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The Establishment: And How They Get Away with It
Owen Jones - 2014
In exposing this shadowy and complex system that dominates our lives, Owen Jones sets out on a journey into the heart of our Establishment, from the lobbies of Westminster to the newsrooms, boardrooms and trading rooms of Fleet Street and the City. Exposing the revolving doors that link these worlds, and the vested interests that bind them together, Jones shows how, in claiming to work on our behalf, the people at the top are doing precisely the opposite. In fact, they represent the biggest threat to our democracy today - and it is time they were challenged.Owen Jones may have the face of a baby and the voice of George Formby but he is our generation's Orwell and we must cherish him (Russell Brand)This is the most important book on the real politics of the UK in my lifetime, and the only one you will ever need to read. You will be enlightened and angry (Irvine Welsh)Owen Jones displays a powerful combination of cool analysis and fiery anger in this dissection of the profoundly and sickeningly corrupt state that is present-day Britain. He is a fine writer, and this is a truly necessary book (Philip Pullman)
The Corruption Chronicles: Obama's Big Secrecy, Big Corruption, and Big Government
Tom Fitton - 2012
president; it was the very cornerstone of his campaign. No secrets. No masks. No smoke and mirrors. No excuses. But over the next four years, President Obama’s administration would prove to be one of the most guarded and duplicitous of our time. Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch, America’s largest nonpartisan government watchdog (challenging George W. Bush as well as Bill Clinton), has been investigating Obama ever since he splashed onto the national scene in 2006. Now Fitton exposes devastating secrets the Obama administration has desperately fought—even in court—to keep from the American public. For a while, the Obama stonewall seemed to be holding. Until now. And the revelations are astonishing. Judicial Watch has unearthed the truth behind such high-profile issues as the bailouts, Obamacare, Guantanamo, Obama’s true ties to Bill Ayers and to the Black Panthers voting intimidation scandal, and the Constitution-defying government czars. He reveals Obama’s personal war against FOX News, his real link to ACORN, and his radical Chicago connections. Through scores of smoking-gun government files, some replicated here and many unearthed after lengthy court battles, Fitton also discloses the facts of the Obama-backed $535-million loan guarantee to Solyndra, promoted by the president as a model for economic recovery—only months before its disastrous bankruptcy filing. Here too is the truth behind the gunrunning scandal, code-named Fast and Furious, which was a program generated in secrecy by the U.S. government that supplied thousands of firearms to murderous criminals in Mexico—an unconscionable act, and only one in a series of historical lows for an administration that few, if any, major media in this country dare to expose. This book details how the Obama machine is aggressively employing Chicago-style tactics to steal, if necessary, the 2012 elections. And how Judicial Watch is prepared to go to court with historic lawsuits to make sure the elections are fair and honest. Why do Obama supporters turn a blind eye to his astoundingly unethical and abusive approach to governing this country? The Corruption Chronicles boldly, honestly, and factually makes the case that the federal government is now off the rails and out of control, and has literally built its foundation on broken promises, fatal miscalculations, and a cynical manipulation of its trusting public. But it’s not over. Tom Fitton and Judicial Watch are proof that the Tea Party approach to government corruption can make a difference. A grassroots group can take on the president, the Congress, and the judiciary, and finally force the government to be held accountable. The uncontestable facts are here, in The Corruption Chronicles. To see what is true, you only have to look. THE FULLY DOCUMENTED FACTS BEHIND: • The Solyndra Debacle • Obama’s Watergate: Operation Fast and Furious • The Obama Administration’s $20 Billion Government Extortion Scheme • The Unprecedented Threat to the Integrity of the 2012 Elections • The Czar Investigation Stonewall • The Undermining of Our Nation’s Immigration Laws • 9/11 Secrets
And it was Beautiful: Marcelo Bielsa and the Rebirth of Leeds United
Phil Hay - 2021
The Thumpin': How Rahm Emanuel and the Democrats Learned to Be Ruthless and Ended the Republican Revolution
Naftali Bendavid - 2007
