Critics of the current Supreme Court will find plenty of support in Brock’s aggrieved, well-documented exposé.
A full-throated denunciation of a corrupt, thoroughly politicized Supreme Court in which the true chief justice is Clarence Thomas.
It was Brock, then a writer for right-wing publications, who coined the infamous slur on Clarence Thomas accuser Anita Hill, “a bit nutty and a bit slutty.” He’s been atoning ever since. Thomas, as recent news accounts have made clear, has no qualms about accepting gifts from wealthy supporters of extreme right-wing causes; nor will he recuse himself from cases that by all ethical standards he should not hear, including recent rulings on executive power and on the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. The Court, writes Brock, became Thomas’s the minute Amy Coney Barrett took Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s seat on the bench in 2020: “[John] Roberts could no longer preside over a conservative court that respected precedent. This was no longer the Roberts Court.” The Court was really owned, Brock holds, by right-wing fixer and ultra-Catholic Leonard Leo, the source of so many of those gifts to Thomas: it was Leo, Brock chronicles, who essentially brokered the morally compromised Donald Trump’s acceptance by the Christian right with the understanding that Trump would appoint an Opus Dei–leaning, hard-Catholic justice, and so he did. Citizens United was an early test case, and with its victory, which allows Leo to make his contributions in secret, “the power of Thomas and Leo was only just ramping up—and it would take years for anyone to survey the extent of the damage to the viability of the U.S. experiment in democracy,” Brock writes. The other conservative justices, notably Brett Kavanaugh—whom Brock accuses of multiple counts of perjury—are nearly as bad, but Brock is clearly focused on Thomas; he closes by laying out a convincing case for impeachment.
Critics of the current Supreme Court will find plenty of support in Brock’s aggrieved, well-documented exposé.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9780593802144
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
An engrossing and ominous chronicle, told by a master of the form.
Documenting perilous times.
In his most recent behind-the-scenes account of political power and how it is wielded, Woodward synthesizes several narrative strands, from the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel to the 2024 presidential campaign. Woodward’s clear, gripping storytelling benefits from his legendary access to prominent figures and a structure of propulsive chapters. The run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is tense (if occasionally repetitive), as a cast of geopolitical insiders try to divine Vladimir Putin’s intent: “Doubt among allies, the public and among Ukrainians meant valuable time and space for Putin to maneuver.” Against this backdrop, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham implores Donald Trump to run again, notwithstanding the former president’s denial of his 2020 defeat. This provides unwelcome distraction for President Biden, portrayed as a thoughtful, compassionate lifetime politico who could not outrace time, as demonstrated in the June 2024 debate. Throughout, Trump’s prevarications and his supporters’ cynicism provide an unsettling counterpoint to warnings provided by everyone from former Joint Chief of Staff Mark Milley to Vice President Kamala Harris, who calls a second Trump term a likely “death knell for American democracy.” The author’s ambitious scope shows him at the top of his capabilities. He concludes with these unsettling words: “Based on my reporting, Trump’s language and conduct has at times presented risks to national security—both during his presidency and afterward.”
An engrossing and ominous chronicle, told by a master of the form.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781668052273
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
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