisions were on hold. It also appointed a new panel, made up of officials from commissioners' offices, "to review and revise library policy," including the role and makeup of the review committee. The citizens' committee was given the power to review books challenged in the county last March, replacing an earlier committee made up of five community members and five librarians, per Popular Information, which notes the change came after pressure from a local right-wing group.

The decision to reclassify Coombs' book about the Wampanoag tribe as fiction was widely panned as an attempt to dismiss Indigenous history and marginalized viewpoints. PEN America's Kasey Meehan said it "essentially eliminates the opportunity for a young reader to discover and learn the true story of the discovery of the Americas through an Indigenous perspective." PEN America joined with the Writers Guild, Coombs' publisher Penguin Random House, and numerous library associations to demand the county commission reverse the move. Separately, the National Campaign for Justice organized a petition that amassed more than 35,000 signatures.>

As yet another attempt at revisionism by Far Right scum is defeated.....

<Elon Musk’s recent political maneuvering is not just questionable − it’s a blatant attempt to leverage his influence for personal gain.

With billions in federal contracts at stake for his SpaceX and Tesla, the potential for serious conflicts of interest threatens democracy as we know it.

The CEO is known for being adventurous and visionary, but his recent political moves are raising ethical eyebrows, and rightly so.

Musk gave $75 million in only three months to a pro-Trump political action committee that he created, concentrating on voter turnout in battleground states. He also has appeared at reelection campaign rallies for former President Donald Trump.

And now he has taken the legally questionable step of promising to hand out a $1 million check each day to a registered voter who signs an online petition and lives in one of seven swing states.

In July, Musk used his social media platform, X, to endorse Trump for president.

Under normal circumstances, a celebrity endorsing a political candidate wouldn’t raise red flags. However, the billionaire's endorsement coupled with his companies' lucrative federal contracts ‒ and Trump’s suggestion that Musk should be involved in a new government efficiency commission if he's reelected ‒ creates a glaring conflict of interest, one that could be interpreted as a strategic play to ensure continued government funding.

NASA and Musk's SpaceX are in partnership under the Space Act Agreement. The partnership, developed a decade ago, provides America's space program with the means to frequently and reliably launch satellites and send crews on scientific missions.

SpaceX in turn receives billions of dollars in payments from the federal government.

Musk's electric vehicle company also thrives on government funding. By this year, Tesla has won 14% of the contracts awarded to build charging plazas supported by the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program, also known as NEVI.

Funny enough, the Biden-Harris administration enacted NEVI.

Trump has railed against electric vehicles and government subsidies for them throughout his campaign. He's even said he would consider eliminating EV tax credits. So why would Musk endorse a political leader whose policies could severely hurt one of his core businesses?

Musk’s political positioning is a stark reminder of how corporate interests can manipulate public policy and taxpayer resources for profit. The implications go beyond Musk and Trump, raising broader ethical concerns about the integrity of public-private partnerships.

If corporate figures can leverage their influence to maintain or expand government contracts, it erodes public trust in a system that should prioritize fairness over favoritism. Policymakers must enact stronger safeguards against conflicts of interest to preserve the integrity of government funding and to protect democracy from the corrosive effects of unchecked corporate power.>

<Colleges and universities find themselves increasingly trapped with the politics of the state where they reside.

As state legislatures pass sweeping measures on everything from abortion to LGBTQ rights, more than a quarter of students, representing both sides of the aisle, are writing off schools simply based on where they are.

And there’s not much the colleges can do.

“I think we are in a place and a time where colleges are increasingly being seen as political places, and so it makes every sense that students would be aware of this as they’re making decisions about where to enroll, and that they would factor that into whether or not this is an institution they want to apply to,” said Katharine Meyer, a fellow in the Brown Center on Education Policy at The Brookings Institution.

A poll from the Art & Science Group released this month showed 28 percent of students ruled out a school due to the politics of the state the college is in. Among those who excluded certain schools, 75 percent of liberals avoided ones they saw as too far to the right on abortion rights or LGBTQ issues, while 66 percent of conservatives crossed off colleges in states they labeled as too Democratic, too liberal on LGBTQ issues or too lenient on crime.

Texas was the most frequently excluded state, with 31 percent of those who eliminated schools based on state saying it was a dealbreaker for them. The other states that were ruled out by 15 percent or more were Alabama, California, Florida and New York.

“Schools can try to be very public about being welcoming of everybody with different opinions and stuff like that,” said Dick Startz, professor of economics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. But he added, “I’m not so sure, when you’re talking about high school students who are looking for where to go, whether it’s really very easy to get that message across in any way.”

“And of course, it’s also true that there are actually realistic restrictions in a bunch of states. So, you know, there are states that have made a decision that universities, public ones, can’t have DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] offices, or these restrictions on abortion, and there are various examples like that that the schools really don’t have any control over, and it may matter to people,” Startz added.

DEI offices are banned at state universities in Florida and Texas, which also have two of the nation’s most restrictive abortion bans.

California and New York, meanwhile, are among the bluest states in the nation, with legislators there approving a bevy of liberal priorities, including extensive protections for abortion rights and transgender Americans.

A poll from last year found similar results, with 1 in 4 college applicants eliminating schools based on the politics of their state.

“I mean, it’s a challenge because there are certain dimensions of this where the institution has no control, and they are going to be asked to implement or enforce state policy. And in my experience, the vast majority of institutions are going to do that. They’re going to comply with that, and are not necessarily going to, you know, attempt to directly kind of challenge or to circumvent state policy. And so that means that there — there are certain laws that are going to be passed that are going to have ramifications for college students as well,” said Kevin McClure, associate professor of higher education at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

“I think, you know, some institutions are likely trying to emphasize that despite what may be happening in the state, there are different realities in their particular area, and that there is a greater diversity of students and viewpoints that you can find there that creates somewhat of an island, as it were, within the greater context, political context of the state,” McClure added.....>