YOU’VE BEEN LIED TO BY THE GOVERNMENT
We shrug off this fact as an unfortunate reality. America is the land of the free, after all. Does it really matter whether our politicians bend the truth here and there?
When the truth is traded for lies, our freedoms are diminished and don’t return.
In Lies the Government Told You, Judge Andrew P. Napolitano reveals how America’s freedom, as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, has been forfeited by a government more protective of its own power than its obligations to preserve our individual liberties.
“Judge Napolitano’s tremendous knowledge of American law, history, and politics, as well as his passion for freedom, shines through in Lies the Government Told You, as he details how throughout American history, politicians and government officials have betrayed the ideals of personal liberty and limited government."
—Congressman Ron Paul, M.D. (R-TX), from the Foreword
America's political system is dysfunctional. While this is a widely held view, it is a problem that—so far—has proved intractable. After every election, voters discover yet again that political "leaders" are simply quarreling in a never-ending battle between the two warring tribes, the Republicans and Democrats. In this critically important book, a distinguished statesman and thinker identifies exactly how our political and governing systems reward intransigence, discourage compromise, and undermine our democracy. He then describes exactly what must be done to banish the negative effects of partisan warfare from our political system.
As a former congressman, Mickey Edwards witnessed firsthand how important legislative battles can devolve into struggles not over principle but over party advantage. He offers graphic examples of how this problem has intensified and reveals how political battles have become nothing more than conflicts between party machines. Edwards's solutions—specific, practical, fair, and original—show the way to break the stranglehold of the political party system. The Parties Versus the People offers hope for a fundamental renewal of American democracy.
Since its publication twenty-five years ago, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men has been recognized as a classic, an indispensable contribution to our understanding of the causes of the American Civil War. A key work in establishing political ideology as a major concern of modern American historians, it remains the only full-scale evaluation of the ideas of the early Republican party. Now with a new introduction, Eric Foner puts his argument into the context of contemporary scholarship, reassessing the concept of free labor in the light of the last twenty-five years of writing on such issues as work, gender, economic change, and political thought.
A significant reevaluation of the causes of the Civil War, Foner's study looks beyond the North's opposition to slavery and its emphasis upon preserving the Union to determine the broader grounds of its willingness to undertake a war against the South in 1861. Its search is for those social concepts the North accepted as vital to its way of life, finding these concepts most clearly expressed in the ideology of the growing Republican party in the decade before the war's start. Through a careful analysis of the attitudes of leading factions in the party's formation (northern Whigs, former Democrats, and political abolitionists) Foner is able to show what each contributed to Republican ideology. He also shows how northern ideas of human rights—in particular a man's right to work where and how he wanted, and to accumulate property in his own name—and the goals of American society were implicit in that ideology. This was the ideology that permeated the North in the period directly before the Civil War, led to the election of Abraham Lincoln, and led, almost immediately, to the Civil War itself. At the heart of the controversy over the extension of slavery, he argues, is the issue of whether the northern or southern form of society would take root in the West, whose development would determine the nation's destiny.
In his new introductory essay, Foner presents a greatly altered view of the subject. Only entrepreneurs and farmers were actually "free men" in the sense used in the ideology of the period. Actually, by the time the Civil War was initiated, half the workers in the North were wage-earners, not independent workers. And this did not account for women and blacks, who had little freedom in choosing what work they did. He goes onto show that even after the Civil War these guarantees for "free soil, free labor, free men" did not really apply for most Americans, and especially not for blacks.
Demonstrating the profoundly successful fusion of value and interest within Republican ideology prior to the Civil War, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men remains a classic of modern American historical writing. Eloquent and influential, it shows how this ideology provided the moral consensus which allowed the North, for the first time in history, to mobilize an entire society in modern warfare.
We see the shaping of Hillary as a self-described "mind conservative and heart liberal" ---her ostensibly idyllic Midwestern girlhood (her mother a nurturer, but her father a disciplinarian, harsher than she has acknowledged); her early development of deep religious feelings; her curiosity fueled by dedicated teachers, by exposure to Martin Luther King Jr., by the ferment of the sixties, and, above all, by a desire to change the world. At Wellesley, we watch Hillary, a Republican turned Democrat, thriving in the new sky’s-the-limit freedom for women, already perceived as a spokeswoman for her generation, her commencement speech celebrated in Life magazine. And the book takes us to Yale Law School as Hillary meets and falls in love with Bill Clinton and cancels her dream to go her own way, to New York or Washington, tying her fortune, instead, to his in Arkansas.
Bernstein clarifies the often amazing dynamic of their marriage, shows us the extent to which Hillary has been instrumental in the triumphs and troubles of Bill Clinton’s governorship and presidency, and sheds light on her own political brilliance and her blind spots--especially her suspicion and mishandling of the press and her overt hostility to the opposition that clouded her entry into the capital. He untangles her relationship to Whitewater, Troopergate, and Travelgate. He leads us to understand the failure of her health care initiative.
In the emotional and political chaos of the Lewinsky affair we see Hillary, despite her immense hurt and anger, standing by her husband--evoking a rising wave of sympathy from a public previously cool to her. It helps carry her into the Senate, where she applies the political lessons she has learned. It is now her time. As she decides to run for president, her husband now her valued aide, she has one more chance to fulfill her ambition for herself--to change the world.
In his preparation for A Woman in Charge, Bernstein reexamined everything pertinent written about and by Hillary Clinton. He interviewed some two hundred of her colleagues, friends, and enemies and was allowed unique access to the candid record of the 1992 presidential campaign kept by Hillary’s best friend, Diane Blair.
He has given us a book that enables us, at last, to address the questions Americans are insistently--even obsessively--asking about Hillary Clinton: What is her character? What is her political philosophy? Who is she? What can we expect of her?