The Thumpin’ is the story of that historic victory and the man at the center on whom Democratic hopes hinged: Congressman Rahm Emanuel, head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). Chicago Tribune reporter Naftali Bendavid had exclusive access to Emanuel and the DCCC in the year and a half leading up to the elections and ended up with the story of a lifetime, the thrilling blow-by-blow account of how Emanuel remade the campaign in his own ferocious image. Responsible for everything from handpicking Congressional candidates to raising money for attack ads, Emanuel, a talented ballet dancer better known in Washington for his extraordinary intensity and his inexhaustible torrents of profanity, threw out the playbook on the way Democrats run elections.Instead of rallying the base, Rahm sought moderate-to-conservative candidates who could attract more traditional voters. Instead of getting caught in the Democrats’ endless arguments about their positions, he went on the attack, personally vilifying Republicans from Tom DeLay to Christopher Shays. And instead of abiding by the gentlemen’s agreements of good-old-boy Washington, he broke them, attacking his counterpart in the Republican party and challenging Howard Dean, the chairman of his own party. In 2005, no one believed victory was within the Democrats’ grasp. But as the months passed, Republicans were caught in wave after wave of scandal, support for the war in Iraq steadily declined, and the president’s poll numbers plummeted. And in Emanuel, the Democrats finally had a killer, a ruthless closer like Karl Rove or Lee Atwater, poised to seize the advantage and deliver what President Bush would call “a thumpin.’”Taking its cues from classic political page-turners like Showdown at Gucci Gulch and documentaries like The War Room, The Thumpin’ takes us inside the key races and the national strategy-making that moved the Democrats from forecasted gains of three seats in 2005 to a sweeping gain of thirty seats when the votes were finally counted. Through this masterful account of Rahm’s rout, Bendavid shows how the lessons the Democrats learned in 2006—to fight for every vote, to abandon litmus tests, and to take no prisoners—will be crucial to the party’s future electoral success, and shape the political course the nation will take in the twenty-first century.From the Hardcover edition.
85 Days: The Last Campaign of Robert Kennedy
Jules Witcover - 1969
Kennedy’s seminal presidential campaign.85 Days is veteran Washington journalist Jules Witcover’s masterpiece of political reportage. It brilliantly captures a lost moment in time when the politics of conviction seemed to converge with America’s youth movement in opposition to the Vietnam War. At its center was the charismatic Robert F. Kennedy, brother of the slain President John F. Kennedy. Robert Kennedy’s impassioned opposition to the Vietnam War, and his vision for a more egalitarian United States, launched him on one of the most memorable, though brief, campaigns in U.S. political history.Witcover’s driving narrative follows Kennedy’s campaign throughout the primary season, as Kennedy mulled a run, developed his core issues and supporter base, and shot to the top of the polls, culminating in a victory in California just two days before he was tragically killed. A timeless work of political journalism, 85 Days captures the character and spirit of a man who came to symbolize an unforgettable era in America.
Bag Man: The Wild Crimes, Audacious Cover-Up, and Spectacular Downfall of a Brazen Crook in the White House
Rachel Maddow - 2020
Agnew, Richard Nixon's second-in-command. Long on firebrand rhetoric and short on political experience, Agnew had carried out a bribery and extortion ring in office for years, when--at the height of Watergate--three young federal prosecutors discovered his crimes and launched a mission to take him down before it was too late. Before Nixon's downfall made way for Agnew to ascend to the presidency himself. Agnew did everything he could to bury their investigation: dismissing it as a "witch hunt," riling up his partisan base, making the press the enemy, and, with a crumbling circle of loyalists, scheming to obstruct justice.In this blockbuster account, Rachel Maddow and Michael Yarvitz detail the investigation that exposed Agnew's crimes, the attempts at a cover-up - which involved future President George H. W. Bush - and the bargain that forced Agnew's resignation but also spared him years in federal prison. Based on the hit podcast, Bag Man expands and deepens the story of Spiro Agnew's scandal and its lasting influence on our politics, our media, and our understanding of what it takes to confront a criminal in the White House.
Only In America: Inside The Mind And Under The Skin Of The Nation Everyone Loves To Hate
Matt Frei - 2008
A city so rich that it spends 150 million dollars a year on corporate lunches, dinners and fundraisers and yet so poor that its streets are frequently as potholed as those of any forgotten backwater in the developing world. A city that deploys more armed officers per square mile than any other in the world but has earned the title of being its country's murder capital. A city where 565 elected Congressmen and Senators are chased, charmed, cajoled and sometimes bribed by 35,000 registered lobbyists; where the most illustrious resident travels with a fleet of planes and a small army of body guards but where the mayor for twelve years was a convicted crack addict who believed that every law in his own country was racist, 'including the law of gravity'. A city that plays host to seventeen different spying agencies, employing 23,000 agents, none of whom were able to discover a plot that involved flying civilian airliners into buildings, even though the plotters had littered their path with clues. Hard to imagine? Welcome to Washington DC: the Rome of the 21st century.Matt Frei was the BBC’s Washington correspondent from 2002. ‘Only in America’ is a surprising and brilliant dissection of the most powerful nation on earth from its capital out.
