Left Holding the Bag
A Watchdog's Account of How Washington Fumbled Its Covid Test
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Narrated by:
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Tim Andres Pabon
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By:
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Bob Westbrooks
About this listen
Inside the largest public fraud scandal in American history
With a mask-wearing nation under stay-at-home orders while a deadly virus ravaged the population, during toilet paper and PPE shortages and people dying alone in ICUs, before vaccines and immunity and time reopened the American way of life after three years—the federal government, through six hastily written COVID-19 relief laws provided the largest infusion of emergency relief spending in US history.
The federal government distributed an unfathomable $5 trillion, through a jumble of federal programs in the hundreds, to a menagerie of recipients in the millions. Programs were poorly designed and easily exploited by unscrupulous operators. Competing crises soon distracted the nation, while homegrown and global pirates looted federal pandemic relief programs and plundered roughly $500 billion in relief funds—that’s your money that was stolen.
This audiobook is a behind-the scenes look at this extraordinary time, the federal government’s unprecedented response, and the exemplary work of the inspectors general and their federal law enforcement partners as they followed the money, flagged fraud risks, disrupted fraud schemes, and chased bad guys through a stunning true crime wave.
Our country literally can’t afford another financial hit like this, and Westbrooks provides a blueprint to help ensure it never happens again.
“The American people deserve to know that their tax dollars are being spent as intended. My message to those cheats out there is this: You can’t hide. We’re going to find you. We’re going to make you pay back what you stole and hold you accountable under the law.”–President Joe Biden
©2023 Robert A. Westbrooks (P)2023 G&D MediaListeners also enjoyed...
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In Profiles in Corruption, Schweizer offers a deep-dive investigation into the private finances and secrets deals of some of America’s top political leaders. And, as usual, he doesn’t disappoint, with never-before-reported revelations that uncover corruption and abuse of power - all backed up by a mountain of corporate documents and legal filings from around the globe. Learn about how they are making sweetheart deals, generating side income, bending the law to their own benefits, using legislation to advance their own interests, and much more.
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Enlightening & Horrifying!!
- By Kay Lo on 01-22-20
By: Peter Schweizer
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The Corruption Chronicles
- Obama's Big Secrecy, Big Corruption, and Big Government
- By: Tom Fitton
- Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
- Length: 13 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Judicial Watch, America's largest nonpartisan government watchdog, has investigated the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations. Judicial Watch is the group that helped impeach Bill Clinton and took the Bush White House secrecy all the way up to the Supreme Court. Since the beginning of the Obama administration, this grassroots group has filed over 700 open records demands and dozens of lawsuits, including a successful fight over the secret Obama White House visitor logs.
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Unbelievable
- By Bill Redfield on 01-30-17
By: Tom Fitton
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Big Dirty Money
- The Shocking Injustice and Unseen Cost of White Collar Crime
- By: Jennifer Taub
- Narrated by: Eliza Foss
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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How ordinary Americans suffer when the rich and powerful use tax doges or break the law to get richer and more powerful - and how we can stop it. There is an elite crime spree happening in America, and the privileged perps are getting away with it. Selling loose cigarettes on a city sidewalk can lead to a choke-hold arrest, and death, if you are not among the top one percent.
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The Loss of Glass-Steagal has led to Cheating
- By Rajiv on 05-23-21
By: Jennifer Taub
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Soul City
- Race, Equality, and the Lost Dream of an American Utopia
- By: Thomas Healy
- Narrated by: Larry Herron
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Author Thomas Healy resurrects a forgotten saga of race, capitalism, and the struggle for equality in this fascinating, forgotten story of the 1970s attempt to build a city dedicated to racial equality in the heart of “Klan Country”.
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awesome narrator
- By Arthur F. Jackson on 06-23-21
By: Thomas Healy
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Life Inside the Bubble
- Why a Top-Ranked Secret Service Agent Walked Away from It All
- By: Dan Bongino
- Narrated by: Mark F. Smith
- Length: 7 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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He swore to take a bullet for the President and left it all behind to take a bullet for the American people. Why would a successful, twelve-year Secret Service agent resign his position in the prime of his career to run for political office against all the odds? New York Times bestseller, Life Inside the Bubble is an intimate look at life inside the presidential "bubble," a haze of staffers, consultants, cronies, acolytes, bureaucrats and lobbyists that creates the "alternate reality" in which monumental policy decisions are made.
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Tales from a whining baby!
- By Amazon Customer on 10-07-20
By: Dan Bongino
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A Promised Land
- By: Barack Obama
- Narrated by: Barack Obama
- Length: 29 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency - a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil.
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Color me grateful.
- By Angela on 11-19-20
By: Barack Obama
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The Best Worst President
- What the Right Gets Wrong About Barack Obama
- By: Mark Hannah
- Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Political analyst and Democratic campaign veteran Mark Hannah gives Barack Obama the victory lap he deserves in this compendium that takes the president's critics head-on and celebrates the president's many underappreciated triumphs.
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Thought-provoking
- By Jean on 07-11-16
By: Mark Hannah
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Third World America
- How Our Politicians Are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream
- By: Arianna Huffington
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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America's middle class, the driver of so much of our economic success and political stability, is rapidly disappearing, forcing us to confront the fear that we are slipping as a nation - that our children and grandchildren will enjoy fewer opportunities and face a lower standard of living than we did. It's the dark flipside of the American Dream - an American Nightmare of our own making.
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Sad... but with a ray of hope
- By Maciej on 10-20-10
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All Things Possible
- Setbacks and Success in Politics and Life
- By: Andrew M. Cuomo
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 14 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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In this full and frank memoir - a personal story of duty, family, justice, politics and resilience - New York Governor Andrew Cuomo reflects on his rise, fall, and rise in politics, and recounts his defining personal and political moments and tough but necessary lessons he has learned along the way.
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I Love This Book AND the Guvnor (Governor, I Know)
- By Igi M. on 09-02-20
By: Andrew M. Cuomo
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Blowout
- Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth
- By: Rachel Maddow
- Narrated by: Rachel Maddow
- Length: 15 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2010, the words “earthquake swarm” entered the lexicon in Oklahoma. That same year, a trove of Michael Jackson memorabilia—including his iconic crystal-encrusted white glove—was sold at auction for over $1 million to a guy who was, officially, just the lowly forestry minister of the tiny nation of Equatorial Guinea. And in 2014, Ukrainian revolutionaries raided the palace of their ousted president and found a zoo of peacocks, gilded toilets, and a floating restaurant modeled after a Spanish galleon.
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chilling...
- By Kindle Customer on 10-12-19
By: Rachel Maddow
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Chain of Title
- How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street's Great Foreclosure Fraud
- By: David Dayen
- Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith
- Length: 13 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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In the depths of the Great Recession, a cancer nurse, a car dealership worker, and an insurance fraud specialist helped uncover the largest consumer crime in American history - a scandal that implicated dozens of major executives on Wall Street. They called it foreclosure fraud: Millions of families were kicked out of their homes based on false evidence by mortgage companies that had no legal right to foreclose.
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Capital Corruption and Greed
- By Anthony Freyberg on 07-30-16
By: David Dayen
What listeners say about Left Holding the Bag
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Tee from Charm City
- 07-28-24
Remembered so much, LEARNED so much
Informative and entertaining
Loved the personal stories combined with the unique work Mr Westbrooks experienced during a very scary time in America and around the world.
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