Red meat for Trump foes and a convincing denunciation of the Republicans’ “win-at-all-costs electoral strategies.”
Fusion GPS founders Simpson and Fritsch enumerate the alleged high crimes and misdemeanors that put Donald Trump in the White House.
It’s clear early on that Fusion GPS, the Washington research and analysis firm headed by former Wall Street Journal staffers Simpson and Fritsch, set itself in opposition to Trump’s run for the presidency. “Many of his traits disqualified him for the job,” they write, “and his political rhetoric was loathsome, but his ties to the criminal underworld, his reliance on hidden flows of Russian money, and his record of chicanery in business topped the list.” Surprisingly, this opposition research was initially funded by a wealthy Republican who was appalled at the prospect of a Trump White House. The Steele dossier soon followed, delivered by a British intelligence agent whose allegations helped limn Trump’s ties to organized crime (including a cabal of Russians allied with the old-school Mafia) as well as financial misdeeds, various scams (Trump University, anyone?), and, most damning of all, willing collusion with Russia in interfering with the 2016 election. The authors carefully lay out their evidence, including charges that are only now coming to light, such as the involvement of Republican Congressman Devin Nunes in many of the proceedings as well as fundraising junkets to places such as Boston and Las Vegas, well outside his California district, “during which Nunes spent more than $130,000 on high-end hotels, meals, and NBA tickets, at the expense of his campaign committees.” Along the way, Simpson and Fritsch, who do not disguise their scorn for Trump and company, explore such milestones as the Trump Tower meeting between Donald Jr. and various Russian enterprises, which they hold might have been a “chicken feed” operation on the part of Russian intelligence. They also explore some of the flaws in the still-unfolding investigations into Trump, from Robert Mueller’s reticence to James Comey’s apparent incompetence.
Red meat for Trump foes and a convincing denunciation of the Republicans’ “win-at-all-costs electoral strategies.”Pub Date: Nov. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13415-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 3, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
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