Margaret Hoover has been a lifelong member of the Republican Party. She grew up a self-described “ditto head.” She worked in the White House for President George W. Bush. Today she is a political commentator for Fox News, where, as one of Bill O’Reilly’s Culture Warriors, she regularly champions the conservative cause. She also happens to be the great-granddaughter of the thirty-first president of the United States, Herbert Hoover. These impeccable conservative credentials underscore the gravity of her deep-seated concerns about the future of the Republican Party. Her party, she believes, has fallen dangerously out of step with the rising generation of young Americans.
In American Individualism, Margaret Hoover chal-lenges the up-and-coming millennial generation to take another look at the Republican Party. Although millennials rarely identify themselves as Republicans, Hoover contends that these young men and women who helped elect President Barack Obama are sympathetic to the fundamental principles of conservatism. She makes a compelling case for how the GOP can right itself and capture the allegiance of this group. She believes that her party is uniquely positioned to offer solutions for the most pressing problems facing America—skyrocketing debt and deficits, crises in education and immigration, a war against Islamist supremacy—but that it is held back by the outsize influence within the party of social and religious conservatives.
American Individualism is Hoover’s call to action for Republicans to embrace a conservatism that emphasizes individual freedom both in economic policy and in the realm of social issues in order to appeal to the new generation of voters. The Republican Party, Hoover asserts, can win the support of the millennials while at the same time remaining faithful to conservative principles. In a journey that is both political and personal, Hoover rediscovers these bedrock conservative values in the writings of her great-grandfather, President Herbert Hoover, who emphasized the vital importance of individual freedom to the American way of life and who sought to strike a delicate balance in identifying the limited yet essential role the federal government should play in the lives of Americans.
Margaret Hoover advocates a conservatism that is fully consistent with the original impulses of the American conservative movement. It evokes her great-grandfather’s emphasis on the values of civic responsibility and service to others—instincts instilled in the millennial generation. She argues that the Republican Party today must evolve in order to achieve greatness, and that it can do so without compromising its tried-and-true fundamental principles. On the contrary, those enduring principles, if consistently applied, will enable the party to attract a younger following.
An impassioned and persuasive political manifesto grounded in twentieth-century history and targeted at the most perplexing problems of the twenty-first century, Margaret Hoover’s American Individualism offers provocative ideas not just for reinvigorating the Republican Party but also for strengthening America in the decades ahead.
Praise for American Individualism:
“It is not her great grandfather’s Republican party anymore. And Margaret Hoover has written a book that old Herbert would enjoy. Sassy, opinionated, and smart, Ms. Hoover shakes up conventional GOP wisdom.”
—Bill O’Reilly, Anchor, Fox News Channel
“Margaret Hoover, a fresh and brilliant young voice in the Republican Party, is bent on connecting the GOP to rising generations of the young. She has something to say to their elders, too. They'd best hear her.”
—Peggy Noonan, columnist, Wall Street Journal
“Margaret Hoover's American Individualism is a must read for every member of the Republican party—elected or otherwise—as a new generation of Republicans try to shine new light on who exactly we should be.”
—Meghan McCain, author of Dirty Sexy Politics
When Hillary Clinton spoke of "a vast right-wing conspiracy" determined to bring down the president, many people dismissed the idea. Yet if the first lady's accusation was exaggerated, the facts that have since emerged point toward a covert and often concerted effort by Bill Clinton's enemies—abetted by his own reckless behavior—which led inexorably to impeachment. Clinton's foes launched a cascade of well-financed attacks that undermined American democracy and nearly destroyed the Clinton presidency.
In vivid prose, Joe Conason and Gene Lyons, two award-winning veteran journalists, identify the antagonists, reveal their tactics, trace the millions of dollars that subsidized them, and examine how and why mainstream news organizations aided those who were determined to bring down Bill Clinton, The Hunting of the President may very well be the All the President's Men of this political regime.
President Bill Clinton’s My Life is the strikingly candid portrait of a global leader who decided early in life to devote his intellectual and political gifts, and his extraordinary capacity for hard work, to serving the public.
It shows us the progress of a remarkable American, who, through his own enormous energies and efforts, made the unlikely journey from Hope, Arkansas, to the White House—a journey fueled by an impassioned interest in the political process which manifested itself at every stage of his life: in college, working as an intern for Senator William Fulbright; at Oxford, becoming part of the Vietnam War protest movement; at Yale Law School, campaigning on the grassroots level for Democratic candidates; back in Arkansas, running for Congress, attorney general, and governor.
We see his career shaped by his resolute determination to improve the life of his fellow citizens, an unfaltering commitment to civil rights, and an exceptional understanding of the practicalities of political life.
We come to understand the emotional pressures of his youth—born after his father’s death; caught in the dysfunctional relationship between his feisty, nurturing mother and his abusive stepfather, whom he never ceased to love and whose name he took; drawn to the brilliant, compelling Hillary Rodham, whom he was determined to marry; passionately devoted, from her infancy, to their daughter, Chelsea, and to the entire experience of fatherhood; slowly and painfully beginning to comprehend how his early denial of pain led him at times into damaging patterns of behavior.
President Clinton’s book is also the fullest, most concretely detailed, most nuanced account of a presidency ever written—encompassing not only the high points and crises but the way the presidency actually works: the day-to-day bombardment of problems, personalities, conflicts, setbacks, achievements.
It is a testament to the positive impact on America and on the world of his work and his ideals.
It is the gripping account of a president under concerted and unrelenting assault orchestrated by his enemies on the Far Right, and how he survived and prevailed.
It is a treasury of moments caught alive, among them:
• The ten-year-old boy watching the national political conventions on his family’s new (and first) television set.
• The young candidate looking for votes in the Arkansas hills and the local seer who tells him, “Anybody who would campaign at a beer joint in Joiner at midnight on Saturday night deserves to carry one box. . . . You’ll win here. But it’ll be the only damn place you win in this county.” (He was right on both counts.)
• The roller-coaster ride of the 1992 campaign.
• The extraordinarily frank exchanges with Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole.
• The delicate manipulation needed to convince Rabin and Arafat to shake hands for the camera while keeping Arafat from kissing Rabin.
• The cost, both public and private, of the scandal that threatened the presidency.
