Politics Books - Page 3

Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism

Kevin Phillips

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 66 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The bestselling author reveals how the U.S. financial sector has hijacked our economy and put America’s global future at risk

In American Theocracy, Kevin Phillips warned us of the perilous interaction of debt, financial recklessness, and the increasing cost of scarce oil. The current housing and mortgage debacle is proof once more of Phillips’s prescience, and only the first harbinger of a national crisis. In Bad Money, Phillips describes the consequences of our misguided economic policies, our mounting debt, our collapsing housing market, our threatened oil, and the end of American domination of world markets. America’s current challenges (and failures) run striking parallels to the decline of previous leading world economic powers—especially the Dutch and British. Global overreach, worn-out politics, excessive debt, and exhausted energy regimes are all chilling signals that the United States is crumbling as the world superpower.

“Bad money” refers to a new phenomenon in wayward megafinance—the emergence of a U.S. economy that is globally dependent and dominated by hubris-driven financial services. Also “bad” are the risk miscalculations and strategic abuses of new multitrillion-dollar products such as asset-backed securities and the lure of buccaneering vehicles like hedge funds. Finally, the U.S. dollar has been turned into bad money as it has weakened and become vulnerable to the world’s other currencies. In all these ways, “bad” finance has failed the American people and pointed U.S. capitalism toward a global crisis. Bad Money is the perfect follow- up to Phillips’s last book, whose dire warnings are now proving frighteningly accurate.

Ted, White, and Blue: The Nugent Manifesto

Ted Nugent

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 27 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The Nuge for President!!! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This should be mandatory reading in schools, to learn what Americans are entitled to by the Constitution & how to be an American, not a sheeple.

Conservative Porn 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Great book for anybody of a conservative viewpoint. Nugent is witty, eloquent, and extremely intelligent. Everybody should read this book.

Editorial Review:

Straight from the Motor-City Madman comes the wildest, most politically incorrect book yet. In The Nugent Manifesto, rocker/hunter extraordinaire Ted Nugent is taking aim and setting his sights on our country. In his trademark unapologetic style, Nugent will praise God, guns, and red-blooded, full-throated Americanism against pantywaist politicians, nanny-state judges, and tofu-eating Obamamaniacs, calling on readers to "Roll up your damn sleeves, sharpen your crowbars, and think hardcore." The Nugent Manifesto follows up his New York Times bestseller God, Guns, and Rock 'N' Roll and his wildly successful cookbook, Kill It & Grill It. Look out America, "The Nuge" is back--and with a whole new arsenal of "Tedisms" ready for launch!

Obama's Challenge: America's Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency

Robert Kuttner

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Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Barack Obama approaches the Presidency at a critical moment in American history, facing simultaneous crises of war, the environment, health care, but most especially in the economy. If he is able to rise to the moment, he could join the ranks of a small handful of previous presidents who have been truly transformative, succeeding in fundamentally changing our economy, society, and democracy for the better.

But this will require imaginative and decisive action as Obama takes office, action bolder than he has promised during his campaign, and will be all the more difficult given the undertow of conventional wisdom in Washington and on Wall Street that resists fundamental change. Decades of regressive politics and political gridlock have left America in its most precarious situation since the onset of the Great Depression. The collapse of the housing bubble continues, as does the financial meltdown it triggered; a revival of 1970s style stagflation threatens; incomes continue to lag behind inflation; our household and international debts pile higher; disastrous climate change looms; energy and food prices continue their escalation; and the ranks of un- and under-insured Americans grow, the clearest, and most heartless, example of America’s destructive inequalities.

Solutions to our multiple challenges do exist, but they won’t be found in overly cautious or expedient quick fixes. With his exceptional skill at appealing to our better angels, Barack Obama could be the right leader at the right time to re-awaken America to the renewed promise of shared prosperity coupled with responsibility towards future generations and the international community with whom we share the Earth. Invoking America’s greatest leaders, Robert Kuttner explains how Obama must be a transformative president—or a failed one.

