Even the reforms that Americans love best have come with costs that are staggeringly high—in wealth, freedom, and social stability—and that have been spread unevenly among classes and generations. Caldwell reveals the real political turning points of the past half century, taking readers on a roller-coaster ride through Playboy magazine, affirmative action, CB radio, leveraged buyouts, iPhones, Oxycontin, Black Lives Matter, and internet cookies. In doing so, he shows that attempts to redress the injustices of the past have left Americans living under two different ideas of what it means to play by the rules. Essential, timely, hard to put down, The Age of Entitlement is a brilliant and ambitious argument about how the reforms of the past fifty years gave the country two incompatible political systems—and drove it toward conflict.

    Who are the leaders behind these protests, and what do they want? In Panic Attack, libertarian journalist Robby Soave answers these questions by profiling young radicals from across the political spectrum.Millennial activism has risen to new heights in the age of Trump. Although Soave may not personally agree with their motivations and goals, he takes their ideas seriously, approaching his interviews with a mixture of respect and healthy skepticism. The result is a faithful cross-section of today's radical youth, which will appeal to libertarians, conservatives, centrist liberals, and anyone who is alarmed by the trampling of free speech and due process in the name of social justice.

    “He explains and exposes their hopes and dreams, their strengths and failures as they try to put their best foot forward.”From the man widely hailed as “the Dean of Moderators” comes a lively and revealing book that pulls back the curtain on more than forty years of televised political debate in America. A veteran newsman who has presided over eleven presidential and vice-presidential debates, Jim Lehrer gives readers a ringside seat for some of the epic political battles of our time, shedding light on all of the critical turning points and rhetorical faux pas that helped determine the outcome of America’s presidential elections—and with them the course of history. Drawing on his own experiences as “the man in the middle seat,” in-depth interviews with the candidates and his fellow moderators, and transcripts of key exchanges, Lehrer isolates and illuminates what he calls the “Major Moments” and “killer questions” that defined the debates, from Kennedy-Nixon to Obama-McCain.Oftentimes these moments involve the candidates themselves and are seared into our collective political memory. Michael Dukakis stumbles badly over a question about the death penalty. Dan Quayle compares himself to John F. Kennedy once too often. Barack Obama and John McCain barely make eye contact over the course of a ninety-minute discussion. At other times, the debate moderators themselves become part of the story—and Lehrer is there to give us a backstage look at the drama. Peter Jennings suggests surprising the candidates by suspending the carefully negotiated rules minutes before the 1988 presidential debate—to the consternation of his fellow panelists. Lehrer himself weathers a firestorm of criticism over his performance as moderator of the 2000 Bush-Gore debate. And then there are the excruciating moments when audio lines go dead and TelePrompTers stay dark just seconds before going on the air live in front of a worldwide television audience of millions.Asked to sum up his experience as a participant in high-level televised debates, President George H. W. Bush memorably likened them to an evening in “tension city.” In Jim Lehrer’s absorbing insider account, we find out that truer words were never spoken.

    Little did he know that among those released was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a man who would go on to become a terrorist mastermind too dangerous even for al-Qaeda and give rise to an Islamist movement bent on dominating the Middle East.     Zarqawi began by directing hotel bombings and assassinations in Jordan from a base in northern Iraq, but it was the American invasion of that country in 2003 that catapulted him to the head of a vast insurgency. By identifying him as the link between Saddam and bin Laden, the CIA inadvertently created a monster. Like-minded radicals saw him as a hero resisting the infidel occupiers and rallied to his cause. Their wave of brutal beheadings and suicide bombings continued for years until Jordanian intelligence provided the Americans with the crucial intelligence needed to eliminate Zarqawi in a 2006 airstrike.     But his movement endured, first called al-Qaeda in Iraq, then renamed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, seeking refuge in unstable, ungoverned pockets on the Iraq-Syria border. And as the Syrian civil war broke out in 2011, ISIS seized its chance to pursue Zarqawi's dream of a sweeping, ultra-conservative Islamic caliphate.      Drawing on unique access to CIA and Jordanian sources, Joby Warrick weaves together heart-pounding, moment-by-moment operational details with overarching historical perspectives to reveal the long trajectory of today's most dangerous Islamic extremist threat.From the Hardcover edition.

