It's Monday, What are You Reading? Listen, Liberal

It's Monday, What are You Reading? 

Listen, Liberal: 

Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People? 

by Thomas Frank

 

This post is the one-hundred and seventh entry for this meme suggested by Sheila@ One Persons Journey Through A World of Books. [Entries 22-25 in the series were posted at  the Dr. Bill Tells Ancestor Stories]

http://www.amazon.com/Listen-Liberal-Happened-Party-People-ebook/dp/B012N992EK/


I received this book through the LibraryThing Early Reviewer’s program. I will write a review when I finish it, of course; to be published at LibraryThing and Amazon.com.


Book Description from Amazon:

From the bestselling author of What's the Matter With Kansas, a scathing look at the standard-bearers of liberal politics -- a book that asks: what's the matter with Democrats?
It is a widespread belief among liberals that if only Democrats can continue to dominate national elections, if only those awful Republicans are beaten into submission, the country will be on the right course.
But this is to fundamentally misunderstand the modern Democratic Party. Drawing on years of research and first-hand reporting, Frank points out that the Democrats have done little to advance traditional liberal goals: expanding opportunity, fighting for social justice, and ensuring that workers get a fair deal. Indeed, they have scarcely dented the free-market consensus at all. This is not for lack of opportunity: Democrats have occupied the White House for sixteen of the last twenty-four years, and yet the decline of the middle class has only accelerated. Wall Street gets its bailouts, wages keep falling, and the free-trade deals keep coming.
With his trademark sardonic wit and lacerating logic, Frank's Listen, Liberal lays bare the essence of the Democratic Party's philosophy and how it has changed over the years. A form of corporate and cultural elitism has largely eclipsed the party's old working-class commitment, he finds. For certain favored groups, this has meant prosperity. But for the nation as a whole, it is a one-way ticket into the abyss of inequality. In this critical election year, Frank recalls the Democrats to their historic goals-the only way to reverse the ever-deepening rift between the rich and the poor in America.


Happy Reading!

Dr. Bill  ;-)

It's Monday, What are You Reading? Obama’s Odyssey

It's Monday, What are You Reading? Obama’s Odyssey: 

The 2008 Race for the White House 

(Vol. I, Caucus to Convention)

 

http://www.amazon.com/Obamas-Odyssey-White-Caucus-Convention-ebook/dp/B015AOH9DQ

This post is the one-hundred and sixth entry for this meme suggested by Sheila@ One Persons Journey Through A World of Books. [Entries 22-25 in the series were posted at  the Dr. Bill Tells Ancestor Stories]


I am reading this book as part of a Teddy Rose ‘Virtual Author Book Tour’ and will post my review here on May 2, as well as on Amazon.

 
Book Description from Amazon:

Obama's Odyssey: The 2008 Race for the White House is a reporter's-eye view of events unfolding in 2007 and 2008 as Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Joe Biden, Christopher Dodd, Bill Richardson (et al.) jockeyed for position for the Democratic nomination for president, while John McCain, Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and others attempted to wrest control of the Republican nomination for their party. All ran for President in a wide-open free-for-all following the end of George W. Bush's 8 years in office.
Author Connie (Corcoran) Wilson, a veteran reporter for five newspapers and numerous blogs, followed the candidates from the Iowa caucuses all the way through to the convention (Volume I) and, after that, from the convention through the tumultuous presidential campaign itself (Volume II), until President Barack Obama's Inauguration as the 44th President of the United States in January of 2009 (covered in Volume II).
Writing as a member of the Yahoo Content Contributors' Network, retired sixty-something schoolteacher Wilson set off on an adventurous odyssey of her own that earned her the title 2008 Content Producer of the Year for Politics with 1,000 articles that garnered over three million hits. Filing three articles daily from the field, her adventures inside the Democratic National Convention in Denver, the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, the Ron Paul Rally for the Republic in Minneapolis, the Belmont Town Hall Meeting in Nashville or elsewhere (Florida, Nevada, etc.) are detailed, insightful and, at times, humorous. The parallels and insights gleaned from following the presidential campaign in 2008 provide useful background material for the presidential race of 2016 now underway--with some of the same candidates that ran 8 years ago in the field again today. Never one to ignore an amusing anecdote or photo, the quotes, facts and polling data are only one small component of an engrossing read with multiple pictures that sum up the end of an era in presidential campaigns as the use of the Internet and the increasing importance of money in campaigning are clearly cataloged. An entertaining, informative and relevant slice of recent history.

