Hedgefund CIO James Fishbank is undoubtedly a pretty sharp guy, sharp enough to graduate Georgetown and make a pile of money working for Greenlight Capital, a Hedgefund most notorious for helping to precipitate the 2008 financial collapse with it’s short selling of Lehman Brothers Bank stock holdings.
Sharp enough too to serve as a “volunteer debate coach” in several school districts near his Florida home, though we may wonder about his motivations for doing so after learning about his recent interview on Fox News
“The political party that keeps trying to make books bans happen is outraged that libraries won’t carry their books, a new interview shows.
Hedge fund CIO James Fishbank appeared on Fox News Friday afternoon to offer his rebuttal to mounting outrage over book bans. He held up Vice President Kamala Harris’ book “The Truth We Hold” and former Vice President Mike Pence’s “So Help Me God.”
“There’s something deeply wrong,” Fishbank said, “There’s such a large discrepancy between the two.”
Fishbank was referring to his Free Press analysis of 35 of the nation’s largest public library districts, in blue and red states, that found significantly fewer “conservative” books on the shelves.
While Harris’ memoir appeared in 56 percent of libraries Fishbank canvassed, Pence’s could be found in only 6 percent, he said.
Fishbank argued that there was a liberal bias in public institutions that reached into America’s educational system.“
As Fishbank is apparently not sharp enough to grok why librarians and library patrons are more interested in the writings of pro-democracy public servants than those of pathetically ambitious supporters of poorly educated authoritarians, many followers of ACYN on Twitter sought to enlighten him afters seeing a clip of his interview:
Vivek wrote a book? God, that must be awful lmao
— Bill DeMayo (@BDeMayo) January 19, 2024
I wonder if he is obnoxious in print as he is on the debate stage…
Probably because nobody wants to read their books.
— Art Candee 🍿🥤 (@ArtCandee) January 19, 2024
Or if anyone who wants to can, Candee.
Nobody wants to read a book by Mike Pence on how mayonnaise is made
— Cheesy Gordita Brett (@CreampieOrDie) January 19, 2024
🤣🤣🤣
Advice to Conservatives:
Write better books
Tell fewer lies— WestLA (@WestLA24) January 19, 2024
That would be a start.
If a book has no chance of making its money back, why get stuck with it? Obviously right wing books don’t sell well.
— The Stoned Golfer (@Cali_kush4Z0) January 19, 2024
Yup.
— 🦦Marie 🦥 (@NoWay7790) January 19, 2024
🤣🤣🤣
So wait a second equity when it comes to vice presidential books in school libraries is important, but equity in employment and higher education acceptance rates is wokeness communism?
— Coach D (@CoachD_Speaks) January 19, 2024
Funny how that works…
Libraries actually list books coming up to be released & people put holds on them. When book is released they go through the holds list. If 50 people want to read they’ll get more copies than if 2 people have them on hold. I have 3 books on hold waiting for release, 8 week wait.
— Sharon – It’s Time to Find Some Ethics (@SissyJade) January 19, 2024
One would think a hedge fund guru would understand supply and demand.
It could just be because Pence & Ramaswamy are unpopular due to their lies.
— Paula Y (@PaulaYankelove) January 19, 2024
Yup.
Not satisfied with dictating which books are banned from libraries these people are now trying to dictate which books have to be in libraries.
— Kyle Birling (@KJBD11) January 19, 2024
And it won’t stop there.
MAGA demonized libraries for months, called librarians pedophiles and calling for the end of libraries all together and in the same breath they are also complaining that MAGA books aren’t in the very institution they want to end! They are the weirdest victims on this planet.
— I love the 54th (@JTJ24) January 19, 2024
💯 💯 💯
In other news, 0% of Michelin Star restaurants serve instant ramen.
Classically trained chefs omit junk food.— Herr T. aus B. (@P_Tomaszewski85) January 19, 2024
🤣🤣🤣
Perhaps Fishbank should review this past week of the dotard’s rallies and his lies and mangling of the English language if he wants to understand why some of the most literate members of our society have no desire to promote his followers’ scribblings.
Makes one wonder what kind of garbage he is trying to inculcate into those high school debaters.
