Bush, offered the former White House insider's telling perspective on George W. Bush's presidency. Once again, he employs his knowledge & understanding of Washington politics & process to examine the conservative movement's current inner circle of radical Republican leaders--from Capitol Hill to Pennsylvania Ave to K Street & beyond. In Conservatives without Conscience, he not only highlights specific right-wing-driven GOP policies but also probes the conservative mindset, identifying recurring qualities such as the unbridled viciousness toward those daring to disagree with them, as well as the big business favoritism that costs taxpayers billions. He identifies specific examples of how court-packing seeks to form a judiciary that is biased by its very nature, how religious piety is producing politics run amok & how concealed indifference to the founding principles of liberty & equality is pushing America further & further from its constitutional foundations. By the end, he paints a vivid picture of what's happening at the top levels of the Republican Party, a party corrupted by leaders who cloak their actions in moral superiority while packaging their programs in blatant propaganda. He finds disturbing signs that current right-wing authoritarian thinking, when conflated with the domineering personalities of the conservative leadership, could take the USA toward its own version of fascism.

    Forest rangers had assembled nearly ten thousand men  —  college boys, day workers, immigrants from mining camps  —  to fight the fire. But no living person had seen anything like those flames, and neither the rangers nor anyone else knew how to subdue them.Egan narrates the struggles of the overmatched rangers against the implacable fire with unstoppable dramatic force. Equally dramatic is the larger story he tells of outsized president Teddy Roosevelt and his chief forester, Gifford Pinchot. Pioneering the notion of conservation, Roosevelt and Pinchot did nothing less than create the idea of public land as our national treasure, owned by and preserved for every citizen. The robber barons fought Roosevelt and Pinchot’s rangers, but the Big Burn saved the forests even as it destroyed them: the heroism shown by the rangers turned public opinion permanently in their favor and became the creation myth that drove the Forest Service, with consequences still felt in the way our national lands are protected  —  or not —  today.

    This stunning exposé reveals for the first time how Bill and Hillary Clinton systematically abused women and others—sexually, physically, and psychologically—in their scramble for power and wealth.In this groundbreaking book, New York Times bestselling author Roger Stone and researcher and alternative historian Robert Morrow map the arc of Bill and Hillary’s crimes and cover-ups. They reveal details about their actions in Arkansas, during Bill Clinton’s time in the White House, about who really ordered the deadly attack on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, during Hillary’s tenure as secretary of state, about their time at the Clinton Foundation, and during Hillary’s current campaign for president.This is the first book to shed light on the couple’s deeply personal violations of the people they crushed in their obsessive quest for power. Along the way, Stone and Morrow reveal the family’s darkest secrets, including a Clinton family member’s drug rehab treatment that was never reported by the press, Hillary Clinton’s unusually close relationship with a top female aide, and a stunning revelation of such impact that it could strip Bill Clinton of his current popularity and derail Hillary’s push to be the second Clinton in the White House.Anyone who cares about the future of the United States will want to read this tell-all, exposing the appalling, unvarnished, and ugly truth about the Clintons

    The chiefs of staff, often referred to as "the gatekeepers," wield tremendous power in Washington and beyond; they decide who is allowed to see the president, negotiate with Congress to push POTUS's agenda, and--most crucially--enjoy unparalleled access to the leader of the free world. Each chief can make or break an administration, and each president reveals himself by the chief he picks.Through extensive, intimate interviews with all seventeen living chiefs and two former presidents, award-winning journalist and producer Chris Whipple pulls back the curtain on this unique fraternity. In doing so, he revises our understanding of presidential history, showing us how James Baker's expert managing of the White House, the press, and Capitol Hill paved the way for the Reagan Revolution--and, conversely, how Watergate, the Iraq War, and even the bungled Obamacare rollout might have been prevented by a more effective chief.Filled with shrewd analysis and never-before-reported details, The Gatekeepers offers an essential portrait of the toughest job in Washington.

    This feeling only deepened when his family moved from Japan to North Korea when Ishikawa was just thirteen years old, and unwittingly became members of the lowest social caste. His father, himself a Korean national, was lured to the new Communist country by promises of abundant work, education for his children, and a higher station in society. But the reality of their new life was far from utopian.In this memoir translated from the original Japanese, Ishikawa candidly recounts his tumultuous upbringing and the brutal thirty-six years he spent living under a crushing totalitarian regime, as well as the challenges he faced repatriating to Japan after barely escaping North Korea with his life. A River in Darkness is not only a shocking portrait of life inside the country but a testament to the dignity—and indomitable nature—of the human spirit

