New Book About Facebook, Reveals Unusual Employment Rules

Martinez reveals how Zuckerberg declared ‘total war’ on Google in 2011 when it launched Google Plus, its ill-fated rival social network in his new book Chaos Monkeys.

[From article]
Facebook has long been accused of being a sexist workplace and letting founder Mark Zuckerberg rule with an iron fist in a velvet perk-filled glove.
But as far as one ex-employee is concerned, the glove is now definitely off.
Antonio Garcia Martinez, a former Facebook advertising manager who was fired two years ago, claims that working at the social network was like being in a cult akin to North Korea with Zuckerberg its unquestioned leader.
Female employees were told not to wear clothing that might be ‘distracting’ to male workers,
Human resource managers gave a speech during initiation for new employees in which they told women that there was a dress code which they had to stick to.
They also pulled women aside and ‘read them the riot act’ if their skirts were too short.
Men do not appear to have been given the same treatment according to Martinez' new tell-all book, ‘Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley’, published by Harper Collins



Martinez takes the title from a term used in the tech world for a tool used by computer developers to identify problems before they crop up.
But for Martinez, there were problems aplenty at Facebook, not least the KGB-like internal police force called ‘The Sec’ which monitored everything that staff did.
Facebook has long faced allegations its workplace culture is sexist and still mirrors the Frat House style environment that harks back to social media's early days.
Facemash, for example, was a crude ‘hot or not’ style game that went viral in Harvard, where Zuckerberg studied.
Since then former employees have claimed that little has changed and that it is more like Mad Men when it comes to equal rights.
Martinez, who was sacked by Facebook in 2013 after two years working on targeted advertisements, describes how new employees went through a series of talks to induct them into the company’s way of thinking.
The author recalls being told by Chamath Palihapitiya, one of the stars of Facebook: ‘Look, we’re not here to f*** around. You’re at Facebook now and we’ve got lots to do’.
After 20 minutes more of lecturing he finished off with another missive: ‘Just f*****g do it’.
But 'doing it' had its limits.
Martinez says that Facebook's Human Resources told them that the policy on asking co-workers out was that you got one try and if they said no you had to leave it.
‘Next was a warning to the womenfolk,' writes the author.
‘Our male HR authority, with occasional backup from his female counterpart, launched into a speech about avoiding clothing that ‘distracted’ coworkers.
‘I’d later learn that manager did in fact pull aside female employees and read them the riot act. One such example happened in (advertising) when an intern who looked about 16 coming in regularly in booty shorts.’
Such attitudes toward women got senior staff into trouble with Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer at Facebook and one of the few female boardroom executives.
On one occasion, she was evaluating a presentation of a new tool that used pictures of cats instead of users’ pictures.
When Sandberg asked why they were all cats, the product manager Dan Rubenstein said: ‘Well, you know, kittens and cats are like pu…’
Sandberg did not need to hear the word ‘pussy’ and replied: ‘Got it!’ followed by a sharp intake of breath,
She said: ‘If there were women on that team they’d NEVER EVER choose those photos as demo pics. I think you should change them immediately’.
Rubenstein duly scribbled in his notepad: ‘CHANGE PUSSY PHOTOS NOW!’
Martinez, a former Goldman Sachs trader who had an on-off relationship with the mother of his three children, has his own chauvinistic issues.
He writes: ‘Most women in the Bay Area are soft and weak, cosseted and naive despite their claims of worldliness, and generally full of s**t.
‘They have their self-regarding entitlement feminism and ceaselessly vaunt their independence but the reality is, come the epidemic plague or foreign invasion, they'd become precisely the sort of useless baggage you'd trade for a box of shotgun shells or a jerry can of diesel’.
Martinez admits that he once tried to have sex in a closet on the Facebook campus after getting drunk in the bar on site called ‘Shady Lady’.
He admits that he had his ‘fair share of scares’ with women nearly getting pregnant after having unprotected sex with many women.
Martinez writes: ‘I was on season four of the show where a tear-filled woman X shows up two weeks after the shag saying she had ‘missed her period’ (sort of in the same way I'd say I ‘missed my bus’).
‘Nothing had ever come of it and after the third showing you just wanted to say: ‘Look, woman, unless you've got a screaming infant in your arms and it looks like me, we have nothing to talk about’.
In another passage about his pre-Facebook says Martinez says that trying to attract venture capital funding with an ongoing lawsuit against was like ‘walking into a singles bar with a T-shirt announcing: ‘I’m HIV positive’’.
The day that an employee joined Facebook is called their ‘Faceversary’ and is marked by celebrations akin to how Christians celebrate the day they are baptized.Martinez says that working for Facebook is like being in a cult with Zuckerberg as its leader who is followed by ‘true believers’ who have a Messianic zeal to get everyone in the world onto the social network.
It was essentially treated as a second birthday and everyone would congratulate you and give you balloons.
The day people leave Facebook is considered their ‘death’ and they would post a picture of their battered ID card as their Facebook profile to show they were going out the door.
In Facebook’s first office, one conference room was called Ping and the one next door was called Pong.
When Facebook moved to its sprawling campus in Menlo Park signs were put up which read: ‘Our work is never done’, ‘Embracing change isn’t enough’, ‘Make it faster’, The journey 1% finished’ and ‘What would you do if you weren’t afraid?’
Zuckerberg’s office became known as ‘The Aquarium’ because of its all glass walls while Sandberg’s conference room became dubbed ‘Only Good News’, apparently because that is all she wanted to hear.
Staff were expected to work 20 hour plus days, Martinez claims, and eat all their meals at the cafeteria, which developed to cater for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Not every initiative was a success though and when Zuckerberg asked staff to paint the walls of their new office he was furious because after two days the place was covered with obscene drawings.
Martinez says the gist of the email Zuckerberg sent round to staff was that ‘I trusted you to create art and what you f*****g did was vandalize the place’.
According to Martinez Zuckerberg was obsessed with secrecy. When one employee leaked details about a new product launch Zuckerberg responded by sending a chilling email round to every single worker with the subject line: ‘Please resign’.
The email was designed to cause alarm to anyone who received it - in this case the whole company.
Zuckerberg was so angry at the employee who leaked details about the new product that he 'excoriated' the individual in the message - attacking the person for his or her 'base moral nature' and how he/she had 'betrayed the team'.
The book says: 'The moral to this story, a parable of a prodigal son but with an unforgiving father, was clear: F*** with Facebook and security guards would be hustling you out the door like a rowdy drunk at a late night Taco Bell'.
[. . .]
Zuckerberg made decisions that affected Facebook's 1.6 billion users based on 'gut feel' and 'whatever historical politics were at play' rather than a considered judgement, Martinez claims.
[. . .]
A lot of the change appears to be the work of Sandberg, who arrived in 2008 having previously been at Google and been mentored by former Federal Reserve chairman Larry Summers while studying at Harvard.
She instituted what Martinez calls the ‘Supreme Court of Sheryl’, or a system for improving targeted advertising that she controlled.
The book says: ‘She clearly knew her boss inside and out. Here was a boss who excelled in the role of gatekeeper and shepherd to difficult and powerful men, whether that role was chief of staff for prickly US Treasury Secretary Larry Summer, or COO of and for Zuck’.
One of Sandberg’s tricks for hiring the right staff was to make them think they were missing an unmissable opportunity.
[. . .]
A colleague told Martinez: ‘She basically convinced me by saying: ‘Look, I either hire you now and you come work for Facebook, or a year from now I’ll hire you to work for the guy whose job I’m offering to you right now’. And that’s what convinced me’.
Martinez reveals how Zuckerberg declared ‘total war’ on Google in 2011 when it launched Google Plus, its ill-fated rival social network.
Martinez claims that this hit Zuckerberg like a ‘bomb’ and that he put the entire company on Lockdown, meaning that they were not able to leave the building.
In a speech in front of the entire company Zuckerberg quoted Cato the Elder, one of his favourite philosophers, and told that Carthage must be destroyed, referring to Google.
According to Martinez: ‘Everyone walked out of there ready to invade Poland if need be’
[. . .]
The Facebook Analog Research Laboratory turned Zuckerberg’s catchphrase into posters in bold type with a Roman centurion’s helmet which were put up all over the campus
When it became clear that Google had been inflating the figures for how many people were using Google Plus and it was not a threat.
Martinez is not the first former Facebook employee to highlight its workplace culture.
In ‘The Boy Kings: A Journey into the Heart of the Social Network’ Katherine Loose claimed that it was deeply sexist and stuck in a 1950s mentality.
She wrote that female workers at the social network were propositioned for threesomes or given crude insults like ‘I want to put my teeth in your a**’.
Lower ranking employees who were invariably female were banned from a conference unless they worked as coat checkers whilst there.
In the book she compared Zuckerberg to Napoleon and branded a ‘little emperor’ who created a company where his staff could ‘idol worship’ him.
Loose was employee no.51 and worked her way up from customer relations to a senior marketing role before becoming the speechwriter for Zuckerberg.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3666501/Mark-Zuckerberg-s-hostile-emails-Sheryl-Sandberg-s-Good-News-conference-room-s-wanted-hear-Dress-codes-no-booty-shorts-women-Life-Facebook-exposed.html

