
Dark Money
The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right
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Narrated by:
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Kirsten Potter
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By:
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Jane Mayer
About this listen
Why is America living in an age of profound economic inequality? Why, despite the desperate need to address climate change, have even modest environmental efforts been defeated again and again? Why have protections for employees been decimated? Why do hedge-fund billionaires pay a far lower tax rate than middle-class workers?
The conventional answer is that a popular uprising against "big government" led to the rise of a broad-based conservative movement. But as Jane Mayer shows in this powerful, meticulously reported history, a network of exceedingly wealthy people with extreme libertarian views also played a key role by bankrolling a systematic, step-by-step plan to fundamentally alter the American political system.
The network has brought together some of the richest people on the planet, foremost among them Charles and David Koch. Their core beliefs - that taxes are a form of tyranny; that government oversight of business is an assault on freedom - are sincerely held. But these beliefs also advance their personal and corporate interests: Many of their companies have run afoul of federal pollution, worker safety, securities, and tax laws.
When libertarian ideas proved decidedly unpopular with voters, the Koch brothers and their allies decided on another path. If they pooled their vast resources, they could fund an interlocking array of organizations that could work in tandem to influence and ultimately control academic institutions, think tanks, the courts, statehouses, Congress, and, they hoped, the presidency.
The political operatives the network employs are disciplined, smart, and at times ruthless. And their efforts have been remarkably successful. Libertarian views on taxes and regulation, once far outside the mainstream and still rejected by most Americans, are ascendant in the majority of state governments, the Supreme Court, and Congress. Meaningful environmental, labor, finance, and tax reform have been stymied.
Jane Mayer spent five years conducting hundreds of interviews - including with several sources within the network - and scoured public records, private papers, and court proceedings in reporting this book. In a taut and utterly convincing narrative, she traces the byzantine trail of the billions of dollars spent by the network and provides vivid portraits of the colorful figures behind the new American oligarchy.
Dark Money is a book that must be listened to by anyone who cares about the future of American democracy.
©2016 Jane Mayer (P)2016 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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The Scheme
- How the Right Wing Used Dark Money to Capture the Supreme Court
- By: Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Jennifer Mueller
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Following his book Captured on corporate capture of regulatory and government agencies, and his years of experience as a prosecutor, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse here turns his attention to the right-wing scheme to capture the courts, and how it influenced the Trump administration's appointment of over 230 "business-friendly" judges, including the last three justices of the United States Supreme Court.
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Dysfunctional democracy explained
- By Mark on 10-25-22
By: Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, and others
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Kochland
- The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America
- By: Christopher Leonard
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 23 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Just as Steve Coll told the story of globalization through ExxonMobil and Andrew Ross Sorkin told the story of Wall Street excess through Too Big to Fail, Christopher Leonard’s Kochland uses the extraordinary account of how the biggest private company in the world grew to be that big to tell the story of modern corporate America.
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An anti-capitalism treatise
- By Luis on 10-01-19
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Sons of Wichita
- How the Koch Brothers Became America's Most Powerful and Private Dynasty
- By: Daniel Schulman
- Narrated by: Allen O'Reilly
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Like the Rockefellers and the Kennedys, the Kochs are one of the most influential dynasties of the modern age, but they have never been the subject of a major biography... until now. Not long after the death of his father, Charles Koch, then in his early 30s, discovered a letter the family patriarch had written to his sons. "You will receive what now seems to be a large sum of money," Fred Koch cautioned. "It may either be a blessing or a curse."
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Interesting family
- By Jean on 05-28-14
By: Daniel Schulman
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Ghettoside
- A True Story of Murder in America
- By: Jill Leovy
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 13 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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On a warm spring evening in South Los Angeles, a young man is shot and killed on a sidewalk minutes away from his home, one of the thousands of Black Americans murdered that year. His assailant runs down the street, jumps into an SUV, and vanishes, hoping to join the scores of killers in American cities who are never arrested for their crimes. But as soon as the case is assigned to Detective John Skaggs, the odds shift.
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Wish I liked it more
- By Deborah on 03-05-15
By: Jill Leovy
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The Shock Doctrine
- The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
- By: Naomi Klein
- Narrated by: Jennifer Wiltsie
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Abridged
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In her groundbreaking reporting, Naomi Klein introduced the term "disaster capitalism." Whether covering Baghdad after the U.S. occupation, Sri Lanka in the wake of the tsunami, or New Orleans post-Katrina, she witnessed something remarkably similar. People still reeling from catastrophe were being hit again, this time with economic "shock treatment," losing their land and homes to rapid-fire corporate makeovers. The Shock Doctrine retells the story of the most dominant ideology of our time, Milton Friedman's free market economic revolution.
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If It's Bad for Humanity, It's Good for Business
- By Nelson Alexander on 09-29-07
By: Naomi Klein
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The Hidden History of American Oligarchy
- Reclaiming Our Democracy from the Ruling Class
- By: Thom Hartmann
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 4 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Billionaire oligarchs want to own our republic, and they’re nearly there, thanks to legislation and Supreme Court decisions that they have essentially bought. They put Trump and his political allies into office and support a vast network of think tanks, publications, and social media that every day push our nation closer and closer to police-state tyranny.
