Recommendations based on "George Washington An American Life"

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!Peter Schweizer has been fighting corruption—and winning—for years. In Throw Them All Out, he exposed insider trading by members of Congress, leading to the passage of the STOCK Act. In Extortion, he uncovered how politicians use mafia-like tactics to enrich themselves. And in Clinton Cash, he revealed the Clintons’ massive money machine and sparked an FBI investigation.Now he explains how a new corruption has taken hold, involving larger sums of money than ever before. Stuffing tens of thousands of dollars into a freezer has morphed into multibillion-dollar equity deals done in the dark corners of the world.An American bank opening in China would be prohibited by US law from hiring a slew of family members of top Chinese politicians. However, a Chinese bank opening in America can hire anyone it wants. It can even invite the friends and families of American politicians to invest in can’t-lose deals.President Donald Trump’s children have made front pages across the world for their dicey transactions. However, the media has barely looked into questionable deals made by those close to Barack Obama, Joe Biden, John Kerry, Mitch McConnell, and lesser-known politicians who have been in the game longer.In many parts of the world, the children of powerful political figures go into business and profit handsomely, not necessarily because they are good at it, but because people want to curry favor with their influential parents. This is a relatively new phenomenon in the United States. But for relatives of some prominent political families, we may already be talking about hundreds of millions of dollars.Deeply researched and packed with shocking revelations, Secret Empires identifies public servants who cannot be trusted and provides a path toward a more accountable government.

From MSNBC correspondent Steve Kornacki, a lively and sweeping history of the birth of political tribalism in the 1990s—one that brings critical new understanding to our current political landscape from Clinton to TrumpIn The Red and the Blue, cable news star and acclaimed journalist Steve Kornacki follows the twin paths of Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich, two larger-than-life politicians who exploited the weakened structure of their respective parties to attain the highest offices. For Clinton, that meant contorting himself around the various factions of the Democratic party to win the presidency. Gingrich employed a scorched-earth strategy to upend the permanent Republican minority in the House, making him Speaker.The Clinton/Gingrich battles were bare-knuckled brawls that brought about massive policy shifts and high-stakes showdowns—their collisions had far-reaching political consequences. But the ’90s were not just about them. Kornacki writes about Mario Cuomo’s stubborn presence around Clinton’s 1992 campaign; Hillary Clinton’s star turn during the 1998 midterms, seeding the idea for her own candidacy; Ross Perot’s wild run in 1992 that inspired him to launch the Reform Party, giving Donald Trump his first taste of electoral politics in 1999; and many others.With novelistic prose and a clear sense of history, Steve Kornacki masterfully weaves together the various elements of this rambunctious and hugely impactful era in American history, whose effects set the stage for our current political landscape.

“Punchy and well-reported….Sommer is the perfect person to tell this story." —New York Times"A story so bizarre, only Will Sommer could report it.” —Molly Jong-FastThe definitive book on QAnon from the reporter knows them best; Will Sommer explains what it is, how it has gained a mainstream following among Republican lawmakers and ordinary citizens, the threat it poses to democracy, and how we can reach those who have embraced the conspiracy and are disseminating its lies.The Storm is Coming. Trust the Plan. WWG1WGA. You’ve seen the letter Q on TV and in the news – it’s been everywhere from Trump rallies to the January 6th insurrection. “QAnon” used to sound vaguely familiar, somewhat ominous, but not quite mainstream. But what was once a fringe conspiracy theory has now become a household name and its symbols recognizable around the world. How did this happen, who is actually involved, what do they believe, and what do they want?Daily Beast reporter Will Sommer has been on the ground with Q’s followers since day one, and in Trust the Plan Sommer has written the definitive book on the movement—who started it and who grew it, what they really believe is going on, and what they want to see “the Storm” accomplish on the day of its reckoning. At once a character study and a journalistic exposé, Sommer lets his cast of characters do the talking as he visits them around the world, from their makeshift compounds to the rallies they are still holding.The great tragedy of this story is ultimately the legitimization of this ideology by mainstream politicians eager to gain access to a large and growing cohort of voters. Though 2020 brought the end of Trump’s presidency, his following within the QAnon community has simply pivoted and grown stronger. Trust the Plan shows us in granular detail who we’ll be up against for years to come, in the US and abroad. Understanding why and how something like Q happens is an indispensable exercise, and in showing us how we got here we can chart a path out.

