The president has no legal standing to stop it.
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John Bolton is one of those rare people unloved by both sides of our political divide. The right is angry about his betrayal of President Donald Trump. The left’s long-standing animosity toward him was refreshed when he refused to testify against Trump in Congress. Now Bolton’s got a book coming out, full of juicy details about the Trump administration, reportedly including a claim that the impeachment inquiry Bolton didn’t bother to assist overlooked much more wrongdoing. Once again, things that could have been brought to our attention YESTERDAY, John Bolton.
Anyway, rather than ignore Bolton’s book and hope America’s shared disdain for him would help it die quietly, Trump has chosen to Streisand Effect it by suing to stop its publication. No matter how you feel about Bolton, you shouldn’t want Trump’s attack on the First Amendment to succeed, writes Noah Feldman. Trump’s lawyers have tried some tricks to avoid a straight-up constitutional violation, but they are weak, Noah writes. You may not want to buy Bolton’s book, but he should be able to publish it.
For a while now, Bloomberg Opinion writers have warned we shouldn’t let data rebounding from depression-level readings lull us into thinking the U. S. economy was out of trouble. And so far, that’s exactly what’s been happening, at least in the stock market and among some policy makers.
First, we had the May jobs report, which was wildly better than expected. More recently, we’ve seen bouncing retail sales and housing data spurring more optimism. But John Authers warns these numbers don’t fully put into context just how deep of a hole the economy stumbled into back in March and how long it will take to climb out.
Take that housing data, for example. Mortgage applications have soared in recent weeks, suggesting a V-shaped recovery. But Danielle DiMartino Booth writes this simply represents pent-up demand finally being unleashed from lockdowns. Meanwhile, lenders are tightening standards because they know the economy is still in a deep recession, which will eventually eat into home values and borrowers’ ability to pay.
Peter Orszag compares the economy to a beach town. Some think it’s just closed for the winter and will return to life when the seasons change.
