American Politics Audiobooks | Politics

Dallas '63: The First Deep State Revolt Against the White House

'Our most provocative scholar of American power' reveals the forces behind the assassination of JFK—and their continuing influence over our world (David Talbot, Salon). On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas by Lee Harvey Oswald. Shortly after, Oswald himself was killed. These events led many to believe there was a far greater plan at work, with a secret cabal of powerful men manipulating the public and shaping US policies both at home and abroad for their own interests. But no one could imagine how right they were. Beneath the orderly façade of the American government, there lies a complex network, only partly structural, linking Wall Street influence, corrupt bureaucracy, and the military-industrial complex. Here lies the true power of the American empire. This behind-the-scenes web is unelected, unaccountable, and immune to popular resistance. Peter Dale Scott calls this entity the deep state, and he has made it his life's work to write the history of those who manipulate our government from the shadows. Since the aftermath of World War II, the deep state's power has grown unchecked, and nowhere has it been more apparent than that day at Dealey Plaza. In this landmark volume, Scott traces how culpable elements in the CIA and FBI helped prepare for the assassination, and how the deep state continues to influence our politics today. As timely and important as ever in the current chaotic political climate, Dallas '63 is a reality-shattering, frightening exposé not of those who govern us—but of those who govern those who govern us.

Peter Dale Scott (Author), George Spelvin (Narrator)

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The Case Against Free Speech: The First Amendment, Fascism, and the Future of Dissent

A hard-hitting expose that shines a light on the powerful conservative forces that have waged a multi-decade battle to hijack the meaning of free speech--and how we can reclaim it. There's a critical debate taking place over one of our most treasured rights: free speech. We argue about whether it's at risk, whether college students fear it, whether neo-Nazis deserve it, and whether the government is adequately upholding it. But as P. E. Moskowitz provocatively shows in The Case Against Free Speech, the term has been defined and redefined to suit those in power, and in recent years, it has been captured by the Right to push their agenda. What's more, our investment in the First Amendment obscures an uncomfortable truth: free speech is impossible in an unequal society where a few corporations and the ultra-wealthy bankroll political movements, millions of voters are disenfranchised, and our government routinely silences critics of racism and capitalism. Weaving together history and reporting from Charlottesville, Skokie, Standing Rock, and the college campuses where student protests made national headlines, Moskowitz argues that these flash points reveal more about the state of our democracy than they do about who is allowed to say what. Our current definition of free speech replicates power while dissuading dissent, but a new ideal is emerging. In this forcefully argued, necessary corrective, Moskowitz makes the case for speech as a tool--for exposing the truth, demanding equality, and fighting for all our civil liberties.

P. E. Moskowitz, Pe Moskowitz (Author), Robin Eller (Narrator)

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AMERICAN POLITICS

Politics is a mess.If we want our country to survive, we have to find some solutions. Let's argue about it, apply Occam's Razor to figure out the best solutions, and get it done! If you are concerned about immigration, social programs, or freedom in general, you need to read this book. It might give you something to think about. Get this book now, and start your quest to find the answers.

Jd Lovil (Author), Laura Johnson (Narrator)

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A Practical Libertarian

Fierce independence and a 'leave me alone' attitude define the modern Libertarian and party. This does not make for good politics where coordination and national momentum is crucial. This book outlines a practical libertarianism that can coexist with the two other national parties. We can find a common, central philosophy that will capture the drive of an election-winning majority of 'We the People'.

