Bøger af Ryan Grim

It was the firing heard round the world. With one impulsive move, on the advice of his son-in-law Jared Kushner, Donald Trump fired James Comey on May 9, 2017. It would change the course of the Trump presidency and, with it, alter the course of world history in ways both large and small. It was that firing that led to the creation of the position of Special Counsel, filled by former FBI director Robert Mueller. The product of Mueller's year and a half of investigation may or may not be made public, but, in a critical way, it already is. As Chad Day and Eric Tucker of The Associated Press have written, "Mueller has spoken loudly, if indirectly, in court - indictment by indictment, guilty plea by guilty plea. In doing so, he tracked an elaborate Russian operation that injected chaos into a U.S. presidential election and tried to help Trump win the White House. He followed a GOP campaign that embraced the Kremlin's help and championed stolen material to hurt a political foe. And ultimately, he revealed layers of lies, deception, self-enrichment and hubris that followed. Woven through thousands of court papers, the special counsel has made his public report. This is what it says."The filings have an almost novelistic quality. "Mueller's legal filings, which include indictments and sentencing memorandums, have created an almost novelistic narrative, featuring rich portraits of the political and personal motivations of a large cast of characters," observed Jeffrey Toobin, The New Yorker's legal affairs correspondent.

A riveting insider account of the progressive movement in Congress centering A.O.C., Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush, Ayanna Pressley, and Ilhan Omar-their rise, their efforts to set an ambitious agenda for the country, and their struggle to find their footing within the Democratic party. The Squad is the definitive, must-read book about the most exciting figures defining our new era. The story is urgent, and the stakes are high-for the country and the world-and Grim, an experienced political reporter who covered the Squad before they were the Squad, is uniquely qualified to tell it.When Bernie Sanders, an obscure Vermont senator, launched his quixotic 2016 presidential campaign, few could have seen just how radically the Democratic Party would transform in just a few short years-or that such a transformation could be led by a Bronx bartender volunteering for Bernie in her spare time. The world as it was when that campaign began is almost unrecognizable today, and the Squad has both shaped and been shaped by the seismic social, cultural, and political changes underway.Referred to informally as the Squad, led by the preternaturally politically savvy Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the group laid down a marker for an aggressive left-wing agenda. Grim takes you behind the scenes as that new energy makes impact with Washington, and the Squad spends as much time fending off assaults from Donald Trump-who regularly singled them out and led chants of "send them back" at rallies-as they did battling their own party's sclerotic leadership. As they've grown in office, they've had to contend with the eternal question that confronts outsiders who power their way into the inside: Are they still radical organizers willing and able to lead a political revolution?

"A cornucopia of unconventional wisdom about our relationship to mind-altering substances."--Laura Miller, Salon.com "A compulsively readable and revealing history of our torturous relationship to drugs."--Christopher Hayes, Washington Editor, "The Nation" "Astonishingly clear-headed and well-written, as if someone had taken David Courtwright and added just a splash of Hunter Thompson."--Mark Kleiman, TPMCafe "A wide-ranging, fascinating romp through the history of America's insatiable appetite for all manner of drugs, from opium to crystal meth, all the way up to the possibly soon-to-be-illegal hallucinogen "Salvia divinorum.""--"Philadelphia City Paper" Did anti-drug campaigns actually encourage more drug use? Did acid really disappear in the early 2000s? And did meth peak decades ago? Did our founding fathers--or their wives--get high just as much as we do?As entertaining as it is informative, "This Is Your Country on Drugs" goes far beyond the usual "war on drugs" manifestos or reference books to bring a fresh perspective that will both enlighten the uninitiated and surprise the expert (however you define the term). Even-handed without being neutral, Grim brings more to the table than past histories by covering the who and the what so he can get to the "why." Not only does Grim derive surprising conclusions from looking at consumption patterns throughout eras, he chronicles America's romance with getting high from founding father Benjamin Rush telling Lewis and Clark to bring along eight ounces of Turkish opium and thirty gallons of "medicinal wine," to today's teenagers, who spend so much time alone online that they do far fewer drugs than any of their predecessors.

We've Got People: From Jesse Jackson to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the End of Big Money and the Rise of aMovement is the first book-length treatment of the roots and rise of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, tracing themovement that propelled her back to the 1988 presidential campaign of Jesse Jackson and the RainbowCoalition -- a year before she was born. That campaign stunned the Democratic Party by coming within inchesof winning the nomination. One of the few white progressives to endorse the campaign early was BurlingtonMayor Bernie Sanders; Ocasio-Cortez, in 2016, would volunteer for his presidential campaign. Veterans of theSanders campaign then formed the organization that recruited Ocasio-Cortez to run for Congress, and backedher and her squad to the hilt. At every step, the movement was in conflict with the centrist wing of the party,and the book, jam-packed with new revelations, explores how each shaped each other, and how that 30-yearwar shapes the fight playing out today.

Everything we know about drugs-from acid to epidemics to DARE and salvia-turns out to be wrongStock up on munchies and line up your water bottles: journalist Ryan Grim will take you on a cross-country tour of illicit drug use in the U.S.-from the agony (the huge DEA bust of an acid lab in an abandoned missile silo in Kansas) to the ecstasy (hallucinogens at raves and music festivals). Along the way, Grim discovers some surprising truths. Did anti-drug campaigns actually encourage more drug use? Did acid really disappear in the early 2000s? And did meth peak years ago? Did our Founding Fathers-or, better yet, their wives-get high just as much as we do?Traces the evolution of United States's long and twisted relationship with drugsGives surprising answers to questions such as: how did heroin become popular, when did the meth epidemic peak, and has LSD gone the way of QuaaludesBased on solid reporting and wide-ranging research-including surveys, reports, historical accounts, and moreNot since Eric Schlosser ventured underground to marijuana's black market in Reefer Madness has a reporter trained such a keen eye on drugs and culture. A powerful and often shocking history of one of our knottiest social and cultural problems, This is Your Country on Drugs leads you on a profound exploration of what it means to be an American.