Overview

""Poison Tea shines a spotlight on the shadowy Koch brother network and reveals hidden connections between the tobacco industry, the reclusive billionaire brothers, and the Tea Party movement. It's a major story that for too long has been underreported and poorly understood.""--REP. HENRY WAXMAN, a former chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee How did today's Tea Party movement really come to be? Did it suddenly appear in 2009 as a spontaneous response to Barack Obama and health-care reform? Or was its true purpose and history something far different. Was it in fact a careful, strategic effort by two of the planet's wealthiest individuals, the tobacco industry, and other corporate interests to remake the government and seize control of one of our two national parties, ultimately gaining both the White House and Congress? Jeff Nesbit was in the room at the beginning of the unholy alliance between representatives of the world's largest private oil company and the planet's largest public tobacco company. There, they planned for a grassroots national political movement--one that would later be known as the Tea Party--that would promote their own corporate interests and political goals. Drawing from his own experience as well as from troves of recently released internal tobacco industry documents, Nesbit reveals the long game that these corporate giants have played to become a dominant force in American politics.

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9781250076106

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Reviews

The hijacking of American politics by the Tea Party is one of the most important stories of our time, and Jeff Nesbit offers an inside account of how it happened. Poison Tea is compelling, richly reported, and utterly chilling. Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction If there is a vast right-wing conspiracy, as Hillary Clinton famously said, Poison Tea makes a compelling case that it is alive and well-funded. Jeff Nesbit s exhaustive research connecting seemingly disparate groups is impressive. Owen Ullmann, USA TODAY Jeff Nesbit meticulously traces the origins of the Tea Party movement, and the ways in which its creators hoped to disrupt the Republican Party. By all accounts, they've succeeded - perhaps more than they could have imagined. David A. Kessler, MD, former Commissioner, US Food and Drug Administration, and author of A Question of Intent

If there is a vast right-wing conspiracy, as Hillary Clinton famously said, Poison Tea makes a compelling case that it is alive and well-funded. Jeff Nesbit s exhaustive research connecting seemingly disparate groups is impressive. Owen Ullmann, USA TODAY

Author Information

JEFF NESBIT was the director of public affairs for two federal science agencies. He was once profiled in The Wall Street as one of the seven people who ended the Tobacco Wars. Nesbit was a journalist, communications director for Vice President Quayle, and manager of a strategic-communications business for nearly fifteen years. Now the executive director of Climate Nexus, he writes a weekly science blog for U.S. News & World Report. He lives in New York.

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