The Stairway Press Blog

Are you telecommuting from home because of COVID-19?

We're excited to announce the release of After You've Gone by Kay Kendall. The 3rd book in the Austin Starr Mystery series. 

by Fred Lucas

Democrats recaptured control of the House of Representatives and Republicans increased their grip on the U.S. Senate—but plenty contests continued after election day.  

“Tainted by Suspicion: The Secret Deals and Electoral Chaos of Disputed Presidential Elections” by Fred Lucas offers plenty of historical lessons on the recent election disputes.

Pro-longed statewide elections carried on well beyond election day in Arizona for U.S. Senate; in Florida for governor and U.S. Senate; and in Georgia for governor. As of the close of last week, 10 House races still hadn’t been called.

President Donald Trump claimed mass voter fraud. Numerous Democrats claimed mass voter suppression this year. Both charges erode confidence in free and fair elections—leaving the public to doubt the legitimacy of their leaders.

That was the case in the elections profiled in “Tainted by Suspicion,” with the presidential elections of 2000, 1876, 1824 and 1800.  

It took more than a week to count the votes in the Arizona Senate race where Democrat Kyrsten Sinema narrowly defeated her Republican opponent Martha McSally.

Last Friday in Georgia, Democrat Stacey Abrams ended her campaign, but called the outcome “rotten and rigged” by Governor-elect Brian Kemp, a Republican. The reason is that Kemp is the outgoing Secretary of State, the top state election official.

Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat, finally conceded his seat on Sunday, only after demanding more votes be counted. Nelson clung to hope while trailing Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, in a statewide recount.

Democrat Andrew Gillum conceded on election night to Republican Ron DeSantis in the Florida governor’s race. But un-conceded since the race was close enough to trigger an automatic recount. On Saturday, he re-conceded after a statewide recount.

Noticeably, two of the closest races were in Florida.

U.S. District Judge Mark Walker, who presided over several post-election lawsuits in Florida, asserted, “We have been the laughingstock of the world, election after election, and we chose not to fix this.”

That’s quite true, and it goes back further than the judge might have considered.

“Tainted by Suspicion,” opens with the question, “What is it about Florida anyway?”

It goes on to explain, “The question above is based on the oddity that one state would play such a big role in controversial presidential elections. First, in 1876, Florida was the most closely contested of the four states in question during the Hayes-Tilden election. In 2000, it was the only state in question for the Bush-Gore dispute.”

NEW RELEASE! - Remaking Democracy In America by Bear Kosik

Many Americans are deeply dissatisfied with the political sphere and the state of their country, baffled that Donald Trump was elected and that he continues to voice opinions and ideas that reflect ignoble principles. This book posits that democracy is defined by how well a government operationalizes the will of the people without impinging on any minority. What that will is can be expressed at the ballot box and can result in the people supporting an undemocratic outcome. However, politics in the USA are overshadowed by the Supreme Court’s equation of spending money with speech and recognition of corporations possessing the right to exercise the civil liberties previously reserved solely for human citizens. What is missing in American democracy is participation by citizens in the public sphere. If political change leading to greater equality of opportunity is going to occur depends on whether Americans recognize that as a needed, worthy goal and begin to act in ways to see it realized.

We’re excited to announce the release of Higher Miseducation: A Dissident’s Essays on the Assault against Liberal Learning by Jack Kerwick.

Written by Fred Lucas

Retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy is likely to be replaced on the Supreme Court by his former clerk Brett Kavanaugh, now a D.C. Circuit court judge. Both Kennedy and Kavanaugh played a significant role in the 2000 Bush v. Gore case, one of the four main contests profiled in “Tainted by Suspicion: The Secret Deals and Electoral Chaos of Disputed Presidential Elections.”

Kavanaugh part of the Bush legal team that prepared the case first in the Florida courts before it went to the high court.

Kennedy played a much larger role, arguably as a kingmaker, according to an account reported on in “Tainted by Suspicion.” It was the only presidential race in American history concluded by a Supreme Court case.

