He Lingers Cause He Likes What He Sees

A Confident Rick Perry

Iowa is receiving him well. Hell, he might have beat Michele Bachmann in the Ames Straw Poll had he announced his candidacy sooner.

The big thing to remember about this guy is that his talk of job creation is a lie!

He "created" jobs not by increasing consumer demand alone, but by luring jobs from other states because of the low wages most of Texas enjoys. I use enjoy as if it were opposite day, of course.

He simply cannot use his job creation strategy on the whole country, so don't believe that load of crap for one minute.

But let's focus on what's right in front of us. Perry is stealing Bachmann's shine. I think that lade is batshit crazy, but I think I'd rather have her contesting the presidency.

Yes Perry's from Texas, Dubya's state.

Yes Perry's scarily anti-immigration.

Yes Perry hates education.

But all of that won't keep him from picking up more votes than he deserves. By nature of simply not being Barack Obama, people can expect he'll face a less contentious Washington. That alone worries me.

This one guy with the chance to beat both boring-ass Romney and crazy-ass Bachmann is taking his stand. I'll be here to remind folks that he's full of hot air. Hopefully I won't be the only one to notice.

WTF Non-Compromisers! Are You Happy Now?!

<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/06/business/us-debt-downgraded-by-sp.html?_r=1&hp">S&P Downgrades America's Debt</a>

The financial implications of this aren't clear yet. But one thing is clear: this crap could have been avoided!

Were the political points worth the downgrade of our country's debt rating? Some jerks would probably answer yes. Sigh. I'm moving to France.

I would love to go live in Europe for at least a year after my fiance and I finish grad school. I wonder if I have a baby there with dual citizenship, if I can move there to take my kid "home" when America has slid a little further into decline and is no longer a great place to live...


Image via <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/06/business/us-debt-downgraded-by-sp.html?_r=1&hp">nytimes.com / credit: Scott Ellis/Bloomberg News

These people, this business, they did what they had to do. It's no one's fault, or wait, yes it is! All these folks should have done better. Every single one of you who refused to speak with maturity and clarity and logic. It's all your fault, those who stood by and only complained without ever offering a viable solution.

“The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government’s medium-term debt dynamics,” it said.

That quote points out the big "DUH" that occurred to me when this deal was signed. This deal sucks. I know it, Paul Krugman knows it, and Obama knows it. If this is really the best we can do, I'm going to downgrade my belief in our government.

Don't Even Get Me Started On The Debt Ceiling

Anyone who says it's equally both sides making things difficult is a centrist jerk. People who think that finding a compromise in the middle is the best way, always, are crazy. Especially when that middle keeps shifting as those to one side keep taking gigantic steps away from the other side.

I'm looking at you, Roland Martin. You're a crazy person to think that it's both the Democrats and Republicans equally holding up progress.

The Democrats are still whining about having to potentially cut some of the entitlement programs. But they're sure as hell not going to have to be coerced with promises of constitutional amendments and pizza to get their vote on a bill that doesn't completely suck.

The Republicans in general and the Tea Partiers in particular are appearing more and more to be full-blown lunatics. A lot of these freshman members of Congress don't fully understand how the process works. They think they can get an amendment to the constitution passed during election year. Election year. Passed. In all 50 states etc.

Seriously? I know these people constantly deride and undervalue education. But did none of them take civics at any point from 5th grade to grad school? Sigh.

Back to the point at hand. Now, suddenly, there's a silver lining. I don't know that there's more of one than before. I just know that the media tide has shifted and all the calls of the sky falling are shifting to faux rainbow sightings. I'm looking at you New York Times.

This craziness almost made my parents hesitate to sign a contract for my wedding venue. This is where this gets personal. I have half a mind to move to another state, just so I can vote against any one of these rich guys who have no problem pushing the rest of America, and the planet, to the brink of economic disaster.

Seriously, Murdoch? What The Hell?!

First off, shout out to Amazon & Kindle for being awesome! I pay for a monthly subscription to the New York Times newspaper and get it delivered on my Kindle.

When The New York Times started charging people to read their website, Kindle worked with them to get access for their subscribers. So now I can link to articles and you can read them too! It's so great. And now I'm done gushing and back to ranting.