    It raised eyebrows in their lifetimes and has only become more controversial since their deaths. From FDR's lifelong romance with Lucy Mercer to Eleanor's purported lesbianism--and many scandals in between--the American public has never tired of speculating about the ties that bound these two headstrong individuals. Some claim that Eleanor sacrificed her personal happiness to accommodate FDR's needs; others claim that the marriage was nothing more than a gracious facade for political convenience. No one has told the full story until now. In this groundbreaking new account of the marriage, Hazel Rowley describes the remarkable courage and lack of convention--private and public--that kept FDR and Eleanor together. She reveals a partnership that was both supportive and daring. Franklin, especially, knew what he owed to Eleanor, who was not so much behind the scenes as heavily engaged in them. Their relationship was the product of FDR and Eleanor's conscious efforts--a partnership that they created according to their own ambitions and needs. In this dramatic and vivid narrative, set against the great upheavals of the Depression and World War II, Rowley paints a portrait of a tender lifelong companionship, born of mutual admiration and compassion. Most of all, she depicts an extraordinary evolution--from conventional Victorian marriage to the bold and radical partnership that has made Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt go down in history as one of the most inspiring and fascinating couples of all time.

    In riveting, tick-tock prose, Weiner illuminates how the Vietnam War and the Watergate controversy that brought about Nixon's demise were inextricably linked. From the hail of garbage and curses that awaited Nixon upon his arrival at the White House, when he became the president of a nation as deeply divided as it had been since the end of the Civil War, to the unprecedented action Nixon took against American citizens, who he considered as traitorous as the army of North Vietnam, to the infamous break-in and the tapes that bear remarkable record of the most intimate and damning conversations between the president and his confidantes, Weiner narrates the history of Nixon's anguished presidency in fascinating and fresh detail.A crucial new look at the greatest political suicide in history, One Man Against the World leaves us not only with new insight into this tumultuous period, but also into the motivations and demons of an American president who saw enemies everywhere, and, thinking the world was against him, undermined the foundations of the country he had hoped to lead.

    A team of journalists with unparalleled inside access provides the first full, in-depth account of WikiLeaks, its founder Julian Assange, and the ethical, legal, and political controversies it has both uncovered and provoked.

    And her profile has only risen since the election ended in favor of the other guy. What makes Meghan so appealing? As a new role model for young, creative, and vocal members of the GOP, she's unafraid to mix it up and speak her mind. In Dirty Sexy Politics she takes a hard look at the future of her party. She doesn't shy away from serious issues and her raucous humor and down-to-earth style keep her positions accessible. In this witty, candid, and boisterous book, Meghan takes us deep behind the scenes of the campaign trail. She steals campaign signs in New Hampshire, tastes the nightlife in Nashville, and has a strange encounter with Laura and Jenna Bush at the White House. Along the way, she falls in love with America—while seeing how far the Republican Party has veered from its core values of freedom, honesty, and individuality. In Dirty Sexy Politics, Meghan McCain gives us a true insider's account of life on a campaign trail.

     The facts of the tragedy are established: On April 15, 2013, two homemade bombs fashioned from pressure cookers exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three people and wounding 264 others. The elder of the brothers suspected of committing this atrocity, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, died in the ensuing manhunt; Dzhokhar will stand trial in January 2015. What we don’t know is why. How did such a nightmare come to pass?This is a probing and powerful story of dislocation, and the longing for clarity and identity that can reach the point of combustion. Bestselling Russian-American author Masha Gessen is uniquely endowed with the background, access, and talent to tell it. She explains who the brothers were and how they came to do what they appear to have done. From their displaced beginnings, as descendants of ethnic Chechens deported to Central Asia in the Stalin era, Gessen follows them as they are displaced again, from strife-ridden Kyrgyzstan to war-torn Dagestan, and then, as émigrés to the United States, into an utterly disorienting new world. Most crucially, she reconstructs the struggle between assimilation and alienation that ensued for each of the brothers, fueling their apparent metamorphosis into a new breed of homegrown terrorist, with their feet on American soil but their loyalties elsewhere—a split in identity that seems to have incubated a deadly sense of mission. Like Dave Cullen’s Columbine, this will be the enduring account of an indelible tragedy.