Here’s an excerpt from “Tainted by Suspicion”:

The conservative justices joined by liberals David Souter and Stephen Breyer ruled 7-2 in the decision siding with Bush that counting only selected areas of the state [of Florida] violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. …

Though seven justices sided with Bush on the equal protection argument, four of the liberals on the court insisted Florida should be given more time to count the votes—thus it’s where the often repeated 5-4 ruling comes from. This is not to dismiss the secondary ruling. Equal protection was the core of the argument, but it was a 5-4 vote that stopped the recount.

The majority opinion was unsigned, being “per curium” or from the court. But it’s widely believed that Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote it.

David Kaplan’s book, “The Accidental Presidency,” describes Kennedy as “the justice who picked the president.”

In the dissent, Justice Souter argued the matter should have been remanded to the Florida court with instructions to require a uniform standard. Souter further argued, “political tension could have worked itself out in Congress.” If that’s the case, the month of litigation certainly seemed a waste if Souter thought Congress should simply decide.

Behind the scenes, Souter worked to convince Kennedy to side with the liberals to give the state more time to tally votes under a uniform standard. If the votes couldn’t be counted in time, then the “Florida legislature and ultimately U.S. Congress could decide.”

Souter spoke to a group of prep school students a month after the decision about his frustration in Bush v. Gore, saying if only he had “one more day—one more day” he thought he could have convinced Kennedy to be on the other side of the 5-4 split. Souter told the students from Choate:

“It should be the political branch that issues political decisions.”

We’re excited to announce the release of Serial Wives by Yvonne Walus!

Why would a rich girl become a prostitute? ​

Three years ago Joy refused to sleep with an ex boyfriend. When he committed suicide, her guilt was enormous. To punish herself she opted to serve as a prostitute for three years. ​

How far would you go to protect your child? ​

Cora loves her convict husband despite - or because of - his bad boy ways. But now that he's back in her life, she has their daughter to consider. Is a faulty father better than no father at all?

A serial killer… ​

A serial killer who murders women and displays their bodies dressed in a white sheet with a fencing mask covering the face. Who will be next?

Hillary Clinton’s new book, “What Happened” has created immense buzz, as the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate’s new memoir assigns blame all around for her loss and argues the system was rigged.

But, the Clinton book neglects to mention how her campaign’s legal team and campaign surrogates were involved in an elaborate and unprecedented effort to reverse the result. This is described in Stairway Press’s eBook, The Plot to Stop Trump: The Story of a Failed Effort to Overturn an Election by Fred Lucas, now available on Amazon for just 99 cents.

Trump wasn’t expected to win, but after the stunning victory, various organizations set about trying to make his victory illegitimate.

First came recounts in three states where Trump had toppled the so called “blue wall.” Clinton’s legal team came on board the effort by Green Party candidate Jill Stein to count the votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Later revelations found that Clinton’s political team worked with a group calling themselves the Hamilton Electors, which sought an Electoral College coup.

Much has been written and will be written about the 2016 campaign, with little focus on the immediate aftermath. The Plot to Stop Trump is a thoroughly sourced account exploring the scandalous attempt to thwart democracy that took place after election day in November and before inauguration day in January, and could offer a refreshing and factual antidote to “What Happened.”

Buy a book and help Sir Fox!

Tomorrow, July 28th, all Stairway Press profits are going to the Sir Fox Fundly campaign.

Spread the word!

"What began as a sharp study of character and an examination of what makes a person ‘good’ or ‘bad’ soon became a fast-paced and quick-witted crime novel, full of mystery, deception and unreliable characters... a gripping and thought-provoking summer read."

We’re proud to announce one of our newest releases- Regime Change You Can Believe In: The Minimalist Joy of Opting Out. 