A NEW YORK TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL, AND USA TODAY BESTSELLERAn intimate, powerful, and galvanizing memoir by Pulitzer Prize winner, human rights advocate, and former US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power. Named one of the best books of the year:The New York Times • National Public Radio • Time • The Economist • The Washington Post • Vanity Fair • Christian Science Monitor • Publishers Weekly • Audible“Her highly personal and reflective memoir . . . is a must-read for anyone who cares about our role in a changing world.”—President Barack ObamaIncludes an updated afterwordTracing her distinctly American journey from immigrant to war correspondent to presidential Cabinet official, Samantha Power’s acclaimed memoir is a unique blend of suspenseful storytelling, vivid character portraits, and shrewd political insight. After her critiques of US foreign policy caught the eye of Senator Barack Obama, he invited her to work with him on Capitol Hill and then on his presidential campaign. When Obama won the presidency, Power went from being an activist outsider to serving as his human rights adviser and, in 2013, becoming the youngest-ever US Ambassador to the United Nations. Power transports us from her childhood in Dublin to the streets of war-torn Bosnia to the White House Situation Room and the world of high-stakes diplomacy, offering a compelling and deeply honest look at navigating the halls of power while trying to put one’s ideals into practice. Along the way, she lays bare the searing battles and defining moments of her life, shows how she juggled the demands of a 24/7 national security job with raising two young children, and makes the case for how we each can advance the cause of human dignity. This is an unforgettable account of the power of idealism—and of one person’s fierce determination to make a difference.“This is a wonderful book. […] The interweaving of Power’s personal story, family story, diplomatic history and moral arguments is executed seamlessly and with unblinking honesty.”—THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, The New York Times Book Review“Truly engrossing…A pleasure to read.”—RACHEL MADDOW“A beautiful memoir about the times we’re living in and the questions we must ask ourselves…I honestly couldn’t put it down.” —CHERYL STRAYED, author of Wild“Power’s compelling memoir provides critically important insights we should all understand as we face some of the most vexing issues of our time.” —BRYAN STEVENSON, author of Just Mercy

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERAfter a decade abroad, the National Book Award– and Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Evan Osnos returns to three places he has lived in the United States―Greenwich, CT; Clarksburg, WV; and Chicago, IL―to illuminate the origins of America’s political fury.Evan Osnos moved to Washington, D.C., in 2013 after a decade away from the United States, first reporting from the Middle East before becoming the Beijing bureau chief at the Chicago Tribune and then the China correspondent for The New Yorker. While abroad, he often found himself making a case for America, urging the citizens of Egypt, Iraq, or China to trust that even though America had made grave mistakes throughout its history, it aspired to some foundational moral commitments: the rule of law, the power of truth, the right of equal opportunity for all. But when he returned to the United States, he found each of these principles under assault.In search of an explanation for the crisis that reached an unsettling crescendo in 2020―a year of pandemic, civil unrest, and political turmoil―he focused on three places he knew firsthand: Greenwich, Connecticut; Clarksburg, West Virginia; and Chicago, Illinois. Reported over the course of six years, Wildland follows ordinary individuals as they navigate the varied landscapes of twenty-first-century America. Through their powerful, often poignant stories, Osnos traces the sources of America’s political dissolution. He finds answers in the rightward shift of the financial elite in Greenwich, in the collapse of social infrastructure and possibility in Clarksburg, and in the compounded effects of segregation and violence in Chicago. The truth about the state of the nation may be found not in the slogans of political leaders but in the intricate details of individual lives, and in the hidden connections between them. As Wildland weaves in and out of these personal stories, events in Washington occasionally intrude, like flames licking up on the horizon.A dramatic, prescient examination of seismic changes in American politics and culture, Wildland is the story of a crucible, a period bounded by two shocks to America’s psyche, two assaults on the country’s sense of itself: the attacks of September 11 in 2001 and the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Following the lives of everyday Americans in three cities and across two decades, Osnos illuminates the country in a startling light, revealing how we lost the moral confidence to see ourselves as larger than the sum of our parts.

