Practical Politics

Fleeced: How Barack Obama, Media Mockery of Terrorist Threats, Liberals Who Want to Kill Talk Radio, the Do-Nothing Congress, Companies ... Are Scamming Us ... and What to Do About It

Here are the facts:

The United States has released 425 terrorists from Guantánamo, at least 50 of whom have returned to the battlefield to fight our troops.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both say they're fiscally responsible. But each has called for $1 trillion in tax increases over the next ten years—and dressed them up as tax cuts!

Mainstream Media has been given marching orders from the Society of Professional Journalists: never refer to "Islamic terrorists" or "Muslim terrorists." And they are obeying! Whenever our brave agents disrupt a terror plot, The media dismisses the culprits as a gang of idiots—lulling us into a false sense of security.

If the liberals win the 2008 election, they will cripple talk radio—forcing stations to give equal time to left-wing programs, and insisting that liberals play a key role in station management.

Up to a quarter of all state pension funds in the United States are invested in companies that are helping Iran, Syria, North Korea, or the Sudan—for a total of nearly $200 billion.

The Do-Nothing Congress is still doing nothing—and the worst offenders are the presidential candidates Clinton, Obama, and McCain, who never show up for their day jobs as senators . . . except to pick up their $165,000 paycheck!

Is it any wonder that Americans feel fleeced at every turn?

As more and more critical problems develop that need national attention, the White House and Congress appear to be AWOL.

Who's calling the shots instead?

Big business, big government, big labor, and big lobbyists. And their self-serving agendas are doing nothing to help the ever-increasing number of American people who are losing their homes, paying credit card interest rates higher than 25 percent, and finding their jobs increasingly outsourced to foreign countries.

In this hard-hitting call to arms, Dick Morris and Eileen McGann reveal the hundreds of ways American tax-payers are routinely fleeced—by our own government; by foreign countries like Dubai that are gobbling up American interests and spending millions to influence government decisions and American public opinion; by Washington lobbying firms that are pushing the agendas of corrupt foreign dictators on Capitol Hill; and by hedge-fund billionaires collecting huge tax breaks courtesy of the IRS.

With their characteristic blend of sharp analysis and insider insight, Morris and McGann call offenders of all kinds on the carpet—and offer practical agendas we all can follow to help turn the tide.

Just How Stupid Are We?: Facing the Truth About the American Voter

Hardball : How Politics Is Played Told By One Who Knows The Game

Hardball, first published in 1988, is like a modern version of Machiavelli's The Prince, only much more richly illustrated, with anecdotes drawn from talk-show host Chris Matthews's stint as a congressional staffer (where he worked for, among others, renowned Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill). Discussing such basic principles as "It's not who you know; it's who you get to know" and "Don't get mad, don't get even--get ahead," Matthews not only dishes out choice Washington insider info, he has over the years inspired many readers to apply his principles for political success to their own professional lives.

How politics is played by one who knows the game...

Chris Matthews has spent a quarter century on the playing field of American politics -- from righthand man of Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill to host of NBC's highest rated cable talk show Hardball. In this revised and updated edition of his political classic, he offers fascinating new stories of raw ambition, brutal rivalry, and exquisite seduction and reveals the inside rules that govern the game of power.

The Political Mind: Why You Can't Understand 21st-Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain

In WhatÂ’s the Matter with Kansas?, Thomas Frank pointed out that a great number of Americans actually vote against their own interests. In The Political Mind, George Lakoff explains why.

As it turns out, human beings are not the rational creatures we’ve so long imagined ourselves to be. Ideas, morals, and values do not exist somewhere outside the body, ready to be examined and put to use. Instead, they exist quite literally inside the brain—and they take physical shape there. For example, we form particular kinds of narratives in our minds just like we form specific muscle memories such as typing or dancing, and then we fit new information into those narratives. Getting that information out of one narrative type and into another—or building a whole new narrative altogether—can be as hard as learning to play the banjo. Changing your mind isn’t like changing your body—it’s the same thing.

But as long as progressive politicians and activists persist in believing that people use an objective system of reasoning to decide on their politics, the Democrats will continue to lose elections. They must wrest control of the terms of the debate from their opponents rather than accepting their frame and trying to argue within it.