Learn how to live on as little as possible and accept it as a way of life--then celebrate it. The inevitable economic collapse could be a year away or it could be ten years away, but if you're already living frugally, what difference does it make? Opt out as a way of life and enjoy your new-found freedom. The less hold money has on you, the less you deal with it beyond having enough for essentials, the less time you waste with it. If you buy into the world's financial basket or the Made-in-China lifestyle sold to you, you're enslaved by money. Who printed it or pressed the button that created it from nothing? They are your master. When the fiat currency collapses, as it always does, the slaves will run around looking for new masters. Opt out now.

Journalist and author Cheryl Chumley recently praised “Tainted by Suspicion: The Secret Deals and Electoral Chaos of Disputed Presidential Elections.”

Chumley, a veteran political reporter, is an editor at The Washington Times and author of “Police State USA” and “The Devil in DC.” The review tied “Tainted by Suspicion” by Fred Lucas (Stairway Press, 2016), a book on history’s most controversial elections, to current events.

From the review:

As Democrats and George Soros-type activists continue to rebel against President Donald Trump, and accuse him of secret and shady dealings with Russia that helped orchestrate his White House win, it's good to know: This isn't the first presidential contest in the country that was “Tainted by Suspicion.”

Want a deeper understanding about today's political fights? Want to see how the ongoing Democratic rebellion against President Donald Trump stands in comparison to other elections in U.S. history? Read “Tainted by Suspicion.”

Author Fred Lucas does a marvelous job of taking the reader on a somewhat shocking and always eye-opening journey through U.S. history, casting a watchdog light in true journalistic form on the political bickering, backstabbing and shenanigans your history classes don't teach. On one hand disturbing -- who, after all, wants to look at some of our greatest government players of the past with newly shaded eyes? -- the other hand flashes optimism that goes like this: If America's come through all that, and still survived and flourished, then certainly today's Capitol Hill wheelings and dealings won't crumble our nation, either…

Mr. Kernan at CNBC’ s “Squawk Box” interviewed the director of the EPA, Scott Pruitt (3/9/17).  In that exchange Pruitt said “I would not agree that carbon dioxide is a primary contributor to the global warming that we see”. He added that there remains much scientific doubt determining the extent and scope of carbon dioxide in global warming.

Predictably, the media were shocked that Pruitt rejected the common wisdom that natural science has already settled that question in favor of the ongoing global-warming narrative. I agree with Pruitt’s comments. However, his comments were an understatement, while the question Kernan should have asked is:

“What is the scientific evidence for the claim that carbon dioxide, however produced, is a statistically relevant cause of the mean global warming evident in the last century and often predicted to increase inexorably in the next century?“

Assume, for sake of discussion, that there has been an historically unprecedented increase in mean global warming in the last century, and that global warming will continue to escalate catastrophically.  What, then, is the answer to this fundamental question? Where exactly will we find the scientific confirmation that carbon dioxide, however produced, is a statistically relevant cause of mean global warming?

Many people respond that the confirming evidence roots in a demonstrable and overwhelming consensus among the vast majority of the most outstanding atmospheric scientists publishing globally on climate change. Even if this response were true, however, it does not come to grips with our most fundamental question. Our fundamental question seeks the evidence that persuaded all those climate scientists constituting the alleged consensus.

Many scientists also assert that the confirming evidence consists in the fact that in the past century there has been a strong co-relation between demonstrable increases in global warmth with a corresponding increase in the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide caused by human activities, such as burning fossil fuels.  In response to this assertion, however, there is a large body of counter-evidence in premier scientific research journals documenting that the increases in carbon dioxide is historically not a cause, but rather a lagging indicator, of increases in mean global warmth caused by something else, such as solar storms. For at least 240,000 years carbon dioxide has been a lagging indicator of global warming and not a cause of it. In other words, historically carbon dioxide typically comes after the increases in mean global warming. So the carbon dioxide can’t be the cause.  Also, the earth was much warmer than it is now, and when there were no people on earth.

Congrats to Stairway Press author- and now a New York Times Bestseller - Bryn Greenwood!

Have you read her bestselling novel, All the Ugly and Wonderful Things? Check out her other amazing books- Last Will and Lie Lay Lain.