EXCLUSIVE: ‘I trusted you to create art and what you f***ing did was vandalize!' Mark Zuckerberg’s hostile emails…Sheryl Sandberg’s 'only good news' room… Dress codes (no booty shorts) for women. Life at Facebook exposed!
FIRED Facebook advertising manager Antonio Garcia Martinez has written a tell-all book about his time at the social network
Zuckerberg fired off angry email after he asked staff to paint the walls and the place was covered with obscene drawings
When one employee leaked details about a new product launch Zuckerberg sent a chilling email to every worker. Subject: ‘Please resign!’
Staff who stepped out of line were monitored by a 'KGB-like' internal police force called ‘The Sec'
'F*** with Facebook and security guards would be hustling you out the door like a rowdy drunk at a late night Taco Bell,' Martinez writes
He claims female employees had a strict dress code so as not to distract men - who had no code at all
The day that an employee joined Facebook is called their ‘Faceversary’ and is marked by celebrations akin to Baptisms
By DANIEL BATES FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 07:55 EST, 30 June 2016 | UPDATED: 12:00 EST, 30 June 2016

Updated: Secret Service Officer Publishes Book About Clinton White House

Posted June 6, 2016 8:51 PM ET; Last updated June 27, 2016 9:05 PM ET



[Updated June 27, 2016 9:05 PM ET]
[From article]
In a book set to be released on Tuesday, former Secret Service officer Gary J. Byrne details his time in the White House serving former president Bill Clinton and former first lady Hillary Clinton.
Byrne claims within the pages of the book that Bill Clinton had a 'jogging list' and would have Secret Service 'take the names of attractive women he saw while out exercising'.
In Byrne's new book, 'Crisis of Character: A White House Secret Service Officer Discloses His Firsthand Experience with Hillary, Bill, and How They Operate', the former White House security makes no apologies for his criticisms of the Clintons.
In the 'jogging list', a detail exposed by Byrne, the former president Clinton would allegedly see women who were dressed in nightclub attire or exercise gear, who showed up at the southeast gate.
'The agents... would get the women's names, and run them to see who they were.
'If the women wouldn't cooperate, they would be ushered out of the jogging group.
'Agents... insinuated that this list was used by President Clinton to try to meet these women,' Byrne writes.
Byrne also accuses Bill Clinton of having as many as three mistresses at one time, which included former Vice President Walter Mondale's daughter, Eleanor.
Byrne claims in the book he once discovered the pair 'making out on the Map Room table'.
He writes the Clinton administration was fraught with immoral ethical standards.
'There were some drug issues. Some people would come in to work in the morning, and they were barely walking, they would drop stuff off at the office, and go to the restroom where they would come out minutes later happy as a clown,' he writes, alluding to the use of cocaine.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3660782/New-book-written-former-Secret-Service-agent-
claims-Bill-Clinton-picked-women-jogging-staffers-snorted-cocaine-claims-cheery.html

Bill Clinton picked up women while jogging as staffers snorted cocaine at work, former Secret Service officer claims in new tell-all book
A new book has revealed secrets of the former Clinton administration
Gary J. Byrne has written about Bill Clinton's alleged infidelity and an alleged 'jogging list' of beautiful women the former president kept
He also wrote that staffers snorted cocaine in the bathrooms to stay happy
Byrne was a uniformed Secret Service officer who was posted in the West Wing of the White House for several years of Bill Clinton's presidency
Critics have said that Byrne would not have had the kind of access to the Clintons as he claims and his accounts differ from his testimony years ago
By DAILYMAIL.COM REPORTER
PUBLISHED: 08:36 EST, 26 June 2016 | UPDATED: 08:49 EST, 27 June 2016

* * *

[Posted June 6, 2016 8:51 PM ET]


The New York Post’s cover on June 6, 2016

[From review]
Hillary Clinton has a “Jekyll and Hyde” personality that left White House staffers scared stiff of her explosive — and even physical — outbursts, an ex-Secret Service officer claims in a scathing new tell-all.
Gary Byrne, who was posted outside the Oval Office when Bill Clinton was president, portrays Hillary as too “erratic, uncontrollable and occasionally violent” to become leader of the free world, according to advance promotional materials exclusively obtained by Page Six.
The allegations from Byrne, a 29-year veteran of the military and federal law enforcement, threaten to derail her campaign days before she is expected to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination.
He describes Hillary Clinton as acting friendly one moment, then raging the next.

Gary Byrne with Hillary and Bill Clinton

Photo: Provided by Gary Byrne

“What I saw in the 1990s sickened me,” he writes in the intro of the book, “Crisis of Character: A White House Secret Service Officer Discloses his Firsthand Experience with Hillary, Bill, and How They Operate.”
The book claims she repeatedly screamed obscenities at her husband, Secret Service personnel and White House staffers — all of whom lived in terror of her next tirade.
Secret Service agents had discussions about the possibility that they would have to protect Bill from his wife’s physical attacks, Byrne writes, and the couple had one “violent encounter” the morning of a key presidential address to the nation.
Meanwhile, a paranoid Hillary Clinton tried to have the Secret Service banned from the White House and once tried to ditch her security detail, Byrne says.
“Hillary Clinton is now poised to become the Democratic nominee for president of the United States, but she simply lacks the integrity and temperament to serve in the office,” he writes.
“From the bottom of my soul I know this to be true. And with Hillary’s latest rise, I realize that her own leadership style — volcanic, impulsive, enabled by sycophants, and disdainful of the rules set for everyone else — hasn’t changed a bit.”
The book isn’t set for release until June 28, but pre-orders have sent it to No. 1 on Amazon’s best-seller list.
[. . .]
Byrne — who was subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury that investigated Bill Clinton’s affair with intern Monica Lewinsky — claims in the book that he interrupted the president’s sexual shenanigans in the White House.
Byrne says he walked into a room where the president was “involved inappropriately with a woman” who was neither his wife nor Lewinsky.
And he says he once threw out a White House towel stained with a woman’s lipstick — and the president’s “bodily fluids.”
Byrne describes arriving for work one day in 1995 following a loud fight between the Clintons the night before.
The dust-up, he says, left a light blue vase “smashed to bits” and Bill sporting a “real, live, put-a-steak-on-it black eye.”
Byrne’s book amplifies earlier allegations of mistreatment of Secret Service personnel by Hillary Clinton — including in 2014’s “First Family Detail” by former Washington Post reporter Ronald Kessler and last year’s “The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House,” which also detailed a fight between Bill and Hillary over the Lewinsky affair.
[. . .]
[Trump] spokeswoman, Katrina Pierson [said,]
“I don’t recall Mr. Trump ever screaming at the Secret Service, calling them pigs, throwing vases across the room and clawing the face of his spouse, which Hillary Clinton has been reported to do,”

http://pagesix.com/2016/06/05/tell-all-book-reveals-hillarys-erratic-uncontrollable-ways-in-the-white-house/

Bombshell book reveals how Hillary terrified White House staff
By Emily Smith
New York Post
June 5, 2016 | 9:54pm

New Book Exposes Depravity of Elected Officials In Washington DC

GUESSING GAME: 'The Confessions of Congressman X' is due on bookshelves May 24 and Washington is abuzz with speculation about who wrote it.

[From article]
A new book threatens to blow the lid off of Congress as a federal legislator's tell-all book lays out the worst parts of serving in the House of Representatives – saying that his main job is to raise money for re-election and that leaves little time for reading the bills he votes on.
Mill City Press, a small Minnesota-based 'vanity press' publisher describes 'The Confessions of Congressman X' as 'a devastating inside look at the dark side of Congress as revealed by one of its own.'
'No wonder Congressman X wants to remain anonymous for fear of retribution. His admissions are deeply disturbing.'
[. . .]

the congressman is a Democrat.

