Protecting the President: An Inside Account of the Troubled Secret Service in an Era of Evolving Threats


Daniel Bongino - 2017
    Facing threats from fence jumpers and manifesto writers, and from fanatical terrorists and sophisticated spies, protecting the president is harder than ever. In an age of hyper-partisan politics, emotions are high and crazies are a dime a dozen. On top of that, with international tensions reaching a boiling point, it’s harder than ever to determine friend from foe. Yet the President of the United States is in very real danger if the Secret Service doesn’t change course soon and evolve with the rapidly changing threat environment. Highly motivated “bad guys” are already working on technologically advanced methodologies and are constantly striving to formulate the logistics of an attack on the White House. Eventually terrorist planners will find a way to acquire the technology, weapons, explosives, and know-how to make an attempt on the life of the President. The only question is “What are we going to do about it?” Protecting the President provides not only a rare insider glimpse of what the Secret Service does, but explores the challenges facing the agents today. Chock-full of relevant stories of protecting past presidents, veteran agent Dan Bongino explains how the agency can best protect the president today. This book covers how the Secret Service should • plan for a tactical assault by a terrorist attack team • prepare to respond to a severe medical emergency train to handle a chemical or biological weapon attack • prepare for an attack using explosives • plan for 9-11 style attacks from the air and fire threats • and much more

100 Nasty Women of History


Hannah Jewell - 2017
    When you learn about women in history, it's hard not to wonder: why do they all seem so prim and proper? The truth is, you're probably not being told the whole story. Also, (mostly male) historians keep leaving out or glossing over some of the most badass women who ever walked the surface of this planet. Fake news! But fret not. Former Buzzfeed senior writer and Washington Post pop culture host Hannah Jewell has got you covered. In 100 Nasty Women of History, Hannah will spill the tea on:-the women with impressive kill counts-the women who wrote dangerous things-the women who fought empires and racists-the women who knew how to have a good-ass time-the women who punched Nazis (metaphorically but also not)And that's just half of the women in this book. That's pretty metal.So, if you think that Nasty Women are a new thing, think again. They've always been around - you just haven't always heard of them. Take these stories and tell them to your friends. Write them on a wall. Sneakily tell them to your niece (who's old enough to hear the bad words, of course). Post them to your local MP (especially if it's a man). Make your friends dress up as Nasty Women for Halloween. These are the 100 Nasty Women of History who gave zero f*cks whatsoever. These are the 100 Nasty Women of History who made a difference. These are the 100 Nasty Women of History whom everyone needs to know about, right now.

A Lap Around Alaska: An AlCan Adventure


Shawn Inmon - 2017
    Join author Shawn Inmon and his twenty year old Subaru Outback on his epic solo road trip through British Columbia, Yukon, and Alaska. Part personal odyssey, part travel memoir, take an expedition into one of North America's last remaining wildernesses. If you dream of packing up your four-wheeler, your snow boots and camera, and setting off to explore the wilderness, A Lap Around Alaska will give you a rare glimpse into the Land of the Midnight Sun, of moose, bear, and bald eagles, of monumental glaciers and scenery so staggering it brings tears to your eyes. If you hunger for adventure and want to discover untouched beauty and to experience the majesty of the pristine North for yourself-Shawn saved the passenger seat just for you. This book also includes two bonus memoirs of life in Alaska in the 1970s-My First Alaskan Summer and My Matanuska Summer.

Anarchy!


Peter Glassgold - 2001
    It did more than report on the contemporary scene—it was part of the action—and its preoccupations preoccupy us still: birth control, women's rights, civil liberties, and questions of social and economic justice. Mother Earth appeared without interruption until August 1917, when it was killed by wartime postal censorship. Though Emma Goldman has since become a legendary figure, scarcely any material from her magazine ahs remained in print. This Mother Earth reader sets right this great wrong, and restores to public memory and important body of work—provocative writings by Margaret Sanger, Alexander Kropotkin, and dozens of other radical thinkers of the early twentieth century. About the Author:Peter Glassgold's fiction, poetry, translations, essays, and reviews have appeared in such publications as Forward, The Nation, The New Leader, and Publishers Weekly. His most recent book, the novel Angel Max, was nominated for the 1998 America Award for Fiction. He lives in Brooklyn Heights, New York.

