THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS MATTER PART 2

YESTERDAY BEGAN THIS ANALYSIS of Trump’s firings at the Library of Congress. Today in Part 2, George Saunders continues his New York Times Guest Essay “Shame on the White House.” There’s plenty of it to go around.

Jackass Nonsense in White House Reasoning. George Saunders observes, “The White House, tossing out nonsense from its meager box of repetitive right-wing auto-defenses, claimed on Friday that Dr. Hayden had, ‘in the pursuit of D.E.I.,’ done ‘quite concerning things.’ ”

Saunders posits, “Did it name those things? It did not. It couldn’t have. Putting aside the basic idiocy of being against that position (‘What, you value diversity? You think things should be equitable? And that all should be included?’), members of the administration now use ‘D.E.I.’ as a sort of omni-pejorative, deliberately (strategically) leaving its exact meaning vague.”

On another matter entirely, the Queens felon and his mob have co-mingled any support of the Palestinian people with terrorism. And any criticism of Netanyahu with antisemitism. Another topic for another day.

“Inappropriate Books for Kids”?? Saunders continues, “The White House also stated, with an inaccuracy that would be comic if it weren’t so sickening, that Dr. Hayden put ‘inappropriate books in the library for children.’ The librarian of Congress doesn’t put books into the library. And presumably, the American people benefit from having access to the widest possible collection of books. Even those American people who are children, who, after all, have parents to decide what is inappropriate.”

Geez, someone should try explaining to Trump that the Library of Congress isn’t a lending library in the usual sense: It is open to the public for research, but only members of Congress, their staff, and library employees may borrow materials for use outside its buildings. Not Trumps and their children.

A Further Injustice. Devlin Barrett reports in The New York Times, May 12, 2025, “Top Justice Dept. Official is Now Also Acting Librarian of Congress.”

It’s a perfect example of Queens felon payback: “Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general for the past two months, is the latest Trump administration official to take on interim, but additional, leadership positions as President Trump dismisses senior agency officials.” 

Who’s Blanche? He was Mr. Trump’s lead defense lawyer in his criminal trial in Manhattan last year. Yeah, the one where Trump earned his 34 felonies. 

I wonder what Blanche knows about running one of the world’s largest libraries?

Why Were Hayden and Perlmutter Fired? Briefly, both Librarian Carla Hayden and Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter were fired because of lack of fealty to the president. Hayden was fired “reportedly due to her focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

Perlmutter got canned within days of “her having published a report about how the development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology could run afoul of fair use law.”

Rep. Joe Morelle’s Statement. Joe Morelle (NY-25) is the top Democrat on the Committee on House Administration. In a press release, May 10, 2025, he writes, “Donald Trump’s termination of Register of Copyrights, Shira Perlmutter, is a brazen, unprecedented power grab with no legal basis. It is surely no coincidence he acted less than a day after she refused to rubber-stamp Elon Musk’s efforts to mine troves of copyrighted works to train AI models.”

“This action,” Morelle continues, “once again tramples on Congress’s Article One authority and throws a trillion-dollar industry into chaos. When will my Republican colleagues decide enough is enough?”

Indeed, whenever will enough be enough? ds 

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2025