[. . .]
'Voters claim they want substance and detailed position papers, but what they really crave are cutesy cat videos, celebrity gossip, top 10 lists, reality TV shows, tabloid tripe, and the next f***ing Twitter message,' the congressman gripes in the book.
'I worry about our country's future when critical issues take a backseat to the inane utterings of illiterate athletes and celebrity twits.'
Much of what's in the book will come as little surprise to Americans who are cynical about the political process.
'Fundraising is so time-consuming I seldom read any bills I vote on,' the anonymous legislator admits. 'I don't even know how they'll be implemented or what they'll cost.'
'My staff gives me a last-minute briefing before I go to the floor and tells me whether to vote yea or nay. How bad is that?'
And on controversial bills, he says, 'I sometimes vote "yes" on a motion and "no" on an amendment so I can claim I'm on either side of an issue.'
'It's the old shell game: if you can't convince 'em, confuse 'em.'
The congressman laments that politics has become a matter of picking a team by the jerseys they wear rather than looking at the players underneath.
'Things are so partisan today most folks vote the straight party line, even though they don't know s*** about who they're voting for. They just don't want the other guys to win,' he explains.
And he seemingly takes a shot at the Bill and Hillary Clinton Foundation, noting how family philanthropies can be the beneficiaries of what amounts to bribes in exchange for legislative favors.
'Some contributions are subtle,' he explains. 'Donations to a member's nonprofit foundation. Funding a member's charitable pet project. Offsetting the costs of a member's portrait to adorn the committee room he or she has so faithfully served.'
'It's all a bunch of bulls*** to get around gift bans and limits on campaign contributions. Where there's a will, there's a way.'
The mystery man reserves special scorn for Sen. Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat who serves as Senate Minority Leader.
One chapter is titled 'Harry Reid's a Pompous A**' and says the senator is 'sometimes a bit too clever for his own good. The same goes for [Republican Sen. Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell and his pathetic lieutenants. Ditto for most of the House leadership bullies on both sides of the aisle. They wield too much dictatorial power, manipulating legislative procedures and denying members due process.'

The larger picture that emerges is one of disenchantment with the political process and the professional office-holders behind it.

Especially those in the Democratic Party.
'Our party used to be a strong advocate for the working class,' he says. 'We still pretend to be, but we aren't. Large corporations and public unions grease the palms of those who have the power to determine legislative winners and losers.'
'Most of my colleagues want to help the poor and disadvantaged. To a point,' he adds. 'We certainly don't want to live among them. Or mingle with them, unless it's for a soup kitchen photo op. ... Poverty's a great concern as long as it's kept at a safe distance.'

POVERTY POSEURS: 'Congressman X' says lawmakers don't want to 'mingle' with the poor 'unless it's for a soup kitchen photo op.' House Speaker Paul Ryan and his wife Janna washed pots at Youngstown, Ohio's St. Vincent DePaul dining hall in 2012.

Much of Washington's problems are created on the fringes of America's dominant political parties, he says.
'The GOP have their crazy wingnuts, and we have our loony leftists. Screw them both. What we need are more common-sense lawmakers. Folks who see both sides of an issue. Who are open to accommodating each other's priorities. Today, both sides assume their views are the only logical ones.'
'I'm concerned my party has an activist far-left wing intolerant of center-leftists. Like the Republican Tea Party, these ideologues are much too rigid and extreme in their beliefs. And they're equally unappealing to mainstream Americans.'
He cites education policy as an example: 'I'm a strong advocate of improving our public schools. I also see the near-term value of vouchers and charter schools committed to lending a helping hand to disadvantaged kids. Especially inner-city kids.'
'Hell, most of us send our children to private schools and wouldn't be caught dead sending them to public schools in places like DC. How hypocritical's that? It's time to set aside petty politics. Are both parties so f***ing stubborn they can't work out a reasonable compromise on this common-sense issue? Our educational system's in the toilet, and all we do is snipe at each other.'
The publisher released a few short samples to the public on Amazon.
'Most of my colleagues are dishonest career politicians who revel in the power and special-interest money that's lavished upon them,' Atkinson recorded his mystery collaborator saying.
'My main job is to keep my job, to get reelected. It takes precedence over everything.'
'Fundraising is so time consuming I seldom read any bills I vote on. Like many of my colleagues, I don't know how the legislation will be implemented, or what it'll cost.'
The book also takes shots at voters as disconnected idiots who let Congress abuse its power through sheer incompetence.
'Voters are incredibly ignorant and know little about our form of government and how it works,' the anonymous writer claims.
'It's far easier than you think to manipulate a nation of naive, self-absorbed sheep who crave instant gratification.'
And the take-away message is one of resigned depression about how Congress sacrifices America's future on the altar of its collective ego.
'We spend money we don't have and blithely mortgage the future with a wink and a nod. Screw the next generation,' the author writes.
'Nobody here gives a rat's a** about the future and who's going to pay for all this stuff we vote for. That's the next generation's problem. It's all about immediate publicity, getting credit now, lookin' good for the upcoming election.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3586858/Screw-generation-Anonymous-congressman-writes-tell-slams-nation-naive-self-absorbed-sheep-admits-never-reads-bills-votes-on.html

'Screw the next generation' and 'Harry Reid's a pompous a**': Democratic congressman writes Anonymous tell-all book slamming 'nation of naive, self-absorbed sheep' as he admits he never reads bills he votes on
'My main job is to keep my job, to get reelected. It takes precedence over everything,' an anonymous member of Congress writes in a new book
'Voters are incredibly ignorant and know little about our form of government and how it works,' he writes
'It's far easier than you think to manipulate a nation of naive, self-absorbed sheep who crave instant gratification'
The author is a Democrat in Congress who laid out his complaints to a long-time friend and former Capitol Hill staffer who edited them into a book
'The Confessions of Congressman X' will be released May 24 by a small Minnesota-based 'vanity press' publisher
By DAVID MARTOSKO, US POLITICAL EDITOR FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 07:36 EST, 12 May 2016 | UPDATED: 17:42 EST, 12 May 2016



* * *



[From article]
An anonymous congressman has dropped a bombshell election-year book that confirms why Americans hate their national government and have rallied to anti-establishment presidential candidates like Donald Trump.
The veteran politician lays bare a rotten and corrupt Congress enslaved by lobbyists and interested only in re-election in an anonymous, 65-page manifesto called “The Confessions of Congressman X.”
“Like most of my colleagues, I promise my constituents a lot of stuff I can never deliver,” he admits. “But what the hell? It makes them happy hearing it . . . My main job is to keep my job.”
The House member — a Democrat who is either still in Congress or served sometime over the past two decades — says more time is spent fundraising than reading bills and calls Washington a “sinkhole of leeches.”
The title of one chapter sums up his view of congressional leaders: “Harry Reid’s a Pompous Ass,” he says of the Senate Democratic leader.
The book, published by the small Mill City Press, is based on years of transcribed private discussions, which the congressman last November gave editor Robert Atkinson.
Atkinson declined to say whether Congressman X is a current or former House member.
X says the cloak of anonymity gave him the freedom to expose ­secrets, including how the public’s money is wasted.
“We spend money we don’t have and blithely mortgage the future with a wink and a nod. Screw the next generation. It’s about getting credit now, lookin’ good for the upcoming election,” he says.
He said he and his colleagues often lie to try to be all things to all people instead of tackling the nation’s problems.
“I contradict myself all the time, but few people notice,” X says. “One minute I rail against excessive spending and ballooning debt. The next minute I’m demanding more spending on education, health care, unemployment benefits, conservation projects, yadda, yadda, yadda.”
Voters are described as gullible, know-nothing jerks, while the only people who count are the big donors who pour billions of dollars into lobbying.
“Voters are incredibly ignorant. It’s far easier than you think to manipulate a nation of naive, self-absorbed sheep who crave instant gratification . . .,” vents Congressman X.
He says money “corrupts” and House members are “puppets” to lobbyists who bankroll their campaigns.
“Business organizations and unions fork over more than $3 billion a year to those who lobby the federal government. Does that tell you something? We’re operating a f–king casino,” he says.
He describes himself as a “closet moderate” who supports charter schools and tax vouchers to allow poor kids to go to private schools.
But students take a back seat to partisan politics..
“Our education’s in the toilet, and all we do is snipe at each other,” he says.
Congress is too polarized and partisan to get anything done, by the congressman’s account.
“There seems to be a complete disintegration of confidence in government. A fear that government is its own special interest,” he says.
“America’s on an irreversible decline and no one in Washington seems to care . . . God help us.”
The controversial book set off a guessing game in the political world about the author’s identity.
New York sources speculated it’s Rep. Steve Israel (D-LI), a moderate who announced he’s retiring and who has complained about the constant need to fundraise to finance re-election campaigns.
But Israel, a novelist, denied that he took pen to paper this time.
“Absolutely not true, never heard of it before. And frankly, now that I’m leaving Congress, if I were to write a book like that, I would put my name on it,” ­Israel said in a statement.