“Voting rights journalist Ari Berman has been detailing threats to our democracy for years, and his new book Minority Rule is a timely and essential read. He expertly shows how Republicans are trying to rig our political system—and shares how we can fight back.” —Hillary Clinton on XA riveting account of the decades-long effort by reactionary white conservatives to undermine democracy and entrench their power—and the movement to stop them.The mob that stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, represented an extreme form of the central danger facing American democracy today: a blatant disregard for the will of the majority. But this crisis didn’t begin or end with Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election. Through voter suppression, election subversion, gerrymandering, dark money, the takeover of the courts, and the whitewashing of history, reactionary white conservatives have strategically entrenched power in the face of a massive demographic and political shift. Ari Berman charts these efforts with sweeping historical research and incisive on-the-ground reporting, chronicling how a wide range of antidemocratic tactics interact with profound structural inequalities in institutions like the Electoral College, the Senate, and the Supreme Court to threaten the survival of representative government in America.“The will of the people,” wrote Thomas Jefferson in 1801, “is the only legitimate foundation of any government.” But that foundation is crumbling. Some counter-majoritarian measures were deliberately built into the Constitution, which was designed in part to benefit a small propertied upper class, but they have metastasized to a degree that the Founding Fathers could never have anticipated, undermining the very notion of “a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Chilling and revelatory, Minority Rule exposes the long history of the conflict between white supremacy and multiracial democracy that has reached a fever pitch today—while also telling the inspiring story of resistance to these regressive efforts.

From Alexander Hamilton to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: an eye-opening reassessment of the people who built America's political coalitions and transformed democracy.Realigners, named one of The Wall Street Journal's best political books of 2022, offers a provocative new look at American political history. Timothy Shenk traces the evolution of the nation's politics from the drafting of the Constitution to the storming of the Capitol, delivering sharp portraits of key figures like James Madison, Charles Sumner, Phyllis Schlafly, and Barack Obama along the way.In an era of widespread dissatisfaction with American democracy, Shenk explores how the gulf between elites and ordinary people has turned democracy itself into a contested concept. He examines the urges to both defend and dismantle the country's foundations, which often coexist within the same people.Through this engaging narrative, Shenk reassesses the leaders who built the electoral coalitions that defined American democracy. He offers valuable insights for our current moment, as figures ranging from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to MAGA-minded nationalists seek to turn radical dreams into political realities.If there's an escape from the doom loop that American politics has become, Realigners suggests it lies in understanding the transformative moments of the past – and the potential for another such moment in our future.

From the MSNBC Senior National and Political Correspondent and New York Times bestselling author of Separated, a gripping and revelatory account of the devastating 2025 Los Angeles fires, which he covered on the ground as an LA native. On the morning of January 7, 2025, a message pinged the phone of Jacob Soboroff, a national correspondent for NBC News. "Big Palisades fire. We are evacuating," his brother texted within minutes of the blaze engulfing the hillside behind the home where he and his pregnant wife were living. "Really bad." An attached photo showed a huge black plume rising from behind the house, an umbrella of smoke towering over everything they owned. Jacob rushed to the office of the bureau chief. "I should go. I grew up in the Palisades." Soon he was on the front line of the blaze--his first live report of what would turn out to be weeks covering unimaginable destruction, from both the Palisades Fire and the Eaton Fire, in Altadena. In the days to come, Soboroff appeared across the networks of NBC News as Los Angeles was ablaze, met with displaced residents and workers, and pressed Governor Gavin Newsom in an interview on Meet the Press. But no story Soboroff has covered at home or abroad--the trauma of family separation at the border, the displacement of the war in Ukraine, the collapse of order in Haiti--could have prepared him for reporting live as the hallmarks of his childhood were engulfed in flames around him while his hometown burned to the ground. But for Soboroff, questions remained after the fires were controlled: what had he just witnessed? How could it have happened? Is it inevitable something like it will happen again? This set Soboroff off on months of reporting--with firefighters, fire victims, political leaders, academics, earth scientists, wildlife biologists, meteorologists and more--that made him keenly aware of how the misfortune of seeing his past carbonize was also a form of time travel into the dystopian world his children will inhabit. This is because the 2025 LA fires were not an isolated tragedy, but rather they are a harbinger--"the fire of the future," in the words of one senior emergency--management official. Firestorm is the story of the costliest wildfire in American history, the people it affected and the deeply personal connection to one journalist covering it. It is a love letter to Los Angeles, a yearning to understand the fires, and why America's new age of disaster we are living through portends that--without a reckoning of how Los Angeles burned--there is more yet, and worse, to come.

From Pete Souza, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Obama: An Intimate Portrait, comes a potent commentary on the Presidency -- and our country. As Chief Official White House Photographer, Pete Souza spent more time alongside President Barack Obama than almost anyone else. His years photographing the President gave him an intimate behind-the-scenes view of the unique gravity of the Office of the Presidency -- and the tremendous responsibility that comes with it. Now, as a concerned citizen observing the Trump administration, he is standing up and speaking out. Shade is a portrait in Presidential contrasts, telling the tale of the Obama and Trump administrations through a series of visual juxtapositions. Here, more than one hundred of Souza's unforgettable images of President Obama deliver new power and meaning when framed by the tweets, news headlines, and quotes that defined the first 500 days of the Trump White House. What began with Souza's Instagram posts soon after President Trump's inauguration in January 2017 has become a potent commentary on the state of the Presidency, and our country. Some call this "throwing shade." Souza calls it telling the truth. In Shade, Souza's photographs are more than a rejoinder to the chaos, abuses of power, and destructive policies that now define our nation's highest office. They are a reminder of a President we could believe in, and a courageous defense of American values.