The Failure Factory: How Unelected Bureaucrats, Liberal Democrats, and Big Government Republicans Are Undermining America's Security and Leading Us to War

Bill Gertz

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The U.S. government is in crisis.

With America’s attention fixated on who will step into the Oval Office in 2009, no one has noticed where the real power has shifted—to a vast network of unelected officials whose authority has grown wildly out of control. In his latest blockbuster book, acclaimed defense and national security reporter Bill Gertz exposes these astonishingly powerful leaders and their enablers in the political class—and their devastating impact on America's national security.

Gertz shows how entrenched liberal activists have become dominant even under an ostensibly conservative administration. And he names names of those who actively subvert official U.S. policy—including not only liberal Democrats but also a number of so-called Republicans who have joined this insidious “Blame America First” crowd.

The Failure Factory reveals:

• The shocking, previously untold story of the partisan bureaucrats who completely undercut the U.S. position on Iran’s radical Islamist regime
• Barack Obama’s disastrous national security policies—and his stable of advisers who have already put America at risk
• The recent showdown in the Pentagon that laid bare the U.S. government’s ongoing failures to tackle the threat of Islamist extremism
• Flagrant cases of sabotage by top State Department officials that have emboldened dangerous states like Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Communist China
• Stunning new intelligence failures—including one that may have allowed a terrorist group to penetrate the FBI and CIA
• How even the Bush White House was overrun with Democrats and liberal Republicans
• The legions of “Clinton generals”—top military brass whose careers blossomed during the Clinton administration—who make the United States more vulnerable
• How Democrats are exploiting the antiwar movement for political gain, with little regard for the potentially devastating consequences
• How the defense secretary’s public defiance of official U.S. policy could have gotten him fired—but instead went unchallenged

Based on scores of exclusive interviews and displaying the groundbreaking reporting that has made Bill Gertz’s previous books smash bestsellers, The Failure Factory offers a chilling look at the threats to our national security that exist within our own government.

Epicenter: Why the Current Rumblings in the Middle East Will Change Your Future

Joel C. Rosenberg

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 202 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Detestable Rumblings 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Joel Rosenberg's "Epicenter" is absolutely the best explication of the Book of Ezekiel I have ever read! Also, one of a kind!

Mr. Rosenberg--a true Jew for Jesus (and how many of *those* do we have these days, after Roman Catholicism, Martin Luther, and the Holocaust?!)--tackles the greatest metaphysical problem of our time, known as the Immanence of God - where in the world is He?

Not only has this question long puzzled theologians, it has given rise to irreverent jokes (e.g., "I found Jesus! He was behind the couch!").

Rosenberg knows that if you want to see God, you must seek Him out. Even then, it's like asking to see the doctor in the Emergency Room of a U.S. hospital: No matter how bad off you are, you will have to wait. (Worst-case scenario: a nurse finally says, "Okay, you can see the Doctor now." But she's mistaken, you can't see the Doctor at all because by that time, you're already dead.)

A few patient individuals since Abraham's day have seen the Lord without having to wait until death. The prophet Ezekiel, for one, was granted an eyeball-to-eyeball with Yahveh after just six years of prayerful pleading.

Ezekiel, as Mr. Rosenberg reminds us, is the first holy prophet whom God called "the Son of Man" (Jesus being the second). Ezekiel's ministry extended from 595 - 573 BCE, and he is the only Old Testament prophet to merit mention in The Guiness Book of World Records: Ezekiel once lay on his side for 390 days, eating bread made from the Lord's own dictated recipe: flour, water, yeast, and cow-poop. (The original recipe called for human excrement, but God finally allowed Ezekiel, who was squeamish, to substitute cow-pies for human turds: it's in the Bible, you can look it up; but I hope you never get that hungry [Ezek. 4:9-15]).