Who Cooked the Last Supper?: The Women's History of the World


Rosalind Miles - 1989
    Women’s vital part in the shaping of the world has been consistently undervalued or ignored. Rosalind Miles now offers a fundamental reappraisal that sets the record straight. Stunning in its scope and originality, The Women’s History of the World challenges all previous world histories and shatters cherished illusions on every page.Starting with women in pre-history the author looks beyond the myth of ‘Man the Hunter’ to reveal women’s central role in the survival and evolution of the human race. She follows their progress from the days when God was a woman through to the triumphs of the Amazons and Assyrian war queens: she looks at the rise of organised religion and the growing oppression of women: she charts the long slow struggle for women’s rights culminating in the twentieth century women’s movements: and finally she presents a vision of women breaking free.This brilliant and absorbing book turns the spotlight on the hidden side of history to present a fascinating new view of the world, overturning our preconceptions to restore women to their rightful place at the centre of the worldwide story of revolution, empire, war and peace.Spiced with tales of individual women who have shaped history, celebrating the work and lives of the unsung female millions, distinguished by a wealth of research, The Women’s History of the World redefines the concept of historical reality.

America's Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines


Gail Collins - 2004
    It features a stunning array of personalities, from the women peering worriedly over the side of the Mayflower to feminists having a grand old time protesting beauty pageants and bridal fairs. Courageous, silly, funny, and heartbreaking, these women shaped the nation and our vision of what it means to be female in America. By culling the most fascinating characters — the average as well as the celebrated — Gail Collins, the editorial page editor at the New York Times, charts a journey that shows how women lived, what they cared about, and how they felt about marriage, sex, and work. She begins with the lost colony of Roanoke and the early southern "tobacco brides" who came looking for a husband and sometimes — thanks to the stupendously high mortality rate — wound up marrying their way through three or four. Spanning wars, the pioneering days, the fight for suffrage, the Depression, the era of Rosie the Riveter, the civil rights movement, and the feminist rebellion of the 1970s, America's Women describes the way women's lives were altered by dress fashions, medical advances, rules of hygiene, social theories about sex and courtship, and the ever-changing attitudes toward education, work, and politics. While keeping her eye on the big picture, Collins still notes that corsets and uncomfortable shoes mattered a lot, too. "The history of American women is about the fight for freedom," Collins writes in her introduction, "but it's less a war against oppressive men than a struggle to straighten out the perpetually mixed message about women's roles that was accepted by almost everybody of both genders." Told chronologically through the compelling stories of individual lives that, linked together, provide a complete picture of the American woman's experience, America's Women is both a great read and a landmark work of history.

The Second Sex


Simone de Beauvoir - 1949
     This long-awaited new edition reinstates significant portions of the original French text that were cut in the first English translation. Vital and groundbreaking, Beauvoir’s pioneering and impressive text remains as pertinent today as it was back then, and will continue to provoke and inspire generations of men and women to come.

Religious Right: The Greatest Threat to Democracy


A.F. Alexander - 2011
    From Christian Reconstructionists, Dominionists, Quiverfull, Seven Mountains Mandate, the attacks on public schools, to birth control becoming a hot button issue, find out the leaders of the movement and their tactics. This book explains, and documents, a stealthy hijacking of the government, courts, schools, even our history, and popular culture. This work includes interviews, research, and a bibliography. The presentation is organized and systematic, while in plain English. It shares how to get involved and make a difference in your community to protect your rights and preserve democracy. The book is written by an insider who left the Religious Right, and now shares why they believe they are mandated to have dominion over every aspect of life in the United States. The author details how their vision for America is not a democracy at all. A must read. Well researched with current events included and explained. Never dull and answers all your questions.

You Can Lead a Politician to Water, But You Can't Make Him Think: Ten Commandments for Texas Politics


Kinky Friedman - 2007
    It was a solid race, and he fought the good fight. Getting on the ballot as an independent -- a feat that had not been achieved in over a century -- was a victory in itself. And with ideas like "slots for tots" (legalized gambling to pay for education), the five Mexican generals plan (bribes to enforce border protection), and a firm stand against the "wussification" of the state, he would have done a helluva job.If that 2006 election was any indication -- and it was -- the political landscape in both Texas and the country at large needs a significant overhaul. The hucksters, the wealthy, and the twofaced rule; there is no room for Truth, and the little guys are quickly forgotten in all the muck. But Kinky, (briefly) down yet certainly not out, is still looking out for his fellow Americans, and he has much wisdom to impart.In this hilarious, thought-provoking manifesto, Kinky lays forth his ten commandments for improving the state of Texas and politics everywhere, and for restoring order, logic, decency, and above all a sense of humor back to this country. It's classic Kinky in a brand new way. And he might just have a point.