James Tall (Author), James Tall (Narrator)

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Dinner in Camelot: The Night America's Greatest Scientists, Writers, and Scholars Partied at the Ken

In April 1962, President and Mrs. John F. Kennedy hosted forty-nine Nobel Prize winners-along with many other prominent scientists, artists, and writers-at a famed White House dinner. Among the guests were J. Robert Oppenheimer, who was officially welcomed back to Washington after a stint in the political wilderness; Linus Pauling, who had picketed the White House that very afternoon; William and Rose Styron, who began a fifty-year friendship with the Kennedy family that night; James Baldwin, who would later discuss civil rights with Attorney General Robert Kennedy; Mary Welsh Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway's widow, who sat next to the president and grilled him on Cuba policy; John Glenn, who had recently orbited the earth aboard Friendship 7; historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., who argued with Ava Pauling at dinner; and many others. Actor Frederic March gave a public recitation after the meal, including some unpublished work of Hemingway's that later became part of Islands in the Stream. Held at the height of the Cold War, the dinner symbolizes a time when intellectuals were esteemed, divergent viewpoints could be respectfully discussed at the highest level, and the great minds of an age might all dine together in the rarefied glamour of 'the people's house.'

Joseph A. Esposito (Author), Tom Perkins (Narrator)

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Radicals, Resistance, and Revenge: The Left's Plot to Remake America

Jeanine Pirro (Author), Jeanine Pirro (Narrator)

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The Management of Savagery: How America's National Security State Fueled the Rise of Al Qaeda, ISIS,

The rise of international jihad and Western ultra-nationalism In the Management of Savagery, Max Blumenthal excavates the real story behind America's dealings with the world and shows how the extremist forces that now threaten peace across the globe are the inevitable flowering of America's imperial designs. Washington's secret funding of the mujahedin provoked the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. With guns and money, the United States has ever since sustained the extremists, including Osama Bin Laden, who have become its enemies. The Pentagon has trained and armed jihadist elements in Afghanistan, Syria, and Libya; it has launched military interventions to change regimes in the Middle East. In doing so, it created fertile ground for the Islamic State and brought foreign conflicts home to American soil. These failed wars abroad have made the United States more vulnerable to both terrorism as well as native ultra-nationalism. The Trump presidency is the inevitable consequence of neoconservative imperialism in the post-Cold War age. Trump's dealings in the Middle East are likely only to exacerbate the situation.

Max Blumenthal (Author), David De Vries (Narrator)

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A Frustrated America: Voices of Change

You cannot help but hear the voices calling for impeachment, change in immigration policy and climate change. America is tired of the incongruity of political parties that never get anything done but finger point as their answers to citizens questions. America has the right to voice their opinions for change because the social ills and climate of hate and discontent are making everyone bigots. America has a growing mass of people that love this country, and their frustration of the direction of America must be put on the desk of political officials that need our vote. We all have a right to express our concerns for we have a President that does not care for climate change because he will not be alive to see the deadly effect it has on humanity. If you are a frustrated American for positive change, this book is for you and spread the word for others that feel change is needed in America.

Benjamin Bailey (Author), Steven W Ship (Narrator)

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Beyond Charlottesville: Taking a Stand Against White Nationalism

The former governor of Virginia tells the behind-the-scenes story of the violent "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville-and shows how we can prevent other Charlottesvilles from happening. When Governor Terry McAuliffe hung up the phone on the afternoon of the violent "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, he was sure Donald Trump would do the right thing as president: condemn the white supremacists who'd descended on the college town and who'd caused McAuliffe to declare a state of emergency that morning. He didn't. Instead Trump declared there was "hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides." Trump was condemned from many sides himself, even by many Republicans, but the damage was done. He'd excused and thus egged on the terrorists at the moment when he could have stopped them in their tracks. In Beyond Charlottesville, McAuliffe LOOKS at the forces and events that led to the tragedy IN Charlottesville, including the vicious murder of Heather Heyer and the death of two state troopers in a helicopter accident. He doesn't whitewash Virginia history and discusses a KKK protest over the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee. He takes a hard real-time behind-the-scenes look at the actions of everyone on that fateful August 12, including himself, to see what could have been done. He lays out what was done afterwards to prevent future Charlottesvilles-and what still needs to be done as America in general and Virginia in particular continue to grapple with their history of racism. Beyond Charlottesville will be the definitive account of an infamous chapter in our history, seared indelibly into memory, sure to be cited for years as a crucial reference point in the long struggle to fight racism, extremism and hate.

