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Political readers were treated to a number of notable titles this year centering around some of the top news stories of 2021, including the early months of President Biden's administration, the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and the imprisonment of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

From Bob Woodward and Robert Costa's eye-opening reporting in "Peril" to Hillary Clinton's political fiction debut, here are some of the most memorable political books of 2021.

"Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could" by Adam Schiff

Rep. Adam Schiff's (D-Calif.) book, which was first announced in April and published in October, details his perspective of former President Trump's first impeachment as the chair of the House Intelligence Committee and his view of where American democracy stands now.

In "Midnight in Washington," Schiff writes about his front row seat to the probe that stemmed from a whistleblower report following a phone call between Trump and the Ukrainian president and resulted in the House adopting two articles of impeachment against Trump. Schiff uses his experiences to argue that the Trump presidency left lasting damage on American institutions and the Republican Party that will take years to rebuild.

"For all his cynicism and shrewdness, Trump could not have come so close to succeeding if his party had stood up to him, if good people hadn't been silent, or worse, allowed themselves to become complicit," Schiff wrote in a statement announcing the book. "I wanted to relate the private struggles, the triumphs of courage, but more often, the slow surrender of people I worked with and admired to the shameful immorality of a president who could not be trusted."

The congressman traces his inside account all the way to the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, leaving readers with big questions about the status of democracy in America.

"Peril" by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa

Story continues

In arguably the biggest political book of the year, The Washington Post's Bob Woodward and Robert Costa interviewed more than 200 people and crafted more than 6,000 transcript pages into a striking picture of the Trump administration, the 2020 election, the early months of President Biden's presidency, the Pentagon and Congress.

The book, which features many eyewitness accounts and transcripts of secret calls, emails, diaries and other personal documents, included revelations that set off fireworks in politics and the media this year. Woodward and Costa detailed claims that Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley called his counterpart in Beijing to offer assurances after the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) referred to Trump as a "fading brand," and Biden ignored warnings from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, among others.

"Peril" is the third book Woodward has written detailing insider accounts of the Trump presidency, following "Fear: Trump in the White House" and "Rage."

"While Justice Sleeps" by Stacey Abrams

The first of two novels on this list, Stacey Abrams made her political fiction debut this year with a thriller that follows a clerk for a Supreme Court Justice who discovers evidence of a possible conspiracy involving some of Washington's biggest power players.

"While Justice Sleeps" centers around Avery Keene, a law clerk for Justice Howard Wynn, who learns she is to serve as Wynn's legal guardian and power of attorney after he slips into a coma. Keene learns that Wynn was secretly researching a very controversial case before the court and that Wynn had reason of suspecting a dangerous conspiracy unfolding in Washington.

"A decade ago, I wrote the first draft of a novel that explored an intriguing aspect of American democracy - the lifetime appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court," Abrams said in a statement announcing the book news in 2020, just after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and President Trump's nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to replace her. "As an avid consumer of legal suspense novels and political thrillers, I am excited to add my voice into the mix."

It was announced in May that an NBCUniversal unit acquired the rights for a small-screen adaptation of "While Justice Sleeps."

Abrams, who has been a vocal advocate for federal voting rights legislation and announced her second bid for the Georgia governorship earlier this month, is no stranger to fiction - she penned three romance novels nearly two decades ago under a pseudonym that will hit bookshelves under her own name in 2022. She is also the author of two nonfiction books, "Minority Leader: How to Lead from the Outside and Make Real Change" and "Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America."

"Navalny: Putin's Nemesis, Russia's Future?" By Jan Matti Dollbaum, Morvan Lallouet and Ben Noble

In "Navalny," the authors examine one of the most talked about world figures of 2021 and what his story says about modern Russia.

The book details the story of Alexei Navalny, whose return to Russia in January of this year and subsequent detention after being poisoned sparked massive protests calling for his release. The authors probe not only Navalny's story - and his showdown with Russian President Vladimir Putin - but his complicated image as a political figure, which ranges from democratic hero to traitor of his country.

"Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency" by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes

"Lucky" traces Biden's unlikely road to the White House that culminated in the 2020 election and examines how he pulled off a win that almost no one, including many members of his own party, believed he could achieve.