Happy Reading!

Dr. Bill  ;-)

It's Monday, What are You Reading? Dark Money

It's Monday, What are You Reading? 

Dark Money:

The Hidden History of the Billionaires

Behind the Rise of the Radical Right

by Jane Mayer

This post is the one-hundred and fifth entry for this meme suggested by Sheila@ One Persons Journey Through A World of Books. [Entries 22-25 in the series were posted at  the Dr. Bill Tells Ancestor Stories]

www.amazon.com/Dark-Money-History-Billionaires-Radical-ebook/dp/B0180SU4OA

This book was recommended on the Bill Moyers blog. I’m very happy that I chose to read it. It is an eye-opening experience, for sure. I am reading the Kindle Edition.



Book Description from Amazon:

Why is America living in an age of profound economic inequality? Why, despite the desperate need to address climate change, have even modest environmental efforts been defeated again and again? Why have protections for employees been decimated? Why do hedge-fund billionaires pay a far lower tax rate than middle-class workers?
     The conventional answer is that a popular uprising against “big government” led to the ascendancy of a broad-based conservative movement. But as Jane Mayer shows in this powerful, meticulously reported history, a network of exceedingly wealthy people with extreme libertarian views bankrolled a systematic, step-by-step plan to fundamentally alter the American political system. 
     The network has brought together some of the richest people on the planet. Their core beliefs—that taxes are a form of tyranny; that government oversight of business is an assault on freedom—are sincerely held. But these beliefs also advance their personal and corporate interests: Many of their companies have run afoul of federal pollution, worker safety, securities, and tax laws.
     The chief figures in the network are Charles and David Koch, whose father made his fortune in part by building oil refineries in Stalin’s Russia and Hitler’s Germany. The patriarch later was a founding member of the John Birch Society, whose politics were so radical it believed Dwight Eisenhower was a communist. The brothers were schooled in a political philosophy that asserted the only role of government is to provide security and to enforce property rights. 
     When libertarian ideas proved decidedly unpopular with voters, the Koch brothers and their allies chose another path. If they pooled their vast resources, they could fund an interlocking array of organizations that could work in tandem to influence and ultimately control academic institutions, think tanks, the courts, statehouses, Congress, and, they hoped, the presidency. Richard Mellon Scaife, the mercurial heir to banking and oil fortunes, had the brilliant insight that most of their political activities could be written off as tax-deductible “philanthropy.”
     These organizations were given innocuous names such as Americans for Prosperity. Funding sources were hidden whenever possible. This process reached its apotheosis with the allegedly populist Tea Party movement, abetted mightily by the Citizens United decision—a case conceived of by legal advocates funded by the network.
     The political operatives the network employs are disciplined, smart, and at times ruthless. Mayer documents instances in which people affiliated with these groups hired private detectives to impugn whistle-blowers, journalists, and even government investigators. And their efforts have been remarkably successful. Libertarian views on taxes and regulation, once far outside the mainstream and still rejected by most Americans, are ascendant in the majority of state governments, the Supreme Court, and Congress. Meaningful environmental, labor, finance, and tax reforms have been stymied. 
     Jane Mayer spent five years conducting hundreds of interviews-including with several sources within the network-and scoured public records, private papers, and court proceedings in reporting this book. In a taut and utterly convincing narrative, she traces the byzantine trail of the billions of dollars spent by the network and provides vivid portraits of the colorful figures behind the new American oligarchy.
     Dark Money is a book that must be read by anyone who cares about the future of American democracy.


Happy Reading!

Dr. Bill  ;-)

It's Monday, What are You Reading? Henry Clay

It's Monday, What are You Reading?

