Overcoming Trumpery

Overcoming Trumpery
Author: Norman Eisen
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Total Pages: 396
Release: 2022-03-22
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0815739680

How to restore ethics, the rule of law, and democracy as the centerpieces of U.S. government U.S. government has been repeatedly renewed—sometimes simply repaired and other times reinvented—during its over 230 years. Major aspects of the federal system were broken again during the four years of the Trump administration, so it’s time for even more fixes. This book sets out the damage that was done and important ideas on how the repairs should be made, focusing on ethics, the rule of law, and democracy. Distinguished scholars and practitioners have come together not only to address what went awry over the past four years, but also the deeper weaknesses that have become more evident, and how those weaknesses can be repaired. The problem areas range from ethics and conflicts of interest to the Hatch Act and big money in politics, and from independence at the Department of Justice and government transparency to reestablishing Congressional oversight, and the government’s role in the broader areas of how Americans vote and of international ethics and rule of law. Overcoming Trumpery provides a framework to understand the significant developments that are already happening in Washington with respect to ethics, the rule of law, and democracy. These include the “For the People Act,” the “Protecting Our Democracy Act,” and President Biden’s Executive Order on Ethics. The ideas outlined in this book for fixing flaws in federal governance come from the more than century of collective experience of its expert authors. The book represents a burst of sunshine after a very dark period in the nation’s history.

A Case for the American People

A Case for the American People
Author: Norman Eisen
Publisher: Crown
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2020-07-28
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0593238443

The Democrats’ special impeachment counsel on the House Judiciary Committee lays out President Trump’s shocking pattern of betrayals, lies, and high crimes, arguing articles of impeachment to the ultimate judges: the American people. In his behind-the-scenes account of the attempts to bring the president to justice—from filing the very first legal actions against him, through the Mueller report, to the turbulent impeachment and trial, to the president’s ongoing wrongdoing today—Norman Eisen, at the forefront of the battle since the day of Trump’s inauguration, pulls back the curtain on the process. He reveals ten proposed articles of impeachment, not just the two that were publicly tried, all of which he had a hand in drafting. He then guides us through Trump’s lifelong instincts that have dictated his presidency: a cycle of abuse, corruption, and relentless obstruction of the truth. Since taking the oath of office, Donald Trump has been on a spree of high crimes and misdemeanors, using the awesome power of the presidency for his own personal gain, at the expense of the American people. He has inflamed our divisions for his electoral benefit, with flagrant disregard for the Constitution that makes us America. Each step of the way, he has lied incessantly, including to cover up his crimes. And yet he remains in the country’s highest office. Congress, federal and state prosecutors, and courts have worked to hold the president accountable for his myriad offenses—with some surprising successes and devastating failures. Eisen, who served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee for Trump’s impeachment and trial, presents the case against Trump anew. Eisen’s gripping narrative and rousing closing argument—at turns revelatory, insightful, and enraging—will inspire our nation of judges. History has proven that this president’s nefarious behavior will continue, no matter the crisis. But, as Eisen’s candid retelling affirms, there is an ultimate constitutional power that transcends the president’s, a power that can and must defeat him if our nation is to survive. The verdict of the American people remains in the balance. It is time for us to act.

The Last Palace

The Last Palace
Author: Norman Eisen
Publisher: Crown
Total Pages: 434
Release: 2019-09-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 0451495799

A sweeping yet intimate narrative about the last hundred years of turbulent European history, as seen through one of Mitteleuropa’s greatest houses—and the lives of its occupants When Norman Eisen moved into the US ambassador’s residence in Prague, returning to the land his mother had fled after the Holocaust, he was startled to discover swastikas hidden beneath the furniture in his new home. These symbols of Nazi Germany were remnants of the residence’s forgotten history, and evidence that we never live far from the past. From that discovery unspooled the twisting, captivating tale of four of the remarkable people who had called this palace home. Their story is Europe’s, and The Last Palace chronicles the upheavals that transformed the continent over the past century. There was the optimistic Jewish financial baron, Otto Petschek, who built the palace after World War I as a statement of his faith in democracy, only to have that faith shattered; Rudolf Toussaint, the cultured, compromised German general who occupied the palace during World War II, ultimately putting his life at risk to save the house and Prague itself from destruction; Laurence Steinhardt, the first postwar US ambassador whose quixotic struggle to keep the palace out of Communist hands was paired with his pitched efforts to rescue the country from Soviet domination; and Shirley Temple Black, an eyewitness to the crushing of the 1968 Prague Spring by Soviet tanks, who determined to return to Prague and help end totalitarianism—and did just that as US ambassador in 1989. Weaving in the life of Eisen’s own mother to demonstrate how those without power and privilege moved through history, The Last Palace tells the dramatic and surprisingly cyclical tale of the triumph of liberal democracy.