    Long before “fake news” became the calling card of the Right, Americans had lost faith in their news media. But lately, the feeling that something is off has become impossible to ignore. That’s because the majority of our mainstream news is no longer just liberal; it’s woke. Today’s newsrooms are propagating radical ideas that were fringe as recently as a decade ago, including “antiracism,” intersectionality, open borders, and critical race theory. How did this come to be?It all has to do with who our news media is written by―and who it is written for. In Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy, Batya Ungar-Sargon reveals how American journalism underwent a status revolution over the twentieth century―from a blue-collar trade to an elite profession. As a result, journalists shifted their focus away from the working class and toward the concerns of their affluent, highly educated peers. With the rise of the Internet and the implosion of local news, America’s elite news media became nationalized and its journalists affluent and ideological. And where once business concerns provided a countervailing force to push back against journalists’ worst tendencies, the pressures of the digital media landscape now align corporate incentives with newsroom crusades.The truth is, the moral panic around race, encouraged by today’s elite newsrooms, does little more than consolidate the power of liberal elites and protect their economic interests. And in abandoning the working class by creating a culture war around identity, our national media is undermining American democracy. Bad News explains how this happened, why it happened, and the dangers posed by this development if it continues unchecked.

    In The Great Destroyer you’ll learn:The true costs of Obama’s crony capitalism scandals—it’s even worse than you thinkHow Obama spends our economy into oblivion while relentlessly demonizing those who try to stop the bleedingHow the Obama administration has repeatedly, almost systematically, violated the Constitution to achieve its goalsHow the Obama administration has empowered shadowy unelected bureaucrats to determine how we live, and the successes they already have in doing thatAnd much more …In irrefutable detail, David Limbaugh, like a prosecuting attorney, makes his case that the Obama administration is a real and present danger to America’s future. There is no more comprehensive indictment of the Obama administration as it seeks re-election than The Great Destroyer. It is a book that every American worried about the future of our country must read.

    Kaplan listened to his truck-driver father tell evocative stories about traveling across America in his youth, travels in which he learned to understand the country literally from the ground up. There was a specific phrase from Kaplan's childhood that captured this perspective: A westward traveler must "earn the Rockies" by driving--not flying--across the flat Midwest and Great Plains. In Earning the Rockies, Kaplan undertakes his own cross-country journey to recapture an appreciation of American geography often lost in the jet age. Traveling west, in the same direction as the pioneers, Kaplan traverses a rich and varied landscape that remains the primary source of American power. Along the way, he witnesses both prosperity and decline--increasingly cosmopolitan cities that thrive on globalization, impoverished towns denuded by the loss of manufacturing--and paints a bracingly clear picture of America today. The history of westward expansion is examined here in a new light--as a story not just of genocide and individualism, but also of communalism and a respect for the limits of a water-starved terrain, a frontier experience that bent our national character toward pragmatism. Kaplan shows how the great midcentury works of geography and geopolitics by Bernard DeVoto, Walter Prescott Webb, and Wallace Stegner are more relevant today than ever before. Concluding his journey at Naval Base San Diego, Kaplan looks out across the Pacific Ocean to the next frontier: China, India, and the emerging nations of Asia. And in the final chapter, he provides a gripping description of an anarchic world and explains why America's foreign policy response ought to be rooted in its own geographical situation. In this short, intense meditation on the American landscape, Robert D. Kaplan reminds us of an overlooked source of American strength: the fact that we are a nation, empire, and continent all at once. Earning the Rockies is an urgent reminder of how a nation's geography still foreshadows its future, and how we must reexamine our own landscape in order to confront the challenges that lie before us. Advance praise for Earning the Rockies:"A text both evocative and provocative for readers who like to think . . . In his final sections, Kaplan discusses in scholarly but accessible detail the significant role that America has played and must play in this shuddering world." --Kirkus Reviews"Earning the Rockies is a brilliant reminder of the impact of America's geography on its strategy. An essential complement to his previous work on the subject of geostrategy, Kaplan's latest contribution should be required reading." --Henry A. Kissinger"Robert D. Kaplan uses America's unique geography and frontier experience to provide a lens-changing vision of America's role in the world, one that will capture your imagination. Unflinchingly honest, this refreshing approach shows how ideas from outside Washington, D.C., will balance America's idealism and pragmatism in dealing with a changed world. A jewel of a book, Earning the Rockies lights the path ahead." --General (Ret.) James Mattis

    Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, signed his name at the bottom of a document that listed eighteen techniques of interrogation--techniques that defied international definitions of torture. The Rumsfeld Memo authorized the controversial interrogation practices that later migrated to Guantanamo, Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, as part of the policy of extraordinary rendition. From a behind-the-scenes vantage point, Phillipe Sands investigates how the Rumsfeld Memo set the stage for a divergence from the Geneva Convention and the Torture Convention and holds the individual gatekeepers in the Bush administration accountable for their failure to safeguard international law.The Torture Team delves deep into the Bush administration to reveal:- How the policy of abuse originated with Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, and was promoted by their most senior lawyers- Personal accounts, through interview, of those most closely involved in the decisions- How the Joint Chiefs and normal military decision-making processes were circumvented- How Fox TV's 24 contributed to torture planning- How interrogation techniques were approved for use- How the new techniques were used on Mohammed Al Qahtani, alleged to be "the 20th highjacker"- How the senior lawyers who crafted the policy of abuse exposed themselves to the risk of war crimes charges.

