Showing titles in Corruption & Misconduct

When Michael Cohen's secret payoff to porn star Stormy Daniels on behalf of Donald Trump made Cohen look like a liability to the by-then-president of the United States, the end to their decade-long relationship came swiftly—with a knock on the door from the FBI. Soon, Cohen would find himself imprisoned—even though he had plenty of evidence to show he was innocent of most of the charges.

Ten thousand years after humans figured out how to stop wandering and plant crops, veteran investigative journalist Mark Schapiro plunges into the struggle already underway for control of seeds, the ground-zero ingredient for our food. Three-quarters of the seed varieties on Earth in 1900 had become extinct by 2015. In Seeds of Resistance, Schapiro takes us onto the frontlines of a struggle over the seeds that remain, one that will determine the long-term security of our food supply in the face of unprecedented climate volatility. More than half of all commercially-traded seeds have fallen under the control of just three multinational agri-chemical companies....

Billionaire oligarchs want to own our republic, and they’re nearly there, thanks to legislation and Supreme Court decisions that they have essentially bought. They put Trump and his political allies into office and support a vast network of think tanks, publications, and social media that every day push our nation closer and closer to police-state tyranny.

Well-heeled American corporations have long had a financial stake in undermining scientific consensus and manufacturing uncertainty. In The Triumph of Doubt, former Obama and Clinton official David Michaels details how corrupt science becomes public policy - and where it's happening today.

Give Us More Guns, based on hundreds of interviews with police, experts, and the gangsters themselves, tells the story of this callous crime for the first time. Mark Shaw explores how the guns get into the hands of South Africa’s crime bosses and describes the bloodshed that ensues. He also uncovers accounts of rampant corruption within the police and in the state’s gun-licensing system, probing the government failure that has been instrumental in arming the country’s gangsters.

What You Should Know About Politics...But Don't breaks it all down, issue by issue, explaining who stands for what, and why - whether it's the economy, income inequality, Obamacare, foreign policy, education, immigration, or climate change. If you're a Democrat, a Republican, or somewhere in between, it's the perfect audiobook to brush up on a single topic or listen through to get a deeper understanding of the often mucky world of American politics.

Whistleblowers pay with their lives to save ours. When insiders like former NSA analyst Edward Snowden, ex-FBI agent Coleen Rowley, or Big Tobacco truth-teller Jeffrey Wigand blow the whistle on high-level lying, lawbreaking or other wrongdoing - whether it's government spying, corporate murder, or scientific scandal - the public benefits enormously. Wars are ended, deadly products are taken off the market, white-collar criminals are sent to jail. The whistleblowers themselves, however, generally end up ruined.

A small number of people, motivated by an insatiable greed for power and wealth, and backed by a pinstripe army of enablers, have driven the world to the brink of destruction. Patrick Alley, co-founder of Global Witness and the author of Very Bad People, introduces us to some of the world's worst warlords, grifters and kleptocrats who can be found everywhere from presidential palaces to the board rooms of some of the world's best known companies. Pitted against them, the book also follows the people unravelling the deals, tracking the money and going undercover at great risk.

Greed. Lies. Corruption. These are the foundational elements of the American Mafia story. Here, the pursuit of power overshadows even the desire for a dollar, and self-interest outweighs the greater good. It’s a world that’s foreign to the average American—or is it? The values of our democracy and those of Mafia culture are separated by a thin line that’s quickly disintegrating.

The American people depend on a free press to keep a close and impartial watch on the national security operations that are carried out in our name. But in many cases, this trust is sadly misplaced, as leading journalists are seduced and manipulated by the secretive agencies they cover. While the press remains silent about its corrupting relationship with the intelligence community - a relationship that dates back to the Cold War - Spooking the News will blow the lid off this unseemly arrangement.

It started innocently enough, with calls to celebrities' houses alongside her teenage twin sister. Soon, Tanya Smith realised she could convince utility companies to amend the balances of her friends and neighbours, clearing elderly relatives' overdue electricity bills with a single phone call. Eventually, as she tested the limits and realized she could get past any gatekeeper, this superpower, as she came to think of it, morphed into something else: she wanted access to the actual money herself.

More and more people are beginning to realize that we are being manipulated and lied to. We are denied access to secrets that shouldn’t be secrets. Our politicians obfuscate, deny, and outright lie. No one knows whom to trust. The nightly news is being replaced by carefully orchestrated propaganda. Our iPhones are monitored, as are our laptops and our landlines. As for social media, that too is ripe for spying by men in black suits. No wonder, then, that the last few years have seen an incredible rise in conspiracy theories about deceptions and cover-ups.

DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODlicans uncovers the truth about how corporations have bought the American electoral and legislative process through the power of lobbyists, campaign contributions, and political action committees. Using historical details, such as the development of the two-party system and the advent of third-party candidates throughout U.S. history, DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODlicans exposes how the two major parties have allowed corporations, businesses, and politically-motivated wealthy individuals to manipulate elections.

Following an unprecedented, relentless four-year investigation, Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr delivered 36 boxes of evidence against then-President Bill Clinton to the House of Representatives on September 9, 1998. Dubbed “The Starr Report,” the documents alleged—in lurid detail—that Clinton lied under oath in a sworn deposition about his affair with an intern. This became the prime piece of evidence in the subsequent impeachment hearings.

The Playbook is an exposé of the extraordinary lengths that corporations will go to in order to deny the scientific facts—around climate change, public health risks and worker safety—when they don't suit their agenda. Written in the form of a corporate handbook for tobacco, oil and pharmaceutical company executives, it is a litany of obfuscation techniques, denial, delays and outright lies.

Geoff Shepard had a ringside seat to the unfolding Watergate debacle. As the youngest lawyer on Richard Nixon’s staff, he personally transcribed the Oval Office tape in which Nixon appeared to authorize getting the CIA to interfere with the ongoing FBI investigation, and even coined the phrase “the smoking gun.” Like many others, the idealistic Shepard was deeply disappointed in the president. But as time went on, the meticulous lawyer was nagged by the persistent sense that something wasn’t right with the case against Nixon.

Thousands of American soldiers are returning from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan with severe wounds from chemical war. They are not the victims of ruthless enemy warfare, but of their own military commanders. These soldiers, afflicted with rare cancers and respiratory diseases, were sickened from the smoke and ash swirling out of the "burn pits" where military contractors incinerated mountains of trash, including old stockpiles of mustard and sarin gas, medical waste, and other toxic material.

Every day, innocent men across America are thrown into prison, betrayed by a faulty justice system, and robbed of their lives - either by decades-long sentences or the death penalty itself. Injustice tarnishes our legal process from start to finish. From the racial discrimination and violence used by backwards law enforcement officers, to a prison culture that breeds inmate conflict, there is opportunity for error at every turn.

A elite do atraso se tornou um clássico contemporâneo da sociologia brasileira, um livro fundamental de Jessé Souza. Por meio de uma linguagem fluente, irônica e ousada, Jessé apresenta uma nova visão sobre as causas da desigualdade que marca nosso país e reescreve a história da nossa sociedade. No âmago da interpretação de Jessé não está a corrupção política. Para ele, a questão a partir da qual se deve explicar a história passada e atual do Brasil - e de suas classes, portanto - não é outra senão a escravidão.

La mañana del 13 de agosto de 2019, la historia política moderna de México cambió. Por primera vez en nuestro país, una secretaria de Estado era encarcelada a raíz de una investigación periodística. Rosario Robles ingresó al penal de Santa Martha Acatitla acusada de ejercicio indebido de la función pública y, hasta la fecha, sigue presa.