If you can all just take a moment and take a look at yourself on a make sure they are turned off i would appreciate that. Following todays question answer youll find me outside the glass store plenty of books available for purchase including one northern today like my teacher i said, great Graduation Day gift. We have them outside as well. Afterwards well be more than happy to sign up for you. We are very happy to invite up in the guest category for a change. When she is not running the first line of defense upstairs and customer service, here at the barnes noble bookstore or serving as bouncer during our broadway events, role of which she is most effective at. This publishing executive is busy writing awardwinning books. We are are delighted tonight to present one of her latest political suicide. And just plain dumb mistakes in the american politics. And with this crazy election season im certain there will be a sequel. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming my colleague, aaron mccue. [applause]. Hello thank you for coming out. So happy to see you all. For those that dont know me, i was briefly, from late monday night until early Tuesday Morning ted cruzs secretary of state. [laughter] a couple of years ago for those of you who do not know how long it takes to get a books published, usually couple years. You have an have an idea and usually someone else to sell it. People people say yes, finally its got home. And then you have to write it. So, i knew that in 2016 the election was coming in that it was going to be sort of crazy. But who could possibly have any idea how crazy. So with that i think we all know what the landscape has been. What its only going to turn out to be, we do not know. But as mr. Obama said the correspondence the other night, this is my last time appear and we dont know who she will be, who shows shows appear next week. So we will see. Anyway im going to read the introduction to you and if you may have to start me because these people are so crazy, you can hardly imagine that this is all happen before we are born, most of them. Some of the pieces started at the 17 hundreds, i will read read one from someone who is presently in jail. And on around 2010 and in between. In the 21st century it seems like the electoral process from our local School Board Election to campaigns for mayor and congressman, to the election of the next president of our 50 states has become a circus. Circus. Remember i wrote this one year ago. [laughter] what should be a series of supple activity in which the future of the country rest, is instead filled with budgetary tight ropes and routines, partisan costumes, ethical disappearing acts emotionally, clouds. In stead it becomes three rings of poor. Were so big t by the time the modest long that skeletons come out of the closets in election days over that were often exhausted by new legislators before they have a chance to start their job. Its already off the rosa thrillers gone and they havent had a chance to screw it up yet. Oh, but they will. Not all them of course but enough to keep the headlines filled for 24 hours news programming churning. Enough enough to make us wish we had voted someone else or wonder how could he think he could get away with that. And well sit back and shake her heads and say to each other, now that is political suicide. But so often it does not turn out to be. Who can understand it. Anyway, let me read a few of our my favorite pate pieces. This is about a man named robert parr. He he lived from 1800 until 1842. Robert par was a seafaring lad from North Carolina entering the United States navy in 1815 when he was 15 years old and staying until he was 21. In those days, like the sea provided excitement from keeping on the lookout of pirates to police and the slave trade. He may have left the navy for not being promoted or his legend had it, he may have gone because he killed an officer in a duel. There were lots of duels. You think of only Alexander Hamilton number, there were duels everywhere. Either way it was back to a long lover life and law school for him who pass the bar in 1883. His congressional career as a tar hill was even shorter than his time on the me. One summer afternoon Robert Potter castor two men. I know. One afternoon. He was certain that his wife isabel was stepping out on him, the two very different bows. One a a minister and the other teenage boy. Some reports say that mrs. Potter had kept her affairs all in the family, that the minister was a cousin and the boy it was the nephew of her stepmother. But, that is never been confirmed. In what is known is that powder attack both of them on the same day. Its sketchy but reports say that when potter found isabel and the reverend in a buggy together he wrote to the man of god around a snack, pulled him onto the ground, hogtied them them and then cut them down below. As for the congressman, he was remorseful but seemingly at peace with his actions. He declared, im consoled by the conviction that what i have done ive only acted upon those feelings which nature has implanted in the hearts of all men. Indeed, i may say of all he almost. And that each of you wouldve done the same thing under the same circumstances. Well maybe, maybe not. People may disagree with his choice of punishment but they certainly have not forgotten congressman potters adventures with a knife. Even today, castration or, castration or the threat of it which is really much more, and is still a potter rising in parts of the south. Following the instant he resigned from congress in 1831 and he and his wife divorced. No surprise there. He paid a 3000dollar fine and spent six months in prison. He managed to get voted back into the legislator but the next year got out because of an app so that involved a card game and other shady deals which may have been cheating, brandishing brandishing a gun, or a knife, stealing money or trying to get out of a debt. Take your pick, those were all the reports. Potter decided it was time to move to texas. Now, let me just say here there was a lot of moving around because of