Reading Paul Howard: The Art of Ross O’Carroll Kelly offers a thorough examination of narrative devices, satirical modes, cultural context and humour, in Howard’s texts. The volume argues that his academic critical neglect is due to a classic bifurcation in Irish Studies between high and popular culture, and will use the thought of Pierre Bourdieu, Sigmund Freud, Mikhail Bakhtin and Jacques Derrida to critique this division, building a theoretical platform from which to examine the significance of Howard’s work as an Irish comic and satirical writer. Addressing both the style and the substance of his work, this text locates him in a tradition of Irish satirical writing that dates back to the Gaelic bards, and includes writers like Swift, Wilde, Flann O’Brien and Joyce. Through textual and contextual analysis, this book makes the case for Howard as a significant and original voice in Irish writing, whose fusion of the three traditional types of satire (Horatian, Juvenalian and Menippean), has created a parallel Ireland that shines a satirical light on its real counterpart. As Freud suggests, humour is a way of accessing aspects of the psyche that normative discourses cannot enunciate, and Howard, through the confessional voice of Ross, offers a fictive truth on twenty years of Irish society, a truth that is not accessed by discourse in the public sphere or by what could be termed literary or high cultural fiction.

'Our nation's great satirist ... the most sustained feat of comic writing in Irish literature' Irish Times It's the end of the world as Ross knows it ... this time, there's no way of escaping another monumental fock-up! Sorcha had thrown me out of the family home - this time apparently for good. And yet that was the least of my worries ... My old dear was in prison, accused of murdering her second husband. My sons were showing an unhealthy interest in - someone call social services - soccer! And my daughter wanted everyone to call her Eddie. But don't even go there! On top of all that, a blond wig discovered in a dusty attic, had given my old man delusions of power. Suddenly, he was running for election, promising to tear up the bailout deal and take Ireland out of Europe. And that's to say nothing of his secret plan for Ireland's second city ... But shush! Don't mention the wall!

Pragmatics represents the study of language use in socially grounded contexts and it is thus a central discipline in Linguistics. Due to its focus on language use, it has been referred to as a transdiscipline that interacts with a broad variety of disciplines that are concerned with social action and, as such, pragmatics overlaps with many other linguistic and non-linguistic disciplines. Irish English is one of the earliest varieties of English to have attracted the interest of scholars working on pragmatic variation. From a sociolinguistic and a pragmatics perspective, it represents one of the best studied varieties of English and can thus be argued to offer important impulses to the study of variationist pragmatics in general. Ulster Scots, though in close contact with Irish English, has received less attention. Given this important position of Irish English in pragmatics research and the paucity of such research on (Ulster) Scots, this volume explicitly focuses on socio-pragmatics and deals with the way speakers in and around Ireland use language in a way so that it assists them in the construction of their social identities or helps them navigate socio-cultural spaces.

In early 2020, President Donald Trump and allies executed Operation Chaos, a little-known dirty trick ploy to disrupt Democratic Party primaries. After Chaos failed, Operation Gridlock targeted coronavirus pandemic lockdowns. Campaigns to discredit mail-in voting and the election followed. Some Trump supporters pursued Operation Gideon, a failed side plot to overthrow the president of Venezuela.After the election was called for Joe Biden, Trump and allies put pressure on Vice President Mike Pence through Operation Pence Card and the Green Bay Sweep to overturn election results when Pence presided in Congress on January 6, 2021. Operation Occupy the Capitol gained prominence after it became clear Pence would not join the plot. But the violence and chaos that enveloped the Capitol that day adversely affected the operation, causing more officials to pressure Trump to call off his mob.Trump and his operatives liked to use military-style, code names for their campaigns. But no matter what the operations were called, the result was chaos.To document this real-life story, veteran journalist Kevin James Shay, who has worked in the Washington, D.C., area for almost two decades and was born in a hospital near the Capitol, poured over public documents from the FBI, police departments, federal, state, and local governments, and other government agencies. He reviewed hundreds of news articles, videos, broadcasts, studies, and academic reports, and interviewed sources himself. He analyzed posts on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media feeds. Approaching this story as a true crime tale, he pieced together clues that help readers better understand how and why the Capitol attack occurred, uncovering fresh details and writing the story in a moving narrative that gives behind-the-scenes perspective. The ebook version, published in March 2021, was the first comprehensive account of what occurred on January 6. The print version provides updates.Aspects that many have missed include the plot executed on multiple fronts in the open and in secret, violence surrounding Trump events was more immense than realized, and Trump employed a decentralized model similar to how extremist groups work. The book includes recommendations, footnotes, resources, and photographs.

From the phony Russia collusion narrative to the coordinated riots laying waste to US cities, it's the same ongoing operation orchestrated by the left and targeting not just President Trump but hundreds of millions of Americans who revere their country and what it stands for. For the first time, crusading investigative journalist Lee Smith reveals who was responsible and the never before known involvement of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and senior military officials who engineered a coup against a sitting president. Beginning in late 2015, political operatives, intelligence officials, and the press pushed a conspiracy theory about Trump-he was a Russian asset and spied on his campaign and his presidency in order to undo an election. Because the ultimate goal of the anti-Trump operation is not simply to topple the president but rather to change the character and constitution of the country, the Deep State's machinations didn't stop even after Trump was cleared of charges of "colluding" with Moscow. Their efforts became even more fierce, more desperate, and more divisive, threatening to scar America permanently. In their zeal to bring down President Trump, Deep State conspirators had unwittingly revealed the origins of the anti-Trump operation and exposed corruption at the very highest levels of the Democratic party-including former Vice President Biden and his boss, Barack Obama. Lee Smith brings to this story the same incisive reporting and commentary that distinguished his runaway bestseller, The Plot Against the President. His investigation, identifying crimes and abuses committed by senior US officials, was later confirmed by a major Department of Justice report. For The Permanent Coup, Smith again enjoys unrivaled and exclusive access to the main players defending America and uncovering Deep State crimes-including Congressman Devin Nunes and the president's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMESBESTSELLER. American Kompromatunravels the Russian-influenced operations that amassed the dirty little secrets of the richest and most powerful men on earth. American Kompromatis based on extended and exclusive interviews with high-level sources in the KGB, CIA, and FBI, as well as lawyers at white-shoe Washington firms, associates of Jeffrey Epstein, and thousands of pages of FBI reports, police investigations, and news articles in English, Russian, and Ukrainian. A narrative offering jaw-dropping context, and set in Upper East Side mansions and private Caribbean islands, gigantic yachts, and private jets, American Kompromatshows that from Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein, Russian operations transformed the darkest secrets of the most powerful people in the world into potent weapons that served its interests. Among its many revelations, American Kompromataddresses what may be the single most important unanswered question of the entire Trump era -- and one that Unger argues is even more important now that Trump is out of office: Was Donald Trump a Russian asset? Just how compromised was he? And how could such an audacious feat have been accomplished? To answer these questions and more, Craig Unger reports, is to understand kompromat-- operations that amassed compromising information on the richest and most powerful men on earth, and that leveraged power by appealing to what is, for some, the most prized possession of all: their vanity. This is a story that transcends the end of the Trump administration, illuminating a major underreported aspect of Trump's corruption that has profoundly damaged American democracy.

"Who is Donald J. Trump? Despite decades of scrutiny, many aspects of his life are not well known. To discover Trump in full, The Washington Post assembled a team of ... reporters and researchers to delve into every aspect of Trump's improbable life, from his privileged upbringing in Queens to his ... 2016 rise to seize the Republican candidacy for president"--Dust jacket flap.