Crack House
Harry Keeble - 2008
By the end of the decade Britain's inner cities were in the midst of a crack epidemic. Narrated by the leader of the Harginey Drugs Squad, 'Crack House' describes a series of breathtaking raids as well as arrests, beatings, stabbings and shootings.
Dear F*cking Lunatic: 101 Obscenely Rude Letters to Donald Trump
Aldous J. Pennyfarthing - 2018
With acid tongue planted firmly in cheek, author Aldous J. Pennyfarthing takes on the president’s unsurpassed ignorance, rampant racism, shocking pettiness, vertiginous dishonesty, and more. Based on the viral Daily Kos post of the same name. Approximately 345 pages.
Creem: America's Only Rock 'n' Roll Magazine
Robert Matheu - 2007
This title presents a retrospective of the beautiful haze that was rock's golden age, from the end of the hippies through glam and punk, and into 80's heavy metal.
Points of Entry: Encounters at the Origin Sites of Pakistan
Nadeem Farooq Paracha - 2018
In these marvellous essays on history, politics and society, cultural critic Nadeem Farooq Paracha upturns various reductive readings of the country by revealing its multi-layered reality. With wit and insight, he investigates past events and their implications for modern-day society. Thus, one piece explores how and why Mohenjo-daro has been neglected as a historical site, and another examines how Muhammad-bin-Qasim, who briefly invaded Sindh in 713 CE, has come to be lionised as the original founder of Pakistan. There is a story about a Pakistani Jimi Hendrix who plays the guitar like a dream and also one about a medieval emperor who lives on in the swear words of a Punjabi peasant. There are essays on Pakistani pop music, on Afro-Pakistanis and on how Jhuley Lal came to be more than just a folk deity for Sindhi immigrants in India. Points of Entry examines the constant struggle between two distinct tendencies in Pakistani civic-nationalism—one modernist, the other theocratic—and the complex society it has birthed.
War Story
Jim Morris - 1979
Col. Robert K. Brown, Editor and Publisher, Soldier of Fortune“Morris captures the historical accuracy of Special Operations in the language learned from firsthand experience.”–Lt. Col. Chuck Allen, Commander, Project Delta“War Story is the lore of Special Forces in Vietnam told in the tradition of Woody Guthrie.”–Al Santoli, author of Everything We Had“Jim Morris is a highly decorated Green Beret combat veteran, with a unique talent for making his readers feel a part of his gripping, action-packed personal experiences. Morris commands your attention as a reader with the same authority and ability with which he commanded troops in combat.”–J.C. Pollock, author of Mission M.I.A.Jim Morris was an educated young man who had always wanted to be a soldier. In 1963, he found the perfect war..."The war was like a great puzzle, great to think about, great to plan, great to do. It was so incredibly peaceful out there in the jungle."As an advisor to a Montagnard strike force, Morris and his guerrillas outfought and outmaneuvered the Viet Cong in his sector. To a Green Beret like Jim Morris, the “Yards” were brothers—so fiercely insular, they would serve no outsider and made the Berets who fought with them honorary members of the tribe…so valiant, they would follow the right man into a firestorm…But while he loved the ambushes, the firefights and the Montagnards, he could see a tragedy unfolding in Vietnam."As I jumped I heard a crack and felt a thud in my right shoulder. I squeezed the trigger on my M-16. The bolt went ka-schlugg and that was that, baby. Jammed again."In the most widely admired Special Forces memoir to come out of the Vietnam War, Jim Morris tells his story: of the early days and the Tet Offensive in '68, of the slaughters and the beauty, of the violence, the courage, the loyalty and the loss..."The war was my life and I identified with it totally. To end it was to end me, and that I would not do..."About the AuthorJim Morris served three tours with Special Forces (The Green Berets) in Vietnam. The second and third were cut short by serious wounds. He retired from his wounds as a major. He has maintained his interest in the mountain peoples of Vietnam with whom he fought, and has been, for many years, a civil rights activist on their behalf. His Vietnam memoir War Story won the first Bernal Diaz Award for military nonfiction. Morris is author of the story from which the film Operation Dumbo Drop was made, and has produced numerous documentary television episodes about the Vietnam War. He is author of three books of nonfiction and four novels.