The Hill's Amie Parnes and NBC's Jonathan Allen include insight from both Democratic and Republican key players to unveil the full story of how the race unfolded. The book features detailed accounts of the race's major turning points, from securing the endorsement of House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.), to the Black voters in South Carolina who saved Biden's campaign when it was on the verge of imploding, and how Biden managed to successfully steer his bid through the coronavirus lockdown in March 2020.

"Inside Biden's campaign, there was a sense that, for the first time in ten months, the political winds had shifted away from his face," reads an excerpt about Biden getting Clyburn's endorsement. "For all of the breaks that had gone Biden's way, there had been only sporadic interruptions in a firestorm of failure. He had survived getting in the race late, campaign infighting, pathetic fundraising, and finishing fourth, fifth, and a distant second in the first three states on the primary calendar. He had benefited from the spiking of the Iowa poll, the caucus debacle, debate-night drubbings of Buttigieg and Bloomberg in consecutive states, and so much more.

"And yet the Clyburn endorsement was different from the rest: Biden had worked for it over the course of years-developing a relationship with Clyburn and his late wife, tending to a Charleston dredging project as vice president, and visiting the state for as long as he could remember."

Allen and Parnes are also the authors of "Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign."

"State of Terror" by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Louise Penny

Hillary Clinton's fictional co-writing debut with novelist Louise Penny centers around a new U.S. presidential administration that is faced with an international conspiracy posing a serious terror threat following a tumultuous time in American politics.

"The book started really out of a conversation that Louise and I had," Clinton said in an interview just before the novel was released in October.

"I asked, 'What's your nightmare?'" Penny said.

"State of Terror" begins with a new administration whose president appoints one of his political enemies, former media conglomerate head Ellen Adams, to be secretary of state. When the U.S. is faced with a serious terror threat, Adams, her team and young foreign service officer Anahita Dahir have to work together to defeat the conspiracy planned out by an international cohort that has taken advantage of an out-of-touch American government.

"This is a wake-up call for anybody who cares about America, the world," Clinton said.

"Chief of Staff: Notes from Downing Street" by Gavin Barwell

In "Chief of Staff," Gavin Barwell provides a riveting inside account of his time as Downing Street chief of staff to former Prime Minister Theresa May. Barwell became May's chief of staff just after the 2017 general election, when the former prime minister lost her overall majority in Britain's Parliament, and became her righthand man for the next two years.

Barwell's sheds light on the significant transformations within British politics during the last few years and on May as a leader during a time of political strife in the wake of the 2016 Brexit referendum. He writes about being with her during every moment ranging from meeting Trump to responding to the Grenfell Tower fire tragedy and being at the center of Brexit negotiations with leaders including Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn.

"The Long Game: China's Grand Strategy to Displace American Order" by Rush Doshi

"The Long Game" focuses on China's emergence as a power player on the world stage, how the country has achieved that status and what the U.S. should do about it. Doshi's book comes at a pivotal time as China, the first American adversary in over a century to reach 60 percent of U.S. GDP, is quickly growing into a global superpower.

Doshi draws on Chinese government documents and leaked materials to reveal a modern history of China's political prowess since the end of the Cold War. The author details the country's carefully executed strategy to remove the U.S. from the global pecking order and explores how various major events, including the 2008 financial crisis, the 2016 election and the coronavirus pandemic, have altered China's view of and response to American power.

The rest is here:
The top political books of 2021 - Yahoo News

How should writers respond to the sound and fury of the current political moment? When the times frequently produce dramas more lurid and fantastical than anything even the most gifted novelist could dream up, how can literature compete? The solution offered by the Indian-born US journalist, author and professor Amitava Kumar is not to turn away from the daily outrage of the news and #fakenews but to embrace it. By engaging in an activism of the word, this erudite, original and ultimately unsatisfying book intends to pit the radical surprise of real life against the lies of the rulers. In this way, Kumar hopes to preserve the uncomfortable or disturbing truth against unrelenting and widespread assault.

We can be sure what this novel is trying to do, because it keeps telling us. It does so via its narrator Satya, an Indian-born US journalist, author and professor who is attending an artists retreat on an Italian island that is said to be where George and Amal Clooney spend their summers. Satya is working on a novel called Enemies of the People which, he says, is based on an untrue story in fact, on the many untrue stories that surround us. The plot of A Time Outside This Time, such as it is, comprises a collage of news clippings, tweets and anecdotes Satya has collected as well as abstracts of psychology papers he has read and journalism he has conducted on the subject of truth and lies.

