[guest post by Dana]

Today:

Five days after accusing The New York Times of bias, secrecy and foul play, Ted Cruz is finally getting what he wanted: a highly coveted spot on the paper’s bestseller list.

Cruz’s memoir, “A Time For Truth,” will appear at No. 7 on the Times’ list for hardcover nonfiction, reflecting its second-week sales, a Times spokesperson confirmed on Wednesday. The Texas senator’s book had not been included on the list for its first week, on the grounds that its sales had been driven by “strategic bulk purchases.”

Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy said that the newspaper made no changes to its selection process, and so the fact that Cruz’s book is being included now suggests a rise in individual purchases, spurred by his public battle with the paper.

“This week’s NYT best seller list was arrived at using the same process as last week’s – and the week before that,” Murphy wrote. “That process involves a careful analysis of data, and is not influenced in any way by the content of a book, or by pressure from publishers or book sellers.”

Murphy reiterated the company line:

“Our approach serves Times readers by authenticating broadly popular books through the confidential reporting of a wide range of retailers,” Murphy said Wednesday. “In order to avoid compromising that process, we do not disclose who reports sales to us.”

No response yet from the Cruz camp, however, Ted Cruz is scheduled to be on Megyn Kelly’s show tonight to discuss this turnaround, among other things.

–Dana

[guest post by Dana]

This morning, President Obama took questions from reporters at a press conference about the Iran deal. Given that that four Americans remain imprisoned in Iran and their secured release was not part of the deal, CBS’s Major Garrett confronted the president:

“Why you are content with all the fanfare around this deal to leave the conscience of this nation, the strength of this nation unaccounted for in relation to these four Americans?”

An offended President Obama shot back:

“That’s nonsense, and you should know better.”

After Garrett defended himself for his provocative question, CNN’s own resident scold, Dana Bash, took him to task:

“There’s a fine line between asking a tough question and maybe crossing that line a little bit and being disrespectful, and I think that happened here.”

On a side note, a quick perusal of the text from the president’s press conference looks to be about what you would expect. Self-congratulatory: the deal is a powerful display of American leadership and diplomacy and meets the national security interests of the United States and our allies; yes, Israel has been nervous about Iran, so it’s a good thing they will now be safer because of this deal; the next president will sure be in good shape as our top-secret plan to defeat ISIS has them on the run (Hey, how about those 60 Syrian soldiers we’ve been training!); we made concessions to Iran because they are our new friends… Stuff sort of like that.

And this:

And ultimately, it’s not the job of the president of the United States to solve every problem in the Middle East.

The people in the Middle East are going to have to solve some of these problems themselves. But I think we can provide that next president at least a foundation for continued progress in these various areas.

The last thing I would say, and this is a longer-term issue, is we have to address the youth in the region with jobs and opportunity and a better vision for the future so that they are not tempted by the nihilistic, violent, dead-end that organizations like ISIL offer. Again, we can’t do that entirely by ourselves, but we can partner with well-intentioned organizations, states, NGOs, religious leaders in the region. We have to do a better job of that than we’ve been doing so far.

(Between providing jobs and job training for the youths of the ME as well as teaching Iran how to thwart and detect threats to its nuclear program, you know, because Israel, America sure has a full plate of … other nation’s business.)

–Dana

[guest post by Dana]

Homeland Secretary Jeh Johnson is making news this week. While giving testimony about immigration before a Congressional panel, Johnson was asked by Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH) about Katie Steinle. Johnson played dumb about knowing who she was. I say “played dumb” because I assume Johnson, like President Obama, reads the papers to get his news and this was front page news for at least a week. (After all, it’s not like he would have actually been informed of her death by his staff or anyone else, right??) No matter, he doesn’t care about her – not in life, nor in death.

“Has the administration reached out to the Steinle family, to your knowledge?” Rep. Steve Chabot asked Johnson.

“To who?” Johnson replied.

“To the family of the woman who brutally murdered by this individual who had committed seven different felonies in four different states and to my understanding had been deported, kept coming back, has the administration reached out to that family?” Chabot asked again.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know the answer to that question sir,” Johnson said.

The truth is that no one had reached out the Katie Steinle’s family. On the Kelly File last night, father Brad Steinle said, “I wish someone would reach out to us.”

WH Press Secretary Josh Earnest said last week that the WH could not comment on a “specific case.”

Also, under questioning by Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., Johnson admitted that he has no intention of changing any policy that endangers America’s citizenry to one that actually protects them:

Gowdy started his questioning by demanding to know, “why was somebody in federal prison with a federal detainer on him released to a sanctuary city?”

Johnson replied, “You’d have to ask the Bureau of Prisons.”

Gowdy then noted that the Obama administration has fought to prevent states and localities from trying to enforce immigration laws, but has not forced so-called sanctuary cities to change their policies aimed at protecting illegal immigrants. Johnson resisted that by saying the San Francisco case is an example of why cities need to follow federal instructions on immigration, but then Gowdy asked why the government doesn’t make it mandatory to do so.

“I think that would be a huge setback in our ability to work with state and local law enforcement, and I suspect that they would agree as well,” Johnson said.

Gowdy said the San Francisco shooting shows that U.S. border policies are a mess, as the alleged shooter was deported several times and had a criminal record dating back to 1991.

“He was and is, by any definition, a career criminal,” Gowdy said. “He is Exhibit A that we must not have functional control over the border, or he wouldn’t have re-entered so many times.”

(Both videos are worth watching.)

–Dana