If you haven't read about the scandal in Europe right now, pay more attention to the news. Read this article, and then read all the related articles it links to.

And shame on you for not being on top of this craziness.

So here's my beef: what is Murdoch's issue? After this thing keeps ballooning bigger and bigger, his response is still infuriating.

I feel like had he just distanced himself from the people and organizations involved, he might have emerged a bit better. A good old fashioned under-the-bus-throwing was very apropos is this situation.

But this keeps getting bigger and bigger. I think he thinks he's too big to fail. I think he thinks he's Al Pacino in Ocean's Thirteen.



Look at 1:25, 1:55, 2:45, but especially 2:52 to see what I mean. And with people like Tom Perkins having his back, Murdoch of course believes he'll be okay, no matter how long the earthquake shakes his giant twisted building.

I will be following this story to see what happens when he goes before the committee in Parliament that should be going on right about now.

Middle East/African Revolution/Protest Series: Lebanon

The protests in Lebanon kicked off on January 12, 2011.
See the whole Middle East/Aftican Revolution/Protest Series.
The next country is Lebanon. Theirs is the second protest that started in the new year. This particular country didn't receive front page coverage in the newspapers that I read frequently, so I particularly enjoyed doing research into what happened here. This country was the first one several I'll cover that have only been mentioned in passing in most American journalism.

Basic History
Lebanon's official name is the Republic of Lebanon. Geographically, it is located in Western Asia, but it is considered a Middle East country. The capital is Beirut. The population is 4.2 million people. The main language is Arabic.

Lebanon's most recent leader is Michel Suleiman. He became president first as a compromise between the polarized sides of Parliament, but he was elected to office in an official election by Parliament in 2008. Lebanon has a unique governmental organization. The President has to be Maronite Christian, the Prime Minister has to be a Sunni Muslim, and the Speaker of the Parliament has to be a Shi'a Muslim. All the major political parties in Lebanon are setup according to religion.

In terms of Lebanese independence, they've been independent from the French since the 1940s. They declared independence in 1941; it was recognized in 1943, French troops actually left Lebanese soil in 1946. Beirut was considered a very stable country until the Hezbollah war with Israel in 2006. Now, it's rebuilding it's infrastructure. But Beirut was able to avoid the financial recession that rocked most of the globe because of tightly regulated banks.


The Protests
 The main causes cited as the reason for the protests include: lack of secular politics, corruption, and a desire for reform of Lebanese confessionalism.

There was supposed to be a Special Tribunal for Lebanon convened. The goal for that meeting was to indict Hezbollah members for the assassination of a previous Prime Minister. The current Prime Minister refused to call an emergency cabinet session to discuss cooperation with the Tribunal.

On January 12, 2011, the government collapsed after Energy Minister Gebran Bassil announced that all ten opposition ministers had resigned following months of warnings by Hezbollah that it would not remain inactive should there be indictments against the group. On January 17, 2011, the indictments were issued.

The government had lost more than one third of its members and so President Suleiman announced (after accepting the resignations) that according to the Lebanese constitution, he would be responsible for forming a new government and the cabinet would run the government until the new one is complete.

The actual protests didn't begin until Sunday, February 27, 2011 with a rally in Beirut against Confessionalism. There was another protest on Sunday March 6, 2011 that spread to other cities and grew in size and intensity. Where these protests will go is still unknown, but at least they have a uniform claim for secular reform of the sectarian government.

More information about the Lebanese protests can be found at , wikipedia.org, NOWLebanon.com, and The Los Angeles Times.

Middle East/African Revolution/Protest Series: Jordan

The protests in Jordan kicked off on January 7, 2011.
See the whole Middle East/African Revolution/Protest Series.
Jordan comes next in chronological order. I don't remember ever reading a whole bunch about what was happening in Jordan. I was actually surprised to hear that their protests started so early in the new year. But that doesn't matter now because I am learning about what happened so you can learn too.

Basic History
Jordan's official name is the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Geographically, it is located in Western Asia, though it is considered a Middle East country. Important bordering countries include: Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, and Israel. The capital is Amman. The population is estimated at 6.4 million people. The official language is Arabic, though Jordanians speak at least ten others.