http://nypost.com/2016/05/13/were-running-a-f-ing-casino-politician-tells-all-in-manifesto/

‘We’re running a f—ing casino:’ Politician tells all in manifesto
By Carl Campanile
New York Post
May 13, 2016 | 12:12am

Feminism And Male-Female Relations, New Book

[From article]
Tied Up in Knots by Andrea Tantaros discusses relations between men and women in America, and how they have become dysfunctional. The changes within the feminist movement have affected how each gender reacts towards each other regarding intimacy, authenticity, kindness, respect, discretion, and above all commitment. Readers should know her as one of Fox News most informative commentators and a co-host of the show Outnumbered.
[. . .]
The book shows the hypocrisy of those claiming women's rights. Tantaros feels the glass ceiling is being chipped away, "being replaced by a glass floor. There are females who stand in the way of their own. I write in the book about Madeline Albright's treatment of women when she said, 'There's a special place in hell for women who don't help other women.' Then there was feminist Gloria Steinem who actually insulted women, claiming 'Young women back Bernie because the boys are with Bernie.' I guess women do not have a right to choose when it comes to our political choices. If you disagree with Hillary Clinton and do not want her to be President you appear either sexist or self-loathing."
[. . .]
The chapter, "Twisted Sister," is very compelling. Tantaros feels "women summits, sisterhood, everyone sticking together, just does not exist. I put the quote in the book, 'Men, don't bother trying to understand women. Women understand women and they hate each other.' Historically women competed for other women over a man. But now the cattiness has exploded because we are all competing not just in our personal lives, but also in our professional lives. We talk about 'mean girls' as we listen to these hypocrites say that women need to stick together. The sisterhood is such a sham and never existed. We all don't have to get along or be friends, but we should not treat each other as enemies. We should respect one another."
Yet, how many feminists speak out against radical Islam? When asked, she noted, "I think it is so disgraceful that we have heard so little from the women's movement in this country against radical Islam. We heard very little from Hillary Clinton's State Department, not a peep from women's magazines, and nothing from this administration. We have ignored what happened in Germany, Sweden, and England. Law enforcement and the media covered it up. Remember the female reporter who was gang raped in Egypt? Where is she now and what happened to her? The press would rather ignore stories like this and focus on how terrible are Republican men. It makes my blood boil."
The book also goes into a lot of detail about how women are sending mixed messages to men. She writes of Girls actress Zosia Mamet comments in Marie Claire about the loss of romance and old-time dating rituals. Mamet wrote, "Not that long ago a guy spent the night with me. We went to breakfast the next day. The check came. I went to the bathroom, came back. It was still there… Seeing my confusion, he said he didn't want to offend me by paying on 'my side of town'-So he's thinking I'd be offended, and I'm thinking, if you've already Lewis-and-Clarked my body, maybe buy my oatmeal."
She commented, "Women need men. We want a soulful, sexy, and inspired union that can help us realize our full potential in life. We want our mate to be our best friend, an emotional and spiritual confident, an intellectual counterpart, and who loves us with a passion. As I write in my book, I agree with both Sheryl Sandberg who said in her book, Lean In, the most important thing a woman could do is to choose the right husband, and Patti Stranger, the famous matchmaker, who echoes this thought when she said, 'women, you cannot have your penis and eat it too.'"
Tied Up in Knots is a shocking, funny, and honest narrative about today's gender gaps. It is insightful, informative, and relevant to what is happening currently in the world. Anyone wanting to understand women of the 21st Century should read this book.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/05/a_look_at_the_dysfunctional_relations_between_women_and_men.html

May 9, 2016
A Look at the Dysfunctional Relations between Women and Men
By Elise Cooper

Musical Favorites Reveal Most About A Person, New Book

[From article]
This question, so deceptively simple, is explored to great and fascinating lengths in Tom Vanderbilt’s new book “You May Also Like: Taste in an Endless Age of Choice” (Knopf).
“I was simply feeling overwhelmed not only by choices, but what people were saying about those choices,” Vanderbilt tells The Post.
“A simple trip to a restaurant, or to a site like Amazon to buy a product, or to watch a movie on Netflix became like an epic quest,” he says. “What was the best? Whose opinion should I trust? I felt swamped by other people’s tastes, and I was trying to gain some sense, in essence, where all those preferences came from without simply saying, ‘There’s no accounting for taste.’ ”
As it turns out, there is and there isn’t. Our tastes range from innate to acquired, cultivated to contextual, adaptive to reactive.



Infants, long before they are verbal, express preferences: They stare at more attractive faces longer. Babies like the foods they like and refuse the ones they don’t. Children develop favorite colors and numbers, with no real reason to have either.
We adults are no less cryptic in our tastes. As Vanderbilt writes, we express preferences for such mundanities as toilet paper (hung over or under?), bathroom stalls (middle or end?), and even the color of his book jacket (blue or red?).
[. . .]
“Liking is really about anticipation and memory. Even as you are looking forward to something, you are looking backward to the last time you enjoyed it. You can spend weeks waiting for ‘the meal of a lifetime,’ which will itself last a few hours . . . That so many people photograph their ‘memorable’ meals speaks not only to how fleeting the experience may be but to how photographing it helps actually make it memorable.”
We are all born with the same simple tastes: All infants love sweetness (breast milk, life) and have an aversion to bitterness (possible poison). It’s an evolutionary adaptation designed to keep us alive.
[. . .]
Then, too, are our acquired tastes: Few people like the flavor of coffee or beer upon that first sip, but they force themselves to keep going until they actually experience pleasure.
[. . .]
Just as we can likely guess someone’s socioeconomic background through the way that they talk or the state of their teeth, so we can through taste.
The expressions “good taste” and “bad taste” didn’t enter the lexicon until the 20th century, but ever since, Vanderbilt writes, “taste is social comparison.” More people will admit to listening to NPR than Howard Stern, or reading The New York Times to this very paper, though there is significant crossover with both.
[. . .]



“If all I knew about you was the last five books you read, I probably wouldn’t know much,” chief engineer Glenn McDonald told Vanderbilt. “But if I knew the last five songs you listened to on a streaming service, I’d probably know a lot about you.”
Music is among the most personal, visceral taste we have, one we now engage with, thanks to smartphones, daily and intimately. As Vanderbilt points out, “People will talk about ‘my music’ in a way they do not talk about ‘my movies.’ ”
[. . .]
The only constant when it comes to our tastes, Vanderbilt writes, is that they’re always changing. It’s our basic nature to seek out the new and the normal, the fantastic and the familiar.
[. . .]
“Even when we look back and see how much our tastes have changed, the idea that we will change equally in the future seems to confound us,” he writes. “It is what keeps tattoo removal practitioners in business.”

http://nypost.com/2016/05/08/the-science-of-taste-and-why-the-music-you-like-may-be-the-most-telling-preference-of-all/

The science of taste and why the music you like may be the most telling preference of all
By Maureen Callahan
New York Post
May 8, 2016 | 7:00am

New Book, Fighting Depression Without Drugs

[From review]

Matt Haig, a British novelist, had a nervous breakdown at 24 and slipped into a suicidal depression. But when medications left him feeling even worse, he decided to battle against the disease on his own. Within a decade, he had climbed his way out of the depths, a harrowing journey he chronicles in his new book, “Reasons To Stay Alive”(Penguin Books, out now). The 40-year-old father of two tells The Post how he’s thriving despite mental illness.
[. . .]
There is something therapeutic about reading. For a story to be a story, it has to involve change to a character or a situation. When you are stuck in a situation or in that moment, just believing in change is nourishing. Even if it’s not good or positive, just the idea of it is positive.
[. . .]
I found the writing experience very therapeutic. Being published isn’t always good for your mental health, because you are suddenly very exposed and there’s a fear of criticism. But the act of writing was.
Slowly, the fog lifted.
[. . .]
And many therapists I’ve spoken to since say I was actually getting therapy — I was just doing it to myself, by making myself face my own fears.
But I wouldn’t say that I’m cured. I still get bouts of anxiety, but I know how to manage them. I just allow myself to feel them. It’s not going to kill me. It’s unpleasant, but it’s a way to cope.
I thought that by my mid-20s, there was going to be nothing great in my life again. But there has been far more happiness and far more meaningful relationships after the illness.

http://nypost.com/2016/03/11/how-i-successfully-fought-my-depression-without-medication/

How I successfully fought my depression without medication
By Kirsten Fleming
New York Post
March 11, 2016 | 1:59pm

New Book About Sexist Male Pigs On Wall Street

Maureen Sherry claims that the few women at Bear Stearns were sat together on what was disparagingly called ‘Estrogen Row’ by the men.