Here is the life of a great national and international figure, revealed with all his talents and contradictions, told openly, directly, in his own completely recognizable voice. A unique book by a unique American.
Hear an audio excerpt of Bill Clinton discussing his start, his book, and his parents (4:37), and remembering the day he met JFK (1:27).
The judicious statesman who won victories abroad but suffered defeat at home, whose wisdom and demeanor served America well at a critical time George Bush was a throwback to a different era. A patrician figure not known for eloquence, Bush dismissed ideology as "the vision thing." Yet, as Timothy Naftali argues, no one of his generation was better prepared for the challenges facing the United States as the Cold War ended. Bush wisely encouraged the liberalization of the Soviet system and skillfully orchestrated the reunification of Germany. And following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, he united the global community to defeat Saddam Hussein. At home, Bush reasserted fiscal discipline after the excesses of the Reagan years.
It was ultimately his political awkwardness that cost Bush a second term. His toughest decisions widened fractures in the Republican Party, and with his party divided, Bush lost his bid for reelection in 1992. In a final irony, the conservatives who scorned him would return to power eight years later, under his son and namesake, with the result that the elder George Bush would see his reputation soar.
From one of the world’s most admired women, this is former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s compelling story of eight years serving at the highest levels of government. In her position as America’s chief diplomat, Rice traveled almost continuously around the globe, seeking common ground among sometimes bitter enemies, forging agreement on divisive issues, and compiling a remarkable record of achievement.
A native of Birmingham, Alabama who overcame the racism of the Civil Rights era to become a brilliant academic and expert on foreign affairs, Rice distinguished herself as an advisor to George W. Bush during the 2000 presidential campaign. Once Bush was elected, she served as his chief adviser on national-security issues – a job whose duties included harmonizing the relationship between the Secretaries of State and Defense. It was a role that deepened her bond with the President and ultimately made her one of his closest confidantes.
With the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Rice found herself at the center of the Administration’s intense efforts to keep America safe. Here, Rice describes the events of that harrowing day – and the tumultuous days after. No day was ever the same. Additionally, Rice also reveals new details of the debates that led to the war in Afghanistan and then Iraq.
The eyes of the nation were once again focused on Rice in 2004 when she appeared before the 9-11 Commission to answer tough questions regarding the country’s preparedness for – and immediate response to – the 9-11 attacks. Her responses, it was generally conceded, would shape the nation’s perception of the Administration’s competence during the crisis. Rice conveys just how pressure-filled that appearance was and her surprised gratitude when, in succeeding days, she was broadly saluted for her grace and forthrightness.
From that point forward, Rice was aggressively sought after by the media and regarded by some as the Administration’s most effective champion.
In 2005 Rice was entrusted with even more responsibility when she was charged with helping to shape and carry forward the President’s foreign policy as Secretary of State. As such, she proved herself a deft crafter of tactics and negotiation aimed to contain or reduce the threat posed by America’s enemies. Here, she reveals the behind-the-scenes maneuvers that kept the world’s relationships with Iran, North Korea and Libya from collapsing into chaos. She also talks about her role as a crisis manager, showing that at any hour — and at a moment’s notice — she was willing to bring all parties to the bargaining table anywhere in the world.
No Higher Honor takes the reader into secret negotiating rooms where the fates of Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and Lebanon often hung in the balance, and it draws back the curtain on how frighteningly close all-out war loomed in clashes involving Pakistan-India and Russia-Georgia, and in East Africa.
Surprisingly candid in her appraisals of various Administration colleagues and the hundreds of foreign leaders with whom she dealt, Rice also offers here keen insight into how history actually proceeds. In No Higher Honor, she delivers a master class in statecraft — but always in a way that reveals her essential warmth and humility, and her deep reverence for the ideals on which America was founded.
George W. Bush remains a highly controversial figure, a man for whom millions of Americans have very strong feelings. Dan McAdams' book offers an astute psychological portrait of Bush, one of the first biographies to appear since he left office as well as the first to draw systematically from personality science to analyze his life. McAdams, an international leader in personality psychology and the narrative study of lives, focuses on several key events in Bush's life, such as the death of his sister at age 7, his commitment to sobriety on his 40th birthday, and his reaction to the terrorist attacks of September 11, and his decision to invade Iraq. He sheds light on Bush's life goals, the story he constructed to make sense of his life, and the psychological dynamics that account for his behavior. Although there are many popular biographies of George W. Bush, McAdams' is the first true psychological analysis based on established theories and the latest research. Short and focused, written in an engaging style, this book offers a truly penetrating look at our forty-third president.
How can Trump's billionaire strategies help the average investor? Ross explains that the same basic rules of thumb that make Trump's Manhattan skyscrapers so profitable still apply to every investor, no matter the size of their property. Even if you can't afford the kind of luxury extras Trump offers his elite customers, you can still add Trump-style glamour to any property-and charge tenants or buyers a hefty premium for it.
Success in real estate requires not just smart strategies but also an ability to project the personal qualities that inspire confidence in others-like Trump's endless enthusiasm, showmanship, and never-say-die tenacity. With dramatic examples-such as Trump's Commodore/Hyatt Hotel deal on 42nd Street in Manhattan, which netted Trump over $85 million-Ross shows you how these personal qualities can help you negotiate better deals and dramatically increase profits.
You'll learn how to create an aura of exclusivity; Trump's secret sources of negotiation power; the value of the "invested time" principle; and even how to use deadlocks and deadlines to your advantage. And once you've zeroed in on your property, Ross gives seasoned advice on retaining the best help and conducting a dynamic marketing campaign.
For experienced and novice investors alike, Trump Strategies for Real Estate presents an indepth, insightful look at what it takes to achieve Trump-sized success in real estate.
Praise for The Elephant in the Room
"This funny, sobering, smart book reminds Republicans that having beliefs isn't good enough. You have to act on them. Winning isn't enough; you have to win with a purpose in mind. Ryan Sager sounds a real call to arms. The party would be wise to hear it."