Jordan's most recent leader is King Abdullah II bin al-Hussein. He's been ruling since 1999 when his father died. Jordan is a constitutional monarchy with representative government. He's been useful for reaffirming the peace treaty with Israel and relations with America. So at least in terms of our interests, Jordan was on point.

In terms of independence, Jordan used to be called Transjordan and under British supervision. After the supervision ended in 1946, the Transjordanian parliament chose Abdullah I to be the first king. No major fights or anything like that needed to happen. This country has had issues with Israel and the West Bank, most notable revoking the citizenship of Palestinnians on the West Bank, so Israel can't resettle them back into Jordan.


The Protests
The main causes cited as the reasons for the protests include: food inflation, wage/salary stagnation, lack of democracy, and unemployment.

Jordan has a history of persecuting journalists and activists. People who get arrested are not surprised when they get tortured by security officials. And the government officials weren't chosen by the people. That plus high food prices led to thousands protesting in the capital of Amman and other cities. They pointedly called out the government, especially the (now former) Prime Minister, Samir Rifai.

On February 1st, the early protests were responded to by King Abdullah II by firing his cabinet. He asked Marouf el-Bakhit to form a new cabinet.

The protests late in January and in February were coordinated by the Muslim Brotherhood which is active in Jordan and other Middle East countries. They got thousands of people to come out and protest and got results. They felt that Bakhit wasn't really about democracy and couldn't help usher in leader who would introduce real change.

The government has promised to end gerrymandering so constituency representation was more even. They've lifted the requirement for permission to protest. They've promised press freedoms, reduction in food prices, and salary increases. Also, opposition groups have been included in the new government that has been formed.

The protests aren't done yet. The opposition is still waiting to see how the promises are implemented.
More information can be found at latimes.com, wikipedia.org, and bbc.co.uk.

Middle East/African Revolution/Protest Series: Tunisia

The protests in Tunisia kicked off on December 18, 2010.
See the whole Middle East/Aftican Revolution/Protest Series.
It makes sense to start with Tunisia because this is where all the protests kicked off. Before I get to the story of Tunisian revolution, I do want to talk about the country because I'm sure a good number of Americans had never even heard of this country before the revolution made front-page news.


Basic History
Tunisia's official name is the Tunisian Republic. Geographically, it is the northernmost country in Africa. Libya and Algeria, two other countries with ongoing protests, border it. The capital city is Tunis. The population is 10.4 million+. 98% of the national population is Arab and the main language spoken is Tunisian Arabic.

Tunisia's most recent president was Zine El Abidine Ben Ali (Ben Ali is his surname) from 1987 to 2011. In terms of it's relation to American history, Tunisia is where the Allied Forces of World War II first worked together in an alliance to win a battle. That was in the 1940s.

In terms of Tunisian independence, France had invaded Tunisia back in 1869, and setup colonies. Between them and the Italians, there were lots of Europeans in Tunisia. A man name Habib Bourguiba is credited with leading the Independence Tunisia gained from France in 1957. He was president until 1987 when he was first declared unfit to rule by doctors then ousted by Ben Ali in a bloodless coup.

The Tunisia under Ben Ali was one where people routinely had to pay out bribes to start a business, own a home, even marry. For the culture of that country, peoples' aversion to humiliation was put at odds with doing what they had to in order to survive under an oppressive regime.


The Revolution
This revolution has been called the Jasmine Revolution, but it is also called the Sidi Bouzid revolution, named for where it began.

The main causes cited as the reason for the protests include: high unemployment, food inflation, corruption, lack of freedom of speech, lack of political freedom, and poor living conditions. But on to the history of the revolution.

On December 17, 2010 a young man named Tarek el-Tayyib Mohamed Ben Bouazizi (surname Bouazizi) killed himself. He was a young man, not yet 27, born just under a year after my older brother who turns 28 this month. The stories told of what happened are the stuff of legend. The version I know is that he was a fruit vendor, doing what he could to make enough money to feed his family.

In Tunisia, you couldn't just decide one day to be a vendor. You needed a permit. They had people with the job of going around and checking permits. Those without a permit were shut down. A police woman confiscated his cart and shut him down in the city of Sidi Bouzid on December 17th. He tried to complain to the authorities, but was not granted an audience. Within an hour, he was back at the local municipality headquarters, where he doused himself in flammable liquid and set himself on fire.