 

 Henry Clay: America’s Greatest Statesman

by Harlow Giles Unger

 

 This post is the one-hundred and fourth entry for this meme suggested by Sheila@ One Persons Journey Through A World of Books. [Entries 22-25 in the series were posted at  the Dr. Bill Tells Ancestor Stories]

 

This is the last of the three books from my Christmas Wish List - Thanks, family! ;-)
This one was useful, as I expected. I’d read a much larger bio of Henry Clay. This one was easy to read and great reminders of events of the first half of the 19th Century.

 
Book Description from Amazon:

n a critical and little-known chapter of early American history, author Harlow Giles Unger tells how a fearless young Kentucky lawyer threw open the doors of Congress during the nation's formative years and prevented dissolution of the infant American republic.

The only freshman congressman ever elected Speaker of the House, Henry Clay brought an arsenal of rhetorical weapons to subdue feuding members of the House of Representatives and established the Speaker as the most powerful elected official after the President. During fifty years in public service—as congressman, senator, secretary of state, and four-time presidential candidate—Clay constantly battled to save the Union, summoning uncanny negotiating skills to force bitter foes from North and South to compromise on slavery and forego secession. His famous "Missouri Compromise" and four other compromises thwarted civil war "by a power and influence," Lincoln said, "which belonged to no other statesman of his age and times."

Explosive, revealing, and richly illustrated, Henry Clay is the story of one of the most courageous—and powerful—political leaders in American History.

Happy Reading!

Dr. Bill  ;-)

It's Monday, What are You Reading? Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates

It's Monday, What are You Reading? 

Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates:

 The Forgotten War that changed American History

by Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger

 

This post is the one-hundred and third entry for this meme suggested by Sheila@ One Persons Journey Through A World of Books. [Entries 22-25 in the series were posted at  the Dr. Bill Tells Ancestor Stories]

This is the second of the three books from my Christmas Wish List - Thanks, family! ;-)
This one was more substantive than I expected… frequently overlooked events because at the same time as the Lewis and Clark Expedition, among other events in the U.S.A.


Book Description from Amazon:

This is the little-known story of how a newly indepen­dent nation was challenged by four Muslim powers and what happened when America’s third president decided to stand up to intimidation.

When Thomas Jefferson became president in 1801, America faced a crisis. The new nation was deeply in debt and needed its economy to grow quickly, but its merchant ships were under attack. Pirates from North Africa’s Barbary coast routinely captured American sailors and held them as slaves, demanding ransom and tribute payments far beyond what the new coun­try could afford.

Over the previous fifteen years, as a diplomat and then as secretary of state, Jefferson had tried to work with the Barbary states (Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers, and Morocco). Unfortunately, he found it impossible to negotiate with people who believed their religion jus­tified the plunder and enslavement of non-Muslims. These rogue states would show no mercy—at least not while easy money could be made by extorting the Western powers. So President Jefferson decided to move beyond diplomacy. He sent the U.S. Navy’s new warships and a detachment of Marines to blockade Tripoli—launching the Barbary Wars and beginning America’s journey toward future superpower status.

As they did in their previous bestseller, George Washington’s Secret Six, Kilmeade and Yaeger have transformed a nearly forgotten slice of history into a dramatic story that will keep you turning the pages to find out what happens next. Among the many sus­penseful episodes:

·Lieutenant Andrew Sterett’s ferocious cannon battle on the high seas against the treacherous pirate ship Tripoli.

·Lieutenant Stephen Decatur’s daring night raid of an enemy harbor, with the aim of destroying an American ship that had fallen into the pirates’ hands.

·General William Eaton’s unprecedented five-hundred-mile land march from Egypt to the port of Derne, where the Marines launched a surprise attack and an American flag was raised in victory on foreign soil for the first time.

Few today remember these men and other heroes who inspired the Marine Corps hymn: “From the Halls of Montezuma to the Shores of Tripoli, we fight our country’s battles in the air, on land and sea.” Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates recaptures this forgot­ten war that changed American history with a real-life drama of intrigue, bravery, and battle on the high seas.


Happy Reading!

Dr. Bill  ;-)

It's Monday, What are You Reading? John Marshall

It's Monday, What are You Reading? 