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Contains much needed for this country
- By Roy Roebuck on 03-14-21
By: Thom Hartmann
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Butler to the World
- The Book the Oligarchs Don't Want You to Read - How Britain Helps the World's Worst People Launder Money, Commit Crimes, and Get Away with Anything
- By: Oliver Bullough
- Narrated by: Oliver Bullough
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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The Suez Crisis of 1956 was the nadir of Britain's twentieth century, the moment when the once-superpower was bullied into retreat. "Great Britain has lost an empire and not yet found a role," said Dean Acherson, a former US secretary of state. Acheson's line has entered into the canon of great quotations: but it was wrong. Britain had already found a role. The leaders of the world just hadn't noticed it yet. Butler to the World reveals how Britain came to assume its role as the center of the offshore economy.
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Extraordinary
- By Brad on 12-30-22
By: Oliver Bullough
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American Kleptocracy
- How the U.S. Created the World's Greatest Money Laundering Scheme in History
- By: Casey Michel
- Narrated by: Joe Dwyer
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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A remarkable debut by one of America's premier young reporters on financial corruption, American Kleptocracy offers the first explosive investigation into how the United States of America built the largest illicit offshore finance system the world has ever known.
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Brilliant, timely, a cautionary tale
- By Victoria Eriksson on 11-24-21
By: Casey Michel
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Moneyland
- The Inside Story of the Crooks and Kleptocrats Who Rule the World
- By: Oliver Bullough
- Narrated by: Oliver Bullough
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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An investigative journalist's deep dive into the corrupt workings of the world's kleptocrats. Learn how the institutions of Europe and the US have become money-laundering operations, attacking the foundations of many of the world's most stable countries. Meet the kleptocrats. Meet their awful children. And find out how heroic activists around the world are fighting back.
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Best book I've read (listened to) this year
- By Linda Copeland on 06-26-19
By: Oliver Bullough
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Dark Towers
- Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump, and an Epic Trail of Destruction
- By: David Enrich
- Narrated by: B. J. Harrison
- Length: 13 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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In Dark Towers, award-winning journalist David Enrich reveals the truth about Deutsche Bank and its epic path of devastation. Tracing the bank's history back to its propping up of a default-prone American developer in the 1880s, helping the Nazis build Auschwitz, and wooing Eastern Bloc authoritarians, he shows how in the 1990s, via a succession of hard-charging executives, Deutsche made a fateful decision to pursue Wall Street riches, often at the expense of ethics and the law.
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Trying really hard to pay attention
- By Amy on 02-18-20
By: David Enrich
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Fools on the Hill
- The Hooligans, Saboteurs, Conspiracy Theorists, and Dunces Who Burned Down the House
- By: Dana Milbank
- Narrated by: Dana Milbank
- Length: 11 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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From inside the chamber, bestselling author Dana Milbank exposes the petty, inchoate, and dysfunctional state of the Republican House—a confederacy of dunces racing to the bottom, without shame and certainly without the ability to get anything done.
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If you weren't paying attention
- By Jesse Porter on 10-01-24
By: Dana Milbank
What’s good about this book is that it succeeds in presenting mountains of evidence of this manipulative activity, which has gone on for decades and is continually increasing in intensity. Huge sums of money are spent in subtle and strategic Machiavellian ploys to achieve these goals. It will leave you in no doubt that America is controlled, or at least heavily influenced by, unscrupulous, greedy, selfish elites who care only about money, power and perpetuating their dynasties.
What’s bad about this book, aside from the fact that it is depressing and leaves you feeling powerless, is that it is just a succession of facts, one after the other. It’s really hard to maintain concentration because it is like listening to a shopping list of 247 items. They may be accurate, they may be damning, they may represent extensive investigation and research by the author, but these things alone do not an entertaining listen make – and this is nothing to do with the inadequacies of the narrator – she is very good.
I stuck with it out of a sense of the worthiness of the material – the world does need to know that this is happening – but it was hard work and my concentration strayed frequently. I feel bad saying this because it’s an important work and I don’t want to discourage people from listening, but it isn’t a lot of fun.
Fact attack
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Would you listen to Dark Money again? Why?
I don't know...it scares me. I listen to this for at least an hour per day while at the gym.It doesn't keep me awake, too long, at night but everyday I get another dose of why I fear for this country. It is clearly controlled by the wealthiest among us for their own purposes. Every day I learn of another reason why.What did you like best about this story?
It's non-fiction. Interesting question, what did you like best? Let's see, that this proves the country was bought by the mega-wealthy? No, that's not a 'best' item. That it is a call-to-arms for everyone other than the 0.1% to tell our elected officials, especially in Congress, what it will take to keep them in office.Have you listened to any of Kirsten Potter’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
No, I haven't but I am willing to see what else she'll read to me.Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
It made me fear for this country's future. With Citizens United there is a real risk to democracy as we were taught in school, a very real risk.Scarier than Pet Cemetary
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care about democracy? read this book.
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Read and learn about American plutocracy.
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Bet my last dollar they were the last kids picked on anyone's team.
Republican Party?
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Still, an excellent, educative and surprisingly detailed account that is well-read and absolutely worthy of a careful listen.
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND, "Dark Money".
EXCELLENT; informative; and deeply troubling!!!
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super depressing
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Evil
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Incredible informative
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An Eye Opener!!<br />
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