[From review]
When Maureen Sherry resigned from Bear Stearns after 10 years, she was given a going-away party, a sizable check — and a nondisclosure agreement.
“The legal department gave me this document to sign,” she says, and the money was a bribe: Don’t ever talk about the things you’ve seen here, or the way you were harassed, dehumanized, humiliated.
Sherry refused to sign and declined the check. “Me taking money,” she says, “wouldn’t help anyone coming up after me.”
Her forthcoming novel, “Opening Belle” (Simon & Schuster), a thinly fictionalized account of her 11 years on Wall Street, is the result.
[. . .]
For all of the horror stories she tells — the sexual degradation of female traders, the marginalization of women who were married or had kids — Sherry insists she didn’t have it so bad. A colleague may have guzzled her breast milk, and another may have left unwrapped condoms strewn in her pizza box, but, she says, “a lot of it was pranks. I never got groped.”
And herein lies the conflict so many women on Wall Street still struggle with: The very firms that have made them wealthy and successful have also abused them terribly — and like so many victims, many of these women feel it’s somehow their fault, their problem to fix.
Sherry points to Sallie Krawcheck, who was publicly fired from Bank of America during the mortgage crisis. Now “she runs Ellevate — it’s a membership thing for women. A lot of it’s about strategies, and how to work better with men.”
But why, she’s asked, should the onus be on women to work around men who treat them poorly?
[. . .]
A former colleague of Sherry’s, who asked not to be named, says it’s even worse than that. “Men getting b- - -jobs in front of staff — that happened all the time,” she says. “Lots of things that were extremely shocking, pretty disgusting.”
[. . .]

“Women filing complaints feel like it reflects poorly on them — that they are weak, non-team players,” Sherry says. “They don’t want to be labeled as a troublemaker. It’s a team environment, and they’ll ostracize themselves if they do so.”
Most everyone who goes to work on Wall Street is made to sign a U4 — a document stating that any grievances will be settled in-house. It’s meant to fend off sexual-harassment suits and fosters a secretive, hermetically sealed environment: Bad behavior stays behind closed doors.
[. . .]
In March 2010, three women filed a gender-bias suit against Bank of America, and in September, three women filed a sexual-discrimination suit against Goldman Sachs.
A refiling of that suit in 2015 claimed not just pay gaps and discrimination but that “Goldman condones the sexualization of women and an uncorrected culture of sexual assault and harassment.” One of the plaintiffs claims that she “was sexually assaulted by a married male colleague” after a business dinner, and that when she reported it to higher-ups, she was demoted.
In 2004 and 2007, Morgan Stanley settled two gender-discrimination suits for more than $100 million. The plaintiffs: thousands of women.
[. . .]
Then there are the male traders — less productive, less hardworking — who make double what the women do. Often, the excuse is that men can do what women cannot: comfortably entertain male clients on golf courses, at strip clubs and brothels.
[. . .]
For a moment — a super-brief, blink-and-you-miss-it-moment — there was a great discussion point after the 2008 financial collapse: Could the crisis have been averted, or at least mitigated, if there were more women in positions of power on Wall Street?
In 2014, in a column called “Eight Things I Wish for Wall Street,” author Michael Lewis wrote that women should be in charge.
“Men are more prone to financial risk-taking and overconfidence,” he wrote. “Trading is a bit like pornography: Women may like it, but they don’t like it nearly as much as men, and they certainly don’t like it in ways that create difficulties for society. Put them in charge of all financial decision-making and the decisions will be more boring, but more sociable.”
Sherry agrees. She also thinks there’s only one thing that could make Wall Street renounce its deplorable, chauvinistic attitude toward women: money. A 2014 report from the White House Council of Economic Advisers found that more women complete college and grad school than men, and make up a larger percentage of the work force.
That same year, Forbes magazine reported that women in their 20s without children out-earned their male peers. And a 2013 Pew Research Center report said women are now far more likely to be their family’s primary breadwinner.
That’s a lot of women with a lot of money to invest, and chances are high they’d rather not negotiate at a strip club.

http://nypost.com/2016/01/31/trader-exposes-the-disgusting-sexism-plaguing-wall-street/

Trader exposes sexist horrors of the Wall Street ‘frat house’
By Maureen Callahan
New York Post
January 31, 2016 | 5:01am

http://nyp.st/20f9gSw

Watch Video: The horniest CEOs on the street

* * *
[From article]
A female former trader has lifted the lid on Wall St sexism and revealed how male colleagues mooed at her when she was lactating - and once drank her breast milk.
Maureen Sherry claims that the few women at Bear Stearns were sat together on what was disparagingly called ‘Estrogen Row’ by the men.
They were mocked as ‘fertile lassies’ and one man even knocked back a shot of breast milk she had stored in the office fridge.
Miss Sherry, 51, claimed that the sexism was so bad that in interviews women were asked if they were married and if they planned to marry.
Some were supposedly made to promise never to have children.
Miss Sherry made the revelations in her forthcoming novel Opening Belle, a thinly fictionalized account of her 11 years as a managing director at now defunct investment bank Bear Stearns in the 90s and 00s.
The book is due to be made into a film starring Reese Witherspoon that will come out later this year.
Miss Sherry, a mother-of-four who attended Cornell University and the Wharton School of Business, writes that on her first day on Wall St she opened up a pizza box to find condoms instead of pepperoni slices put there as a prank.
Men openly debated hiring women based on their looks and one young woman noticed that her interviewer - a man - had drawn her breasts at the top her CV.
In the trading room there was an area called ‘The Dais of the D****’ where the high earning men sat.
They would order women to come over with a microphone before subjecting them to Game of Thrones style humiliations, the book says.
Miss Sherry writes that at one point when she was walking to the company nurse’s office with a breast pump, some men made mooing noises at her.
Mooing happened on other occasions too when she was lactating.
Miss Sherry writes: ‘I ignored the time someone taped torn panties on my screen when I came back from my honeymoon.
‘I don’t want to hear slut jokes all day long. I don’t want to work in a frat house.’
Miss Sherry writes that she lost count of the times a woman shared an idea at a meeting - only for a man to take credit for it.
One male colleague told her that they should hire only ‘women who have brothers’ because they are used to the banter.
[. . .]
Miss Sherry quit, took an MFA from Columbia University in nonfiction writing and is now a writer and mother in New York.
Her husband Steven Klinsky, 59, works at a private equity firm in Manhattan.
Wall St has long been accused of sexism but has done little to address it despite a string of multi-million pound lawsuits brought by former female executive.
Miss Sherry's book seems similar to the account published last year by former Citigroup trader John LeFevre, who was born in the UK and worked in London and Hong Kong.
In ‘Straight to Hell’ he told how he and his colleagues threw thousands of dollars over a shopping mall balcony in Manila in the Philippines during a party.
The group laughing as they watched poor people scoop the cash up until the police told them to stop.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3425498/Former-New-York-trader-says-male-workers-MOOED-lactating-drank-breast-milk-d-stored-office-fridge.html

Former New York trader says male co-workers MOOED at her when she was lactating and drank the breast milk she'd stored in the office fridge
A female former trader has lifted the lid on Wall St's shocking sexism
Maureen Sherry claims that women at Bear Steams were mocked
She revealed how male colleagues mooed at her when she was lactating
Ms Sherry also said that her male colleagues once drank her breast milk
By DANIEL BATES FOR MAILONLINE IN NEW YORK
PUBLISHED: 14:10 EST, 31 January 2016 | UPDATED: 14:49 EST, 31 January 2016

Volunteers Recruited To Expose Propaganda in School Textbooks

[From article]
The next generation of Americans is being indoctrinated by Islamic supremacists who are in positions of power and influence over school curricula. They are stealing our children’s minds and setting the United States up to sink even further into a morass of ignorance.
[. . .]



It appears that 1500 errors have been found by textbook reviewers so far and of those, over 60% of the material was either removed or changed. Ultimately, 50 concerned citizens impacted the education of 5 million children, helping to ensure they received “more factually correct and less politically biased textbooks for the next 10 years.” Examples of errors include:
McGraw Hill World History textbook, 2014 edition: “In the conquered territories of Asia and North Africa there were peaceful interactions among Muslim, Christian, and Jewish societies.”
Houghton Mifflin World History textbook, 2014 edition: “Sharia law requires Muslim leaders to extend religious tolerance to Christians and Jews.”

