The party's Brazile-ion mistakes
To adapt the adapted William Congreve line, the Democratic Party hath no fury like a woman scorned. And Donna Brazile, the former interim Democratic National Committee chairwoman, has a few scores to settle.
Brazile, who was elevated to interim chairwoman status last summer when former chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned after allegations mounted that she tried to steer the party's nomination to Hillary Clinton, has written a book, "Hacks," that is claimed to be a no-holds-barred expose on the party's failures to elect Clinton.
The longtime politico and former Al Gore presidential campaign manager herself was fired by CNN last year after it was revealed she gave Clinton ahead of time some of the questions that she would get in a debate with now-President Donald Trump.
Reportedly, the party already is angry at what Brazile is supposed to have written, which is said to describe the party as being such a mess that it couldn't help the candidate deal with Trump, whose campaign had far less money and organization than hers.
"With the future of the country hanging in the balance," the release by publishing company Hachette said, "[she] found herself trying to corral a party beset by infighting, scandal, and hubris."
Brazile is too loyal to the party to leave it, but she claims she just wanted the truth to come out.
"I've been a Democrat all my life, but I'm an American first of all," she said in the release. "At a moment when our democracy is in crisis, it's time to tell the truth about what went wrong in 2016. Our nation is under unprecedented assault, and if we don't get the facts out, it will happen again - and worse than you can imagine."
Hey, that looks familiar
A book published on May 30 by former first daughter Chelsea Clinton may have been plagiarized, a lawsuit filed recently claims.
The book, "She Persisted: 13 American Women Who Changed the World," is said to have many similarities to the book idea, "A Heart is the Part That Makes Boys and Girls Smart," according to the suit filed by author Christopher Kimberly against Clinton and Penguin Random House for copyright infringement.
The suit seeks $150,000 in damage and profits to Clinton's book, which is on The New York Times best-seller list for children's picture books.
"I am in disbelief," Kimberly told the New York Post. "I did months of painstaking research on my book. Her version looks like a ninth-grade homework assignment."
The lawsuit notes Clinton uses three of the same inspirational quotes from three women he cited in his book, which was sent to Penguin Young Readers in 2013. He also says his book pitch featured 15 quotes in a section called the "Quotable Questionnaire," while a similar section in hers - on which the book hinges, according to the Post - has 13 quotes.
Not down with that struggle
Former Vice President Al Gore's comparison of the climate change movement to the fight to end slavery last week didn't sit well with a number of folks.
Gore, an environmental extremist who was in Australia to promote a book, told an audience at the EcoCity World Summit that reducing the earth's temperature and cutting the fossil fuel movement is on par with other "great moral causes" such as slavery and South African apartheid.
Not so fast, said Horace Cooper Jr., a former assistant law professor at George Mason University.
"When Al Gore Jr. associates these moral movements of history with one grounded in questionable data," he said in a news release, "he gives climate change activists moral credibility they haven't earned and don't deserve."
A Cooper associate agreed.
"Fighting people being owned as property and debased in an entrenched system enshrined in law is akin to worshiping the idea that humans can materially impact the climate?" said Stacy Washington. "He cannot be serious!"
Triumph of the micropercentage
The tiny percentage of transgender London subway users has caused a change in the time-honored greeting to passengers of "Ladies and gentlemen ," the publication Metro reported.
The new language will offer greetings such as "Good afternoon, everyone," in a bow to gender neutrality.
"We want everyone to feel welcome on our transport network," Mark Evers, director of customer strategy at Transport for London, said in a statement. "We have reviewed the language that we use in announcements and elsewhere and will make sure that it is fully inclusive, reflecting the great diversity of London."
If after all the prerecorded announcements are changed and guidance is given and workers slip up and utter the old greeting, said London Mayor Sadiq Khan, "TFL will issue reminders to staff."
The news was not received well, with "Good Morning Britain" host Piers Morgan tweeting, "Oh for (expletive)'s sake. What is happening to this country" A woman rider said, "Seriously, someone needs to get this madness by the scruff of its neck and sort it out. As a lady, am I now a nothing?" Another said they felt they were "witnessing the decline of British values and way of life." And one tweeted frankly, "Male. Female. Simple. Basic. Life. What is wrong with people?"