Instead of what used to be called a bourgeois novel dismissively glossed as the human heart in conflict with itself et cetera Satya/Kumar serves up a torrent of namechecks and information. A future reader would find in this book a kind of time capsule of the Trump years: through it pass not just Donald (and Ivanka) but Hillary Clinton, Sarah Silverman, Anthony Fauci, George Floyd, Narendra Modi, Marina Abramovi and Tina Fey (Oh, Tina Fey). Here you can learn about the DunningKruger effect, the Milgram experiment, the marshmallow test, VS Naipauls meeting with Ayatollah Khomeini, Gandhis brush with Spanish flu and George Orwells fathers involvement in the Raj opium trade. There are more intimate sections, such as flashbacks to Satyas childhood memories of anti-Muslim riots in India and descriptions of his newspaper commissions about men and women caught up in webs of state oppression. But everything is related in the bloodless prose of a Washington Post editorial: He was dead five years later, we read of one character, from a heart attack, while he was walking with his wife to a restaurant. This was a sad event.

When, early in the book, Satya declares, to be honest, I thought I had a handle on the truth, I wondered if his claim to be writing an anti-bourgeois novel before cocktail hour at a lakeside villa with the Clooneys summering nearby was a sly ruse. Perhaps like one of Kazuo Ishiguros myopic, affectless narrators he would become more and more enmeshed in his misperceptions and self-deceptions until his worldview was overturned. An early detour, in which he discovers more than meets the eye in a Pakistani migrants story of entrapment by the US police, seems to promise as much. But as the novel progresses, the radical surprise of real life is increasingly and surprisingly absent. Satya is a good husband to a good woman, a research psychologist named Vaani whose only real purpose in the story is to tell him about experimental cognitive studies he goes on to summarise at length. Late on we discover she has an ex-husband who hosts a Fox News-like show on Indian TV, conveniently providing Satya with an opportunity to sermonise against rising nationalist bigotry under Modi.

Any good novel, Satya reminds us, quoting the historian Timothy Snyder, enlivens our ability to think about ambiguous situations and judge the intentions of others. But sincerely intending to dramatise ambiguous situations and the intentions of others is not the same thing as doing it. In fiction, all the information in the world whether true or false is no substitute for the enlivening portrayal of character, relationship, interiority, et cetera.

A Time Outside This Time is published by Picador (14.99). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

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A Time Outside This Time by Amitava Kumar review #fakenews onslaught - The Guardian

A federal judge is not buying the First Amendment argument that the Proud Boys are spinning in an attempt to evade criminal punishment for their alleged participation in the attack on the U.S. Capitol. U.S. District JudgeTimothy Kellyon Tuesday refused to throw out charges against four members of the far-right groupEthan Nordean,Joseph Biggs,Zachary Rehl, andCharles Donohoewho wereindicted in Marchon riot-related offenses, including conspiracy and obstructing an official proceeding. (All have pleaded not guilty.) Lawyers for the four men had sought to dismiss the charges by arguing, among other things, that the conduct they have been accused of engaging in is protected by the First Amendment right to free speech. But Kelly, an appointee of former presidentDonald Trump, argued thats not how that protection works.

Quite obviously, there were many avenues for Defendants to express their opinions about the 2020 presidential election, or their views about how Congress should perform its constitutional duties on January 6, without resorting to the conduct with which they have been charged, Kelly, wrote in Tuesdays43-page opinion. That conduct includes trespassing, destruction of property, and interference with law enforcement,perBloomberg. Defendants are not, as they argue, charged with anything like burning flags, wearing black armbands, or participating in mere sit-ins or protests, Kelly wrote. Moreover, even if the charged conduct had some expressive aspect, it lost whatever First Amendment protection it may have had.

The four leaders of the Proud Boys are not the only riot defendantsthat the U.S. government has chargedwith obstructing an official proceeding. Prosecutors have relied on the statutewhich carries a maximum imprisonment of 20 yearsto charge hundreds of people involved in theJanuary 6 riot, many of whom have challenged its legality in court,accordingto CNN. Kelly on Tuesday became the fourth D.C. District Court judge toallowprosecutors use of the law to stand, writing that the Court is not persuaded by defendants claim that Congress certification of the Electoral College vote was not an official proceeding. The Proud Boys case is one of the most serious conspiracy cases against Capitol riot defendants, and Kelly siding with the Justice Department gives momentum to prosecutors as they prepare for the first wave of U.S. Capitol riot-related trials beginning in February, CNN notes.

