Book recommendation thread! Some I read for the first time this year and really enjoyed…
First off, Brenda Wineapple’s THE IMPEACHERS was a fascinating close look at Andrew Johnson's impeachment. Rich with detail and a bona fide page-turner.
THE COWSHED by Ji Xianlin and CHINA UNDER MAO by Andrew Walder. Micro and macro looks at the Cultural Revolution. Get past facile analogies, learn about the reality. (First is a vivid personal tale, second is an academic accounting)
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X and Audre Lorde’s ZAMI: A NEW SPELLING OF MY NAME both use autobiography to make deeply compelling critiques of society. They also don’t shy away from the complications real life holds for ideology.
THE THREE-BODY PROBLEM TRILOGY by Liu Cixin. Sci-fi with idea piled atop idea. Foregrounds the utter weirdness of much of physics and goes wild with it. Starts as a mystery about a video game, ends as a centuries-spanning interstellar epic
What happened when American radicals really did start setting off bombs and hijacking planes? Bryan Burrough’s DAYS OF RAGE and Brendan Koerner’s THE SKIES BELONG TO US compellingly tell those early ‘70s stories.
TRUST EXERCISE by Susan Choi. Tricky, tricky. I came to similar conclusions as @constancegrady about the ending.
2.) After Tony Bobulinski went public, FBI agents interviewed him right away (rather than waiting till after the election). Naturally, news of the interview immediately went public.
Maybe a defensible call, but at least raises an eyebrow
Overall this at least complicates the "Barr successfully kept it all secret" narrative, even though neither late October story got much play in mainstream outlets
Judge Emmet Sullivan has dismissed the case against Flynn, due to his pardon
Sullivan points out Flynn's pardon is "extraordinarily broad," but says he only needs to consider the part of it that covers the charge Flynn pleaded guilty to
Sullivan wants to emphasize that the pardon does not mean Flynn has been shown to be "innocent"
I'm honestly curious, given the existence of primaries and beliefs among the GOP electorate, about why Kemp, Ducey, Raffensperger, MI/PA/WI legislative leaders *haven’t* gone full MAGA and tried to overturn the results.
Respect for facts and the law? Goodness of their hearts?
What we’ve seen over the past month is that lots of Rs have been willing to *rhetorically* back Trump’s “stolen election” lies and to urge *other* Republicans to do something about it. But almost no R in a position of power to do something has actually done so.
The main exceptions here were the Wayne County canvassers who quickly caved and the one MI state board of canvassers holdout who ultimately didn't matter. But other than that, no one in a position of authority was really willing to push the limits for Trump.
Conservatives had hoped that Clinesmith would "flip" and reveal misconduct from others. No sign he did so in this sentencing memo. Says he spoke about his other FISA applications but does not mention providing any useful information that should mitigate sentence
Strong case from @emptywheel that Durham's speculation that political bias might have played a role in Clinesmith's offense is inappropriate. He admits he can't prove it, just asserts it's "plausible"
Some short last names redacted here in the court document describing a "bribery-for-pardon" scheme involving an attorney dcd.uscourts.gov/sites/dcd/file…
The bribery-for-pardon scheme appears to be about someone who's already in Bureau of Prisons custody
This part says the clemency request involved “past substantial campaign contributions” and “anticipated future substantial political contributions”