Non Fiction Authors From The United States

"It isn't done by some guy pressing a lever and changing the vote from blue to red. Rigging an election is usually done by blocking people from casting ballots or not counting the ballots they cast."

"The nasty secret of American democracy is that we don't count all the votes and we do not let all people vote. In the past two years, according to the federal government, 17 million Americans have been stripped of their right to vote. Some of it is quite legitimate... But about half of that number, 9 million or so people, were removed from the voter rolls on a false premise. These potential voters are overwhelmingly young people and voters of color. Young people are the new target. There is a massive purge of voters in America and few people are talking about it."

"On 28 January China said it would welcome international help as it struggled to contain coronavirus. No substantial help has come. Instead of solidarity and defying WHO, the US, Australia, Britain seek to isolate China, returning it to a state of siege and the dangers of the past. (Twitter post 5 Feb 2020)"

"That was May 2001, days before President Bush issued his proposals to end the energy crisis in California. The Golden State was suffering rolling blackouts. The state’s monthly electricity bill shot up by 1,000 percent. But as soon as I got a whiff of the president’s proposals, I knew his plan had nothing to do with helping out the Gore-voting surfers on the Left Coast. Bush put Vice President Dick Cheney in charge of the committee to save California consumers. Recommendation number one: Build some nuclear plants. Not much of an offer to earthquake-prone California, but a darn good deal for the biggest builder of nuclear plants based in Texas, the Brown and Root subsidiary of Halliburton Corporation. Recent CEO of Halliburton: Dick the Veep."

"Who owns America? How much did it cost? Was the transaction cash, check or credit card? Was it a donation to my son who’s running for president? Or a consulting contract to my wife’s former law partner to comfort him on his way to the federal penitentiary? And what do you give a billionaire who has everything? Immunity from prosecution? Then there’s the practical difficulty of gift wrapping the U.S. Congress. George W. Bush may have lost at the ballot box but he won where it counts, at the piggy bank. The Fortunate Son rode right into the White House on a snorting porker stuffed with nearly half a billion dollars: My calculation of the suffocating plurality of cash from Corporate America (“hard” money, “soft” money, “parallel” spending and other forms of easy squeezy) that smothered Al Gore runs to $447 million. They called it an election but it looked more like an auction."

"In the days following the presidential election (of 2000), there were so many stories of African Americans erased from voter rolls you might think they were targeted by some kind of racial computer program. They were. I have a copy of it: two silvery CD-ROM disks right out of the office computers of Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris. Once decoded and flowed into a database, they make for interesting, if chilling, reading. They tell us how our president (George W. Bush) was elected – and it wasn’t by the voters."

"Man is greatly tempted to see in past events the directing hand of God, or ineluctable Fate, or historical laws. The Americans were long inclined to believe that they were a chosen people, that they had a special mission, that the Deity guided them as He did the ancient Israelits. The historian, alas, must obtain his information from defective human records and remains. He cannot find the decree of the Divine declaring such to be His intentions."

"... harassing problems must often be solved in order to produce scholarly biographical writing regarding the supporting actors upon the historical stage. For example, it is commonly difficult to find adequate source materials. In addition, a serious problem of organization frequently occurs. Thus it is not easy to achieve unity in an account of the activities of a minor personage who played a relativity small part in various scenes. Again, there is an almost overwhelming temptation to exaggerate the importance of such a person."

"According to Baugh, Black is the term preferred by most Black Americans. As a proper noun, like Negro (Spanish for 'black') or African American, it should be capitalized. The claim that black is a color word requiring lowercase makes meaning the major criterion for determining upper versus lower case. However, capitalization is determined by whether a term is a proper noun or not. Surely Black is synonymous with Negro, just as White is synonymous with Caucasian. Either they are all proper nouns or none of them is. Like White, Black is not a color term. If it were, such locutions as light-skinned Black person and dark-skinned White person would make no sense. Furthermore, when black is a color term and part of a proper name, as in Black Angus, it is nonetheless capitalized. And one would not think of using the color-word argument to downcase Mr. Black or Ms. White. The failure to capitalize Black when it is synonymous with African American is a matter of unintended racism, to put the best possible face on it. A similar case arises with the racial term Native American."