—Peggy Noonan, columnist, The Wall Street Journal
"An insightful and eminently readable account of the current conservative crackup. Anyone who wants to understand American politics today needs to read Sager's chronicle of the ongoing civil war in the conservative ranks."
—Paul Begala, coauthor of Take It Back
"Two feisty American factions are at daggers drawn. No, the fight is not conservatives versus liberals. Rather, it is libertarian conservatives versus 'social issues' conservatives. In this illuminating examination of the changing ideological geography of American politics, Ryan Sager suggests that the conservatives must choose between Southern and Western flavors of conservatism. He prefers the latter."
—George F. Will, syndicated columnist
"Sager picks up where Bruce Bartlett left off with Impostor. The Elephant in the Room tells us how libertarians and the Christian conservatives are at swords' point over Bush's 'big government conservatism.' Anyone who wants to understand this important debate should get a copy of Sager's book."
—John B. Judis, coauthor of The Emerging Democratic Majority
"Ryan Sager offers an eloquent, elegant argument that the GOP has lost its way—an argument that even those of us who disagree with many of his criticisms and object passionately to many of his characterizations must take with the utmost seriousness."
—John Podhoretz, author of Can She Be Stopped?
The transformation of Southern politics over the past fifty years has been one of the most significant developments in American political life. The emergence of formidable Republican strength in the previously solid Democratic South has generated a novel and highly competitive national battle for control of Congress. Tracing the slow and difficult rise of Republicans in the South over five decades, Earl and Merle Black tell the remarkable story of political upheaval.
The Rise of Southern Republicans provides a compelling account of growing competitiveness in Southern party politics and elections. Through extraordinary research and analysis, the authors track Southern voters' shifting economic, cultural, and religious loyalties, black/white conflicts and interests during and after federal civil rights intervention, and the struggles and adaptations of congressional candidates and officials.
A newly competitive South, the authors argue, means a newly competitive and revitalized America. The story of how the South became a two-party region is ultimately the story of two-party politics in America at the end of the twentieth century. Earl and Merle Black have written a bible for anyone who wants to understand regional and national congressional politics over the past half-century. Because the South is now at the epicenter of Republican and Democratic strategies to control Congress, The Rise of Southern Republicans is essential to understanding the dynamics of current American politics.
When George McGovern lost the 1972 presidential election, Richard Nixon's landslide victory buried more than an insurgent campaign. In resurrecting the largely forgotten story of McGovern's remarkable presidential bid, Bruce Miroff reveals how his crushing defeat produced an identity crisis for liberals torn between their convictions and the political calculations required to win elections—a dilemma for Democrats that has never gone away.
Miroff follows the campaign from its surprising rise to its catastrophic fall to remind us how a dark-horse candidate captured the nomination—and then disastrously chose a running mate with a hidden past. Drawing on interviews with dozens of participants—including McGovern himself—who share a wealth of anecdotes and insights, Miroff traces the insurgency to the political struggles of the sixties, explores McGovern's ideology, and assesses the Republican attack politics that linked McGovern to "acid, amnesty, and abortion."
Miroff shows how the transformative election of 1972 signaled a major shift in the Democratic base—from urban blue-collar New Dealers to suburban, issue-oriented activists (feminists and gay rights advocates among them)—as the party shed its Cold War past and embraced an antiwar orientation. He also illuminates how the McGovern campaign mastered the new game of presidential primaries and explores the formative experiences of a generation of talented young political actors, including campaign manager Gary Hart, political newcomer Bill Clinton, and future party strategists Bob Shrum and John Podesta. In excavating the 1972 landslide, he follows the subsequent careers of the young McGovernites anddescribes the loss's effects on later Democratic presidential campaigns.
By tracing the transformation of American liberalism and sixties idealism from their political crash in 1972 to the muddled centrism of the twenty-first century, The Liberals' Moment shows what the McGovern insurgency has to teach us today—and identifies what Democrats must do in order to reassume the mantle of progressive change.
From the most astute political scoffer since H. L. Mencken, the definitive account of the conservative reign of misrule and corruption
Hailed as a “hunk of dynamite” (Salon) and celebrated for its “satiric wit” (The New York Times Book Review) and “delighted outrage” (The New Republic), The Wrecking Crew supplies the first and—lacking future fact-finding commissions—probably the only full reckoning of what conservatism has wrought.
Casting his eyes from the Bush administration’s final months of plunder to the earliest days of the Republican revolution, Thomas Frank uncovers the deep logic behind the graft and incompetence of conservatives in power. He shows how leaders dedicated to a doctrine of government by entrepreneurship proceeded to sell off the state, channeling the profits to cronies and loyalists. He surveys the federal agencies doomed to failure by the inept and even hostile staff appointed to run them. He charts the practice of wholesale deregulation and the devastating results now clear for all to see. From political scandal to mortgage meltdown, Frank documents the consequences of enshrining the free market as the logic of the state.
As conservatives retreat to lick their wounds and a new administration prepares to undo the years of misgovernment, The Wrecking Crew makes clear the challenges before the nation. A brilliant and audacious stocktaking—now thoroughly revised and updated—this is Frank’s most revelatory work yet.
In Hell to Pay: The Unfolding Story of Hillary Rodham Clinton, former federal prosecutor and Washington insider Barbara Olson reveals the real Hillary Clinton—a woman whose lust for power surpasses even that of her husband.
As the Chief Investigative Counsel for the congressional committee that investigated "Travelgate" and unearthed "Filegate," Barbara Olson has peered through the Clinton defenses to see a Hillary Clinton who is angry, bitter, obsessive, and even dangerous to the health of American politics.
Hell to Pay investigates Hillary's radical roots, how she switched from being a "Goldwater Girl" to sixties radical—and how, since then, she has maintained her ties to the radical left. The agenda? In the sixties, it was the Black Panthers and overthrowing corporate America. Today, it is socialized medicine and using children as political tools for social change.
In Hell to Pay, Barbara Olson recounts Hillary's own, personal "decade of greed" and reveals the paranoia of a first lady whom even a Clinton confidant has accused of operating a virtual "secret police" unit to destroy presumed enemies—including such lowly staffers as cooks and valets.