    A captivating blend of personal biography and public drama, The Wise Men introduces the original best and brightest, leaders whose outsized personalities and actions brought order to postwar chaos: Averell Harriman, the freewheeling diplomat and Roosevelt's special envoy to Churchill and Stalin; Dean Acheson, the secretary of state who was more responsible for the Truman Doctrine than Truman and for the Marshall Plan than General Marshall; George Kennan, self-cast outsider and intellectual darling of the Washington elite; Robert Lovett, assistant secretary of war, undersecretary of state, and secretary of defense throughout the formative years of the Cold War; John McCloy, one of the nation's most influential private citizens; and Charles Bohlen, adroit diplomat and ambassador to the Soviet Union.

    It was a battle that pitted Five hundred 1st Infantry Division soldiers against 800 to 2000 Viet Cong from the 271st Regiment. The bloody clash took the lives of 39 Americans and seriously wounded 150 more. It is the minute by minute story of what happened that day in the steamy jungle and the story of the men who fought so valiantly to survive the ambush. It is the story of the loved ones left behind and the wounded who struggled to become whole again. It's a story that is the result of talking to many of the survivors of the battle and the wives, brothers, sisters, or friends of those who were there when over 8000 artillery rounds rained down around LZ X-Ray to dislodge the entrenched Viet Cong. June 17, 1967 is a story of war, men, and the loved ones. It is the story of the youth, culture and happenings that made the battle of Xom Bo II such an enigma for the summer of love in 1967. It is an angry story and a healing story that will bring feelings to the surface and tear at your heart.

    Hitz told?the US Reps that the CIA had maintained relationships with companies and?individuals the Agency knew to be involved in the drug business. Even more?astonishingly, Hitz revealed that back in 1982 the CIA had requested and?received from Reagan’s Justice Department clearance not to report any knowledge?it might have of drug-dealing by CIA assets. With these two admisstions, Hitz definitively sank decades of CIA denials,?many of them under oath to Congress. Hitz’s admissions also made fools of?some of the most prominent names in US journalism, and vindicated investigators?and critics of the Agency, ranging from Al McCoy to Senator John Kerry. The involvement of the CIA with drug traffickers is a story that has?slouched into the limelight every decade or so since the creation of the?Agency. Most recently, in 1996, the San Jose Mercury News published a sensational?series on the topic, “Dark Alliance”, and then helped destroy?its own reporter, Gary Webb. In Whiteout, Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair?finally put the whole story together from the earliest days, when the CIA’s?institutional ancestors, the OSS and the Office of Naval Intelligence, cut?a deal with America’s premier gangster and drug trafficker, Lucky Luciano. They show that many of even the most seemingly outlandish charges leveled?against the Agency have basis in truth. After the San Jose Mercury News?series, for example, outraged black communities charged that the CIA had?undertaken a program, stretching across many years, of experiments on minorities.?Cockburn and St. Clair show how the CIA imported Nazi scientists straight?from their labs at Dachau and Buchenwald and set them to work developing?chemical and biological weapons, tested on black Americans, some of them?in mental hospitals. Cockburn and St. Clair show how the CIA’s complicity with drug-dealing?criminal gangs was part and parcel of its attacks on labor organizers, whether?on the docks of New York, or of Marseilles and Shanghai. They trace how?the Cold War and counterinsurgency led to an alliance between the Agency?and the vilest of war criminals such as Klaus Barbie, or fanatic heroin?traders like the mujahedin in Afghanistan. Whiteout is a thrilling history that stretches from Sicily in 1944 to?the killing fields of South-East Asia, to CIA safe houses in Greenwich Village?and San Francisco where CIA men watched Agency-paid prostitutes feed LSD?to unsuspecting clients. We meet Oliver North as he plotted with Manuel?Noriega and Central American gangsters. We travel to little-known airports?in Costa Rica and Arkansas. We hear from drug pilots and accountants from?the Medillin Cocaine Cartel. We learn of DEA agents whose careers were ruined?because they tried to tell the truth. The CIA, drugs… and the press. Cockburn and St. Clair dissect the shameful?way many American journalists have not only turned a blind eye on the Agency’s?misdeeds, but helped plunge the knife into those who told the real story. Here at last is the full saga. Fact-packed and fast-paced, Whiteout is? a richly detailed excavation of the CIA’s dirtiest secrets. For all who ?want to know the truth about the Agency this is the book to start with.

