Weekend thread: What's happening?

The bible is being banned in schools as Christian nationalist actions backfire. NRA wanted to round up mentally ill people. More fallout from CNN's disastrous Trump town hall.

As school districts, state legislators, and governors in places like Florida began enforcing fascistic book bans based on sexual content, we saw the bible temporarily pulled in places like Texas and Missouri—amid outrage from Christian nationalists. Now, in Utah, the King James bible has been banned from a school district of 72,000 students just north of Salt Lake City after its sex-fueled passages were reviewed by a committee, spurred by a parent who’s had it with book bans. And it looks like it’s permanent unless the law is changed.

The governor of Tennessee, a hard-core MAGA cultist who was nonetheless feeling the pressure after the gun massacre at a Christian school in Nashville earlier this year, moved to pass a modest gun reform law. It would have imposed a form of a red flag law. But according to documents, the NRA objected, instead suggesting rounding up all mentally ill people under involuntary confinement laws rather than having a law that took guns away from dangerous people.

And a jarring interview with CNN’s new CEO, Chris Licht, reveals how he wanted an "extra Trumpy" audience, which angered staffers at CNN before the event took place, and was confident the event was going to go well—until it turned out to be a disaster. Former CNN media reporter Brian Stelter called the interview “jaw-dropping,” noting: "The consensus, among people who knew [the] piece was coming, is that it’s much ‘worse’ than they expected. Some CNN staffers are shocked."