Olson shows a woman who, far from "standing by her man," is a political Machiavellian—a wife who reviews her husband's "bimbo eruption" files while defending him; and a feminist who supports and abets a serial adulterer, sexual harasser, and alleged rapist in order to maintain her own grip on power.
Far from being unstained by the Clinton scandals, Olson shows how "in scandal after scandal, all roads lead to Hillary" and how, iwht supreme irony, the most powerful woman in the world has won sympathy—after the Monica Lewinsky scandal—as the globe's premier "victim."
But perhaps most important than the scandals, and even Hillary's relentless drive for power, is the vision Hillary wants to impose on the country. It is a vision shaped by some of the most radical thinkers of our time, a vision that harkens back to social engineering on a grand scale, and that gives freedom a distant second place to government control
No one has better penetrated the political rise of Hillary Clinton than Barbara Olson.
To find some answers, Aldrich even joined the "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy." Once inside, he met forgiving, generous patriots, not the extremists he expected to find. Instead of intolerance, he discovered the "Soft-Hearted Right's" biggest weakness: an almost genetic civility making it difficult for them to fight the politics of the gutter -- the Hard-Left's favorite habitat. Aldrich makes the argument that members of the Hard-Left are not patriots, and conservative leaders who generously assume that these hate-mongers "love America" are deceiving themselves. Aldrich presents compelling evidence that the power wielded by Hard-Left ideologues has resulted in astonishingly destructive consequences. He warns us that unless kept from power, the Hard-Left's socialistic, dishonest version of governance will eventually lead to the destruction of our freedoms! In Thunder on the Left, Aldrich takes on the politically correct and the leftist cheerleaders for Big Government and Big Media. He outlines the real reasons why many of our federal agencies have become make-work daycare centers for the unemployable. Aldrich thoroughly examines the FBI to determine what went wrong before September 11. He answers the question on everyone's mind: Will the FBI once again assume its great reputation? When all the problems facing us today are considered, including the immediate threat of terrorists, you must conclude -- as Aldrich so cleverly sets forth in his book -- that the Hard-Left is guilty as charged!
Kathleen Willey's explosive new book details how her life was changed - and nearly destroyed - by Bill and Hillary Clinton. Target contains never-before-released details of the intimidation campaign launched to silence Kathleen...one way or the other. It provides new insight not just into the death of Kathleen's husband - on the same day that Bill Clinton assaulted Kathleen in the Oval Office - but into Bill's sexual addiction and Hillary's compulsive enabling, a dangerous combination with power.
The Clintons' terror and harassment continue. Over 2007 Labor Day weekend, Kathleen's home was burglarized. Instead of taking jewelry or computers, the thief took the manuscript for Target, with its explosive revelations that could damage Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
It was a break-in all too reminiscent of an earlier incident in which Kathleen was threatened by a stranger just two days before she was to testify against President Clinton in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case. It's deju vu all over again - and a timely reminder of how cunning and ruthless the Clintons' desire for power remains.
"Nothing short of a landmark in contemporary political reporting."
—Salon.com
"Mooney has bravely tackled a gigantic and complex topic."
—The Washington Post
"The Republican War on Science does score some major hits when it takes on ideological campaigns against embryonic stem cell research and for intelligent design."
—The New York Sun
"Mooney's very readable, and understandably partisan, volume is the first to put the whole story, thoroughly documented, in one place."
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Addresses a vitally important topic and gets it basically right."
—The New York Times
"Chris Mooney [is] one of the few journalists in the country who specialize in the now dangerous intersection of science and politics. His book is a well-researched, closely argued, and amply referenced indictment of the right wing's assault on science and scientists. In almost every instance, Republican leaders have branded the scientific mainstream as purveyors of 'junk science' and dubbed an extremist viewpoint—always at the end of the spectrum favoring big business or the religious Right—'sound science.' Rightists argue that the consensus itself is flawed. Then they encourage a debate between the consensus and the extremist naysayers, giving the two apparently equal weight. Thus, Mooney argues, it seems reasonable to split the difference or simply to argue that there is too much uncertainty to, say, ban a suspect chemical or fund a controversial form of research."
—Scientific American
"A careful reading of this well-researched and richly referenced work should remove any doubt that, at the highest levels of government, ideology is being advanced in the name of science, at great disservice to the American people."
—Neal Lane, former Director, National Science Foundation
In celebration of the tenth anniversary of It Takes a Village, this splendid edition includes photographs and a new Introduction by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
A decade ago, then First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton chronicled her quest — both deeply personal and, in the truest sense, public — to help make our society into the kind of village that enables children to become smart, able, resilient adults. It Takes a Village is "a textbook for caring.... Filled with truths that are worth a read, and a reread" (The Dallas Morning News).
For more than thirty-five years, Senator Clinton has made children her passion and her cause. Her long experience — not only through her roles as mother, daughter, sister, and wife but also as advocate, legal expert, and public servant — has strengthened her conviction that how children develop and what they need to succeed are inextricably entwined with the society in which they live and how well it sustains and supports its families and individuals. In other words, it takes a village to raise a child.
In her new Introduction, Senator Clinton reflects on how our village has changed over the last decade — from the impact of the Internet to new research in early child development and education. She discusses issues of increasing concern — security, the environment, the national debt — and looks at where we have made progress and where there is still work to be done.
It Takes a Village has become a classic. As relevant as ever, this anniversary edition makes it abundantly clear that the choices we make today about how we raise our children and how we support families will determine how our nation will face the challenges of this century.
Drawing on her experiences as daughter, mother, public servant, and long-time child advocate — and on her observations of children and families across the country and around the world — the First Lady reflects on the needs of children and the possibilities they suggest for rekindling a better quality of family and community life in today's fast-paced, fragmented world.
“The essential handbook for thinking and talking Democratic—must reading not only for every Democrat but for every responsible citizen” (Robert B. Reich, former Secretary of Labor and author of Beyond Outrage).