    Ten highly motivated and trained terrorists, armed with guns, grenades and improvised explosive devices, slip past coastal security cordons on India's western seacoast in a fishing trawler. They board a rubber dinghy and disembark at Machhimar Nagar, Colaba, Mumbai. Over the next three agonizing days, India's 'Maximum City' is brought to its knees as the fidayeen wreak unprecedented havoc at pre-selected landmarks, holding India's commercial capital hostage. The 26/11 attacks, as they are now known, is widely regarded as the world's first hybrid terrorist attack. The attackers achieved through this long-drawn siege what Al Qaeda did through the high-visibility mass-casualty attack of 11 September 2001. The response to this attack was the first instance of all three wings of the Indian armed forces coming together to fight terror. The attacks tested the mettle of India's elite counter-terrorist force, the National Security Guard, whose strike element was entirely made up of army personnel; the navy dispatched its marine commandos in the initial hours of the attack; the air force flew the NSG into the city and air-dropped them over Nariman House. Black Tornado, as the operation was called by the NSG, is the story of these men called into action in the desperate hours following the most sensational terrorist attack the country has ever seen. Sandeep Unnithan puts together a blow-by-blow account of the terrorist strike and how the siege of Mumbai was thwarted by India's security forces.

    Drawing on years of research and first-hand reporting, Frank points out that the Democrats have done little to advance traditional liberal goals: expanding opportunity, fighting for social justice, and ensuring that workers get a fair deal. Indeed, they have scarcely dented the free-market consensus at all. This is not for lack of opportunity: Democrats have occupied the White House for sixteen of the last twenty-four years, and yet the decline of the middle class has only accelerated. Wall Street gets its bailouts, wages keep falling, and the free-trade deals keep coming.With his trademark sardonic wit and lacerating logic, Frank's Listen, Liberal lays bare the essence of the Democratic Party's philosophy and how it has changed over the years. A form of corporate and cultural elitism has largely eclipsed the party's old working-class commitment, he finds. For certain favored groups, this has meant prosperity. But for the nation as a whole, it is a one-way ticket into the abyss of inequality. In this critical election year, Frank recalls the Democrats to their historic goals-the only way to reverse the ever-deepening rift between the rich and the poor in America.

    It is the true story of what the war was like in Bosnia and in Kosovo.Combined with the stories are his 'observations' about the military tactics that were applied in these conflicts. They provide practical advice for soldiers and civilians on how to survive in a war zone.

    Those who serve America in harm’s way in the war against radical Islam have that quality in abundance. And so do their families and loved ones at home. Yet, they rarely get the attention or coverage they deserve.“Despite the way they are presented by too many in the press and politics, the men and women in uniform today are overwhelmingly good. I never cease to be amazed at the self-discipline of these brave young Americans. They can endure the adrenaline-pumping violence of an enemy engagement, and then, just minutes later, help school children get safely to their classes . . . No nation—ours included—has ever had a military force better than the one we have today. I’m proud of them. You should be too.” In American Heroes (a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post best seller), North offers an inspiring, first-hand account of the extraordinary men and women defending America against radical Islamic terror from his perspective as a forty year member of the United States military, a member of the National Security Council staff and serving as the U.S. government’s counter-terrorism coordinator from 1983-1986. This patriotic book also pulls in new reports and exclusive full-color photographs from War Stories, the award-winning FOX News Channel series hosted by North. Endorsements "Oliver North has spent his life among America’s heroes. This book with its moving words and powerful images will inspire patriots, reassure the faint of heart, and infuriate our nation’s adversaries. These are our heroes, they deserve to have their story told, and no one is better to tell it than Col. North, because when it comes to heroes, it takes one to know one. This book is a treasure."—Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House of Representatives and New York Times bestselling author of Real Change"Ollie North has ‘been there—done that’ with the American heroes who are winning the war against radical Islamic terror. This book is a magnificent tribute to the warriors who defend us all."—Sean Hannity, host of The Sean Hannity Show and FOX News Channel’s Hannity & Colmes