"The melancholic errs by turning against his own ego all the critical energies that ought to be directed outward against the powers of the status quo. ... Encouraged to draw all of his aggressions inward, away from the true source of discontent, the compliant melancholic sets up a superegoic agency harboring the ego’s own former rage against the object. ... Introjection becomes a form of deflected critique. Meanwhile, the berated and debased ego, busy with its own internal insufficiencies and thoroughly discouraged from political activism, is not only fully censured but also is fashioned into a willing, productive—if ultimately impotent—participant in society. ... The ideal subject under capitalism is melancholic."

"The melancholic errs by turning against his own ego all the critical energies that ought to be directed outward against the powers of the status quo. ... Encouraged to draw all of his aggressions inward, away from the true source of discontent, the compliant melancholic sets up a superegoic agency harboring the ego’s own former rage against the object. ... Introjection becomes a form of deflected critique. Meanwhile, the berated and debased ego, busy with its own internal insufficiencies and thoroughly discouraged from political activism, is not only fully censured but also is fashioned into a willing, productive—if ultimately impotent—participant in society. ... The ideal subject under capitalism is melancholic."

"Whatever the exact selective advantage of fat, it is clear that the evolution of permanent breast enlargement in human females need not be explained through their erotic appeal to men. What my colleagues and I hoped to show by presenting our explanation is that a reasonable argument based on natural selection could be developed. Our model is not as “sexy” as the explanations that see breasts exclusively as erotic attractors of men. But it avoids relying on such poorly substantiated concepts as differential parental investment, female dependency, and sexual selection, ideas that may reinforce twenty-first century notions about women and gender roles but have little, if no, empirical evidence to support them. The idea that female breasts are little more than objects of sexual attraction for men is a popular one in many European societies, and certainly in the United States, among not only producers and audiences of slick programs on “The Learning Channel,” but also quite obviously among many scientists. But, it seems, they may be indulging more in sexual fantasy than scientific fact."

"Although sexual selection arguments are extremely popular, there is another, more plausible explanation for why enlarged breasts evolved. As I will argue, females with visible breast enlargement would have been better able to support themselves and their infants in the environment in which our early human ancestors lived. Indeed, I suggest that the more robust notion of natural selection is the key to understanding why women have breasts, not the problematic idea of sexual selection."

"Perhaps we should not be surprised by such statistics: after all, men seem to have an overwhelming attraction to breasts. Isn’t a woman’s wish for an enhanced bust line just a natural response to a primal desire to attract a mate? Many contemporary thinkers would suggest that this is the case. They invoke the notion of sexual selection in their arguments, arguing that some time long, long ago in the human evolutionary past, some males became erotically aroused by females with visibly enlarged breasts, choosing them more often as sex partners than their “flat-chested” sisters, thus maintaining this trait in human populations. Some writers even argue that men’s attraction to breasts was a key to the survival of early humans. Given the putative significance of breasts to the human species, is it any wonder that women in the twenty-first century spend millions of dollars, and take medical risks, to enhance theirs?"

"Dissatisfied with their breasts, women in the United States have spent millions of dollars on creams, lotions, devices, and techniques for breast enlargement in the last few decades. [...] Despite the health risks the procedure poses and its considerable expense."

"Even before Donald Trump’s election, only one-sixth of eligible families with kids received assistance for childcare and a paltry one-fifth got housing subsidies. Yet his administration arrived prepared to put programs that helped some of them pay for housing and childcare on the chopping block. No point in such families looking to him for a hand in the future. He won’t be building any for them. Whatever “” may mean, it certainly doesn’t involve helping America’s poor kids. As long as Donald Trump oversees their race into life, they’ll find themselves ever farther from the starting line."

"The Trump administration has, for good measure, rewritten the eligibility rules for such programs in order to lower the number of people who qualify. The supposed goal: to cut costs by reducing dependence on government. (Never mind the subsidies and tax loopholes Trump’s crew has created for corporations and the super wealthy, which add up to many billions of dollars in spending and lost revenue.)"

"Programs that reduce child poverty help even in years when poor or near-poor parents gain and, of course, are critical in bad times, since sooner or later booming job markets also bust."

"Our own history and that of other wealthy countries show that child poverty is anything but an unalterable reality. The record also shows that changing it requires mobilizing funds of the sort now being wasted on ventures like America’s multitrillion-dollar forever wars."

"Can children born into poverty defy the odds, realize their potential, and lead fulfilling lives? Conservatives will point to stories of people who cleared all the obstacles created by child poverty as proof that the real solution is hard work. But let’s be clear: Poor children shouldn’t have to find themselves on a tilted playing field from the first moments of their lives. Individual success stories aside, Americans raised in poor families do markedly less well compared to those from middle class or affluent homes—and it doesn’t matter whether you choose college attendance, employment rates, or future household income as your measure. And the longer they live in poverty the worse the odds that they’ll escape it in adulthood; for one thing, they’re far less likely to finish high school or attend college than their more fortunate peers. [...] Yet childhood circumstances can be (and have been) changed—and the sorts of government programs that conservatives love to savage have helped enormously in that process."

