Richard Nixon: The Life

From a prize-winning biographer comes, Richard Nixon: The Life, the defining portrait of a man who led America in a time of turmoil and left us a darker age. We live today, John A. Farrell shows, in a world Richard Nixon made.

At the end of WWII, navy lieutenant “Nick” Nixon returned from the Pacific and set his cap at Congress, an idealistic dreamer seeking to build a better world. Yet amid the turns of that now-legendary 1946 campaign, Nixon’s finer attributes gave way to unapologetic ruthlessness. The story of that transformation is the stunning overture to John A. Farrell’s magisterial biography of the president who came to embody postwar American resentment and division.

Within four years of his first victory, Nixon was a U.S. senator; in six, the vice president of the United States of America. “Few came so far, so fast, and so alone,” Farrell writes. Nixon’s sins as a candidate were legion; and in one unlawful secret plot, as Farrell reveals here, Nixon acted to prolong the Vietnam War for his own political purposes. Finally elected president in 1969, Nixon packed his staff with bright young men who devised forward-thinking reforms addressing health care, welfare, civil rights, and protection of the environment. It was a fine legacy, but Nixon cared little for it. He aspired to make his mark on the world stage instead, and his 1972 opening to China was the first great crack in the Cold War.
   
Nixon had another legacy, too: an America divided and polarized. He was elected to end the war in Vietnam, but his bombing of Cambodia and Laos enraged the antiwar movement. It was Nixon who launched the McCarthy era, who played white against black with a “southern strategy,” and spurred the Silent Majority to despise and distrust the country’s elites. Ever insecure and increasingly paranoid, he persuaded Americans to gnaw, as he did, on grievances—and to look at one another as enemies. Finally, in August 1974, after two years of the mesmerizing intrigue and scandal of Watergate, Nixon became the only president to resign in disgrace.

Richard Nixon is a gripping and unsparing portrayal of our darkest president. Meticulously researched, brilliantly crafted, and offering fresh revelations, it will be hailed as a master work.

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FBI Announces Reward for Fugitive "Smurf" AKA Diego Barros Pires

The Federal Bureau of Investigation Boston Division’s Southeastern Massachusetts Gang Task Force and the ATF Boston Field Division are seeking the public’s assistance in locating Diego Barros Pires, an alleged member of a violent street gang in Brockton, Massachusetts.

On March 22, 2017, Diego Pires, also known as “Smurf” or “Do It” was indicted, along with three other associates, and an arrest warrant was issued out of U.S. District Court in Boston, Massachusetts. Pires was charged with kidnapping, and aiding and abetting. He is wanted for his alleged involvement in the kidnapping of one adult and two minors in Brockton and Quincy, Massachusetts. Pires is considered armed and dangerous.

Pires is a 24-year-old Cape Verdean male who is a legal U.S. citizen, with black hair and brown eyes. He is 5’8” in height and weighs approximately 160 pounds. He last resided at 5 Madrid Square, Apartment 7, Brockton, Mass.

Pires has two tattoos; one on his right forearm that says “RIP Johnny,” the other on his left forearm that says “Kyle.”

The FBI is currently offering a monetary reward of up to $5,000 for information leading to his location and arrest. Anyone with information regarding his current whereabouts should call the FBI Boston Division at 1-857-386-2000. Tips can also be electronically submitted at tips.fbi.gov.

“Mr. Pires is considered armed and dangerous and we believe he poses a serious danger to the public. At this point in time, we’ve exhausted all investigative leads in locating him and we’re asking anyone with information about his whereabouts to contact law enforcement,” said Harold H. Shaw, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Boston Division.

The FBI’s Southeastern Massachusetts Gang Task Force is composed of the following agencies: the FBI, the Massachusetts State Police, and Brockton Police Department.