States United

States United
Author: Joanna Lydgate
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 92
Release: 2022-10-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 150177008X

The Laurence and Lynne Brown Democracy Medal, presented by the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State, recognizes outstanding individuals, groups, and organizations that produce innovations to further democracy in the United States or around the world. Elections are the bedrock of any democracy, but they are under attack in the United States. State legislatures are moving to limit voting rights and seize control of election administration, candidates are refusing to accept election results, and antidemocracy forces are sowing lies and encouraging political violence. The States United Democracy Center is fighting back by equipping state and local officials, law enforcement leaders, and prodemocracy partners with the tools and resources they need to protect free, fair, and secure elections. For this important work, its cofounders are the recipients of the 2022 Brown Democracy Medal. States United was founded during the 2020 election and continues to be led by Joanna Lydgate, former chief deputy attorney general of Massachusetts; Norman Eisen, former ambassador to the Czech Republic and special assistant to President Barack Obama for ethics and government reform; and Christine Todd Whitman, former New Jersey governor and Environmental Protection Agency administrator.

Resistance to Tyrants, Obedience to God

Resistance to Tyrants, Obedience to God
Author: Dustin A. Gish
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2013-08-28
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 073918220X

Both reason and religion have been acknowledged by scholars to have had a profound impact on the foundation and formation of the American regime. But the significance, pervasiveness, and depth of that impact have also been disputed. While many have approached the American founding period with an interest in the influence of Enlightenment reason or Biblical religion, they have often assumed such influences to be exclusive, irreconcilable, or contradictory. Few scholarly works have sought to study the mutual influence of reason and religion as intertwined strands shaping the American historical and political experience at its founding. The purpose of the chapters in this volume, authored by a distinguished group of scholars in political science, intellectual history, literature, and philosophy, is to examine how this mutual influence was made manifest in the American Founding—especially in the writings, speeches, and thought of critical figures (Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Charles Carroll), and in later works by key interpreters of the American Founding (Alexis de Tocqueville and Abraham Lincoln). Taken as a whole, then, this volume does not attempt to explain away the potential opposition between religion and reason in the American mind of the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth- centuries, but instead argues that there is a uniquely American perspective and political thought that emerges from this tension. The chapters gathered here, individually and collectively, seek to illuminate the animating affect of this tension on the political rhetoric, thought, and history of the early American period. By taking seriously and exploring the mutual influence of these two themes in creative tension, rather than seeing them as diametrically opposed or as mutually exclusive, this volume thus reveals how the pervasiveness and resonance of Biblical narratives and religion supported and infused Enlightened political discourse and action at the Founding, thereby articulating the complementarity of reason and religion during this critical period.

Jews in American Politics

Jews in American Politics
Author: Louis Sandy Maisel
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 556
Release: 2001
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780742501812

Brings together a complete picture of the past, present, and future of Jewish political participation.

The America Syndrome

The America Syndrome
Author: Betsy Hartmann
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Total Pages: 287
Release: 2017-05-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1609807413

Has apocalyptic thinking contributed to some of our nation's biggest problems—inequality, permanent war, and the despoiling of our natural resources? From the Puritans to the present, historian and public policy advocate Betsy Hartmann sheds light on a pervasive but—until now—invisible theme shaping the American mindset: apocalyptic thinking, or the belief that the end of the world is nigh. Hartmann makes a compelling case that apocalyptic fears are deeply intertwined with the American ethos, to our detriment. In The America Syndrome, she seeks to reclaim human agency and, in so doing, revise the national narrative. By changing the way we think, we just might change the world.