"Combine all of this and here’s the picture: From the months before birth on, poverty diminishes opportunity, capacity, and agency and its consequences reach into adulthood. While that rigged footrace of mine was imaginary, child poverty certainly does ensure a future-rigged society. The good news (though not in Donald Trump’s America): The race to a half-decent life (or better) doesn’t have to be rigged."

"Our national opioid problem also affects the well-being of children in a striking fashion. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), between 2008 and 2012, a third of women in their childbearing years filled -based medication prescriptions in pharmacies and an estimated 14 percent–22 percent of them were pregnant. The result: an alarming increase in the number of babies exposed to opioids in utero and experiencing withdrawal symptoms at birth, which is also known as neonatal abstinence syndrome, or NAS, in medical lingo. [...] (Given the ongoing opioid crisis, it’s unlikely that things have improved in recent years.) And the complications attributable to NAS don’t stop with birth. Though the research remains at an early stage—the opioid crisis only began in the early 1990s—it suggests that the ill effects of NAS extend well beyond infancy and include impaired cognitive and s, respiratory ailments, , difficulty maintaining intellectual focus, and behavioral traits that make productive with others harder. At this point, you won’t be surprised to learn that NAS and child poverty are connected. Prescription opioid use rates are much higher for women on , who are more likely to be poor than those with private insurance. Moreover, the abuse of, and overdose deaths from, opioids (whether obtained through prescriptions or illegally) have been far more widespread among the poor."

"Imagine, for a moment, this scenario: a 200-meter footrace in which the starting blocks of some competitors are placed 75 meters behind the others. Barring an Olympic-caliber runner, those who started way in front will naturally win. Now, think of that as an analogy for the predicament that American kids born in poverty face through no fault of their own. They may be smart and diligent, their parents may do their best to care for them, but they begin life with a huge handicap. As a start, the nutrition of poor children will generally be inferior to that of other kids. No surprise there, but here’s what’s not common knowledge: A childhood nutritional deficit matters for years afterwards, possibly for life. [...] Indeed, the process starts even earlier. Poor mothers may themselves have nutritional deficiencies that increase their risk of having babies with . That, in turn, can have long-term effects on children’s health, what level of education they reach, and their future incomes since the quality of nutrition affects , concentration, and cognitive capacity. It also increases the chances of having and experiencing mental health problems. Poor children are likely to be less healthy in other ways as well, for reasons that range from having a greater susceptibility to asthma to higher concentrations of lead in their blood. Moreover, poor families find it harder to get good health care. And add one more thing: in our zip-code-influenced public-school system, such children are likely to attend schools with far fewer resources than those in more affluent neighborhoods."

"The conservative response to all this remains predictable: You can’t solve complex social problems like child poverty by throwing money at them. Besides, government antipoverty programs only foster dependence and create bloated bureaucracies without solving the problem. It matters little that the success of American social programs proves this claim to be flat-out false."

"The plight of impoverished children anywhere should evoke sympathy, exemplifying as it does the suffering of the innocent and defenseless. Poverty among children in a wealthy country like the United States, however, should summon shame and outrage as well. Unlike poor countries (sometimes run by leaders more interested in lining their pockets than anything else), what excuse does the United States have for its striking levels of child poverty? After all, it has the world’s 10th highest per capita income at $62,795 and an unrivalled gross domestic product (GDP) of $21.3 trillion. Despite that, in 2020, an estimated 11.9 million American kids—16.2 percent of the total—live below the official poverty line, which is a paltry $25,701 for a family of four with two kids. Put another way, according to the Children’s Defense Fund, kids now constitute one-third of the 38.1 million Americans classified as poor and 70 percent of them have at least one —so poverty can’t be chalked up to parental indolence."

"One in five American children live in poverty, even as s tout employment highs."

"If you knew my father, you would know how hard he fought... and the way it brought a smile to people light, medium and dark. We always fight a battle that people never see, and sometimes when you're hurting, you don't think logically. Human isn't perfect, and perfect is not he, but I can tell you one thing, it's just not what it seems. Cause If you knew the dad I knew, you'd know he raised me well. He taught me folks are so much more than shades could ever tell. And If you knew my father, you would know he's down to earth. He may have slammed the giant, but remembers life's true worth. If you knew my father, if you just walked in his shoes... then you would know that microscope that comes with yellow boots."