This passionate, erudite, and groundbreaking book will appeal to readers of Steven Pinker and Thomas Frank. It is a fascinating read for anyone interested in how the mind works, how society works, and how they work together.

ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income

Blogging has become a popular and fascinating pastime for many, but more and more bloggers are finding it can also be an excellent source of direct or indirect income. Although the barriers to starting a blog are low, without expert guidance it is easy to get frustrated when success doesn’t match expectations. Written by the creator of the world’s #1 resource for making money with blogs, ProBlogger takes the reader from absolute beginner to earning money from or as a result of blogging. Through step by step practical lessons the reader will choose a blog topic, analyze the market, set up a blog, promote it and earn revenue.

Unlike other books that are big on potential and theory, ProBlogger provides results based on the authors own experience of what really works through practical, tried and tested advice. Inside readers will learn:

• How Bloggers Make Money
• Direct Income Earning vs. Indirect Income Earning methods
• Why Niches are Important
• Using 20 critical blogging tools
• 20 Ingredients for a successful blog post
• Optimizing advertising
• Which advertising platforms work best
• Expert analysis of Technocrat’s Top Blogs – why they work

and so much more.

The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart

The untold story of why America is so culturally and politically divided

America may be more diverse than ever coast to coast, but the places where we live are becoming increasingly crowded with people who live, think, and vote as we do. This social transformation didn't happed by accident. We've built a country where we can all choose the neighborhood -- and religion and news show -- most compatible with our lifestyle and beliefs. And we are living with the consequences of this way-of-life segregation. Our country has become so polarized, so ideologically inbred, that people don't know and can't understand those who live just a few miles away. The reason for this situation, and the dire implications for our country, is the subject of this groundbreaking work.

In 2004, the journalist Bill Bishop, armed with original and startling demographic data, made national news in a series of articles showing how Americans have been sorting themselves over the past three decades into alarmingly homogeneous communities -- not by region or by red state or blue state, but by city and even neighborhood. In The Big Sort, Bishop deepens his analysis in a brilliantly reported book that makes its case from the ground up, starting with stories about how we live today and then drawing on history, economics, and our changing political landscape to create one of the most compelling big-picture accounts of America in recent memory.

The Big Sort will draw comparisons to Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone and Richard Florida's The Rise of the Creative Class and will redefine the way Americans think about themselves for decades to come.

Alpha Dogs: The Americans Who Turned Political Spin into a Global Business

Pennsylvania Avenue: Profiles in Backroom Power

Prizewinning journalists John Harwood and Gerald F. Seib show how today’s Washington power game really works, through stories of people who are making a difference on Pennsylvania Avenue, America’s power street. These new power brokers, some of whom are rarely seen and are largley unknown, have figured out how to make their voices heard, and how to get things done, amid the complexities of today’s gridlocked Washington. With unprecedented access to Washington insiders, and with deep insight into the unspoken rules of the road in the capital, Harwood and Seib explain why progress is so difficult and illuminate what it takes to succeed in the high stakes game of politics.

Pennsylvania Avenue, the 1.2-mile stretch between the White House and the Capitol, is where the influential and ambitious congregate. Through stories of party strategists, money men, policy-makers, fixers, socialites, lobbyists, spinners, deal-makers, and more, Harwood and Seib explore the great political transformations that have altered in a fundamental way the relationship between Americans and their government. A new class of politician and radically different ways of conducting business now exist in Washington. Harwood and Seib showcase such master players as Ken Duberstein (the Fixer), a onetime aide to President Ronald Reagan turned superlobbyist, whose contacts and insider knowledge help clients sidestep Avenue jam-ups; Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein (the Businessman), a new breed of power broker who pioneered the age of “big money” in Washington; Rahm Emanuel
(the Democratic Strategist), whose aggressive fundraising and crisis-room campaign enabled the Democrats to retake Congress in 2006; Debbie Wasserman Schultz (the Rising Star), a first-term Democratic representative from Florida whose meteoric ascent in the House has earned her influential allies as well as critics; Hilary Rosen (the Advocate), a former entertainment industry lobbyist who skillfully reframed the debate about same-sex marriage; and more.