To be honest, I don’t find the X snarky comments particularly funny since I am a librarian. We pride ourselves on offering materials that represent all viewpoints. I work at a public library that is part of a 31-library consortium. I just checked the catalog, and out of 31 libraries, 26 own the Mike Pence book. It is not checked out, meaning all the copies are sitting on the shelves because nobody wants to read it. But it is available.
One thing about librarians: they know what their readers want to read. Librarians know when books are just taking up space on shelves and they know and/or research whether a book WILL just take up space on shelves. There is a limited amount of space in a library: some have considerably less than others. Managing that space is critical.
If I were to come up with another reason why books written by conservative writers do not show up in more libraries it is this: the people these books are aimed at, conservatives in red states, most likely magats, do not go to libraries on a regular basis if at all. This is a group of people who feel fox “news” gives them all they need to know and reading is hard. Seriously, this a a group that is spoon-fed their conservative pablum daily the easiest way possible. Going to a library, using a card catalog/computer to search for a book, checking it out and then, holy shit having to read the damned thing-are you kidding me?!? Magats are not going to put that much effort into getting ANY information. Why don’t these books sell f.f.s.? No audience except for the one that thinks it is too hard to get information from a book. Hasn’t this fool ever noticed how these books are usually bought by the publisher/writer just so they can show it is selling at all? Yeah, if I were a librarian I’d damned sure want that garbage taking up my limited shelf space. You bet. Does this very silly fellow think librarians do not look for that information before purchasing a book?
Man, this guy is just not bright.
Maybe he should have been indicted for stealing millions and crashing the economy. He then could write a book about his prison experience.
Censorship By The Numbers is real.
https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/by-the-numbers
In his book Free Speech for Me—But Not for Thee: How the American Left and Right Relentlessly Censor Each Other, Nat Hentoff writes that “the lust to suppress can come from any direction.” He quotes Phil Kerby, a former editor of the Los Angeles Times, as saying, “Censorship is the strongest drive in human nature; sex is a weak second.” This clarity appears to point a support finger at your clarity “… As Fishbank is apparently not sharp enough to grok why librarians and library patrons are more interested in the writings of pro-democracy public servants than those of pathetically ambitious supporters of poorly educated authoritarians …”
Censorship, in a form, appears be at work to have one point of view cleverly washing over another point of view, is at an insidious and deeper level, subtle constructed by the numbers censorship.
Subtle constructed by the numbers censorship by persons and or their enablers, backers, adorers and followers – active or passive – of your constitutionally protected speech, for any reason, violates your very precious First Amendment.
pence vs Harris is not really a fair comparison. Harris is the first woman vp. pence was a rather ordinary vp. My library has plenty of conservative titles, tuck and orally etc. if trump could be bothered to find another ghost writer, his book would be in every library.
Retired school.and public librarian here. Public libraries carry books in order to present both sides of every controversy It is what we are taught and try to do. My library in ME carried Coultergeist’s tomes, even they were ridiculously no factual. They likely carried Pence’s book and maybe even The Art of the Deal. But they cannot buy every book someone writes, so they try to.choose the best ones that cover controversial topics. In Jacksonville,we carried a lot of evangelical Christian crap.denouncing every religion but Christianity and also any dnomination insufficiently bonkers (They loathed Catholicism, Episcopalians, Unitarians, and the more liberal.versions of Methodists and Lutherans). We had a couple of books on mythology, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Wicca, but Christianity definitely outdid any other faith numberwise. We carried pro and con views of abortion and feminism but none supporting racism except as a historical PoV. And lots of books about the South in the Civil.War.
Libraries depend on circulation figures to justify their budget. In most systems, we go through a process for book.selection. We rely on Library Journal,Kirkus, the NY Review of Books,NY Times,Book Review, Publishers Weekly and Kirkus reviews to decide what to buy.
And we tend to be very careful.to.buy books a particular branch needs. Example:one branch I was in had a large Jewish population, so we bought a lot of books dealing with the Holocaust, the founding of Israel,Jewish immigrants to.Anerica;we even carried a full.set of Torah. My other branch had a lot of Irish at the time, so we bought multiple copies of Andrew Greeley and dealing with Irish history and Irish immigrants in America.
So this $@#&%@ has likely never been in a public library in his life , or at least not recently