Ezekiel's meeting with the incarnate Yahveh came when the prophet least expected it, during afternoon snack-time with the Jewish elders -- none of whom was willing, however, to try one of Ezekiel's chocolate-chip muffins.

In the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I sat in mine house, and the Jewish elders sat before me, the hand of the LORD God fell there upon me. I saw Him coming, a radiant figure - and when I looked up, lo! from His burning loins downward, He was like flaming fire! And above the waist, He was the color of bright amber. (Ezek. 8:1-2)

The Jewish elders did not look up Yahweh's skirts, as Ezekiel did. They did not even see the Lord come or go. They noticed only that their friend Ezekiel, "the Son of Man," suddenly (*poof*) disappeared; and the elders were sore amazed.

The Lord had snatched Ezekiel by a lock of his long, rather dirty, somewhat tangled hair, and hoisted him high above the streets of Jerusalem.

"Son of Man," said Yahveh, "do you see what they are doing down there - the utterly detestable things that the people of Israel are doing?" (Ezek. 8:3).

Ezekiel looked down. The first thing he saw was that his mystified houseguests - the Jewish elders - had ventured out into the street, to search for him. One of the elders pointed. The rest looked up. They saw him. They waved. Ezekiel modestly tucked his robes between his thighs, so that they could not look up his skirts and see his loins. But he did not wave back at them because he was distracted and appalled by what else he saw: the prophet of God (or "Son of Man," as God always called Ezekiel) espied the Jews of Israel, on rooftops all over the city, performing such human abominations, such whoring and sodomy and gormandizing, such idol-worship and such Sabbath-breaking and such nude sun-bathing, as made him want to vomit.

"Do you see this, Son of Man?" said Yahveh. Ezekiel nodded. "Lo, you shall see things that are even more detestable than this!" (Ezek. 8:6). And the Lord was thinking at that precise moment of the Internet--2,000 years before it happened!

Needless to say, Mr. Rosenberg has some pretty detestable things to show us. I'm not going to tell you what those things are: but if you want to find out, buy Joel Rosenberg's "Epicenter"! You won't be disappointed!

- L.

Editorial Review:

In his first groundbreaking nonfiction book, now with updated content, New York Times best-selling author Joel C. Rosenberg takes readers on an unforgettable journey through prophecy and current events into the future of Iraq after Saddam, Russia after Communism, Israel after Arafat, and Christianity after radical Islam. You won't want to miss Joel's exclusive interviews with Israeli, Palestinian, and Russian leaders, along with previously classified CIA and White House documents. New content includes the most up-to-date information since the hardcover release in 2006, a new poll about American attitudes toward the Middle East and prophecy, and transcripts of interviews conducted during the interview process for the Epicenter DVD-video.

The End of Prosperity: How Higher Taxes Will Doom the Economy--If We Let It Happen

Arthur B. Laffer, Stephen Moore, Peter Tanous

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Total reviews: 28 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Arthur Laffer -- the father of supply-side economics and a member of President Reagan's Economic Policy Advisory Board -- joins economist Stephen Moore of The Wall Street Journal editorial board and investment advisor Peter J. Tanous to send Americans an urgent message: We risk losing the exceptional standard of living that has made us the envy of the rest of the world if the pro-growth policies of the last twenty-five years are reversed by a new president.

Since the early 1980s, the United States has experienced a wave of prosperity almost unprecedented in history in terms of wealth creation, new jobs, and improved living standards for all. Under the leadership of Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, Americans changed the incentive structure on taxes, inflation, and regulation, and as a result the economy roared back to life after the anti-growth, high-inflation 1970s.

Now the rest of the world is following the American economic growth model of lower tax rates, more economic freedom, and sound money. Paradoxically, one country is moving away from these growth policies and putting its prosperity at risk -- America.