Misfire

Misfire
Author: Tim Mak
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2021-11-02
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1524746452

A blistering exposé of the National Rifle Association, revealing its people, power, corruption, and ongoing downfall, from acclaimed NPR investigative reporter Tim Mak “Tenacious, careful and incisive.”—Jonathan Swan • “Deeply and meticulously reported, colorfully and precisely written.”—Olivia Nuzzi • “Nonstop revelations are told with gripping detail and intimate insider knowledge.”—David Frum • “Fantastic.”—Chris Hayes The NRA once compelled respect—even fear—from Republicans and Democrats alike. Once a grassroots club dedicated to gun safety, the NRA ballooned into a powerful lobbyist organization that maintained an iron hold on gun legislation in America. This influential nonprofit raised millions in small fees from members across the country, which funded hidden, lavish lifestyles of designer suits, private jets and yachts, martini lunches and Champagne dinners—while the group manipulated legislators and flirted with a Russian spy. Yet in 2012, the NRA’s grip on Washington began to loosen in the wake of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary. Facing nationwide outrage, NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre gave a speech claiming the solution was not fewer guns, but more guns, in schools. The group’s rhetoric only escalated from there, a misstep that sparked a backlash and invited the scrutiny of the government. Unveiled here for the first time ever are surprising, revelatory details spotlighting decades of poor leadership and mismanagement by LaPierre; the NRA’s long association with marketing firm Ackerman-McQueen; NRA executives’ 2015 trip to Moscow, a by-invitation affair packed with meetings with Russian government officials, diplomats, and oligarchs seeking influence in American politics; as well as the power struggle between LaPierre and former NRA president Oliver North that fractured the organization. Misfire is the result of a four-year investigation by journalist Tim Mak, who scoured thousands of pages of never-before-publicized documents and cultivated dozens of confidential sources inside the NRA's orbit to paint a vivid picture of the gun group's rampant corruption and slow decline, marking a sea change in the battle over gun rights and control in America.

After Trump

After Trump
Author: Bob Bauer
Publisher: Lawfare Press
Total Pages: 436
Release: 2020-09-15
Genre: Executive power
ISBN: 9781735480619

In After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency, Bob Bauer and Jack Goldsmith provide a comprehensive roadmap for reform of the presidency in the post-Trump era. In fourteen chapters they offer more than fifty concrete proposals concerning presidential conflicts of interest, foreign influence on elections, pardon power abuse, assaults on the press, law enforcement independence, Special Counsel procedures, FBI investigations of presidents and presidential campaigns, the role of the White House Counsel, war powers, control of nuclear weapons, executive branch vacancies, domestic emergency powers, how one administration should examine possible crimes by the president of a prior administration, and more. Each set of reform proposals is preceded by rich descriptions of relevant presidential history, and relevant background law and norms, that place the proposed reforms in context. All of the proposals are prefaced by a chapter that explains how Trump--and, in some cases, his predecessors--conducted the presidency in ways that justify these reforms. After Trump will thus be essential reading for the coming debate on how to reconstruct the laws and norms that constitute and govern the world's most powerful office. It's hard to imagine two better co-authors for the task. Both served in senior executive branch positions-in the administrations of Barack Obama and George W. Bush, respectively-and have written widely on the presidency. Bob Bauer served from 2010-2011 as White House Counsel to President Barack Obama, who in 2013 named Bauer to be Co-Chair of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration. He is a Professor of Practice and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at New York University School of Law, as well as the co-director of its Legislative and Regulatory Process Clinic. Jack Goldsmith served as Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel from 2003-2004, and Special Counsel to the Department of Defense from 2002-2003. He is the Learned Hand Professor at Harvard Law School, co-founder of Lawfare, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Together, in this book, they set the terms for the national discussion to come about the presidency, its powers, and its limits.

The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton

The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton
Author: Edith Wharton
Publisher: Read Books Ltd
Total Pages: 162
Release: 2012-11-08
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 144748052X

This haunting anthology is an enthralling collection of chilling tales infused with Edith Wharton's masterful exploration of human psychology and the hidden recesses of the human heart. As a keen observer of human nature, Wharton weaves her ghostly tales with remarkable subtlety and psychological depth. Her ghosts are not mere apparitions but poignant manifestations of guilt, regret, and unrequited desires. Through her elegant prose and sharp wit, Wharton delves into the darkest corners of the human psyche, exploring themes of forbidden passions, societal constraints, and the persistent power of the past. Each setting serves as the backdrop for chilling encounters with the spectral realm. The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton is a testament to Wharton's versatility as a writer. The first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, she imbues her tales with atmospheric tension, challenging the reader to question what lies beyond our mortal existence.