This sparked a protest by his family, to which the police responded not very peacefully. The next day, there were riots in Sidi Bouzid, which were unreported but were spread through Facebook and YouTube. The young man Bouazizi was in the hospital and died January 4, 2011.

Protests spread to other cities, mostly over unemployment. These early protests had violent clashes between police and protesters. By mid-January, the protests had spread across the country and economic lines. By the end of January, people were openly and regularly defying curfews. The protests grew from decrying mistreatment to calling for the ouster of the President, his family, and all associated government and parliament officials.

The President Ben Ali finally fled the country on January 14. 2011. His assets had been frozen and countries around the world spoke out about embracing the Tunisian peoples' right to freedom and formation of a government for and by the people. It has been a bumpy road so far, as expected in a new democracy. There have been protests against the interim leader, Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi because he is associated with the previous president, and part of the president's political party.

The government was reshuffled. Ghannouchi resigned after removing all party members from the coalition government setup to conduct government business and setup an election within 60 days. The new prime minister is Beji Caid el Sibsi. They left the president appointed by Ghannouchi in place to oversee the constitutional development. That man is Yadh Ben Achour.

As of right now, the plan is to hold elections for a Constitutional Assembly on July 24, 2011. That means those elected will be responsible for drafting/editing a new constitution for Tunisia under President Achour. National elections will presumably be held at some point after that. Also, INTERPOL is looking to locate Ben Ali and six of his relatives ad arrest them. The word is that he fled to Saudi Arabia, so hopefully they'll find him there.


Most of the information provided in this post can be found through wikipedia.org, cnn.com, and nytimes.com.

A Libyan Leader At War With Rebels, And Reality

If you click the title of this blog post, it will send you to a New York Time article online this morning. Or you can click here. This article is exactly the story that's been narrated about Qaddafi in America. I'm not sure if it's the story they're telling around the rest of the planet. But they sure do paint him crazy here.


Yes, they are still calling the opposition rebels. I wish they wouldn't. When I think of "rebels", I think of the gun-toting mercenaries of various nationalities that Qaddafi and his sons have actually brought into Libya to try and hold onto power. Not the people fighting for their lives and freedom against an oppressive regime.


Of course, there are two sides to every story. America's own Civil War still has at least two versions of what went down and who was on the side of right. The Confederates were wrong by the way. You don't get to live your life as you choose when your life is detriment to the lives of so many others. By that reasoning, no one should have bothered to jail the real life versions of Hannibal Lecter. but I digress.


In Libya, there is no shortage of comic, megalomaniac, downright crazy ass things coming out of this man's mouth. Unfortunately, he is still making decisions that are killing hundreds of people. Sure it's funny to compare the craziness out of his mouth to the Charlie Sheen, but that's not going to help the Libyan people. You know what will help them? A no fly zone, sanctions, courting military officials to abandon ship. I also like the idea of staying off of Libyan soil.


Qaddafi isn't as dumb as he's been acting because he got ahead of the narrative about foreign involvement. He made it impossible for troops from other countries (except his mercenaries) to deploy troops. He accused them of trying to colonize the country. America and other countries are smart to stay away in that case. Also, these Arab and Middle Eastern revolutions have been so much better than Iraq for the last decade. It was homegrown. The people who live there are invested with time, energy, blood, and sacrifice. It is in America's best interest to keep these revolutions in the hands of the people.


The first paragraph of the article says it all.

Residents here were awakened before dawn on Sunday by the sound of artillery and gunfire in the streets. When they tuned into state television broadcasts, they heard stunning news: the Libyan military had routed the rebels seeking to oust Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. The gunfire, they were told, was in celebration.

Well, the part that made the Libyan people who support him happy. Too bad there's another side to that story.

But Sunday was just another day spent through the looking glass of the oil-financed and omnipresent cult of personality that Colonel Qaddafi has spent 41 years building in Libya. Few of the claims by the Libyan state media lined up with the facts — there was no decisive victory by his forces — and the heavy firing in Tripoli on Sunday morning was never persuasively explained.

But accuracy and logic have never been the tenets of Colonel Qaddafi’s governing philosophy, and their absence is especially conspicuous now, as rebels pose the greatest challenge to his four decades of enigmatic rule.