Voters cast their ballots for what they believe is right, for the things that make moral sense. Yet Democrats have too often failed to use language linking their moral values with their policies. The Little Blue Book demonstrates how to make that connection clearly and forcefully, with hands-on advice for discussing the most pressing issues of our time: the economy, health care, women’s issues, energy and environmental policy, education, food policy, and more. Dissecting the ways that extreme conservative positions have permeated political discourse, Lakoff and Wehling show how to fight back on moral grounds and in concrete terms. Revelatory, passionate, and deeply practical, The Little Blue Book will forever alter the way Democrats and progressives think and talk about politics.
Updated with a new afterword and including a selection of key documents, this is the explosive account of how the Bush administration makes policy on war, taxes, and politics — its true agenda exposed by a member of the Bush cabinet.
This vivid, unfolding narrative is like no other book that has been written about the Bush presidency. At its core are the candid assessments of former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill, the only member of Bush's cabinet to leave and speak frankly about how and why the administration has come to its core policies and decisions — from cutting taxes for the rich to conducting preemptive war.
O'Neill's account is supported by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind's interviews with numerous participants in the administration, by transcripts of meetings, and by voluminous documents. The result is a disclosure of breadth and depth unparalleled for an ongoing presidency. As readers are taken to the very epicenter of government, Suskind presents an astonishing picture of a president so carefully managed in his public posture that he is a mystery to most Americans. Now, he is revealed.
In A Century Turns, William J. Bennett explores America's recent and momentous history?the contentious election of 1988, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of global Communism, the presidency of William Jefferson Clinton, the technological and commercial boom of the 1990s, the war on terror, and the election of America's first black president.
Surveying politics and pop culture, economics and technology, war and religion, Bennett pieces together the players, the personalities, the feats and the failures that transformed key moments in the American story. And he captures it all with piercing insight and unrelenting optimism.
How did we go from John F. Kennedy declaring that religion should play no role in the elections to Bush saying, "I believe that God wants me to be president"?
Historian Randall Balmer takes us on a tour of presidential religiosity in the last half of the twentieth century—from Kennedy's 1960 speech that proposed an almost absolute wall between American political and religious life to the soft religiosity of Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society; from Richard Nixon's manipulation of religion to fit his own needs to Gerald Ford's quiet stoicism; from Jimmy Carter's introduction of evangelicalism into the mainstream to Ronald Reagan's co-option of the same group; from Bill Clinton's covert way of turning religion into a non-issue to George W. Bush's overt Christian messages, Balmer reveals the role religion has played in the personal and political lives of these American presidents.
Americans were once content to disregard religion as a criterion for voting, as in most of the modern presidential elections before Jimmy Carter.But today's voters have come to expect candidates to fully disclose their religious views and to deeply illustrate their personal relationship to the Almighty. God in the White House explores the paradox of Americans' expectation that presidents should simultaneously trumpet their religious views and relationship to God while supporting the separation of church and state. Balmer tells the story of the politicization of religion in the last half of the twentieth century, as well as the "religionization" of our politics. He reflects on the implications of this shift, which have reverberated in both our religious and political worlds, and offers a new lens through which to see not only these extraordinary individuals, but also our current political situation.
A CLEAR-EYED, COGENT CLARION CALL FOR ENDING THE DIVISIVE CLASS WARS THAT THREATEN THE AMERICAN MIDDLE-CLASS DREAM
In What’s the Matter with White People? Walsh argues that the biggest divide in America today is based not on party or ideology but on two competing explanations for why middle-class stability has been shaken since the 1970s. One side sees an America that has spent the last forty years bankrupting the country by providing benefits for the underachieving, the immoral, and the undeserving—no matter the cost to the majority of Americans. The other side sees an America that has spent the last forty years catering to the wealthy while allowing only a nominal measure of progress for the downtrodden.
Using her extended Irish-Catholic working-class family as a case in point and explaining her own political coming-of-age, Walsh shows how liberals unwittingly collaborated in the “us versus them” narrative and how the GOP’s renewed culture war now scapegoats segments of its own white demographic.
Part memoir, part political history, What’s the Matter with White People? is essential reading to combat political and cultural polarization and to build a more just and prosperous multiracial America in the years to come.
WITH A NEW AFTERWORD
In this eagerly anticipated memoir, former Vice President Dick Cheney delivers an unyielding portrait of American politics over nearly forty years and shares personal reflections on his role as one of the most steadfast and influential statesmen in the history of our country.
The public perception of Dick Cheney has long been something of a contradiction. He has been viewed as one of the most powerful vice presidents—secretive, even mysterious, and at the same time opinionated and unflinchingly outspoken. He has been both praised and attacked by his peers, the press, and the public. Through it all, courting only the ideals that define him, he has remained true to himself, his principles, his family, and his country. Now in an enlightening and provocative memoir, a stately page-turner with flashes of surprising humor and remarkable candor, Dick Cheney takes readers through his experiences as family man, policymaker, businessman, and politician during years that shaped our collective history.
Born into a family of New Deal Democrats in Lincoln, Nebraska, Cheney was the son of a father at war and a high-spirited and resilient mother. He came of age in Casper, Wyoming, playing baseball and football and, as senior class president, courting homecoming queen Lynne Vincent, whom he later married. This all-American story took an abrupt turn when he flunked out of Yale University, signed on to build power line in the West, and started living as hard as he worked. Cheney tells the story of how he got himself back on track and began an extraordinary ascent to the heights of American public life, where he would remain for nearly four decades:
* He was the youngest White House Chief of Staff, working for President Gerald Ford—the first of four chief executives he would come to know well.
* He became Congressman from Wyoming and was soon a member of the congressional leadership working closely with President Ronald Reagan.
* He became secretary of defense in the George H. W. Bush administration, overseeing America’s military during Operation Desert Storm and in the historic transition at the end of the Cold War.
* He was CEO of Halliburton, a Fortune 500 company with projects and personnel around the globe.