Benazir Bhutto: Favored Daughter


Brooke Allen - 2016
    Born to privilege as the daughter of one of Pakistan’s great feudal families, she was groomed for a diplomatic career and was thrust into the political arena when her father, Pakistan's charismatic and controversial prime minister, was executed. She then led Pakistan, one of the most turbulent and impoverished nations in the world, through two terms as prime minister in the 1980s and 1990s, but she struggled to ward off charges of corruption and retain her tenuous hold on power and was eventually forced into exile. Bhutto returned to Pakistan in 2007, only to be assassinated in Rawalpindi after a triumphant speech.Including interviews with key figures who knew Bhutto and have never before spoken on the record, Benazir Bhutto: Favored Daughter illuminates Bhutto’s tragic life as well as the role she played as the first female prime minister of Pakistan. Celebrated literary critic Brooke Allen approaches Bhutto in a way not many have done before in this taut biography of a figure who had a profound effect on the volatile politics of the Middle East, drawing on contemporary news sources and eyewitness reports, as well as accounts from her supporters and her enemies.

Introduction to Kettlebells: A Minimalist's Guide to Blasting Fat and Boosting Muscle


Pat Flynn - 2019
    You simply move more deeply into them. For anyone - the kettlebell novice to the 15-year veteran - this short (read: just 30 page) ebook provides the perfect foundation or refresher of the fundamental kettlebell techniques, including the kettlebell swing, goblet squat, snatch, Turkish get up, clean, and military press. Each movement has detailed instructions plus step-by-step photos to help the reader understand the movements as well as safely and effectively execute them. After we discuss the hows of each of the basic movements, we move into applying what we've learned with a simple, straightforward kettlebell program for strength, muscle, mobility, conditioning, and (for those who want it) weight loss. This 7-day program can be run through just once as a refresher or for up to six weeks as a standalone program. This book includes: *The following kettlebell exercises: Kettlebell swing, goblet squat, snatch, Turkish get up, clean, and military press. *Each kettlebell exercise features a detailed description of the movement, step-by-step photos and key points. *A straightforward and simple 7-day program (repeatable for up to 6 weeks) to help the novice acclimate to kettlebell training or for the kettlebell veteran hone their technique and skills.

FIRSTS: Women Who Are Changing the World


TIME Magazine - 2017
    A companion to TIME's multi-platform documentary, the book includes 15 first person deep-dives into the lives of influential women such as General Lori Robinson, the first woman to lead troops into combat, Kathryn Sullivan, the first woman to walk in space, and Aretha Franklin, the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Many others, including Oprah Winfrey, Madeline Albright, and Sheryl Sandburg offer their own personal reflections, thematic quotes and perspectives on balance, perseverance and strength.Each first-person piece or quote is accompanied by a distinctive portrait by photographer Luisa Dorr ― set up and taken on her iPhone. Others included in this unforgettable volume: Serena Williams, Ellen Degeneres, Loretta Lynch, Shonda Rimes, Nancy Pelosi, Rita Moreno, Cindy Sherman and Mo’Ne Davis.With a stirring introduction by Nancy Gibbs, herself a pioneer as the first female editor of TIME magazine, this is an inspirational book for all women and men.

SCUM Manifesto


Valerie Solanas - 1967
    Valerie Solanas, the woman who shot Andy Warhol, self-published this work just before her rampage against the king of Pop Art made her a household name and resulted in her confinement to a mental institution. But the Manifesto, for all its vitriol, is impossible to dismiss as just the rantings of a lesbian lunatic. In fact, the work has indisputable prescience, not only as a radical feminist analysis light-years ahead of its timepredicting artificial insemination, ATMs, a feminist uprising against under-representation in the artsbut also as a stunning testament to the rage of an abused and destitute woman.The focus of this edition is not on the nostalgic appeal of the work, but on Avital Ronell’s incisive introduction, “Deviant Payback: The Aims of Valerie Solanas.” Here is a reconsideration of Solanas’s infamous text in light of her social milieu, Derrida’s “The Ends of Man” (written in the same year), Judith Butler’s Excitable Speech, Nietzsche’s Ubermensch and notorious feminist icons from Medusa, Medea and Antigone, to Lizzie Borden, Lorenna Bobbit and Aileen Wournos, illuminating the evocative exuberance of Solanas’s dark tract.

