village in steel.ng i m not going to concentrate much on the book. t my editor, jerry kern, is a huge fan of the book. he has specific questions. i m goingdi to talk more about int a sense the process. sense. you are now in what you call the dark country of no ideas. that is a term i didn t come up with. my good friend and publicist came up with it when i am looking for a period to describe my next book. when i finish a book i have no other idea on my plate and start from scratch. it is a long-ish process taking about a year before starting the next project during which i am unpleasant and snappish and pissy. that process do you sort of read not indiscriminate and go from there? i wish i had a way to distill the process. it is mostly chance. i do things that i hope will try to jog things lose in my mind. i will walk through the stacks in my favorite library in seattle and just pull books at random and just read to see what the book is about as a way to expose myself t
up to questions and i hope that they ll be plenty of them. sam battle was born in 1883 to a large family in newborn, north carolina, 22nd of 25 children in the family. his parents were former slaves. his father was a minister in the african methodist church. his mother was the daughter of a black slave and white slave master. he grew up in a warm, loving, faith-based, achievement driven home and had incredibly childhood. 1883, he s born into the first post slavery generation. he proved to be a young guy who has no sense of limitations. his parents told him that he would have no limitations. he could achieve whatever he want today achieve, but if he wanted to be educated, he could be educated. but if he wanted to become a lawyer, he could become a lawyer. his early years, he was a big young man. in fact, when he was born, he was recorded that he was 16 and a half pounds and the largest child born in that vicinity. later on in life, he would say i was born large and so i lived
watergate scandal. [inaudible conversations] i m going to put this down here for just now. okay. good ioning. good evening. i m bradley graham, co-owner of politics & prose along with my wife, lissa muscatine. on behalf of the entire staff, thank you so much for coming. a few quick administrative notes. now would be a good time to silence any cell phones or other things that might go beep. when we get to the q&a art of the session part of the session, we invite anybody to ask a question, but we ask that if you have a question, first, you put it in the form of a question and, second, you make your way to this microphone up here, because we are videoing both for our own youtube page and c-span tv is here this evening as well. they d like to be able to hear your question. and at the end, before you come up to get your book signed, our staff would appreciate it very much if you d fold up the chairs that you re in and lean them against the bookcases or a pillar. the topic this
this was a true labor of love. i researched my topic for three years and spent a year-plus writing it. it is hummabling and gratifying to see it so well received, and to be following walter isakson, robert caro, and tony. [applause] i came to develop a strong interest in paul jennings when i was director of education at james madison s month peelier in virginia. i was familiar with jennings memoir considered by the white house historical association to be the first memoir of life in the white house. it was titled a colored man s rem innocences of james madison, and as the title implies, it s really more about the so-called great man than it was about the author himself. my interest was in paul jennings. i set out to discover elements of his own biography to uncover the circumstances behind the original publication of the memoir in 1865 and to find an interview living direct descendents. a slave in the white house, paul jennings and the madisons is the story of paul jenning
what is the white house strategy? ?hat are they doing this has been a threat all along and the president is pushing through. the white house has announced the president has imposed visa b ans with certain individuals involved with undermining ukraine. that means they could be applied to both ukrainian individuals as well as russian individuals. we do not have the actual list of people. this follows action by the european union. 18 were targeted by the european union. the president has also authorizing additional sanctions against individuals and entities seen as undermining ukraine and ukraine s sovereignty. asset freezes could be some of the things we are talking about in terms of targeting russian banks. the president is moving on his own and at the same time encouraging further economic action, eight de-escalation of the crisis. of thisescalation crisis. what about congress? are they willing to go further? of congress, including republicans, are critical of the residen