* He became the first vice president of the United States to serve out his term of office in the twenty-first century. Working with George W. Bush from the beginning of the global war on terror, he was—and remains—an outspoken defender of taking every step necessary to defend the nation.
Eyewitness to history at the highest levels, Cheney brings to life scenes from past and present. He describes driving through the White House gates on August 9, 1974, just hours after Richard Nixon resigned, to begin work on the Ford transition; and he portrays a time of national crisis a quarter century later when, on September 11, 2001, he was in the White House bunker and conveyed orders to shoot down a hijacked airliner if it would not divert.
With its unique perspective on a remarkable span of American history, In My Time will enlighten. As an intimate and personal chronicle, it will surprise, move, and inspire. Dick Cheney’s is an enduring political vision to be reckoned with and admired for its honesty, its wisdom, and its resonance. In My Time is truly the last word about an incredible political era, by a man who lived it and helped define it—with courage and without compromise.
Over the last year, award-winning journalist and videographer Max Blumenthal has been behind some of the most sensational (and funniest) exposes of Republican machinations. Whether it was his revelation that Sarah Palin was "anointed" by a Kenyan priest famous for casting out witches, or his confronting Republican congressional leaders and John McCain's family at the GOP convention about the party's opposition to sex education (and hence, the rise in teen pregnancies like that of Palin's daughter), or his expose of the eccentric multimillionaire theocrat behind California's Prop 8 anti- gay marriage initiative, Blumenthal has become one of the most important and most constantly cited journalists on how fringe movements are becoming the Republican Party mainstream.
Republican Gomorrah is a bestiary of dysfunction, scandal and sordidness from the dark heart of the forces that now have a leash on the party. It shows how those forces are the ones that establishment Republicans-like John McCain-have to bow to if they have any hope of running for President. It shows that Sarah Palin was the logical choice of a party in the control of theocrats. But more that just an expose, Republican Gomorrah shows that many of the movement's leading figures have more in common than just the power they command within conservative ranks. Their personal lives have been stained by crisis and scandal: depression, mental illness, extra-marital affairs, struggles with homosexual urges, heavy medication, addiction to pornography, serial domestic abuse, and even murder. Inspired by the work of psychologists Erich Fromm, who asserted that the fear of freedom propels anxiety-ridden people into authoritarian settings, Blumenthal explains in a compelling narrative how a culture of personal crisis has defined the radical right, transforming the nature of the Republican Party for the next generation and setting the stage for the future of American politics.
About the Author:
David Horowitz is president of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture and founding editor of the online newsmagazine FrontPageMagazine.com
About the Author:
Richard Poe is the editorial and creative director of TheVanguard.org
Inspiring words from Never Give Up!
"I believe the so-called 'impossible' is actually very often possible, if you're willing to work very hard, and if you realize that problems can become opportunities."
"When I hear the word 'no' it becomes a challenge to me."
"It's been said that what makes me accessible to people—aside from The Apprentice showing how I operate in the business world—is that I've faced tremendous adversity. It's something everyone can relate to. The difference may be in the amount of zeros after the numbers, but the point is, people can relate to difficulties. For example, I had such an amazing reversal of fortune in the early 1990s that I am listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for the biggest financial turnaround in history. I don't recommend anyone aim for the same goal, but when you've been on the financial high wire, it gives you a certain perspective that might be helpful to other people. As one writer described the journey of life, No one gets out of this alive. That's a bit existential but when you're down a few billion dollars in the red, it can make you think in new dimensions . . . "
The Republican Party isn’t out for your best interests . . . unless you’re a millionaire.
Whether you’re a hardcore left-winger or are still feeling the sting from the Bush Administration, 1,001 Ways the Republican Party is Screwing the Middle Class is a no-holds-barred book that lays down the truths as to why the majority is being shafted by the minority in this country. Every day it becomes harder for someone in the middle class to live comfortably. With raised taxes, a hurt economy, and jobs getting harder and harder to find, our government should be taking it easy on us. But with the pathetic tax cuts for the rich, it’s obvious that the Republicans only care for themselves. They’re consistently ignoring the hard-working people of this country that keep it running and only care to help the “power elite.” 1,001
Ways the Republican Party is Screwing the Middle Class is required reading for everyone who struggles to break even while these millionaires count their cash.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
The Christian Science Monitor • St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Magisterial.”—The New York Times
In this extraordinary volume, Jean Edward Smith presents a portrait of Dwight D. Eisenhower that is as full, rich, and revealing as anything ever written about America’s thirty-fourth president. Here is Eisenhower the young dreamer, charting a course from Abilene, Kansas, to West Point and beyond. Drawing on a wealth of untapped primary sources, Smith provides new insight into Ike’s maddening apprenticeship under Douglas MacArthur. Then the whole panorama of World War II unfolds, with Eisenhower’s superlative generalship forging the Allied path to victory. Smith also gives us an intriguing examination of Ike’s finances, details his wartime affair with Kay Summersby, and reveals the inside story of the 1952 Republican convention that catapulted him to the White House.
Smith’s chronicle of Eisenhower’s presidential years is as compelling as it is comprehensive. Derided by his detractors as a somnambulant caretaker, Eisenhower emerges in Smith’s perceptive retelling as both a canny politician and a skillful, decisive leader. He managed not only to keep the peace, but also to enhance America’s prestige in the Middle East and throughout the world.
Unmatched in insight, Eisenhower in War and Peace at last gives us an Eisenhower for our time—and for the ages.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
Praise for Eisenhower in War and Peace
“[A] fine new biography . . . [Eisenhower’s] White House years need a more thorough exploration than many previous biographers have given them. Smith, whose long, distinguished career includes superb one-volume biographies of Grant and Franklin Roosevelt, provides just that.”—The Washington Post
“Highly readable . . . [Smith] shows us that [Eisenhower’s] ascent to the highest levels of the military establishment had much more to do with his easy mastery of politics than with any great strategic or tactical achievements.”—The Wall Street Journal
“Always engrossing . . . Smith portrays a genuinely admirable Eisenhower: smart, congenial, unpretentious, and no ideologue. Despite competing biographies from Ambrose, Perret, and D’Este, this is the best.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“No one has written so heroic a biography [on Eisenhower] as this year’s Eisenhower in War and Peace [by] Jean Edward Smith.”—The National Interest
“Dwight Eisenhower, who was more cunning than he allowed his adversaries to know, understood the advantage of being underestimated. Jean Edward Smith demonstrates precisely how successful this stratagem was. Smith, America’s greatest living biographer, shows why, now more than ever, Americans should like Ike.”—George F. Will
Barack Obama has never been fully vetted—until now.