"I don’t know if Brooke was fucking the black guy’s son. I mean, I don’t have double standards. I mean, I am a racist, to a point, fucking niggers. But then when it comes to nice people and shit, and whatever. I mean, I’d rather if she was going to fuck some nigger, I’d rather have her marry an 8-foot-tall nigger worth a hundred million dollars! Like a basketball player! I guess we’re all a little racist. Fucking nigger."

"Want me to body-slam Kamala Harris? Want me to drop the weight on Kamala? Is Kamala a chameleon? Is she Indian?"

"You know something? I’ve seen some great tag teams in my time. Hulk Hogan and oh yeah, the macho man, Randy Savage. But you know something? I see the greatest tag team of my life standing upon us getting ready to straighten this country out for all the real Americans. Even though you guys are real Americans, you better get ready because when Donald J. Trump becomes the President of the United States, all the real Americans are going to be nicknamed Trumpites because all the Trumpites are going to be running wild for four years. With the power of Donald J. Trump and all the Trumpites running wild, America is going to get back on track and like Donald J. Trump said, America is going to be great again. When I look out and I see all the real Americans, I think about how Donald Trump, his family was compromised. When I look out there and I see Donald Trump, I think about how his business was compromised. But what happened last week when they took a shot at my hero and they tried to kill the next President of the United States, enough was enough. I said, “Let Trump-a-mania run wild, brother! Let Trump-a-mania rule again. Let Trump-a-mania, make America great again.” You know something, Trumpites? I didn’t come here as Hulk Hogan, but I just had to give you a little taste. My name is Terry Bollea, and as an entertainer… I love you too. As an entertainer, I try to stay out of politics, but after everything that’s happened to our country over the past four years and everything that happened last weekend, I can no longer stay silent. I’m here tonight because I want the world to know that Donald Trump is a real American hero, and I’m proud to support my hero as the next president of this United States. Guys, I’ve known Donald Trump for over 35 years. Hold on a second. Hold on. I just had a flashback. I just had a flashback, man. This is really tripping. The last time I was up on stage, Donald Trump was sitting at ringside at the Trump Plaza. I was bleeding like a pig, and I won the world title right in front of Donald J. Trump. You know something? He’s going to win in November and we’re all going to be champions again when he wins. Like I said, I’ve known that man for over 35 years, and he’s always been the biggest patriot, and he still is. He’s always told you exactly what he thought, and he still does, brother. No matter the odds, he always finds a way to win. When he’s back in our White House, America is going to start winning again. you know, guys, over my career, I’ve been in the ring with some of the biggest, some of the baddest dudes on the planet, and I’ve squared off against warriors, ooh, yeah, savages, and I’ve even, like I said, body slammed giants in the middle of the ring. I know tough guys but let me tell you something, brother, Donald Trump is the toughest of them all. They’ve thrown everything at Donald Trump. All the investigations, the impeachments, the court cases, and he’s still standing and kicking their butts. We never had it better than the Trump years. Back then, we had a thriving economy, we had strong borders, we had safe streets, we had peace and respect around the world, but then we lost it all in a blink of an eye. Crime is out of control, the border is out of control, the price of food and gas, and housing is out of control, and the only person who can clean this up is Donald Trump. Guys, I really, really love this country, and I’ve lived the American dream. I want my kids, your kids, and all those little teeny Hulk-a-maniacs out there to live the American dream, too. This November, guys, we can save the American dream for everyone, and Donald Trump is the president who will get the job done. All you criminals, all you lowlifes, all you scumbags, all you drug dealers, and all you crooked politicians need to answer one question, brother. Whatchya gonna do when Donald Trump and all the Trump-a-maniacs run wild on you, brother? God bless you, and thank you."

"Don’t even try to bull shit us brother HH"

"Poop in my gym brother HH poop brother HH"

"Well you know when things were tough, you know I realized that this to shall pass. You know that this was just a temporary situation. I realized that you know as long as I made the right choice, you know and, and followed my faith more than what people were saying or the newspapers or the tabloids were saying and didn't get sucked into that, none of that stuff was real. The only thing that is really real is the stuff that’s gonna last forever – you know your faith and your belief in God. And knowing that you know that once you're a Christian, you've accepted Christ as your Savior. You're not gonna perish but you're gonna have everlasting life. That belief in itself and that faith is what's pretty much the only thing that is real to me you know. Everything else is kind of like a life situation but that's my life after life after life."