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/01/help_save_our_children_one_textbook_at_a_time.html

January 20, 2016
Help save our children one textbook at a time
By Carol Brown

Three Books About History of Liberalism

CHICAGO HISTORY MUSEUM, USA / BRIDGEMAN IMAGES
John C. Calhoun was regarded by some as a liberal because of his defense of individual liberty—albeit for the rights of whites to own slaves.

[From article]
In a famous incident at a political banquet in 1830, President Andrew Jackson offered a toast to “Our federal Union, it must be preserved”—to which Calhoun, his vice president, pointedly responded with a toast to “the Union, next to our liberty, the most dear.” The liberty he meant was, of course, the freedom of Southern whites to own slaves; and he was devoted to this liberty to the point of advocating secession if it were threatened by the federal government. If liberalism is the political philosophy that takes liberty as its primary value, doesn’t that mean that Calhoun was a liberal par excellence?
[. . .]
two recent books [. . .] are otherwise diametrically opposed in their ideological and methodological approaches. Liberalism: The Life of an Idea, by the distinguished British journalist Edmund Fawcett, is an accessible account of major liberal politicians and thinkers of the last two centuries, written from a position of unillusioned but profound solidarity with the liberal tradition. On the other hand, as its title suggests, Liberalism: A Counter-History, by the Italian political theorist Domenico Losurdo, takes a debunking approach to that tradition. Losurdo argues that liberalism has never been interested in true, universal liberation but was instead an ideology by which privileged elites justified and celebrated their domination over workers, slaves, and conquered native peoples.
[. . .]
if an out-and-out white supremacist and celebrator of slavery like Calhoun was a liberal in good standing, the name “liberal” can hardly function as an honorific. That is precisely the conclusion reached by Losurdo, who writes that in Calhoun, “we are dealing with one of the major authors and great minds in the liberal tradition and pantheon.” And if that is so, “we can no longer maintain the traditional (and edifying) image of liberalism as the thought and volition of liberty.”
[. . .]



THE BOWES MUSEUM, BARNARD CASTLE, COUNTY DURHAM, UK / BRIDGEMAN IMAGES
For political theorist Larry Siedentop, liberalism’s roots go all the way back to Saint Paul’s emphasis on individual conscience.

it is possible to be devoted to liberty but not to be a liberal—indeed, to be antiliberal. If so, then liberalism, despite its name, is not exactly a philosophy of liberty after all. It is, rather, what Fawcett considers it: a practice of politics, a way of responding to the challenges of capitalist modernity, a pursuit of a set of values that are often difficult to reconcile.
[. . .]
By liberalism, Fawcett and Losurdo—and Larry Siedentop, in his important 2014 study Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism—mean rather different things; but none is talking about the left wing of the Democratic Party. That position in twenty-first-century American politics is just one on the broad historical spectrum of liberalism, and, depending on which of these writers you listen to, the spectrum becomes broad indeed.
By liberalism, Fawcett and Losurdo—and Larry Siedentop, in his important 2014 study Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism—mean rather different things; but none is talking about the left wing of the Democratic Party. That position in twenty-first-century American politics is just one on the broad historical spectrum of liberalism, and, depending on which of these writers you listen to, the spectrum becomes broad indeed.
[. . .]
Locke figures in any textbook of political philosophy as one of the founders of liberal thought
[. . .]
The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were also the height of the Atlantic slave trade and the expropriation of the American Indians; and in Losurdo’s view, these crimes were absolutely integral to the development of liberalism. “The rise of the two liberal countries either side of the Atlantic,” he writes, “involved a process of systematic expropriation and practical genocide.”
[. . .]
If freedom, individualism, and equality are at the heart of liberalism, Siedentop believes, all these things were not so much modern inventions as Christian inheritances.
[. . .]
Is there a common thread running through all the varied uses of the name “liberal,” or would it be better for the word to be retired, in favor of more relevant distinctions?
[. . .]
It may be hard to define because it is the air we all breathe and the lens through which we see all political issues.
Indeed, the great story of the modern world is the triumph of liberalism—defined loosely as the politics whose primary value is individual freedom—over challenges from all its competitors. First, in the nineteenth century, liberalism overthrew monarchy, feudal privilege, and chattel slavery. In the twentieth, it fought a great war against fascism and a long cold war against Communism, winning both.
[. . .]
in its traditional heartland of Western Europe and America—the countries Fawcett writes about—liberalism remains predominant, though not unchallenged.
[. . .]
the politics known in America [. . .] —that is, between “left” and “right”—both sides appeal to identical liberal values of freedom and fairness.
[. . .]
no American politician advocates antiliberal principles such as hierarchies based on birth, or the abolition of private property, or the power of race and blood. We are happily constrained by the Constitution to frame all our political debates in liberal terms, as a matter of ensuring the rights of individuals.
[Is this guy paying attention to what is going on in the United States?]
[. . .]
One of the defining achievements of nineteenth-century English liberalism, for instance, was to end the legal disabilities for Catholics, Dissenters, Jews, and others who did not take communion in the Church of England. For their part, religious institutions recognized this threat—none more so than the Catholic Church, which waged a long battle against liberal modernity. The gallery of liberal heroes includes many, from Galileo to Darwin, who stood up against supernatural claims to authority in the name of reason and science.
[. . .]
the paradox that the same men who created the United States as a haven of freedom and democracy, who gave the world its most inspiring defense of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” were also slaveholders. Thomas Jefferson,George Washington, James Madison—all participated in that world-historical crime. And these same leaders, and later arch-democrats like Andrew Jackson, were also responsible for the conquest of North America and the expulsion or elimination of its aboriginal inhabitants.
[. . .]
Locke was a shareholder in the slave-trading Royal African Company. Tocqueville was a cheerleader for the French conquest of Algeria and endorsed genocidal measures against the indigenous Arabs.
[. . .]
American historians reserve the term “liberal” or “progressive” for Lincoln’s Republican Party, which fought and won the Civil War.
[. . .]
Much of the globe still lacks the freedom that the West takes for granted; and it is precisely at moments of discouragement that liberalism itself is most vulnerable to attacks from more confident and simplistic ideologies.

http://www.city-journal.org/2016/26_1_melancholy-liberalism.html

ADAM KIRSCH
Melancholy Liberalism
Has a beleaguered intellectual tradition lost its optimism?
Winter 2016

Dinesh D'Souza's New Book On Criminal Justice Corruption, Book Review

Stealing America: What My Experience with Criminal Gangs Taught Me About Obama, Hillary, and the Democratic Party, by Dinesh D’Souza, Broadside Books, HarperCollins Publishers, November, 2015 (336 pages, $29.99, Hardback)


Dinesh D'Souza

[From book review]
But what does a conservative become when he’s mugged by a corrupt, politically driven justice system? Dinesh D’Souza’s latest book, Stealing America: What My Experience with Criminal Gangs Taught Me About Obama, Hillary, and the Democratic Party answers that question. D’Souza now views the Progressive movement as a criminal enterprise designed to pull off the biggest heist in world history -- effective control of the enormous wealth created by America’s entrepreneurs. This bounty, the author argues, was made possible by the country’s embrace of a capitalist system that rewards industry and customer-centered innovation and discourages the hitherto ubiquitous ethic of theft. Democrats, however, through a reversal of traditional American values, seek to acquire power by vilifying wealth-creators and rewarding “victims” with trickle-down shares of the national loot -- all while portraying themselves as righteous advocates of social justice.
D’Souza’s book begins by discussing aspects of his prosecution for illegally contributing $20,000 to a friend running for a Senate seat in New York State. Of his case Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz commented, “What you did is very commonly done in politics, and on a much bigger scale. Have no doubt about it, they are targeting you for your views.” Dershowitz’s opinion coincided with D’Souza’s own -- namely, that his politics and especially the negative portrait of Obama in his 2016 documentary had ticked off the protagonist-in-chief himself. Clinton-appointed judge Richard Berman, however, denied D’Souza access to papers that could prove selective prosecution, arguing in Alice in Wonderland fashion that only evidence of selective prosecution could justify access to papers that would provide such evidence.
[. . .]
D’Souza was able to avoid the prosecution’s desired prison stint of ten to sixteen months -- an outrageous punishment since, in the defendant’s words, “no person who had done what I did had even been prosecuted, let alone sentenced.” Instead, D’Souza’s sentence consisted of 8 months of overnight confinement in a halfway house, community service, psychological counseling, a $30,000 fine, and five years probation. By contrast, consider Democrat fundraiser Sant Singh Chatwal, who clearly tried to buy influence, instructed a government witness to lie under oath, and made “more than $180,000 in straw donations to several Democratic candidates, including Hillary Clinton.” For these far more egregious offenses “Chatwal received a fine, community service, and three years probation. No prison time, no confinement.”
[. . .]
D’Souza began to see prisoners and a flawed justice system in a different light. He also began to understand “the psychology of crookedness” -- a “system of larceny, corruption, and terror” that’s “been adopted and perfected by modern progressivism and the Democratic Party.”
[. . .]
D’Souza explores the connection between mafia-friendly con-man, Saul Alinsky, who died living the Goodfellas dream life in Carmel, California, and his two most famous pupils, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The author also investigates the emotional tie between the President and his father -- a consummate con-artist and polygamist. Instead of focusing on “anti-colonialism,” as in prior paternal analyses, D’Souza now emphasizes outright criminality and skillful lying, traits that connect the failed elder Obama to his wildly successful offspring who, in true Chicago style, perpetrates his cons inside the system.
[. . .]
To carry out their grand political heist, Democrats must marshal the emotions and votes of an army of envious underlings -- stoking resentment among minorities, women, the poor, immigrants, gays, and other potential victim groups.
[. . .]
These professional propagandists promulgate their ideas out of envy, seeing themselves as members of the rightful ruling class based on their superior intellects and abilities. This same exalted self-image applies to educators who chafe over not being recognized and rewarded by their society any better than the average plumber.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/01/stealing_america_what_my_experience_with_criminal_gangs_taught_me_about_obama_hillary_and_the_democratic_party.html