course there is no 24 hour news cycle. Not one of newspaper coverage back then that when you got in trouble you would just move far, far away away where people have never heard of you. So he decided he would move to texas. The wild west seem to get better agreed with him. He got some military credibility back and even ended up signing the texas declaration of independence. He took up with a new woman who he married, she she still seem to have a husband somewhere. And he served as secretary of the navy in texas. The texas navy. [laughter] and even formed his way back into the texan congress. But perhaps he did not have as much time. In 18421842 during texas viewed noticed the regulator moderated warrior he was surrounded by the enemy regulators. He thought he could get away by jumping into a nearby lake lake and escape by swimming underwater to safety. But, he came up for air and the minute he did he was shot in the head. He is buried in taxes and has a doublesided gravestone with one side highlighting his political achievements in North Carolina. And on the other side, texas. So colorful to say the least, right . Heres a man named talk about crazy people in washington he is marion zion he lived from 1901 1936. 1936. Born in poland in 19 oh one, he was a tot when his family moved to the United States and settled in seattle, washington. There he eventually entered politics, first as a College Student and then as new deal democrat. By 1932 at 32 at the age of only 31 he ran for congress. He entered washington in 1933. Early on he showed great promise. He was energetic and eager and steady worker and an advocate for the great depressions forgotten man. He seemed highspirited but much was chalked up to youthful enthusiasm. After all, he was a bachelor newton the Nations Capital and he had the world to conquer. But the truth was he was probably bipolar something that would be more diagnosed today remained untreated in this congressman. It began with franks imparting, though though excessive his behavior was hardly unique. But by 1936 the six the stories in the attendance arrest were more propriety. He made ways with the Supreme Court justices as old fossils. He hosted one legendary new Years Eve Party for the Council Called only to find when they arrived to investigate the noise complaint that he had taken over the building switchboard and was calling up all the first. He was arrested for speeding down connecticut avenue at 70 Miles Per Hour which mustve been hard in a car in the thirties, it seems to me. Not only did he resist arrest but he tried to run out of the courtroom appearing before the judge and was cited for contempt. Then he found a he found a girlfriend. A work in progress a secretary named ruby louises. She did not remain a girlfriend prolonged. They married and a jiffy. Unwilling to wait jiffy. Unwilling to wait for three days for papers and the district of columbia, the hapten the car and im sure sped to maryland to get hitched. With a groomed and have the 2 for the license he borrowed from the justice of the peace. Reporters were thrilled of course he would become their new go to guy for headlines. This one was a winner. Before the honeymoon he hosted journalisms in his his apartment. He makes cocktails which i think were made out of hair tonic and gin or something. While wearing an indian headdress and entertaining inquiries. When asked asked how he met and married his bride so quickly explain, i met her about a week ago when she called me up one night. She asked me down as i went out out and looked over. She was okay. [applause]. Aint love grand. [laughter] then they took off to puerto rico for a honeymoon. He got two separate Car Accidents including one when he bit the driver on the game cause the car to crash in the ditch. He apparently incited a small political right that got out of hand so much so that he was forced to call the marines to intervene. Things were really getting out of hand and it didnt help that his allegedly the hair tonic cocktails were abandoned. So upon returning to the mainland he continued his downward spiral. He drove to the white house into the driveway which is you can do, anybody could do that with some gifts for fdr. The president unfortunately was not home. So he wrote a note and left it behind in the driveway along with a bag holding a collection of empty beer bottles, mothball some pingpong balls. Later that day he was arrested and brought to a sanitarian. [laughter] he escaped he escaped several days later i was picked up again by the police. They transferred him to a different hospital for which he again escaped and was arrested and brought back. To gain his freedom he voluntarily returned to his hometown of cielo where he was imprisoned. Back in seattle he found that he had already had quite a fan club and the same people nationwide have love the crazy stories of what he was being called which was the capital clown. And then residence of his home district, they embrace the craziness. It wasnt as if anybody had gotten hurt, i guess guess maybe the guy bitten on the night. The guy was just a not. When he told his constituents he would not run for reelection, a friend of filed papers to run for his seat. And then suddenly he reversed his decision and said he would run again. However he never seen the campaign. On the way to a galley ruby and her husband stop by officers in downtown seattle, ruby stayed in the car where he went upstairs and wrote a suicide suicide note and stepped off the ledge of his window on a floor. His body laid next to the floor where ruby was waiting for them. This suicide note written on his official letterhead was mildly hope in life was to improve the condition of another Economic System that held no promise to those that all the wealth of even a decent chance to survive let alone live. Because his friend had threatened to take a seat or was the culmination of growing mentalist ability. We will never know. But he still holds the record for being the only sitting congressman ever sent to and its insane asylum. Think about that. Yet i guess we should say. Yet. Okay. I