"Hogan: I’m getting ready to cut some serious bait. [Inaudible] Brooke — my daughter, Brooke — [redacted], she jumped sides on me. Heather Clem: Mmm-hmm. Hogan: ‘Cause I shelled out two, three million bucks for her music, and [inaudible] I’ve done everything. Fucking with him day and night on the radio like a jackass, and he’s working with me to make…make work [inaudible] when [inaudible] really should call it a day and do the shit I did. [Eight-second redaction] Hogan: The son, he’s [inaudible] this black billionaire guy, Cecile. He basically did more for her in a year than anybody’s done. [Inaudible], he had one song, and after 10 months it should go to [inaudible] and [inaudible] and [inaudible]. [Inaudible sentence]. I try to be the realist, and ‘This is your option: You got a better option. [Redacted] said you can sign with [redacted].’ He’s gonna put 500 million behind [inaudible]. Right now there’s nothing else. We’re doing the best we can. Clem: Right. Hogan: So it gets to the point where…I dunno if Brooke was fucking the black guy’s son, or they’ve been hanging out. I caught them holding hands together on the tour. They were getting close to kind of [inaudible] the fucking [inaudible]. I’m not a double standard type of guy. I’m a racist to a point, y’know, fucking niggers, but then, when it comes to nice people and [redacted] Clem: We all are that way. Hogan: Yeah, cool, when it comes to nice people, you gotta…you can’t, you can’t say the… [Two-second redaction] Hogan: I don’t give a fuck if she [inaudible] [an eight foot tall?] basketball player. Clem: [laughs] Hogan: If we’re gonna fuck with niggers, let’s get a rich one! Clem: [laughs] Hogan: I don’t care if he’s a multi-billionaire. The thing is, now that you start doing these nasty emails…so somewhere, [inaudible] relationship, and now [inaudible] doesn’t want to talk to anybody, nanananana."

"This is a simple divorce — there’s no custody, there’s just a big pile of junk that we’ve accumulated. We should split it however the judge wants it and walk away, but, you know, my wife’s lawyer has told different magazines there’s gonna be a war... This is the money that I saved for my family, and money that Linda could walk away with, money that I saved for my children, that they’re just, they’re just wasting and burning up."

"He (Benoit) was peaceful and kept to himself. I think it had to be something personal, a domestic problem between him and his wife. She was into devil-worship stuff. It was part of her (wrestling) character, but (she was) somebody who gets so close to their character, someone who gets into their character too much. Sometimes these people believe their own publicity."

"And Hulkamania will live for ever!"

"Training, Saying your Prayers and eating your Vitamins, is definitely the right way to live."

"With Hulkamainia running wild, I feel like 100 Supermen."

"What are ya gonna do, when Hulkamania runs willd on you?"

"I'm gonna be fighting for all my Hulkamaniacs!"

"History teaches us that civilizations flourish, die and disappear. Sometimes they died swiftly, sometimes in a slow lingering death. And sometimes, as with Rome and others, echoes of that civilization find new life in later cultures. To lose the conscious memory of an entire civilization is especially tragic and dangerous, because each civilization, no matter how grand or flawed, is a laboratory of human ideas and ideals, of dreams and nightmares. We can learn from all of them."

"Loss is a defending human experience. Nothing in the physical world lasts forever. Memory of what has been lost can be both ennobling and painful."

"We each find our way through life as we wish. We are each free to do what we want for any reason or for no reason. Life is simple if you stay on the simple level. But there are ALSO other levels where more thought and discernment are required."

"The traditional remedy for speech that offends you is to ignore it. To do anything further only gives it more power and significance than it ever had."

"You can certainly suppress an idea but you cannot kill it. All you can do is put it under pressure, which quite naturally increases its potential energy. The very idea of suppressing any form of speech or expression sounds kind and generous and open-minded and supportive of the oppressed. When put into action, however, the unintended consequences become evident."

"He who can handle the quickest rate of change survives"

"Conflict can be viewed as repeated cycles of observing, orienting, deciding and acting by both sides, and also, I might add, at all levels. The adversary that can move through these cycles faster gains an inestimable advantage by disrupting his enemy's ability to respond effectively."

"To be somebody or to do something. In life there is often a roll call. That’s when you will have to make a decision. To be or to do? Which way will you go?"

"If your boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, then give him loyalty."