January 13, 2016
Stealing America: What My Experience with Criminal Gangs Taught Me About Obama, Hillary, and the Democratic Party
By Richard Kirk

Rogue Lawyer, Book Review

John Grisham''s newest book (Doubleday 2015) Rogue Lawyer about Sebastian Rudd's cases and  clients. Very exciting read. Along the way he makes observations about the legal system which he uses to justify his stepping over the lines to counter the extra legal activities of the police and prosecutors. He no longer maintains a real office in a building. Instead his office is an armor plated vehicle with a desk. He is accompanied by his body guard Partner. That's his name, Partner. As an investor in a UFC Fighter he defends him when the fighter is prosecuted for homicide. The police chief kidnaps his son. It is a wild ride and his mobile office gets destroyed during the book.



His observation about prosecutors is "Virtually all prosecutors have the same genetic flaw; they cannot admit the obvious once it's on the table. They cling to their theories. They know they are right because they've been convinced of it for months, even years. 'I believe in my case' is one of their favorite lines, and they'll repeat it mindlessly as the real killer walks forward with blood on his hands and says, 'I did it.'"

Quoting the one honest cop in the department, Spurio [honest policeman] says, "These guys are outta control, Rudd [the rogue lawyer]. You gotta stop them."
He responds, "No way, Nate. I can't stop them. Maybe I can embarrass them from time to time, cost the city some money, but what they're doing here is happening everywhere. We live in a police state and everybody supports the cops."

The prosecutor in one case "is not a bad guy and does not want to be where he is now sitting. His problem is simple and obvious--an eager-beaver cop got wounded in a botched raid, and the law, in black and white, says the guy who shot him is guilty. It's a bad law written by clueless people, and now [prosecutor] Finney is compelled to enforce it. He cannot simply drop the charges. The police union is breathing down his neck.
[. . .]
Max Mancini, chief prosecutor is "crafty in the courtroom and boasts of a 99 percent conviction rate, same as every other prosecutor in America. Because he's the boss, he gets to manipulate the numbers, so he has real proof that his 99 percent is legitimate.



Describing the herd mentality, the police have the killer. To relieve the enormous pressure on them, and to begin the process of poisoning public opinion, and to establish the presumption of guilt, they are manipulating the press, as always. A leak here and there and cameras show up to capture the face that everyone has been desperate to see. The "journalists" chase their tails, and [suspect] Arch Swanger is as good as convicted.
Why bother with a trial?

If the cops can't convict with evidence, they use the media to convict with suspicion.
Regarding experts he says, the truth can be expensive, especially when it comes from expert witnesses. Our system is chock-full of "experts" who do little in the way of teaching, researching, or writing. Instead, they roam the country as hired guns testifying for fat fees. Pick an issue, a set of facts, a mysterious cause, and unexplained result, anything really, you can find a truckload of PhDs willing to testify with all sorts of wild theories. They advertise. They solicit. They chase cases. They hang around conventions where lawyers gather to drink and compare notes. They brag about "their verdicts."
Their losses are rarely mentioned.



They are occasionally discredited by nasty cross-examinations, in open court, but they stay in business because they are so often effective. In a criminal trial, an expert has to convince only one juror to hang things up and cause a mistrial. Hang it again on the retrial, and the State will usually throw in the towel.

He's a retired psychiatrist who never liked to teach or listen to patients. Legal insanity has always fascinated him--the crime of passion, the irresistible impulse, the moment when the mind is so filled with emotion and hate that it commands the body to act violently and in a way never contemplated. He prefers to do all the talking. It's his way of convincing me how brilliant he is. I listen to his bull**** as I try to analyze how a jury will react to him. He's likable, intense, smart, and a good conversationalist.
He spends two hours evaluating [the defendant, client], and surprise, surprise, he is now certain the kid blacked out, went crazy, and does not remember pummeling the referee.



On criminals who threaten him, "They are the traffickers, some extremely nasty guys. A gang, a ring, a cartel, a disciplined band of criminals, most with ties to eastern Europe, but some local guys as well. They abuse the girls, keep them terrified and confused and hooked on heroin. Most people in this country don't believe there's sex trafficking in their cities, but it's there. It's everywhere. They, the traffickers, prey on runaways, homeless kids, girls from bad families looking for escape. It's a sick business, [. . .] really sick.

He Killed Them All, Book About Robert Durst's Notorious History

Debrah Lee Charatan, Durst's Current WifePhoto: Getty Images

[From review]
In this excerpt from Pirro’s new book — “He Killed Them All: Robert Durst and My Quest for Justice,” out Tuesday — she details meeting Durst’s current wife, Debrah Lee Charatan, who was seen briefly in “The Jinx” and became a source of fascination to viewers.
[. . .]
Robert gave her a $78,000 ring. It might sound like a lot. But consider that Durst received $3 million a year from his trust. If you used the one-month-salary rule, Durst should have spent $250,000.
The betrothed couple next went to a lawyer’s office, and he signed over power of attorney, giving her control of his vast fortune. Durst would himself describe the union to his sister, Wendy, as a “marriage of convenience. I had to have Debrah to write my checks. I was setting myself up to be a fugitive.”
I said to her, “You do realize that Robert Durst is a dangerous man.”
“He’s not dangerous at all. If he came home, I’d open the door.” He was on the lam at the time, having jumped bail in Galveston, Texas.

Morris Black
Photo: AP

At the time, Durst was a suspect in the murder and dismemberment of Morris Black. After being charged with the murder, he posted $300,000 bail and fled Texas. He was later caught in Pennsylvania shoplifting a sandwich from a Wegman’s grocery store.

http://nypost.com/2015/10/31/what-kind-of-woman-would-marry-robert-durst/

What kind of woman would marry Robert Durst?
By Mackenzie Dawson
New York Post
October 31, 2015 | 2:54pm

New Book About Watergate Scandal

At the height of the Watergate scandal it was apparent to me that the war on Nixon was nearing the end of a decade plus war between two large economic and political organizations. One based in Acapulco, the other in Winchester MA. I.F. Stone's 1973 essay in The New York Review of Books, about that war provided a structure. Victor Lasky's It Didn't Start with Watergate; and Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin's Silent Coup revealed even more. It was obvious that Woodward and Bernstein were simply stenographers, as per Max Holland's Leak. I asked Bernstein at a Harvard University award ceremony why he denied he was a briefer for Alexander Haig at the JCS before he was a journalist. Woodward's reply was, "That's garbage." There's more like cooperating journalists, who covered for the lawyers and politicians as they still do today.

[From article]
Geoff Shepard has written an important book, The Real Watergate Scandal: Collusion, Conspiracy, and the Plot that Brought Nixon Down. It will probably go a long way to restore President Nixon's a
[. . .]
Finally, in Part V, covering Chapter 10, Shepard asks, "So What?" Why worry about Watergate today? Nixon and the others were guilty, and that's the end of it. But Nixon and his team were "guilty" only if you ignore all the counter-evidence that Shepard brings out so effectively.
Another one of the so-whats is that since Judge Sirica did not allow a fair trial, Shepard suggests that the descendants should petition the original trial court, the federal district court for the District of Columbia, for a writ of error coram nobis, "a writ for a judgment that rests on an error of fact which was not know at the time of the judgment and which, if known, would have prevented judgment" (p. 234).
In layman's terms, they should reopen the books and look into errors of fact and violations of due process, to restore Nixon's reputation and that of his team. It would be expensive, Shepard forewarns, but worth it.
Apart from any legal reopening of the case, does any court TV channel wish to take up the challenge and incorporate Shepard's new evidence of flagrant misconduct and gross and widespread denial of due process, with a bipartisan team of legal analysts?

