Arlen Specter

Arlen Specter PDF Author: Evan Laine
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822988259
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 319

Get Book Here

Book Description
From his early work as a lawyer on the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of President John F. Kennedy to his days as Philadelphia’s district attorney to his thirty-year career as a United States Senator from Pennsylvania, Arlen Specter found himself consistently in the middle of major historical events. During his five terms as senator, Specter met with the likes of Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat and Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro and made significant contributions during the fallout of both the Iran-Contra scandal and the Clinton impeachment. His work had a profound influence on the configuration of the United States Supreme Court, the criminal justice system, LGBTQ rights, and stem cell research. Photographs from Specter’s personal collection highlight many of these key moments, revealing the rich narrative not only of one man’s political career, but how it helped shape a nation. While it will probably be long debated whether Specter’s complex and controversial political legacy merits mainly praise or criticism, Arlen Specter sheds new light on the life of a man who fought to make a difference.

Arlen Specter

Arlen Specter PDF Author: Evan Laine
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822988259
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 319

Get Book Here

Book Description
From his early work as a lawyer on the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of President John F. Kennedy to his days as Philadelphia’s district attorney to his thirty-year career as a United States Senator from Pennsylvania, Arlen Specter found himself consistently in the middle of major historical events. During his five terms as senator, Specter met with the likes of Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat and Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro and made significant contributions during the fallout of both the Iran-Contra scandal and the Clinton impeachment. His work had a profound influence on the configuration of the United States Supreme Court, the criminal justice system, LGBTQ rights, and stem cell research. Photographs from Specter’s personal collection highlight many of these key moments, revealing the rich narrative not only of one man’s political career, but how it helped shape a nation. While it will probably be long debated whether Specter’s complex and controversial political legacy merits mainly praise or criticism, Arlen Specter sheds new light on the life of a man who fought to make a difference.

Passion for Truth

Passion for Truth PDF Author: Arlen Specter
Publisher: Perennial
ISBN: 9780060958107
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 606

Get Book Here

Book Description
An honest look at some of the most controversial and earth-shaking American events of the last half-century, includes the Kennedy assassination and President Clinton's impeachment, as seen through the eyes of a veteran senator. Reprint. 15,000 first pirnting.

Never Give In

Never Give In PDF Author: Sen. Arlen Specter
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1429944153
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Get Book Here

Book Description
This is not simply the memoir of a cancer survivor. Nor is it just the memoir of a respected senator. This is an unprecedented glimpse into a man who is both. It is inspiration for people of all political persuasions; of how to persevere and succeed---despite what the doctors may say, despite what the tests might show. In early 2004, Senator Specter was in the midst of a grueling primary race, facing significant opposition from the right as he worked to win his party's nomination to run for reelection for his Pennsylvania senate seat. It would be the most difficult election in his quarter-century career in the Senate. Following on its heels were two more challenges---the general-election race and opposition to his elevation as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, his lifelong ambition. He overcame all three challenges in time for his seventy-fifth birthday. But exhaustion and fatigue---initially thought to be the aftereffects of months of vigorous campaigning---were found to be far more serious. After a series of tests and consultation with several doctors, Specter was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease, Stage IVB, the most advanced stage. He had received death sentences before and lived to tell about it. To Senator Specter, this diagnosis was another challenge. After all, he still had a job to do. His cancer treatments came as he reached the height of his power---surrounded by political storms that polarized Washington and threatened to shut the Senate down. His leadership positions made it his job to manage Supreme Court nominations and public- health appropriations as he faced his own illness. He had fought on public-health issues for years, but now it added potency to the message that the messenger was ailing himself. The phrase "Never give in" became Specter's mantra, invoking the famous words from Churchill in his battle with cancer. This moving book describes the treatment the Senator received and offers his advice on how to handle the side effects (both visible and private), hair loss, and of course, maintain a nearly daily squash regimen. So, how does one move forward when faced with mortality? It's simple. Work.

Learning to Legislate

Learning to Legislate PDF Author: Richard F. Fenno
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 216

Get Book Here

Book Description


Selling the CIA

Selling the CIA PDF Author: David S. McCarthy
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700626425
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 230

Get Book Here

Book Description
Dubbed the "Year of Intelligence," 1975 was not a good year for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Caught spying on American citizens, the agency was under investigation, indicted in shocking headlines, its future covert operations at risk. Like so many others caught up in public scandal, the CIA turned to public relations. This book tells what happened next. In the mid-1970s CIA officials developed a public relations strategy to fend off the agency's critics. In Selling the CIA David Shamus McCarthy describes a PR campaign that proceeded with remarkable continuity--and effectiveness--through the decades and regimes that followed. He deftly chronicles the agency's efforts to project an image of openness and accountability, even as it did its best to put a positive spin on secrecy--"[m]ore openness with greater secrecy," in the Orwellian words of one director of public affairs. A tale of machinations and manipulation worthy of Hollywood, McCarthy's work exposes a culture of secrecy unwittingly sustained by the forces of popular culture; a public relations offensive working on all fronts to perpetuate the CIA's mystique as the heroic guardian of national security. "Our failures are known, our successes are not" has been the guiding mantra of this initiative. Selling the CIA spotlights how the agency’s success in outmaneuvering Congress and avoiding public scrutiny stands as a direct threat to American democracy.