In Leading from Behind, New York Times bestselling investigative journalist Richard Miniter presents the first book to explore President Obama’s abilities as a leader, by unearthing new details of his biggest successes and failures. Based on exclusive interviews and never-before-published material, Leading from Behind investigates the secret world of the West Wing and the combative personalities that shape historic events.
Contrary to the White House narrative, which aims to define Obama as a visionary leader, Leading from Behind reveals a president who is indecisive, moody, and often paralyzed by competing political considerations. Many victories—as well as several significant failures—during the Obama presidency are revealed to be the work of strong women, who led when the president did not: then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi; Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; and Valerie Jarrett, his closest adviser and an Obama family confidante, whose unusual degree of influence has been a source of conflict with veteran political insiders.
In Leading from Behind, you will learn:
· Why Obama’s relationship with Israel was poisoned years before he met Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu
· The real reason for Valerie Jarrett’s strong hold over both Barack and Michelle Obama
· ObamaCare wasn’t Obama’s idea. It was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s. And the real reason he danced to her tune.
· Obama delayed and canceled the mission to kill Osama bin Laden three times and then committed an intelligence blunder that allowed dozens of high-level members of al Qaeda to escape.
· Why Obama destroyed a secret budget deal with House Speaker John Boehner that would have reformed entitlements, slashed spending, and reduced the national debt—without raising taxes
· Why Obama is determined to save Attorney General Eric Holder, even though he has lied and stonewalled Congress about “Operation: Fast and Furious”
· Why Obama removed an elected Christian president of Ivory Coast and replaced him with a Muslim leader who had lost the election
· Why Obama let a U.S. citizen rot in a Cuban prison when Cuban dictator Raul Castro wanted to release him
· Why Obama decided to defy the Tea Party and ditch his plans to end earmarks
In Leading from Behind, Richard Miniter’s provocative research offers a dramatic, thoroughly sourced account of President Obama’s White House during a time of intense domestic controversy and international turmoil.
The veteran political journalist and New York Times bestselling author goes behind the scenes at the White House to recount the dramatic tale of a pivotal period in the Obama presidency, from the game-changing 2010 midterm elections to the beginning of the critical 2012 campaign season—a tumultuous time that tested the president as never before and set the stage for a titanic clash over the future of the nation
After Barack Obama's first two years as president—during which he navigated the United States through its severest economic crisis since the Great Depression while managing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq—he was faced with a bitterly divided nation and an emboldened political opposition dedicated to impeding his presidency. What followed was a year of political crises and fierce battles that would transform Obama and profoundly shape the terrain for the next election.
In Showdown, astute political journalist David Corn chronicles and examines this crucial time in the Obama presidency and its impact on the nation's future. Drawing on interviews with White House officials, Obama's inner circle, members of Congress, and others, Corn takes the reader into the Oval Office and the back rooms on Capitol Hill for a fast-paced and gripping account of the major events as they unfolded: the controversial tax-cut deal with Congress in December 2010; the repeal of Don't Ask/Don't Tell; the passage of the New START treaty; the near shutdown of the government in early 2011; the revolutionary Arab spring; the killing of Osama bin Laden; the intense, high-wire debt-ceiling negotiations (in which intransigent House Republicans risked the nation's financial standing); House Speaker John Boehner's erratic maneuvers during the rise and fall of the grand bargain; and the face-off between Obama and congressional Republicans over how best to create jobs.
Corn captures the dilemmas faced by a president assailed by disappointed progressives and defiantly obstructionist Republicans determined to see his defeat. Here is a chief executive trying to balance the cross-cutting demands of governance and politics while handling unending challenges at home and abroad. The book reveals a thoughtful leader with a cool head who is unafraid to take risks and make tough choices, a steely battler who successfully turned his enemies' obstinacy to his advantage. Obama has often frustrated supporters, but Corn shows how the president, who often puts pragmatism ahead of partisan demands, has craftily operated within a hostile conservative political climate, looking to win the long game, achieve progressive goals, and, ultimately, win reelection.
A vivid and powerful account of White House decision-making, Showdown offers a unique and enlightening look at the turbulent American political scene during one of the most consequential moments of the nation's history, and explains the fascinating and complicated leader at the heart of this vortex.
Though reticent in public, George Bush openly shared his private thoughts in correspondence throughout his life. This collection of letters, diary entries, and memos is the closest we’ll ever get to an autobiography.
Organized chronologically, the volume begins with eighteen-year-old George’s letters to his parents during World War II, when, at the time he was commissioned, he was the youngest pilot in the Navy. Readers will gain insights into Bush’s career highlights—the oil business, his two terms in Congress, his ambassadorship to the U.N., his service as an envoy to China, his tenure with the Central Intelligence Agency, and of course, the vice presidency, the presidency, and the post-presidency. They will also observe a devoted husband, father, and American. Ranging from a love letter to Barbara and a letter to his mother about missing his daughter, Robin, after her death from leukemia to a letter to his children two weeks before Nixon’s resignation to one written to them just before the beginning of Desert Storm, the writings are remarkable for their candor, humor, and poignancy.
This new edition includes new letters and photographs that cover the last fifteen years, highlighting the Bush family’s enduring influence on history and including letters that cover topics such as George W. Bush’s presidency, 9/11, Bush senior’s work with President Clinton to help the victims of natural disasters, and the meaning of friendship and family.
All the Best, George Bush provides a memorable, surprisingly intimate, and insightful portrayal of the forty-first president of the United States.
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