would would like to read to you the story of crown well, my my favorite story in the book. She still lie. Born in 1953. This is the biggest embezzlement scam that you have never heard of. In fact, Rita Cromwell cases the biggest municipal fraud in american history. It took place in dixon, illinois. Before she brought into the spotlight dixon was famous of her being Ronald Reagans childhood home. Thats about it. It it. It had three fulltime employees and rita was one as controller and treasure. The majority of employees were parttime and held other jobs to keep their financial heads above water. So the the mayor made 9000 and he had a fuppercaseletter showroom somewhere, or whatever. Cornwell started as a secretary right out of high school and 64 and was appointed to her Financial Post in 198 three. It was a sweet deal for her. Cromwell was a horse lover and eventually became what was one of the best horse breeders, quarter horse breeders in the country. Her equal in business took up several months a year of the road. Going up to four shows and the like it was certainly more than her pay four weeks of vacation aloud. But the small town control and a luxury motorhome she traveled around and, all checked out. She was generally on call for her town duties, even if she was away. The folks of dixon figured they had a good deal as it rita doctor own pay every time she took a day off and was Still Available by phone or email. These are all her neighbors and friends. No no one was quite sure how she afforded the fancy motorhome and the slinky horse farm. In addition to pricey close, first, jewelry, and 3000 annual salary, minus the days she had for taken a day off. Everybody knew she saw lots of horses. They figured thats where her money came from and the three homes she owned. Others assume she inherited money from somewhere despite the fact that the townspeople knew her parents who were local people and not wealthy. This is the perfect instance of people seeing what they wanted to. They believe she was trustworthy. She was one of them. And so they do not question it. Therefore it became quite a shock when in 2011 kathy swanson, the assistant discovered a strange bank account when she was covering the office during one of cromwells many absences. An account that an account that had been opened back in 1990. It was the city it was the primary account holder and the secondary account holder was Rita Cromwell. The scam was fairly simple. , would drop fake invoices often times misspelling things on her typewriter. She would misspell a town in illinois and things like this. So so she would drop the fake invoice and transfer from the legitimate bank account and deposit it into the dummy account. Any audit at all in 30 years wouldve uncovered the scam. But nobody ever checked, why would they . This was rita. She worked for the town, for them, all of these years. So she got away with writing nearly 200 of these fake invoices for road repairs and of these fake invoices for road repairs and other items in addition to checks to the city account to her account. Theyre made out directly to treasure. Even some of the checks were made out to facilities and spas and they escaped attention. When when nobody was watching, nobody was noticing. It started small but in a few years after opening the account Rita Cromwell was making checks out to fairly large amounts like 300,000, 500,000. Over the course of many years, all of these 30 years, sit down, hope your city. She stole 53,000,000 dollars from the town of dixon, illinois. Right out of the pockets of her friends and neighbors. At the same time she was filling her coffers the city of dixon could not afford the most basic repairs and updates. I know the police cars had all of these old used radios and streets that needed repair, theres a Water Treatment facility that did not get built. When swanson, the the secretary found the dummy account she was floored. It was rita after all. She immediately brought it to the attention of the mayor who wasted no time in calling the fbi. Six months later they were raving and one morning in april 2012 rita was called into their office where the fbi was waiting for her. Rita confessed, after all she was caught red handed. There is, she could she could do. She fully cooperated with the fbi. This is not the book but my favorite part was the mayor was so upset by now when asked about what his thoughts and comments on the episode was he said, turned out Rita Cromwell did not kill the about this town. [laughter] during sentencing last for leniency in saying that she would have to endure shame and disrepute for the rest of her life. But the smalltown employee was sent wavered 20 years. They paid for three decades of her luxurious lifestyle and now she would have to pay the price. She is due for release in 2030. [laughter] will thats the story of rita. This is a rather newer story. I have to read it because of the diary. Youll see. Many. Many of you will remember bob halfway worn in 1932. And he got in trouble later in the last century. But interesting stuff. Senator bob came from a long line of politicians dating back to 1857 when his greatgrandfather was part of the our and our constitutional convention. He took a family trait is a republican in his home state of oregon. Plain party Party Politics and making a name for himself. Back in 1963 at the age of 29, he entered the oregon house of representatives in just five years later after a squeaker of a race with a long time a covenant, he won the race for the United States senate. He came to washington as the youngest senator in town. A social moderate republican who supported civil rights, gun control, and legalized abortion and won accolades for many womens groups including planned parenthood and the nationals womens political caucus. He and his wife georgie were a breath of fresh air. He worked tirelessly to put himself into the political system and by 1985 he replaced moynahan as the chairman of the finance committee. He was now one of the most powerful men in washington but also massive drinker. Before his 1987 campa