Fighting for Common Ground

Fighting for Common Ground PDF Author: Olympia Snowe
Publisher: Hachette Books
ISBN: 1602862184
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 332

Get Book Here

Book Description
An outspoken centrist, Senator Snowe stunned Washington in February 2012 when she announced she would not seek a fourth term and offered a sharp rebuke to the Senate, citing the dispiriting gridlock and polarization. After serving in the legislative branch at the state and federal levels for 40 years, including 18 years in the U.S. Senate, she explained that Washington wasn’t solving the big problems anymore.In this timely call to action, she explores the roots of her belief in principled policy-making and bipartisan compromise. A leading moderate with a reputation for crossing the aisle, Senator Snowe will propose solutions for bridging the partisan divide in Washington, most notably through a citizens’ movement to hold elected officials accountable. Senator Snowe recounts how the tragedies and triumphs of her personal story helped shape her political approach. Born in Augusta, Maine, Senator Snowe was orphaned at nine, and raised by an aunt and uncle. When she was twenty-six, her husband, a Maine state representative, was killed in an auto accident. Already dedicated to public service, she ran for and won her husband’s seat.The book will include anecdotes from throughout her career, and address her working relationships with Presidents Reagan through Obama, Senator Ted Kennedy, Majority Leader Bob Dole, and many others. As a senior member of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, the high-profile Commerce and Intelligence Committees, and the Senate Small Business Committee, Senator Snowe has been directly involved with the most talked-about legislative challenges of recent decades: the country’s response to 9/11; the 2008 financial crisis; the Affordable Healthcare Act; the debt ceiling debacle, and much more.Her new book will draw on the lessons she's learned as a policymaker, and the frustration she shares with the American people about the government’s dwindling productivity. Senator Snowe passionately argues that the government has now lost its way, shows how this happened, and proposes ways for the world’s greatest deliberative body to, once again, fulfill its mission.

Strange Justice

Strange Justice PDF Author: Jane Mayer
Publisher: Graymalkin Media
ISBN: 163168163X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 436

Get Book Here

Book Description
Now a New York Times Best Seller and a National Book Award finalist. Charged with racial, sexual, and political overtones, the confirmation of Clarence Thomas as a Supreme Court justice was one of the most divisive spectacles the country has ever seen. Anita Hill’s accusation of sexual harassment by Thomas, and the attacks on her that were part of his high-placed supporters’ rebuttal, both shocked the nation and split it into two camps. One believed Hill was lying, the other believed that the man who ultimately took his place on the Supreme Court had committed perjury. In this brilliant, often shocking book, Jane Mayer and Jill Abramson, two of the nation’s top investigative journalists examine all aspects of this controversial case. They interview witnesses that the Judiciary Committee chose not to call, and present documents never before made public. They detail the personal and professional pasts of both Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill and lay bare a campaign of lobbying, public relations, and character assassination fueled by conservative power at its most desperate. A gripping high-stakes drama, Strange Justice is not only a definitive account of the Clarence Thomas nomination hearings, but is also a classic casebook of how the Washington game is played by those for whom winning is everything.

The Realignment of Pennsylvania Politics Since 1960

The Realignment of Pennsylvania Politics Since 1960 PDF Author: Renée M. Lamis
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271085770
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 430

Get Book Here

Book Description
The political party system in the United States has periodically undergone major realignments at various critical junctures in the country’s history. The Civil War boosted the Republican Party’s fortunes and catapulted it into majority status at the national level, a status that was further solidified during the Populist realignment in the 1890s. Starting in the 1930s, however, Roosevelt’s New Deal reversed the parties’ fortunes, bringing the Democratic Party back to national power, and this realignment was further modified by the “culture wars” beginning in the mid-1960s. Each of these realignments occasioned shifts in the electorate’s support for the major parties, and they were superimposed on each other in a way that did not negate entirely the consequences of the preceding realignments. The story of realignment is further complicated by the variations that occurred within individual states whose own particular political legacies, circumstances, and personalities resulted in modulations and modifications of the patterns playing out at the national level. In this book, Renée Lamis investigates how Pennsylvania experienced this series of realignments, with special attention to the period since 1960. She uses a wealth of data from a wide variety of sources to produce an analysis that allows her to trace the evolution of electoral behavior in the Keystone State in a narrative that is accessible to a broad range of readers. Her account helps explain why Senator Arlen Specter was reelected whereas Senator Rick Santorum was not, and why Pennsylvania Republicans have been highly successful in major statewide elections in an era when Democratic presidential standard-bearers have regularly carried the state. Overall, her book constitutes a gold mine of information and interpretation for political junkies as well as scholars who want to know more about how national-level politics plays out within individual states.

Flying Blind

Flying Blind PDF Author: Michael Smerconish
Publisher: Running Press Book Publishers
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Get Book Here

Book Description
Moderate-conservative radio talk show host Michael Smerconish asks theuestion: In a post 9-11 world marked by constant threat of terrorism, why ishe Department of Transportation and the Transportation Securitydministration jeopardising airline security by enforcing outdated screeningegulations that cater to political correctness?

High Crimes and Misdemeanors

High Crimes and Misdemeanors PDF Author: Frank O. Bowman III
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108574653
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 481

Get Book Here

Book Description
America frequently talks about impeaching a president, but the impeachment provisions of the American constitution are widely misunderstood. In High Crimes and Misdemeanors, constitutional scholar Frank O. Bowman, III offers unprecedented clarity to the question of impeachment, tracing its roots to medieval England through its adoption in the Constitution and 250 years of American experience. By examining the human and political history of those who have faced impeachment, Bowman demonstrates that the Framers intended impeachment to be a flexible tool, adaptable to the needs of any age. Written in a lively, engaging style, the book combines a deep historical and constitutional analysis of the impeachment clauses, a coherent theory of when impeachment should be used to protect constitutional order against presidential misconduct, and a comprehensive presentation of the case for and against impeachment of President Trump. It is an indispensable work for the present moment.