Terry Mcauliffe (Author), Lamarr Gulley, Terry Mcauliffe (Narrator)

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Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court

Justice Anthony Kennedy slipped out of the Supreme Court building on June 27, 2018, and traveled incognito to the White House to inform President Donald Trump that he was retiring, setting in motion a political process that his successor, Brett Kavanaugh, would denounce three months later as a 'national disgrace' and a 'circus.' Justice on Trial, the definitive insider's account of Kavanaugh's appointment to the Supreme Court, is based on extraordinary access to more than one hundred key figures--including the president, justices, and senators--in that ferocious political drama. The Trump presidency opened with the appointment of Neil Gorsuch to succeed the late Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court. But the following year, when Trump drew from the same list of candidates for his nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, the justice being replaced was the swing vote on abortion, and all hell broke loose. The judicial confirmation process, on the point of breakdown for thirty years, now proved utterly dysfunctional. Unverified accusations of sexual assault became weapons in a ruthless campaign of personal destruction, culminating in the melodramatic hearings in which Kavanaugh's impassioned defense resuscitated a nomination that seemed beyond saving. The Supreme Court has become the arbiter of our nation's most vexing and divisive disputes. With the stakes of each vacancy incalculably high, the incentive to destroy a nominee is nearly irresistible. The next time a nomination promises to change the balance of the Court, Hemingway and Severino warn, the confirmation fight will be even uglier than Kavanaugh's. A good person might accept that nomination in the naïve belief that what happened to Kavanaugh won't happen to him because he is a good person. But it can happen, it does happen, and it just happened. The question is whether America will let it happen again.

Carrie Severino, Mollie Hemingway (Author), Carrie Severino, Mollie Hemingway (Narrator)

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Conspiracies of Conspiracies: How Delusions Have Overrun America

It's tempting to think that we live in an unprecedentedly fertile age for conspiracy theories, with seemingly each churn of the news cycle bringing fresh manifestations of large-scale paranoia. But the sad fact is that these narratives of suspicion-and the delusional psychologies that fuel them-have been a constant presence in American life for nearly as long as there's been an America. In this sweeping book, Thomas Milan Konda traces the country's obsession with conspiratorial thought from the early days of the republic to our own anxious moment. Rather than simply rehashing the surface eccentricities of such theories, Konda draws from his unprecedented assemblage of conspiratorial writing to crack open the mindsets that lead people toward these self-sealing worlds of denial. What is distinctively American about these theories, he argues, is not simply our country's homegrown obsession with them but their ongoing prevalence and virulence. Konda proves that conspiracy theories are no harmless sideshow. They are instead the dark and secret heart of American political history-one that is poisoning the bloodstream of an increasingly sick body politic.

Thomas Milan Konda (Author), Charles Constant (Narrator)

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The Cult of the Constitution

In this controversial and provocative book, Mary Anne Franks examines the thin line between constitutional fidelity and constitutional fundamentalism. Constitutional fundamentalists read the Constitution selectively and self-servingly. Fundamentalist interpretations of the Constitution elevate certain constitutional rights above all others, benefit the most powerful members of society, and undermine the integrity of the document as a whole. The conservative fetish for the Second Amendment (enforced by groups such as the NRA) provides an obvious example of constitutional fundamentalism; the liberal fetish for the First Amendment (enforced by groups such as the ACLU) is less obvious but no less influential. Economic and civil libertarianism have increasingly merged to produce a deregulatory, 'free-market' approach to constitutional rights that achieves fullest expression in the idealization of the Internet. The worship of guns, speech, and the Internet in the name of the Constitution has blurred the boundaries between conduct and speech and between veneration and violence. But the Constitution itself contains the antidote to fundamentalism. The Cult of the Constitution lays bare the dark, antidemocratic consequences of constitutional fundamentalism and urges listeners to take the Constitution seriously, not selectively.

Mary Anne Franks (Author), Teri Schnaubelt (Narrator)

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