John Marshall: The Chief Justice who saved the nation

by Harlow Giles Unger

This post is the one-hundred and second entry for this meme suggested by Sheila@ One Persons Journey Through A World of Books. [Entries 22-25 in the series were posted at  the Dr. Bill Tells Ancestor Stories]

[http://www.amazon.com/John-Marshall-Chief-Justice-Nation-ebook/dp/B00JNYDHY0]


This is the first of the three books from my Christmas Wish List - Thanks, family! ;-)
I’ve always admired what Marshall did - now I know why, in much more depth. ;-)


Book Description from Amazon:

A soul-stirring biography of John Marshall, the young republic's great chief justice, who led the Supreme Court to power and brought law and order to the nation

A useful review posted on Amazon.com:

Kirkus Reviews, 8/1/14
“A cradle-to-grave biography of the U.S. Supreme Court’s longest-serving chief justice…Unger chooses to present all aspects of Marshall's life, including his military heroism and his extraordinary devotion to a chronically ill wife and their children…It is well-researched, and the author is skilled at portraying the characters and viewpoints of Marshall’s political friends and foes. Thomas Jefferson comes across as a stubborn, politically motivated and sometimes hypocritical man, and Unger employs the Marshall-Jefferson enmity effectively, adding tension to the narrative. A vigorous account of an influential American life.”

Happy Reading!

Dr. Bill  ;-)

It's Monday, What are You Reading? Destiny and Power by Jon Meacham

It's Monday, What are You Reading? 

Destiny and Power:

The American Oydesey of

 by Jon Meacham

This post is the one-hundred and first entry for this meme suggested by Sheila@ One Persons Journey Through A World of Books. [Entries 22-25 in the series were posted at  the Dr. Bill Tells Ancestor Stories]

Got this the day it came out. Advance PR on the TV and magazines caught my attention. Always like George until the last couple of years of his Presidency, when he seemed to be ‘pulled off track.’ Want to learn more. Admire Jon Meecham as a writer/historian. Most useful read, so far… ;-)

Posting this on Pearl Harbor Day, a significant day in the life of George Herbert Walker Bush! ;-)


Book Description from Amazon:

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this brilliant biography, Jon Meacham, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author, chronicles the life of George Herbert Walker Bush. Drawing on President Bush’s personal diaries, on the diaries of his wife, Barbara, and on extraordinary access to the forty-first president and his family, Meacham paints an intimate and surprising portrait of an intensely private man who led the nation through tumultuous times. From the Oval Office to Camp David, from his study in the private quarters of the White House to Air Force One, from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the first Gulf War to the end of Communism, Destiny and Power charts the thoughts, decisions, and emotions of a modern president who may have been the last of his kind. This is the human story of a man who was, like the nation he led, at once noble and flawed.

His was one of the great American lives. Born into a loving, privileged, and competitive family, Bush joined the navy on his eighteenth birthday and at age twenty was shot down on a combat mission over the Pacific. He married young, started a family, and resisted pressure to go to Wall Street, striking out for the adventurous world of Texas oil. Over the course of three decades, Bush would rise from the chairmanship of his county Republican Party to serve as congressman, ambassador to the United Nations, head of the Republican National Committee, envoy to China, director of Central Intelligence, vice president under Ronald Reagan, and, finally, president of the United States. In retirement he became the first president since John Adams to see his son win the ultimate prize in American politics.

With access not only to the Bush diaries but, through extensive interviews, to the former president himself, Meacham presents Bush’s candid assessments of many of the critical figures of the age, ranging from Richard Nixon to Nancy Reagan; Mao to Mikhail Gorbachev; Dick Cheney to Donald Rumsfeld; Henry Kissinger to Bill Clinton. Here is high politics as it really is but as we rarely see it.

From the Pacific to the presidency, Destiny and Power charts the vicissitudes of the life of this quietly compelling American original. Meacham sheds new light on the rise of the right wing in the Republican Party, a shift that signaled the beginning of the end of the center in American politics. Destiny and Power is an affecting portrait of a man who, driven by destiny and by duty, forever sought, ultimately, to put the country first.


Happy Reading!

Dr. Bill  ;-)