The war in Iraq . . . No bid contracts awarded to Halliburton . . . Hurricane Katrina . . . The CIA leak investigation . . . The story gets worse and worse. The evidence is glaring. George W. Bush's record as a president is abysmal. And it's time to impeach him. The Case for Impeachment lays out the reasons why in a straightforward, letter-of-the-law manner. Mixing the cold, hard facts with the lies and deceptions of this administration, The Case for Impeachment is a serious consideration of Bush's high crimes and misdemeanors while in office. This important and timely book will serve as a rallying cry for all those fed up with George W. Bush's abuses of power. It's time for the American people and Congress to act. With so much at stake, we have a president whose administration stands out in its criminality and disdain for the rule of law. The Case for Impeachment explains the legal history and grounds for impeaching George W. Bush and brings forth more than a half dozen articles of impeachment the likes of:*Lying and inducing Congress and the American people into an unjust war.*Allowing his friends and business cronies to profiteer off the war in Iraq.*Authorizing torture and rendition of prisoners of war and suspected terrorists--a complete violation of the Geneva Conventions, a treaty the U.S. has signed and is therefore part of our law.*Stripping American citizens of their Constitutional rights--holding people with no charge, wiretapping them illegally, offering them no trial, and never allowing them to face their accusers.*Failing in almost every way possible to defend the homeland and our borders.Hard hitting and persuasive in its argument, The Case for Impeachment will be one of the most talked-about political books for the pathetic remainder of the Bush Presidency. As timely as today's headlines, this vital book explains why impeachment should be deployed against the serial Constitution-shredder George W. Bush. The third article of impeachment against Richard Nixon was illegal spying on Americans--a crime indisputably committed also by Bush and his cronies. But this book also makes a compelling case that Bush has arrogantly flouted his oath of office and the laws of the land by committing other impeachableoffenses--telling lies to Congress and the American people to take us into an illegal war, violating the War Powers act, abusing the power of his office, failing to protect the United States, and more. Dave Lindorff (a first-rate independent progressive journalist) and Barbara Olshansky (a dedicated civil liberties attorney), in The Case for Impeachment, have restored this vital tool to the arsenal of democracy. Any American who wants to preserve what's left of our precious Bill of Rights from further encroachments, and to repair the Constitutional separation of powers vitiated by George Bush, should read this essential book -- which should also be force-fed to every single member of Congress.-- Doug Ireland, columnist for the LA Weekly "In the United States, our best journalism is published in books now and talked about on the radio and the internet. If you get your news from a television or a newspaper, you live in another world. This no doubt contributes to how divided we are politically. Dave Lindorff's and Barbara Olshansky's book could help bridge this national divide. The genius of this book is in its brevity. Lindorff and Olshansky have boiled the list of Bush and Cheney's documented crimes down to an amazingly concise summary, one that however gives a real flavor of the goings on in this criminal administration. I work on these issues and still learned a great deal by reading this book. If each of us who knows some of this and is able to process it easily buys ten copies to give to people who get their news from TV, this clear crisp book might just help save this country."-- David Swanson, co-founder AfterDowningStreet.org The impeachment of George W. Bush today seems politically unlikely. But Lindorff and Olshansky insist that we not avert our eyes, that it is not OK to tolerate a president who "revokes the basic constitutional rights of American citizenship"--locking people up indefinitely without trial, claiming a right to ignore laws and court orders. President Bush justifies his violations of the Constitution by citing the emergency of a war which is in truth "a police action against stateless terrorists"--a crusade which can thus have "no beginning and no end," Lindorff and Olshansky forcefully argue. If Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about having sex, they ask, how much more dangerous is it to shrug off the corrosive impact of a president who knowingly lied the nation into a costly and counterproductive war in Iraq? The authors then proceed to meticulously document their case that many of the false grounds for war were, indeed, knowing lies. "If we fail to stand up for the Constitution now," they warn, "it may only be a piece of paper by the end of President Bush's second term."--Vin Suprynowicz, Las Vegas Review Journal