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/09/revisiting_watergate_a_review_of_the_emrealem_watergate_scandal.html

September 17, 2015
Revisiting Watergate: A Review of the Real Watergate Scandal
By James Arlandson

Charles Krauthammer, Things That Matter, Book Review

[From article]
"According to the pioneering political scientist Harold Lasswell, the advent of modern society "compelled the development of a whole new technique of social control, mainly through propaganda ... the one means of mass mobilization which is cheaper than violence, bribery, or other possible control techniques." Irving Kristol, propagandist par excellence, foresaw that "intellectuals would move inexorably closer to the seats of authority" and devoted his long career to furthering that rapprochement, recruiting lavish support from an anxious business class for the right kind of intellectuals. The contemporary neoconservative intelligentsia, including Charles Krauthammer, is the result."
[. . .]
America, it is true, has no concentration camps or overseas colonies, and our government regularly proclaims its devotion to freedom. For Krauthammer, those facts evidently outweigh our having subverted dozens of governments, many of them democratically elected, and supported dozens of others that were not democratically elected at all, with the only consistent motive being the promotion of a favorable investment climate for American business.
[Democracy is not a suicide pact. Electing a leader or government that wants to dismantle democracy cannot be tolerated.]
[. . .]
It is true (though you won't learn it from Krauthammer) that the United States has done a great deal to undermine international law and institutions, having used weapons of mass destruction for political purposes (Hiroshima and Nagasaki);
[Do not believe that ending the war saving lives was a political purpose. If anything it was a humane decision. Because the Japanese refused to surrender, an invasion of the two islands would have caused more human deaths than died in the two atom bombings.]
[. . .]
About Central America, Krauthammer resorts to brazen falsification. Reagan's so-called "illegal war,"
[no mention in most references to the drug cartels operating in Mena, Arkansas where the drugs were exchanged for guns. The entire state government was in on that operation. Ambrose, Evans-Pritchard, The Secret Life of Bill Clinton
[. . .]
[Scialabba dismisses statement that Palestinians will not recognize Israel's right to exist. That remains the obstacle to peace. But also there are 45 Muslim dominant nations. Only one Jewish state. Why is that a problem?]
[. . .]
For, Krauthammer continues, "as Chesterton put it, 'The trouble when people stop believing in God is not that they thereafter believe in nothing; it is that they believe in anything.' In this century," Krauthammer grimly reminds us, "'anything' has included Hitler, Stalin, and Mao." It has also, I would remind him, included Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein, and Albert Camus.

http://www.georgescialabba.net/mtgs/2014/05/floats-like-a-vulture/print/

Floats Like a Vulture
May 22, 2014
Things That Matter: Three Decades of Pastimes, Passions and Politics by Charles Krauthammer.

Influential Woman Hollywood Agent, New Book

From left: Christopher Walken, Sue Mengers, Paul Newman and David Brown
Photo: Wire Image

[From article]
This, from the new biography “Can I Go Now? The Life of Sue Mengers, Hollywood’s First ­Superagent” (Viking) by Brian Kellow, is a perfect encapsulation of Mengers, one of the most powerful agents in Tinseltown history.
Mengers was the first woman to amass the sort of power she did, representing Barbra Streisand, Gene Hackman, Michael Caine, Candice Bergen, Ryan O’Neal, Mike Nichols and so many more. But Mengers, as this insightful, often hilarious and ­celebrity-filled book relates, was a mass of contradictions.
Despite refusing to subordinate herself to Hollywood’s male power structure, she was staunchly anti-feminist, believing that supporting the male ego was a woman’s duty, and that wives should not be upset when their husbands cheated.
[. . .]
A chain smoker of cigarettes and marijuana even on her deathbed in 2011, Mengers was the ultimate no-filter gal who believed that if you weren’t a winner, you were a loser. She was rude, crude and ­often cruel to friends and clients, yet won their (mostly) everlasting love with her loyalty and wit.
[. . .]
Previously, his father, Dominick Dunne, had blamed the end of his producing career on comments he made about Mengers’ husband.
When Dunne picked up the phone, Mengers said, “Griffin, honey, it’s Sue. How are you? Listen — is your father dead yet?”
Thinking she was joking, Dunne laughed and said no, but was then subjected to a tirade, with Mengers screaming, “I wish he was dead. I hate that f- -king a- -hole. I want him dead.”
Once Mengers completed her rant, her voice grew calm, and she said, “Anyway, enough of that. Griffin, I’m serving chili at the house tonight. Warren Beatty’s going to be here, and Lauren Hutton’s in town. Why don’t you come on over?”

http://nypost.com/2015/08/30/the-badass-agent-who-ruled-hollywood-with-sex-and-swearing/

The superagent who ruled Hollywood with sex and booze
By Larry Getlen
New York Post
August 30, 2015 | 5:35am

* * *



[From article]
A new biography goes inside the life of Hollywood's 'first-superagent' to reveal the crazy, brazen fights and lurid affairs that Sue Mengers had with clients and stars.
In Can I Go Now? The Life of Sue Mengers, Hollywood's First Superagent, the biography tells the story of arguably one of the most powerful agents in Tinseltown history.
Mengers was the first woman to amass huge power and notoriety for representing A-listers like Gene Hackman, Michael Caine, Candice Bergen, Ryan O'Neal, Mike Nichols, Barbra Streisand and more.
In the book, author Brian Kellow takes readers behind the scenes to share what Mengers' life was truly like.
[. . .]
She was known for her rude and crude attitude, no matter if you were her friend or client.
Despite her flaws, Mengers was truly loved by many in her circle. 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3216073/Lurid-affairs-clients-brash-fights-stars-royals-alike-Inside-wild-life-Hollywood-s-superagent-Streisand-Newman-Nicholson.html

Lurid affairs with clients and brash fights with stars and royals alike: Inside the wild life of Hollywood's 'first superagent' who made Streisand, Newman and O'Neal
A new biography reveals the crazy life led by Sue Mengers, Hollywood's first superagent, when she worked with numerous A-list stars
She once threw a party for Princess Margaret but was furious when Jack Nicholson 'offered COCAINE' to the Queen's sister
Mengers also claimed to have had a one-night stand with actor Paul Newman after befriending him and his wife
Barbra Streisand - Mengers' favorite client - said: She knew how to push your buttons... she could make you feel very unworthy'
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
PUBLISHED: 09:33 EST, 30 August 2015 | UPDATED: 14:08 EST, 30 August 2015

Plunder and Deceit, Mark Levin's New Book

[From article]
Chapter Two, is titled “On The Debt,” and explains to the rising generations how they will be in perpetual servitude to the debt being handed to them by generations that would rather spend and borrow than live within their means. Levin presents this as a moral problem as articulated by Dr. Walter Williams: “We’ve become an immoral people demanding that Congress forcibly use one American to serve the purposes of another. Deficits and runaway national debt are merely symptoms of the real problem.” The ruling generation of the political class has, in effect, bribed voters to keep them in power, by mortgaging the future of those who have not yet woken up to what is being done to them by their elders.
[. . .]
Social Security expenditures totaled 0.22 percent of the economy during World War 2, and in 1983 accounted for 24 percent. The second was: “For the first time, people who are retiring today will receive less in benefits than they paid into the system in taxes.” The plunder has already reached such an extent that even those at the top of the food chain are getting a rotten deal.
[. . .]


Mark Levin

“America’s educational productivity has collapsed,” at least as measured by standardized tests, as costs, especially administrative costs, have exploded. The facts and figures he offers on the growth of student debt are astounding, and will eventually cause a crisis that will make the 2008 housing crisis look like a day at the beach.
[. . .]
what poses as environmentalism today is really a “de-growth” movement that will impoverish future generations, diminishing not merely their standard of living, but their opportunities for productive lives. For younger people who have been indoctrinated on the subject in schools for their entire lives, the facts and reasoning here, which owe a well-acknowledged debt to Ayn Rand, could be the most startling of the book.
[. . .]
despotism – a despotism clothed in the garb of compassion. As you would expect from a scholar of his depth and erudition, it is an extremely valuable lesson, especially for a generation trained that the most important thing about the Constitution is that slave holders numbered among its authors.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/07/mark_levins_emplunder_and_deceitem.html

July 29, 2015
Mark Levin's Plunder and Deceit
By Thomas Lifson