Qaddafi isn't going anywhere yet. Obfuscate is a word used quite often in news articles. The New York Times accuses this man of obfuscating as part of his strategy to hold onto control. The definition of obfuscate (as a verb) is:

1. to confuse, bewilder, or stupefy.

2. to make obscure or unclear: to obfuscate a problem with extraneous information.

That describes the reasoning behind all the lying too. Are they going to have to drag this man out of the country before he's forced to accept he's not the Libyan leader anymore? Probably. I just hope many more people don't have to die to make that happen.

Several of those at the rally insisted, as Colonel Qaddafi has, that the rebels were organized by Al Qaeda. One supporter, Adle el-Ageli, wanted to talk about the Libyan leader: “Muammar is a hawk. He is unique. There is no alternative to him.”

Is she's right, then this police state can't last forever. I just hope that Libya stays on the list of possible revolutions of 2011. I don't want them to go back to the world that has been described. But if that's what the majority of Libyans want, that's what they'll have. Goodness, I hope that's not what they want.

Rahm Emanuel Won With A Diverse Voting Bloc In Chicago, But How?

I don't actually care about the how the way most people do. I'm not fascinated the Rahm managed to get a significant chunk of the black vote. Carol Moseley Braun alienated a lot of people. She should have known running on the "I'm black so vote for me" platform wasn't going to cut it.

She didn't have the man power to get out the vote, nor did she have the younger blacks. Even if she got every eligible black vote in the city, that's still only one third of the population, assuming we're registered to vote in proportionate numbers. But whatever, this post is supposed to be about Rahm Emanuel.

This is what the Sun-Times had to say about why he won such a huge portion of the black vote. Here's what I think did it:

1. Carol Moseley Braun sucked in this race.
If you haven't seen the clip of the debate that Rahm Emmanuel smartly didn't attend, you should. Another of the candidates accuses Braun of being missing for 20 years. Braun responds by accusing the woman of being a drug addict. I've never watched the clip because it's so ridiculous, but I did try and find it. I hope this link is it. Pretty much after that, her chances were over. And her community outreach team sucked. You can't win an election if you can't get people out to vote.
2. He's Obama's guy.
Black folk in this city love Obama. There's no doubting that. Because he's Obama's guy, he got a portion of the black vote. Especially the younger black people who hadn't heard of de Valle and were fed up with Braun.
3. He went non-traditional in reaching out to the black community
Black folks are feeling as anti-establishment as anyone else. Rahm felt like an outsider because he's been in D.C. And he didn't do the usual process of seeking out approval from the big pastor and the Jacksons (Rev. Jesse and his crew to be exact) followed by a Sunday trek through black churches. He talked to people out on the street. That struck a chord because people were seeing something different.


Rahm Emmanuel did do well for the Asian and Latino votes as well, but of course in Chicago, those stories aren't as well covered. This city will learn the lesson one day about not paying attention to a growing minority. Blacks have been fighting the pay-attention-to-me fight since before Harold Washington was mayor. That's just the first time we got listened to. Maybe now with de Valle's following, they'll pay more attention to Latinos. And with an Indian-American Alderman, maybe they'll pay more attention to Asians.


All I know is the Census numbers show that whites don't make up enough of the population to win elections without reaching out to minorities. And because of that fact, Rahm Emanuel was able to win a decisive victory with a diverse racial voting bloc. Good for him. I wish the rest of the country was the same.

Iran Is Being Run By Assholes

Knowing that Iran is run by Shiites makes me sympathetic to their struggles. They are dealing with a combative region, full of Sunni leaders who don't respect them. They deal with the United States that constantly exhibits conflicting values, especially when they conflict with our "interests". Yeah, I'm talking about that bullshit ass nuanced initial response to Egypt.

But back to Iran. Now that I've established that they face issues that could grant them sympathy, I've come to this conclusion: They are being run by assholes. One hypocrisy after another.

Here's the one that really grinds my gears. The population of Iran wanted to protest in support of what was going on in Bahrain (and Egypt and Tunisia). Instead of just taking to the streets, they asked for permission. They tried to get protest permits.

The same day that those permits were denied is the day that Iran released a statement endorsing the protests in all those other countries. They tried to co-opt these peoples' fights for their basic rights with Shiite fundamentalism. And they did it while shutting down their own peoples' right to protest. That is my new favorite definition of irony.

