Tag Archives: news

08.19.26
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REGIME CHANGE/INSIDE THE IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY OF DONALD TRUMP

Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, both White House Correspondents for The New York Times have collaborated on an astoundingly insightful and spotlight perspective of the first year of the Second Trump Administration. This latest book for Haberman is yet another example of her journalistic skill and of her contacts within The Beltway and the Trump inner circle. Her reporting is enhanced with the collaboration of Swan making REGIME CHANGE a must read for those interested in a deep dive into Trump and his cadre of sycophants in the second term.

Don’t look for sensationalism in these pages as that is not the style of either journalist. Rather you will discover an in depth look at Trump’s knee jerk decision making process and how he has surrounded himself with cabinet members and staff who have little individual decision making power. Unlike the first Trump administration, there are no advisors either able or willing to challenge his gut decisions. Thus the book title, REGIME CHANGE, refers to a second term with no guard rails in place in the Oval Office the Situation Room and elsewhere.The authors detail an administration focused on retribution, personal enrichment and the enhancement of his personal legacy. The book’s final chapter title is telling: PLUNDER.

Haberman and Swan have uncovered the decision making process on every major deliberation. They place the reader in the room and the reporting resonates with shocking truthfulness about immigration, Ice, Iran, Ukraine, Cabinet Officers, and military strikes.

It is somewhat unusual for a work of non-fiction to include an Epilogue but REGIME CHANGE includes one to give the reader a glimpse of an interview with the authors giving Trump the chance to respond to the book, that he had not read. The meeting dissolved into a typical Trump screed. They illegally indicted me, they impeached me, they did everything-they shot me, I guess you could say: But I won the election in a landslide, nobody else could have done it, he added. And there’s only one thing you can say about me that anybody believes, and you know what that is. Essentially I won every-f______ing time, he said.

And of course when the interview was over, one final Trump salvo for Haberman. I’m tired of winning and winning and winning and just getting bad f_______ing press. It’s about time you tell the truth. Okay?

There will be another Haberman-Swan collaboration for sure.

See gordonsgoodreads for our view of Haberman’s previous Trump book, CONFIDENCE MAN, THE MAKING OF DONALD TRUMP AND THE BREAKING OF AMERICA.

03.02.24
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WAYS AND MEANS/ROGER LOWENSTEIN

Roger Lowenstein has researched and written an excellent analysis of an often overlooked battlefield of the Civil War. ” Money” This in depth academic work explores in great detail the complexity and drama of exactly how both the Confederacy and the Union financed the war. In Lowenstein’s account, the battle for financing may have equaled and even surpassed the importance of outcomes from the horrendous military clashes.

Taking a page from Doris Kern Goodwin’s Team of Rivals, Lowenstein places Salmon P. Chase’s selection by President Lincoln as Treasury Secretary at the very center of finding the money to finance the prolonged conflict, rightfully called America’s Second Revolution. In the north money for the war effort was a daily struggle but in the Confederate south the impossibility and mismanagement of securing funding became the most significant factor in the Confederacy’s final defeat.

Often overlooked during the passions of the war in 1862 the Republican 37th Congress, following succession by the Democratic southern states, enacted some of the most progressive legislation in the nation’s history. The Homestead Act, the Land Grant College Act, the Transcontinental Railroad, creation of the Agriculture Department, the Legal Tender Act, making paper money legal tender for all debts public and private. The same congress established the nation’s first Graduated Income Tax to provide critical financing for the war effort.

Lowenstein’s narrative ties together how the critical role the divergent approaches to financing the war were a determining factor in the final outcome at Appomattox. Additionally, the book is a study of the expansion of the power of the federal government acting as a nation.

02.21.24
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CHITA

CHITA A Memoir with PATRICK PACHECO. The rise of Chita Rivera to Broadway stardom. This book is a must for lovers of the Broadway Theater. It is real and personal. Published in 2023, just months before her death in 2024, it comes to the reader as a timely tribute to her extraordinary life.

CHITA takes you backstage with Anita in the original West Side Story, Rosie in Bye By Birdie, Velma in Chicago, Aurora in Kiss of the Spider Woman and Claire in The Visit. The personal insight into the casts, producers and directors is genuine and warm. “Lenny” Bernstein, Bob Fosse, Judy Garland, Liza Minnelli, Hal Prince, Stephen Sondheim, and dozens more. And yes, Chita’s lovers are there as well.

Delores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero. Delores, the indomitable teenage Puerto Rican dynamo always present and often in the forefront of Chita’s stardom.

CHITA is a orchestra seat on Broadway. Don’t miss the show!