As Maine Went: Governor Paul LePage and the Tea Party Takeover of Maine


Book Description

The improbable and compelling story of Paul LePage’s ascent to the governor’s office in 2010 and the impact of his first term. Not one quote, statistic, or conclusion of this book has ever been refuted, and no one who reads it will be surprised by LePage’s second term. IMAGINE THAT THE FUTURE WELL-BEING OF YOUR STATE is handed by 38% of its voters to a governor who tells the NAACP to 'kiss my butt'; who jokes that the worst his lax policies on toxic chemicals in consumer products will do is cause women to grow 'little beards'; who falsely claims that an active wind turbine is fake and run by 'a little electric motor'; and who loudly condemns your state's public schools as the worst in the nation while a national news magazine is ranking them among the best. Maine's governor Paul LePage has said all those things and much more in his stormy tenure. As disclosed for the first time in this book, he also spent 13 hours in 2013 in private meetings with conspiracy theorists discussing what he would do if the federal government allowed Russian troops to invade North America, while at the same time claiming that he had no time to meet with legislative leaders. For the past 6 years, Maine has been a laboratory for Tea Party governance. When a movement defined by its distrust of government is handed the keys to a state, what happens next? As Maine Went examines Paul LePage's record to answer the question that matters most: Is he making Maine a better place?




The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism


Book Description

In this penetrating new study, Skocpol of Harvard University, one of today's leading political scientists, and co-author Williamson go beyond the inevitable photos of protesters in tricorn hats and knee breeches to provide a nuanced portrait of the Tea Party. What they find is sometimes surprising.




The Tea Party Explained


Book Description

The Tea Party first attracted the media spotlight with Rick Santelli’s televised rant against the government’s bailout of mortgage borrowers on February 19, 2009, which instantly went viral as a video. As the authors document, however, “tea parties” associated with the Ron Paul movement had already been gathering momentum for more than a year. Beginning as a protest against government spending sprees, the Tea Party’s sudden fame forced it to define itself on many issues where the membership was seriously divided. Fiscal conservatives, who were usually liberal on social issues, battled social conservatives in an uneasy series of maneuvers that continues unresolved and is described in the book. The Tea Party Explained, written by two Tea Party activists, gives a well-documented account of the Tea Party, its origins, its evolution, the bitter squabbles over its direction, its amazing successes in 2010, and its electoral rebuff in 2012. Maltsev and Skaskiw analyze its demographics, the many organizations which have tried to represent, appropriate, or infiltrate the movement, and the ideological divisions within.




Give Us Liberty


Book Description

Give Us Liberty is written for every American who is ready to stand up to the federal government’s unprecedented power, spending, and intrusion on personal freedom. As millions are realizing, our country’s future has been dangerously compromised as the national debt spirals out of sight to pay for a litany of irresponsible federal policies: “Obamacare,” Wall Street sweetheart deals, liberals’ pet social programs, Congressional pork, foreign aid, and new military adventures. Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe–economists and influential supporters of Tea Party activists and candidates across the country–explain what’s at stake, why limited government is the answer to our crisis, and how we can renew American prosperity by studying the lessons of the revolutionary era. This paperback edition also features a new foreword by Glenn Beck.




Unrigged: How Americans Are Battling Back to Save Democracy


Book Description

The “wildly undersold story” (Lawrence Lessig) of the next American revolution, and the inspiring citizen activists fighting to save America’s fragile democracy. Our country is dominated by a political party that has no interest in governing, and that seeks to entrench its power by limiting democracy—going so far as to force people to the polls in the middle of a pandemic. Yet there is hope, as best-selling author David Daley argues in Unrigged, though it doesn’t lie in Congress, gerrymandered statehouses, or even the courts. We must, instead, look to the grassroots. Introducing us to groups that have pioneered innovative organizing methods—often combining old-school activism with new digital tools—Daley uncovers the story behind voting-rights victories nationwide and the new organizations reinventing our politics. The result is a vivid portrait of a new civic awakening, and an essential toolkit for reviving our democracy in the Trump era and beyond.




To the Last Man :.


Book Description




Deer Hunting in Paris


Book Description

What happens when a Korean-American preacher’s kid refuses to get married, travels the world, and quits being vegetarian? She meets her polar opposite on an online dating site while sitting at a café in Paris, France and ends up in Paris, Maine, learning how to hunt. A memoir and a cookbook with recipes that skewer human foibles and celebrates DIY food culture, Deer Hunting in Paris is an unexpectedly funny exploration of a vanishing way of life in a complex cosmopolitan world. Sneezing madly from hay fever, Lee recovers her roots in rural Maine by running after a headless chicken, learning how to sight in a rifle, shooting skeet, and butchering animals. Along the way, she figures out how to keep her boyfriend’s conservative Republican family from “mistaking” her for a deer and shooting her at the clothesline.




The Kennedy Half-Century


Book Description

An original and illuminating narrative revealing John F. Kennedy's lasting influence on America, by the acclaimed political analyst Larry J. Sabato.




Congress and the Nation 2013-2016, Volume XIV


Book Description

Chronicling the polarized partisan environment during the President Barack Obama’s second term, Congress and the Nation 2013-2016, Vol. XIV is the most authoritative reference on congressional lawmaking and trends during the 113th and 114th Congresses. The newest edition in this award-winning series documents the most fiercely debated issues during this period, including: The unprecedented federal government shutdown, The strike down of the Defense of Marriage Act as unconstitutional, End of the filibuster for most executive and judicial branch nominees, Changes to the Dodd–Frank Act, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Pope Francis address joint sessions, Sexual Assault Survivors′ Rights Act passed, overhauling rape kit processing and establishment of victim bill of rights, SPACE Act passed, allowing commercial exploration of space. No other source guides readers seamlessly through the policy output of the national legislature with the breadth, depth, and authority of Congress and the Nation. This is a landmark series is a must-have reference for all academic libraries and meets the needs of the full spectrum of users, from lower-level undergraduates through researchers and faculty.




Living Downstream


Book Description

Sandra Steingraber, biologist, poet, and survivor of cancer in her twenties, brings all three perspectives to bear on the most important health and human rights issue of our time: the growing body of evidence linking cancer to environmental contaminations. Her scrupulously researched scientific analysis ranges from the alarming worldwide patterns of cancer incidence to the sabotage wrought by cancer-promoting substances on the intricate workings of human cells. In a gripping personal narrative, she travels from hospital waiting rooms to hazardous waste sites and from farmhouse kitchens to incinerator hearings, bringing to life stories of communities in her hometown and around the country as they confront decades of industrial and agricultural recklessness. Living Downstream is the first book to bring together toxics-release data -- now finally made available through under the right-to-know laws -- and newly released cancer registry data. Sandra Steingraber is also the first to trace with such compelling precision the entire web of connections between our bodies and the ecological world in which we eat, drink, breathe, and work. Her book strikes a hopeful note throughout, for, while we can do little to alter our genetic inheritance, we can do a great deal to eliminate the environmental contributions to cancer, and she shows us where to begin. Living Downstream is for all readers who care about the health of their families and future generations. Sandra Steingraber's brave, clear, and careful voice is certain to break the paralyzing silence on this subject that persists more than three decades after Rachel Carson's great early warning.