Piety & Power: Mike Pence and the Taking of the White House
Tom Lobianco - 2019
The seasoned political reporter was at the first campaign rally governor Pence held in his hometown of Columbus, Indiana. He was there when Pence returned to Washington as Donald Trump’s vice president. Drawing on his deep ties both within the Beltway and in Indiana state politics, as well as reams of research and deep access to the vice president and his staff, LoBianco offers a revealing portrait of the devout Christian who shocked many of his closest followers when he joined the campaign and became one of the strongest champions of Donald Trump. He also explores the rumors—much debated inside the Beltway and among pundits in the media—surrounding the Vice President’s ambitions to succeed and even "overthrow" Trump.LoBianco dissects Pence’s entire political life, from his detours in the ’90s, to his rapid ascension through the first decade of the twenty-first century, to the White House, and provides an inside account of how Pence nearly crashed and burned his career while governor, only to miraculously rise from the ashes thanks to the unlikely election of Trump. He also gives a rare look inside the "shadow government" Pence has built—a conservative machine at Trump’s call for now, but one that could just as easily step in if Trump is removed from office.Piety & Power cuts to the core of the nation’s most enigmatic politician, and unearths new, important, and fascinating anecdotes about Pence’s faith, his marriage to Karen Pence, his bizarre, obsequious relationship with Trump, his deeply buried personality, his ascent to power under John Boehner, and his presidential aspirations and plans for America’s future.From the explosive revelations of the Russia investigation to the sea change affecting the Republican party and its direction under Trump, it is vital that Americans know more about the man who could ascend to the Oval Office. Piety & Power provides insights and answers as it sheds light on this ambitious Midwestern politician, his past, and his possible future.
Thomas Jefferson: The Failures And Greatness Of An Ordinary Man
Jonathan Sistine - 2016
He was the embodiment of the Enlightment man, the perfect synthesis of classicist, scientist, and visionary. How can we hope to understand such a towering figure? The Sage of Monticello, deified in American politics, speaks across the ages like a patriotic Moses, or Buddha, or Christ.Or so his disciples would have us believe.The real Thomas Jefferson was an ordinary man, with all the usual failings. Molded by the culture of the Virginia planter class, he fought against tyranny while oppressing his own slaves. He institutionalized racist attitudes, bickered with his rivals, lusted after other men's wives, and kept his own mixed-race children in bondage.Yet his accomplishments are too spectacular to be denied. The Declaration of Independence, the Louisiana Purchase, he even abolished taxes (for awhile). As a Founding Father, his contributions eclipsed all the rest. Without Jefferson, the American experiment might have ended before it began. So how can we make sense of his personal failings in the context of his great works?Thomas Jefferson: The Failures and Greatness of an Ordinary Man looks at Jefferson from the ground up, finding handholds in his love of Greek literature and fine wine, his affection for friends and family, and the compromises he deemed necessary for the survival of the nation. By exploring his relationships, the reader is invited into Jefferson's sanctum sanctorum, to stare unblinking at his complexity and follow truth where it leads.
Settle for More
Megyn Kelly - 2016
She goes behind-the-scenes of her career, sharing the stories and struggles that landed her in the anchor chair and taught her to ask the tough questions. Speaking candidly about her decision to "settle for more"—a motto she credits as having dramatically transformed her life at home and at work—Megyn discusses how she abandoned a thriving legal career to follow her journalism dreams.Admired for her hard work, humor, and authenticity, Megyn sheds light on the news business, her time at Fox News, the challenges of being a professional woman and working mother, and her most talked about television moments. She also speaks openly about Donald Trump’s feud with her, revealing never-before-heard details about the first Republican debate, its difficult aftermath, and how she persevered through it all.Deeply personal and surprising, Settle for More offers unparalleled insight into this charismatic and intriguing journalist, and inspires us all to embrace the principles—determination, honesty, and fortitude in the face of fear—that have won her fans across the political divide.