Showing results by publisher "Tantor Media" in Corruption & Misconduct

Two world-renowned figures of contemporary politics come together to debate alternatives for the future: José "Pepe" Mujica, former President of Uruguay and an ex-guerrilla who acquired an international following for his message of sustainability and common sense, and Noam Chomsky, who revolutionized linguistics and has become a beacon for radical thinking around the world.

Lie Machines is full of riveting behind-the-scenes stories from the world's biggest and most damagingly successful misinformation initiatives - including those used in Brexit and US elections. Howard not only shows how these campaigns evolved from older propaganda operations, but also exposes their new powers, gives us insight into their effectiveness, and shows us how to shut them down.

Recently, it has become increasingly evident that extreme concentrations of wealth and power have profound impacts on our politics, but extreme inequality's influence on our daily lives—and our futures—has been vastly overlooked. In Burned by Billionaires, Chuck Collins, an author and a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC, chronicles how the actions of the top .01% have severe consequences for the rest of us.

The United States is an exceptionally violent country, increasingly unable or unwilling to stem violence in its many forms. A growing corporate crime wave has gone unprosecuted and unpunished. Meanwhile, the country has doubled down on pursuing people accused of street and drug crimes and immigration offenses. Corporate impunity, the financialization of the economy, militarized policing, the burgeoning carceral state, and the forever wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere all have fostered corporate, economic, and state violence in America.

Long before Wikileaks and social media, the journalist Drew Pearson exposed to public view information that public officials tried to keep hidden. Pearson devoted himself to revealing what politicians were doing behind closed doors. From 1932 to 1969, his daily "Washington Merry-Go-Round" column and weekly radio and TV commentary broke secrets, revealed classified information, and passed along rumors based on sources high and low in the federal government, while intelligence agents searched fruitlessly for his sources.

The rogues gallery begins with Donald Trump, who deliberately downplayed the coronavirus crisis despite knowing its dangers, as well as his international political allies, above all Boris Johnson. Billionaire politicians like Georgia senator Kelly Loeffler moved stocks at the same time they were telling Americans all was well.

Sara Azari breaks down the investigations, evidence, criminal charges, and defenses involving an ever-expanding rogues' gallery of Trump associates and campaign members, as well as the president's own criminal conduct. Her docket also includes a comprehensive summary and expert analysis of the Mueller Report. Azari addresses the consequences of President Trump's conduct and considers whether the president of the United States is ever above the law.

There's the Freedom of Information Act, and then there's Ventura's way. The official spin on numerous government programs is flat-out bull, according to Jesse Ventura. In this incredible collection of actual government documents, Ventura, the ultimate nonpartisan truth-seeker, proves it beyond any doubt. He and Dick Russell walk listeners through 63 of the most incriminating programs to reveal what really happens behind the closed doors.

In this explosive account of wrongful acts and ongoing cover-ups, Jesse Ventura takes a systematic look at the wide gap between what the American government knows and what it reveals to the American people. For too long, we the people have sat by and let politicians and bureaucrats from both parties obfuscate and lie. And according to this former Navy SEAL, former pro wrestler, and former Minnesota governor, the media is complicit in these acts of deception.

DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODlicans uncovers the truth about how corporations have bought the American electoral and legislative process through the power of lobbyists, campaign contributions, and political action committees. Using historical details, such as the development of the two-party system and the advent of third-party candidates throughout U.S. history, DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODlicans exposes how the two major parties have allowed corporations, businesses, and politically-motivated wealthy individuals to manipulate elections.

In Dangerous Memory, renowned politician, author, and musician Charlie Angus undertakes a major rethink of the cultural and political shifts of the 1980s, an era that unleashed an unprecedented looting of the economy, the environment, and the common good that continues to haunt us today. Expertly weaving his story within the larger narrative of the times, Angus elucidates such key events as the Chernobyl disaster, the Digital Revolution, the AIDS epidemic, the fight against South African apartheid, the rise of neoliberalism, and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

A classic of investigative reporting, Spooks is a treasure trove of who-shot-who research on the metastasis of the United States intelligence community, whose practices and personnel have engulfed the larger society. Teeming with tales of wiremen, hitmen, and mobsters; crooked politicians and corrupt cops going about their business of regime-change, union-busting, wiretapping, money laundering, and industrial espionage, learn about: Richard Nixon's "Mission Impossible" war on Aristotle Onassis; not-so-deep-fake porno films starring the CIA's enemies; and much more.

In Titans of Capital, Peter Phillips, a political sociologist, poses three key research questions: To what extent do the wealthy influence—or even dominate—decision making that affects all of us in society? Who are the most powerful people? And how does the accumulation of capital work?

Although Tennessee has a rich history of political scandals dating back to the founding of the state, the last fifty years have been a confusing, confounding, and sometimes ludicrous period of ne'er-do-welling. Welcome to Capitol Hill is a guide to the state's modern history of corruption. From Governor Ray Blanton's pardon scandals to the FBI investigation that started with now lieutenant governor Randy McNally wearing a wire in the late 1980s to the sexual misconduct that plagues Tennessee politics, this book chronicles it all.

The war on American democracy is at a fever pitch. Such a corrosive state of affairs did not arise spontaneously but instead was pushed, top-down, by six private sector special interest groups. In American Apocalypse Rena Steinzor argues that these groups are nothing more than well-financed armies fighting a battle of attrition against the national government. The book begins at the end of Lyndon Johnson's presidency, when the modern regulatory state was born.

We once idolized tech entrepreneurs for creating innovations that seemed like modern miracles. We now blame them for spreading lies, breaking laws, and causing chaos. Yesterday's Silicon Valley darlings have become today's Big Tech villains. Which is it? Are they superheroes or scoundrels? Or is it more complicated?