Lauren Spencer

No Kings, Catskill Ny

The reduction of copy editors at publications like the NYT doesn’t just increase risk of poor sentences and questionable word choices, it also means that stories with gaping holes or structural challenges get through. This, imo, is a leading reason why we see what we do. There is no “last defense.”

Great point. And perhaps this is more a NYTimes problem: an unreliable source at best. So double-perhaps the worrisome headline is more “NYTimes telling us how to see” and that’s simply not OK either.

To be clear: congress compliant pisses me off but is not surprising. Streets that are quiet suggest capitulation and that equals roll over, it’s done.

New York Times headline:
“Why Federal Courts May Be the Last Bulwark Against Trump: With a compliant Congress and mostly quiet streets, the president’s opponents are turning to the judicial branch with a flurry of legal actions…?”

“Mostly quiet streets” worries me the most in that headline.

Damn it. And yet she still came out and apologized for not being able to finish the show.

Today the DOE announced plans to dismiss 11 outstanding complaints against book bans, and to eliminate the position of Book Ban Coordinator at the Office of Civil Rights (OCR). This distortion of the intended work of the OCR--the protection of civil rights and students' freedoms in our nation's schools--is negligent, grossly un-American, and in direct conflict with freedom of speech, a bedrock right enshrined in the Constitution. Authors Against Book Bans unequivocally stands against all such attempts at censorship and discrimination. We stand with families, students and educators across the country who exercise free speech every time they open a book, and with the 71% of Americans who are opposed to book bans. Book bans do not protect children; history teaches us that they are a terrifying step toward tyranny.

President Trump's DOE has made themselves clear: they will support book banners in their efforts to strip our institutions of learning of the books that define them.

So let us be perfectly clear: we're going to do whatever we can to try and stop them.

Just listened to If Books Could Kill (the latest Patreon members moment) & it made me happier than anything has in very many days! @ifbookspod.bsky.social