The governments win comes a week after two members of a different right-wing group, the Oath Keepers, tried and failed to get JudgeAmit Mehta,also presidingin D.C.s federal court, to throw out the obstruction charge against them in another pivotal January 6 case. In that case, the defendants were alsounsuccessfulin arguing that Congresss certification of the electoral results was not an official proceeding and that their alleged activities were protected free speech.

As prosecutors win support for their use of the obstruction charge against January 6 defendants, Representative Liz Cheney(R-Wyo.) hasraised the prospectofDonald Trump himself facing possibleobstruction chargesdepending on what new evidence the panel finds. Cheney, the vice-chair of the House committee investigating the insurrection,referencedthe criminal statute earlier this month at a House panel hearing where she pushed forMark Meadows, Trumps last White House chief of staff, to be held in contempt for refusing to cooperate. (The Houseeventually did hold him in contempt.) Meadowss testimony, Cheney said, will bear on a key question in front of this Committee: Did Donald Trump, through action or inaction, corruptly seek to obstruct or impede Congresss official proceeding to count electoral votes?

Meanwhile, the panel has beenramping up in recent days and is potentially turning to other members of Trumps inner circle, such asRudy Giuliani, to gain more insight into Trumps involvement in the insurrection.

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Judge to Proud Boys: No, Violently Storming the Capitol Isnt a First Amendment Exercise - Vanity Fair

Last week, Jackson Mayor Scott Conger opened a minor can of worms when he shared a Christmas card quality photo of himself and his family in Downtown Jackson.

He opened the post by asking how we can honor the birth of Christ and then posted James 1:19-20 My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.

He then wished everyone reading a Merry Christmas.

By the time Christmas was over, there were more than 400 comments on the post with many of them wishing Merry Christmas back to the mayor and some even acknowledging their appreciation that he would mention Jesus Christs birth in his holiday message, something that many government officials opt not to do for varying reasons.

But among the more than 400 comments were a few that accused him of violating the First Amendment, specifically the part about freedom of religion.

Conger actually replied to a couple of them defending his statement with another part of the First Amendment, freedom of speech.

Now Im all for constructively criticizing Jacksons mayor as much as the next person when its warranted, but I dont think this is one of those times.

A lot of people seem to misunderstand the freedom of religion part of the First Amendment.

They seem to expect that when a person is elected to office or hired for a job within the government that theyre expected to leave their religion outside City Hall or the Courthouse or the White House or wherever theyre serving.

But thats not the case.

When the nations founding fathers wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, they were trying to make a nation that was the exact opposite of the nation they were breaking free from in England.

And that country imposed a national religion and expected all citizens to follow that religion if they wanted to be a part of that country or its empire.

So freedom of religion keeps the United State of Americas federal government and every state and local government within its borders from forcing a certain religion or any religion for that matter on its citizens.

It doesnt keep religion out of government.

It doesnt mean that a person who claims to be a Christian and runs for mayor is to refrain from praying or going to church or reading the Bible or anything like that while he or she is in office for four years every time he or she is elected.

If were to use Conger in this example, he just cant make any executive orders or push the City Council to pass any resolutions forcing or prohibiting one particular religion on Jacksons citizens.

I can tell you that one of Congers early executive orders during the pandemic had a line that was difficult to decipher regarding churches meeting, and I had conversations with city officials on a specific Friday in the spring of 2020 letting them know we at The Sun were prepared to do appropriate reporting that weekend and the following week if the executive order did restrict gatherings at church and law enforcement did enforce it before I was assured that the order was not prohibiting religious gatherings.

Faith may play a role in decisions he makes. At the state level, Gov. Bill Lee isnt shy about how his Christianity influences him to make some of the decisions he makes. And of course that brings out similar accusations against Lee that Congers Merry Christmas post did.

Of course a Merry Christmas wish from a city mayor and a policy declaration by a state governor are two different things with different ramifications.

But the checks and balances system of our government is in place for when that gray area of religion in government tends to get too dark on the side of religion if a policy affects a person or group of people too much.

But checks and balances do not affect whether or not someone can say Merry Christmas. And no ones First Amendment rights were violated last week with Congers post.

Save that argument for when it matters.