    For an entire year, otherwise clear-thinking members of the most affluent, over-educated, information-drenched generation in American history fell prey to the most expensive, hi-tech, laser-focused marketing assault in presidential campaign history. Twitter messages were machine-gunned to cell phones at mach speed. Facebook and MySpace groups spread across the Internet like digital fire. YouTube videos featuring celebrities ricocheted across the globe and into college students’ in-boxes with devastating regularity. All the while, the mega-money-raising engine whirred like a slot machine stuck on jackpot. The result: an unthinking mass of young voters marched forward to elect the most radical and untested president in U.S. history. Recognized as one of the country’s top young conservative activists by Human Events, Jason Mattera created an internet sensation with ambush video interviews that exposed clueless young liberals and cunning Democratic officials. Now he reveals the jaw-dropping lengths Barack Obama and his allies in Hollywood, Washington, and Academia went to in order to transform a legion of iPod-listening, MTV-watching followers into a winning coalition that threatens to become a long-lasting political realignment. Obama Zombies uncovers the true, behind-the-scenes story of the methods and tactics the Obama campaign unleashed on youth culture. Through personal interviews and meticulous original research, Mattera explains why conservatism’s future rests upon jolting the young masses from their slumber, yanking out their earphones, and sparking a countercultural conservative battle against the rise of the ignorant Left. The lesson from 2008 is crystal clear: When true conservatives run away, Obama zombies come out to play.

    The result is both a defense of freedom of speech and a critique of the likeability factor that can impede it.

    Now, this master of political humor strikes again with a powerful and provocative message for all of us.In these pages, Al reveals the alarming story of how:Bush (barely) beat Kerry with his campaign of “fear, smear, and queers,” and then claimed a nonexistent mandate.“Casino Jack” Abramoff, the Republicans’ nearest and dearest friend, made millions of dollars off of the unspeakable misery of the poor and the powerless. And, also, Native Americans.The administration successfully implemented its strategy to destroy America’s credibility and goodwill around the world.Complete with new material for this paperback edition, The Truth (with jokes) is more than just entertaining, intelligent, and insightful. It is at once prescient in its analysis of right-wing mendacity and incompetence, and inspiring in its vision of a better tomorrow for all Americans (except Jack Abramoff).

    Kennedy installed hidden recording systems in the Oval Office and in the Cabinet Room. The result is a priceless historical archive comprising some 265 hours of taped material. JFK was elected president when Civil Rights tensions were near the boiling point, and Americans feared a nuclear war. Confronted with complex dilemmas necessitating swift and unprecedented action, President Kennedy engaged in intense discussion and debate with his cabinet members and other advisors. Now, in conjunction with the fiftieth anniversary of the Kennedy presidency, the John F. Kennedy Library and historian Ted Widmer have carefully selected the most compelling and important of these remarkable recordings for release, fully restored and re-mastered onto two 75-minute CDs for the first time. Listening In represents a uniquely unscripted, insider account of a president and his cabinet grappling with the day-to-day business of the White House and guiding the nation through a hazardous era of uncertainty.Accompanied by extensively annotated transcripts of the recordings, and with a foreword by Caroline Kennedy, "Listening In" delivers the story behind the story in the unguarded words and voices of the decision-makers themselves." Listening In" covers watershed events, including the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Space Race, Vietnam, and the arms race, and offers fascinating glimpses into the intellectual methodology of a circumspect president and his brilliant, eclectic brain trust.Just as the unique vision of President John F. Kennedy continues to resonate half a century after his stirring speeches and bold policy decisions, the documentary candor of Listening In imparts a vivid, breathtaking immediacy that will significantly expand our understanding of his time in office.

    Abraham Lincoln, who had been involved in more than three thousand cases--including more than twenty-five murder trials--during his two-decades-long career, was hired to defend him. This was to be his last great case as a lawyer.What normally would have been a local case took on momentous meaning. Lincoln's debates with Senator Stephen Douglas the previous fall had gained him a national following, transforming the little-known, self-taught lawyer into a respected politician. He was being urged to make a dark-horse run for the presidency in 1860. Taking this case involved great risk. His reputation was untarnished, but should he lose this trial, should Harrison be convicted of murder, the spotlight now focused so brightly on him might be dimmed. He had won his most recent murder trial with a daring and dramatic maneuver that had become a local legend, but another had ended with his client dangling from the end of a rope.The case posed painful personal challenges for Lincoln. The murder victim had trained for the law in his office, and Lincoln had been his friend and his mentor. His accused killer, the young man Lincoln would defend, was the son of a close friend and loyal supporter. And to win this trial he would have to form an unholy allegiance with a longtime enemy, a revivalist preacher he had twice run against for political office--and who had bitterly slandered Lincoln as an "infidel...too lacking in faith" to be elected.Lincoln's Last Trial captures the presidential hopeful's dramatic courtroom confrontations in vivid detail as he fights for his client--but also for his own blossoming political future. It is a moment in history that shines a light on our legal system, as in this case Lincoln fought a legal battle that remains incredibly relevant today.