Inspiring and wonderfully written, Pennsylvania Avenue takes us inside America’s center of influence to show how our government really functions, and the insiders who make things happen.

"Through a series of sharp vignettes and character sketches, the authors of "Pennsylvania Avenue," John Harwood and Gerald F. Seib, take the reader behind some of the more imposing facades along the refurbished road, introducing the famous and not-so-famous, and explaining how business gets done in the new Washington. Though they accept the common view that the old rules have changed, their analysis is fresh and stimulating."
--The New York Times

White House Ghosts: Presidents and Their Speechwriters

In White House Ghosts, veteran Washington reporter Robert Schlesinger opens a fresh and revealing window on the modern presidency from FDR to George W. Bush. This is the first book to examine a crucial and often hidden role played by the men and women who help presidents find the words they hope will define their places in history.

Drawing on scores of interviews with White House scribes and on extensive archival research, Schlesinger weaves intimate, amusing, compelling stories that provide surprising insights into the personalities, quirks, egos, ambitions, and humor of these presidents as well as how well or not they understood the bully pulpit.

White House Ghosts traces the evolution of the presidential speechwriter's job from Raymond Moley under FDR through such luminaries as Ted Sorensen and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., under JFK, Jack Valenti and Richard Goodwin under LBJ, William Safire and Pat Buchanan under Nixon, Hendrik Hertzberg and James Fallows under Carter, and Peggy Noonan under Reagan, to the "Troika" of Michael Gerson, John McConnell, and Matthew Scully under George W. Bush.

White House Ghosts tells the fascinating inside stories behind some of the most iconic presidential phrases: the first inaugural of FDR ("the only thing we have to fear is fear itself ") and JFK ("ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country"), Richard Nixon's "I am not a crook" and Ronald Reagan's "tear down this wall" speeches, Bill Clinton's ending "the era of big government" State of the Union, and George W. Bush's post-9/11 declaration that "whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done" -- and dozens of other noteworthy speeches. The book also addresses crucial questions surrounding the complex relationship between speechwriter and speechgiver, such as who actually crafted the most memorable phrases, who deserves credit for them, and who has claimed it.

Schlesinger tells the story of the modern American presidency through this unique prism -- how our chief executives developed their very different rhetorical styles and how well they grasped the rewards of reaching out to the country. White House Ghosts is dramatic, funny, gripping, surprising, serious -- and always entertaining.

unSpun: Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation

Americans are bombarded daily with mixed messages, half-truths, misleading statements, and out-and-out fabrications masquerading as facts. The news media–once the vaunted watchdogs of our republic–are often too timid or distracted to identify these deceptions.

unSpun is the secret decoder ring for the twenty-first-century world of disinformation. Written by Brooks Jackson and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, the founders of the acclaimed website FactCheck.org, unSpun reveals the secrets of separating facts from disinformation, such as:

• the warning signs of spin, hype, and bogus news
• common tricks used to deceive us
• how to find trustworthy and objective sources of information

Telling fact from fiction shouldn’t be a difficult task. With this book and a healthy dose of skepticism, anyone can cut through the haze of biased media reportage to be a savvier consumer and a better-informed citizen.

“Read this book and you will not go unarmed into the political wars ahead of us. Jackson and Jamieson equip us to be our own truth squad, and that just might be the salvation of democracy.”
–Bill Moyers

“THE DEFINITIVE B.S. DETECTOR–AN ABSOLUTELY INVALUABLE GUIDEBOOK.”
–Mark Shields, syndicated columnist and political analyst, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

“unSpun is an essential guide to cutting through the political fog. Just in time for the 2008 campaign, Brooks Jackson and Kathleen Hall Jamieson have written a citizen’s guide to avoiding the malarkey of partisan politics.”
–Mara Liasson, NPR national political correspondent

“The Internet may be a wildly effective means of communication and an invaluable source of knowledge, but it has also become a new virtual haven for scammers–financial, political, even personal. Better than anything written before, unSpun shows us how to recognize these scams and protect ourselves from them.”
–Craig Newmark, founder and customer service representative, Craigslist.org