Brandon Shields is the editor of The Jackson Sun. Reach him at bjshields@jacksonsun.com or at 731-425-9751. Follow him on Twitter @JSEditorBrandon or on Instagram at editorbrandon.

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First Amendment is freedom of religion, not from it | Opinion - The Jackson Sun

In the first reported interpretation of a 2021 amendment to CEQAs statute of limitations provisions, the First District Court of Appeal addressed whether an action against a lead agency must be dismisseddespite being filed within the limitations periodbecause of a failure to [timely name and serve] necessary third parties. Save Berkeleys Neighborhoods v. The Regents of the University of California (Collegiate Housing Foundation, American Campus Communities, et al.), 70 Cal.App.5th 705 (2021). Acknowledging that the Legislature sought to provid[e] a bright-line rule as to which persons must be named [and served] in the CEQA complaint, the Court nonetheless decided that Code of Civil Procedure Section 289(b)s equitable test for determining indispensability still applies to determine whether an incurable failure to timely name and serve real parties requires dismissal of the entire action.

The Regents of the University of California filed a notice of determination on May 17, 2019, regarding certification of a Supplemental Environmental Impact Report analyzing an academic building, campus housing and parking project approved by the Regents for the Berkeley campus. The NOD identified American Campus Communities and the Collegiate Housing Foundation as the parties undertaking the project. Save Berkeleys Neighborhoods June 13, 2019 petition for a writ of mandate failed to name either ACC or CHF. A first amended petition filed on September 18, 2019, added ACC and CHF as real parties in interest, and a first amendment to the first amended petition subsequently sought to add various ACC entities as real parties.

ACC and CHF argued that the incurable failure to timely name and serve persons identified on a NOD as undertaking a project requires dismissal. The First District rejected this argument, relying on legislative history to resolve textual ambiguities in Section 21167.6.5 and preserve the applicability of an equitable indispensable party analysis in CEQA actions.

Prior to 2012, Public Resources Code Section 21167.6.5(a) required that any recipient of an approval be named and served in CEQA actions as real parties in interest. However, then-applicable PRC Section 21108(a) did not require state agencies to identify the recipient of an approval on NODs. Courts enforced Section 21167.6.5(a) by 1) identifying the approval subject to challenge and the recipients thereof, and then 2) applying Code of Civil Procedure Section 389(b)s equitable balancing test to determine whether unnamed approval recipients were indispensable such that an incurable failure to name them requires dismissal of the entire action.

Assembly Bill 320 (2012) amended Section 21108(a) to require state agencies to identify on notices of determination those undertaking a project supported by contracts, grants, subsidies, loans, or other forms of assistance from one or more public agencies or that involves the issuance to a person of a lease, permit, license, certificate, or other entitlement for use by one or more public agencies. Public Res. Code 21065(b) and (c). AB 320 also amended Section 21167.6.5(a) to replace the phrase any recipient of an approval with the person or persons identified by the public agency in its notice filed pursuant to Section 21065(b) or (c).

The Court of Appeal held that amended Section 21167.6.5(a) does not require dismissal for failure to timely name and serve as real parties those identified on a NOD as undertaking a project. It ruled that the use of shall in 21167.6.5(a) (The petitioner or plaintiff shall name, as a real party in interest ) only requires that parties shall file and serve the real parties in interest within a limitations period Failure to do so excludes real parties in interest from the action. The statutory language does not expressly condition a petitioners ability to bring suit upon the inclusion of the real parties in interest.

Having found AB 320s amendments left Section 21167.6.5(a) silent as to the impact on a partys failure to name and serve the real parties in interest, the Court of Appeal concluded that the Legislature sought only to eliminate uncertainty arising from parties and courts independently assess[ing] which entities qualified as recipients of an approvalnotoriously complex inquiries often involving numerous sub-inquiries. The Legislature, however, did not address the courts use of CCP Section 389(b)s equitable balance test to determine indispensability. Reviewing the legislative history, the court noted that the Senate deleted a provision in the Assembly version of the bill that allowed a CEQA legal action to be dismissed for failure to serve the recipients of the lead agencys approval with the petition or complaint. The opinion also referenced the Legislatures expressed intent to prevent the dismissal of important and meritorious CEQA cases, observing that [t]he approach advocated by appellants would increase dismissal of CEQA cases.

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Failure to Timely Name and Serve Real Parties In Interest Does Not Warrant Dismissal Of An Entire CEQA Action if The Unnamed Parties Are Not...