On the eve of a critical presidential election, Laffer, Moore, and Tanous provide the factual information every American needs in order to understand exactly how we achieved the prosperity many people have come to take for granted, and explain how the policies of Democrats Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi can cause America to lose its status as the world's growth and job creation machine.

The End of Prosperity is essential reading for all Americans who value our nation's free enterprise system and high standard of living, and want to know how to protect their own investments in the coming storm.

The Plan: Big Ideas for America

Rahm Emanuel, Bruce Reed

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 20 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

The leading Neo-Con of the Democratic Party 1 out of 5 stars.
17 of 34 people found this review helpful.

It is amusing to have Rahm Emmanual write a book on saving the United States, when his first allegiance is to Israel. He is a proponent of the neo-con plan to reconfigure the Middle East, including attacking Iran (or, as Hillary Clinton, his partner in crime, would say, "Obliterate Iran"). He supports attacks on Syria, Lebanon, the continued occupation of Iraq, the refusal to allow a viable Palestinian state to exist, and the impending attack on Iran: all for the "survival" of Israel.

In the process, America is weakened, open to more extremist attacks, and its men and women are dying or losing limbs.

Rahm is an orthodox Jew, his parents are citizens of Israel: All of which would be fine if they didn't use America as a puppet for Israel's ultimate super power status in the Middle East.

Rahm is a traitor. He will sell -- and is selling out -- our country for Israel.

This book is a joke.

Editorial Review:

The Plan offers a bold vision of what America can be. It shows the way for both parties to move beyond the old political arguments and make progress for the American people. And it offers an innovative agenda for America – with ideas that address the nation's most pressing challenges by doing more for Americans and asking Americans to do more for their country in return. Each of these ideas offers a clean break with the status quo, yet all are positive, practical, and can be put into action right away. Built on the authors' firm beliefs that politicians owe the people real answers, that citizenship is a responsibility, not an entitlement program, and that the Democratic Party succeeds when America succeeds, the highly anticipated Plan delivers, challenges, and inspires.

The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too

James Galbraith

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Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The cult of the free market has dominated economic policy-talk since the Reagan revolution of nearly thirty years ago. Tax cuts and small government, monetarism, balanced budgets, deregulation, and free trade are the core elements of this dogma, a dogma so successful that even many liberals accept it. But a funny thing happened on the bridge to the twenty-first century. While liberals continue to bow before the free-market altar, conservatives in the style of George W. Bush have abandoned it altogether. That is why principled conservatives -- the Reagan true believers -- long ago abandoned Bush.

Enter James K. Galbraith, the iconoclastic economist. In this riveting book, Galbraith first dissects the stale remains of Reaganism and shows how Bush and company had no choice except to dump them into the trash. He then explores the true nature of the Bush regime: a "corporate republic," bringing the methods and mentality of big business to public life; a coalition of lobbies, doing the bidding of clients in the oil, mining, military, pharmaceutical, agribusiness, insurance, and media industries; and a predator state, intent not on reducing government but rather on diverting public cash into private hands. In plain English, the Republican Party has been hijacked by political leaders who long since stopped caring if reality conformed to their message.

Galbraith follows with an impertinent question: if conservatives no longer take free markets seriously, why should liberals? Why keep liberal thought in the straitjacket of pay-as-you-go, of assigning inflation control to the Federal Reserve, of attempting to "make markets work"? Why not build a new economic policy based on what is really happening in this country?

The real economy is not a free-market economy. It is a complex combination of private and public institutions, including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, higher education, the housing finance system, and a vast federal research establishment. The real problems and challenges -- inequality, climate change, the infrastructure deficit, the subprime crisis, and the future of the dollar -- are problems that cannot be solved by incantations about the market. They will be solved only with planning, with standards and other policies that transcend and even transform markets.

A timely, provocative work whose message will endure beyond this election season, The Predator State will appeal to the broad audience of thoughtful Americans who wish to understand the forces at work in our economy and culture and who seek to live in a nation that is both prosperous and progressive.

Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001

Steve Coll

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Total reviews: 142 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Highly Informative, Not Well-Constructed, and Unfortunately Biased 3 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I recommend this book, in spite of its flaws, because it is a very useful history of CIA involvement in Afghanistan, from the end of the Carter administration until the day before the 9/11 attacks.

The book is divided into three parts, focusing on the Soviet occupation and mujahideen resistance, the Afghan Civil War, and the Taliban era, respectively. Coll commands a truly impressive list of source-interviews, and has clearly devoted considerable research time and effort. I suspect that few authors indeed could have had access to all of his information. If you can read the book through the end, it will be worth it.

But there are a few problems, which are significant:

1. The narrative tends to jump around in terms of geography and chronology. To some extent this is a necessary evil; in order to understand Afghanistan over the past three decades, one must understand Soviet/Russian, Iranian, Pakistani, Saudi and American involvement, because modern Afghanistan did not happen in a nutshell. And in order to understand those nations' involvement, one must know something of their history, and the personalities which drove decision-making. Unfortunately, Coll does not quite manage to pull everything together in a clear, readable narrative. The book can be slow-going, especially if you are new to the Middle East and Central Asia.

2. Coll very obviously doesn't care much for Republicans, and goes to some lengths to defend Democrats (without completely absolving them of responsibility). This is odd, given that the vast majority of the post-Soviet/pre-9/11 era happened under Democrat watch. Perhaps this is due in part to Coll's access to sources: it appears from his endnotes that he relies heavily on Clinton's administration for information, which is precisely the group with the greatest incentive to white-wash their actions. If most of the people you talk to are liberals, you will end up with a liberal version of history -- it's understandable, but regrettable.

3. The book has extremely little focus on Iran, and few details on the 9/11 hijackings. If you are interested in information on these aspects of Afghanistan, look elsewhere.

Again, I do recommend the book, which is valuable for its strengths in spite of its weaknesses. But the reader is advised caution, and might do well to start with a general history of Afghanistan or the Middle East before picking up Coll's book.

Editorial Review:

The explosive first-hand account of America’s secret history in Afghanistan

With the publication of Ghost Wars, Steve Coll became not only a Pulitzer Prize winner, but also the expert on the rise of the Taliban, the emergence of Bin Laden, and the secret efforts by CIA officers and their agents to capture or kill Bin Laden in Afghanistan after 1998.

2009 Barack Obama wall calendar: Words of Hope and Inspiration

Inc. Sourcebooks

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Editorial Review:

A celebration of a uniquely American journey

"For when we have faced down impossible odds; when we've been told that we're not ready, or that we shouldn't try, or that we can't, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of the people: Yes we can."
- Barack Obama

This 16-month wall calendar features the most moving and memorable quotes from Barack Obama's groundbreaking political career, from his electrifying address to the Democratic National Convention in 2004, to his seminal speech on race in early 2008 and his historic win of the Democratic Presidential Nomination in June. Dynamic photos show an engaging Obama in action on the campaign trail, at work in the community, addressing crowds of thousands, in a quite moment with Michelle and family, and victorious in a sea of confetti.

This calendar also chronicles the legacy of hope in America, with dates of famous firsts throughout history and key moments that united our nation. Such as:

June 12, 1987 - President Ronald Reagan stands in a divided Berlin and issues challenge to Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall" and allow freedom to the Eastern Bloc. (17 months later the wall fell.)

October 23, 1945 - Jackie Robinson signs a contract with Brooklyn Dodgers to become the first African American to play major league baseball.

January 10, 1737 - Thomas Paine publishes Common Sense, advocating independence for the American colonies.

July 12, 1984 - Geraldine Ferraro becomes the first woman to run for Vice-President on a major party ticket.

Inspirational quotes are also included throughout the grid:

"Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn."
- Harriet Beecher Stowe

"There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny."
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1936

"The future depends on what we do in the present."
- Mahatma Gandhi