Now the leaders of Iran are reporting another setback at a nuclear power plant. Oh, boo-hoo. I feel so badly for you that your power plant isn't working. You know why it isn't working? Because America got together with some computer geniuses and hackers and sent you a nasty bug that shut down your systems. Maybe not the nicest thing to do. That's a big duh.

But they did it because you all don't play nice. You steal elections and crush local protests, and now you are upset that your new source of energy isn't working. Well perhaps if you weren't trying to make nuclear fuel, those mean Westerners would stop sabotaging your power plant.

I must admit I have mixed feelings about the idea that the West doesn't want Iran to have a card to play in the hypothetical nuclear war that could end us all. But then I realize how unreasonable those in power in Iran behave and I feel less conflicted.

I'd like a world where there are few to no nuclear bombs. Right now, the US is constantly lowering the number of bombs we have. And we're also trying to lower the number of bombs around the globe. So my opinion ends up falling squarely against those in power in Iran who are trying to increase the number of nuclear bombs in the world.

<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/26/world/middleeast/26nuke.html?hp">This is the article"</a> that has set off my rant. I can't say I'd feel bad if their nuclear plant went off line. I know that when properly handled, nuclear power plants are a very safe and efficient way to provide electricity to a constantly growing population. I know that. But I think I'd feel better about Iran using nuclear power if they weren't such assholes. That's all I'm saying.

Gail Collins' Presidential Primary Book Club

Gail Collins is one of my favorite columnists for the New York Times. I am on my Blackberry religiously, reading every word she's ever published. I noticed her at first because she's a woman, but I stayed with her because her articles has a touch of whimsy mixed with cynicism that just made me smile inside.


If I were you, I'd read her most recent post about Mike Huckabee. It's titled Presidential Primary Book Club and that's why I made my title the same. Read it and you will see what I mean about the mix of cynicism and whimsy.


In order to understand the basic point of this blog post, you need to simply read this quote. It is the entire first paragraph of her article.

One of a journalist’s most important duties is to seek out information in places the readers wouldn’t go themselves, like following troops into combat or covering charter revision commission hearings. In that spirit, I have been reading all the books written by likely candidates for the Republican presidential nomination.

Do you get my point? No? Sigh. The point is that I don't actually want to read these damn books these Republicans keep writing. I still haven't read all the books Obama wrote, why the hell would I read anything those guys have to say? But I do want the book condensed into a snarky version of its essence for me. And with these columns, I'm able to pretend I'm sitting down on Wednesday nights with a glass of wine and reaping the rewards of being in a book club without all the work.


Gail Collins discusses Mike Huckabee's book the same was she discussed Tim Pawlenty's book. You should read that column too. It was liberal gold. Mike Huckabee is obsessed with the number 12. Could that be because of his religious leanings? He also flipped from supporting a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, but he's changed his mind. And he used to cook squirrels in a popcorn popper in college. I can always count on Gail Collins to throw in some totally unimportant fact that I'm truly glad I now know.


Tim Pawlenty is obsessed with his family. He gets painted as a frat boy who's entire book is self-congratulatory. Based on how he seems on TV, I don't think her interpretation is too far off. Oh and he thinks he's funnier than he is. Not a crime, but it certainly invokes images of W. doing a dance for the reporters while trying to buy time before a press conference. I can't wait to see what the next guy/gal is obsessed with.


What she discusses is particularly interesting to me for a number of reasons. 1. I just love learning about modern politics as it's happening.   2. Whoever the Republican candidate is will affect whether Obama will be a 4 year or 8 year president.   3. Her liberal views on these matters line up with what I already feel and therefore want to hear more of.


I think it's okay to succumb to confirmation bias if you know that it's happening. And I'm amused by the way she amplifies the worst in the books. She's pointing out something I've been reading rather often in political analysts columns in various mediums (mostly CNN, nytimes.com, and AP Mobile). It's that the field of Republican candidates for president in 2012 will be quite pitiful.


There is still plenty of time for someone to emerge that actually has favorability ratings that are trending upward. But for now, they are screwed. And I for one cannot wait for the next installment of the Presidential Primary Book Club.