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Gangster Warlords: Drug Dollars, Killing Fields, and the New Politics of Latin America

In a ranch south of Texas, the man known as The Executioner dumps five hundred body parts in metal barrels. In Brazil's biggest city, a mysterious prisoner orders hit-men to gun down forty-one police officers and prison guards in two days. In southern Mexico, a crystal meth maker is venerated as a saint while imposing Old Testament justice on his enemies. A new kind of criminal kingpin has arisen: part CEO, part terrorist, and part rock star, unleashing guerrilla attacks, strong-arming governments and taking over much of the world's trade in narcotics, guns and humans. Who are these new masters of death? What personal qualities and life experiences have made them into such bloodthirsty leaders of men? What do they represent and stand for? What has happened in the Americas to allow them to grow and flourish? Author of the critically acclaimed El Narco: Inside Mexico's Criminal Insurgency, Ioan Grillo has covered Latin America since 2001, and gained access to every level of the cartel chain-of-command in what he calls the new battlefields of the Americas. Moving between militia-controlled ghettos and the halls of top policy-makers, Grillo provides a new and disturbing understanding of a war that has spiraled out of control - one that people across the political spectrum need to confront now. Gangster Warlords: Drug Dollars, Killing Fields, and the New Politics of Latin America, is the first definitive account of the crime wars now wracking Central and South America and the Caribbean.

Gangster Warlords: Drug Dollars, Killing Fields, and the New Politics of Latin America.

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Tamer Moumen, Former Crescent Ridge Capital Partners Hedge Fund Manager, Pleads Guilty to $9 Million Investment Fraud

A Leesburg man pleaded guilty to wire fraud in connection with his misuse of clients funds, some of which were invested through a purported hedge fund called Crescent Ridge Capital Partners.

According to the statement of facts filed with the plea agreement, Tamer Moumen, 39, defrauded over 50 clients between 2012 and 2017. Moumen falsely told investors that he was a successful trader who consistently beat the S&P500 and was overseeing tens of millions of dollars through his company, Crescent Ridge Capital Partners. Moumen encouraged dozens of clients, including many who were nearing retirement age, to liquidate their other investments and retirement accounts, and invest with him. Moumen did not tell investors that he actually had no experience managing a hedge fund, had a history of losing money in the securities market, and was relying on investor money to support his lifestyle and pay personal expenses. For example, Moumen used investor money to help finance the purchase of a $1 million personal residence in Leesburg, Virginia, a new Tesla, and to repay old investors. In nearly all instances, Moumen lost or spent his clients’ money within a matter of weeks or months of their original investment, but would conceal those facts by providing statements that showed the investment as steadily growing.

According to the statement of facts filed with the plea agreement, beginning in 2015, Moumen was involved with two fundraising efforts that solicited donations to benefit refugees, including a GoFundMe campaign and the Northern Virginia Refugee Fund. Moumen had sole control of the donated funds, some of which he transferred into accounts in his name, where the money was commingled with investor funds. Moumen used money in these accounts to pay personal expenses.

Moumen faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison when sentenced on July 28. Actual sentences for federal crimes are typically less than the maximum penalties. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after taking into account the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

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Scores: How I Opened the Hottest Strip Club in New York City, Was Extorted out of Millions by the Gambino Family, and Became One of the Most Successful Mafia Informants in FBI History

A gay man who created New York’s most notorious den of heterosexuality . . . an anxious, anything-but, hard-boiled lawyer who became one of the most successful undercover mob informants in history.

In this hilarious and fascinating account, Michael Blutrich takes you inside star-studded 1990s New York, mafia sit-downs, and the witness protection program.

Meet Michael D. Blutrich, founder of Scores, the hottest strip club in New York history. A resourceful lawyer at one of the city’s most respected firms, Blutrich fell into the skin trade almost by accident, but it was his legal savvy that made Scores the first club in Manhattan to feature lap dances and enabled him to neatly sidestep a law requiring dancers to wear pasties by instead covering their nipples with latex paint. Soon Scores, the club Howard Stern called “like being in a candy shop,” was a home away from home for everyone from sports superstars and Oscar-winning actors to pop singers and political notables alike.

The catch? The club was smack dab in John Gotti’s territory, and the mafia wanted a piece of the action. The Gambino family doesn’t take no for an answer . . . and neither, as it turns out, does the FBI. In his memoir, Blutrich recounts in detail how his beloved club became a hub for the mafia, and how he found himself caught up in an FBI investigation, sorely struggling to juggle roles of business owner and undercover spy.

As his life spiraled out of control, Blutrich would face the loss of almost everything dear to him. But whether marching a line of topless strippers as human exhibits into a trial to save the club’s liquor license or wearing wires to meetings with armed gangsters, he never lost his sense of humor or his nerve. In Scores: How I Opened the Hottest Strip Club in New York City, Was Extorted out of Millions by the Gambino Family, and Became One of the Most Successful Mafia Informants in FBI History, Blutrich finally tells all—from triumph to betrayal—in his own funny, self-deprecating voice.

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