Forget "Having It All": How America Messed Up Motherhood--and How to Fix It


Amy Westervelt - 2018
    After filing a story only two hours after giving birth, and then getting straight back to full-time work the next morning, journalist Amy Westervelt had a revelation: America might claim to revere motherhood, but it treats women who have children like crap. From inadequate maternity leave to gender-based double standards, emotional labor to the "motherhood penalty" wage gap, racist devaluing of some mothers and overvaluing of others, and our tendency to consider women's value only in terms of their reproductive capacity, Westervelt became determined to understand how we got here and how the promise of "having it all" ever even became a thing when it was so far from reality for American women. In Forget "Having It All," Westervelt traces the roots of our modern expectations of mothers and motherhood back to extremist ideas held by the first Puritans who attempted to colonize America and examines how those ideals shifted -- or didn't -- through every generation since. Using this historical backdrop, Westervelt draws out what we should replicate from our past (bringing back home economics, for example, this time with an emphasis on gender-balanced labor in the home), and what we must begin anew as we overhaul American motherhood (including taking a more intersectional view of motherhood, thinking deeply about the ways in which capitalism influences our views on reproduction, and incorporating working fathers into discussions about work-life balance). In looking for inspiration elsewhere in the world, Westervelt turned not to Scandinavia, where every work-life balance story inevitably ends up, but to Japan where politicians, in an increasingly desperate effort to increase the country's birth rates (sound familiar?), tried to apply Scandinavian-style policies atop a capitalist democracy not unlike America's, only to find that policy can't do much in the absence of cultural shift. Ultimately, Westervelt presents a measured, historically rooted and research-backed call for workplace policies, cultural norms, and personal attitudes about motherhood that will radically improve the lives of not just working moms but all Americans.

Right for a Reason: Life, Liberty, and a Crapload of Common Sense


Miriam Weaver - 2014
    We conservatives have truth and rationality and logic on our side. We just need to remind ourselves why we are right, and we need that reminder delivered in a way that’s not a lecture, not a history lesson, and not a complicated political diatribe.” If you think all conservatives are old white dudes, think again. Meet the Chicks on the Right (if you haven’t already). Everyone loves to tell them they’re wrong. Everyone. Liberals say they’re wrong because, well, they’re conservative. Conservatives tell them they’re wrong because they are not conservative enough. Or because they’re too conservative. Or because they’re the wrong kind of conservative. With all the blame flying around, it’s easy to lose sight of one important thing: They think like you. And they are right. It’s right to revere the Constitution. It’s right to value personal responsibility, economic liberty, and free enterprise. It’s right to think that political correctness is crap, and it’s right to call out the mainstream media for bias. And it’s right to laugh at the so-called War on Women and to stand up for the unborn. As they do every day on their blog and radio show, Miriam Weaver and Amy Jo Clark offer a definitive response to critics on the right and the left, and a cheerfully snarky pep talk for likeminded conservatives. On the one hand, they are tired of the media’s portrayal of conservatives as repressed sticks-in-the-mud; on the other hand, they are sick of GOP leaders who play right into that stereotype. With humor and insight, Mock and Daisy, as the Chicks are known on their blog, explain why:Capitalism is a good thing—success and the money that comes with it are nothing to be ashamed of! First Amendment protections extend to all Americans, not just those with whom we agree. Americans have a constitutional right to things that go pew-pew-pew. Skin color is irrelevant. It makes sense to be pro-life and pro-Plan B. The Chicks offer suggestions for a conservative makeover that will realign the GOP with the regular folks who are frustrated with uptight and clueless politicians. But they also show why conservatism makes sense for everyone, especially those who love their country, their families, God, rock and roll, and a well-made cocktail (not necessarily in that order).