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ReGaining Reagan Sarah Carlsruh, November 23, 2009 Today, there are “far too many people saying ‘let’s move beyond Reagan,’” lamented Steve Hayward, author of The Age of Reagan and keynote speaker at Accuracy in Academia’s November 5th Author’s Night. Reagan stuck to an unwavering and enduring set of ideals. Yet, liberals are trying to present a distorted picture of Reagan and make him into a proto-liberal, said Hayward. Some liberals embrace the 2nd Term Reagan as a man of peace, call his foreign policy “pretty good” while condemning the Reagan of domestic policy. In contrast, Hayward insisted that “it was...

So apparently Sarah Palin sold over three hundred thousand copies of her book in one day – and as you can guess – they were all purchased by racists. At least, that’s what the sociology professors over at MSNBC Community College believe. Check out Hardball guest Norah O’Donnell, impersonating a talking puffin…

Like so many parents, I have agonized over the changing political climate, the degradation of morals, and the loss of liberty that the nation has been experiencing for quite some time. I’ve watched as our children have become more violent, while our educational standards plummet. And I can’t seem to shake the creepy echoing in my head of children singing Obama praises to the tunes of “Jesus Loves Me” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Look at some grade school literature like Heather Has Two Mommies, a story about Heather, a child of artificial insemination being raised by lesbian...

A few weeks back, the new head of the National Endowment for the Arts, Rocco Landesman, said of Barack Obama, "This is the first president that actually writes his own books since Teddy Roosevelt and arguably the first to write them really well since Lincoln." Landesman was not alone in his praise. This month's GQ has a faux-exhaustive article on "the untold story of the first man since Teddy Roosevelt to serve as author in chief." In truth, however, if Teddy Roosevelt came back to life today, he would find that he would have much more in common with Sarah...

The "You betcha" lady is no more. In her $1.25 million memoir "Going Rogue" (Harper, $28.99), Sarah Palin introduces a new voice, and it’s that of a chronic complainer. So much so you want to shout at the pages, "Man up, woman!" The news from the book has already spilled, and it is essentially this: John McCain’s senior aides were mean to her. Katie Couric was mean to her. Her critics, who are by definition supposed to be mean, were mean to her. But rather than come back swinging, she comes back whining. They done her wrong, she tells us...

Call it the case of the Sarah Palin book-alikes. The competing covers of a pair of high-profile hardcovers about Sarah Palin are already proving difficult to distinguish. "Going Rogue: An American Life," the long-awaited memoir from the former Republican vice-presidential nominee, arrived on bookstore shelves today. So did "Going Rouge: Sarah Palin An American Nightmare," which features similar book-jacket graphics and a nearly identical cover photo of the controversial former Alaska governor. An online version of a Canadian Press story about Palin's book carried the wrong cover image for about three hours early Tuesday; the cover of "Going Rouge" was...

A particularly shrewd political analyst once remarked that Ronald Reagan's great strength as a candidate was that he was "a sincere phony." In the world of electoral realpolitik, that's a compliment. What the analyst meant was that Reagan had the ability to convince himself that he actually held expedient views he'd never previously entertained and that belief, in turn, allowed him to speak of them with utter conviction. Thus, the governor who'd signed the nation's most permissive abortion-rights statute became the resolutely pro-life president. Sarah Palin's autobiography -- "Going Rogue: An American Life" -- suggests that while she may be...

Signature in the Cell makes 2009 list of top ten bestselling science books Today Amazon.com announced their bestselling books of 2009 and Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design (HarperOne) by Dr. Stephen C. Meyer made the top ten in the science category. According to Amazon.com, books on its 2009 list of best sellers are “[r]anked according to customer orders through October. Only books published for the first time in 2009 are eligible.” The book's publisher, HarperOne, reports that the book is entering its fifth printing in as many months, and continues to sell strongly both...

The Allegorical Sense of Scripture (excerpted from Chapter 7 of Making Senses Out of Scripture) This means something. This is important. - Roy Neary, contemplating his sculpted pile of mashed potatoes in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. As we mentioned in the last chapter, one of the standing temptations of the biblical student is to oversimplify by seizing on one truth and using it to discount other, equally important truths. One such oversimplification consists of the habit some modern people have of exalting the primacy of the literal sense of Scripture into a flat denial of the possibility of...

“Going Rogue,” the title of Sarah Palin’s erratic new memoir, comes from a phrase used by a disgruntled McCain aide to describe her going off-message during the campaign: among other things, for breaking with the campaign over its media strategy, its decision to pull out of Michigan and for speaking out about reports that the Republican Party had spent more than $150,000 on fancy designer duds for her and her family. In fact, the most sustained and vehement barbs in this book are directed not at Democrats or liberals or the press, but at the McCain campaign. The very campaign...

According to The Huffington Post, Michelle Malkin, Mark Levin, Glenn Beck and other right-of-center stars that regularly dominate the New York Times Hardcover Non-Fiction Bestsellers List are - or should be - in a league of their own. No, that isn't Arianna Huffington's blog heaping praise on conservative authors. It's a literal suggestion. With right-leaning books and authors holding so many spots on the list, and more to come - former Sarah Palin, former Dick Cheney and President George W. Bush all have books due out -Huffington Post suggests conservatives should have their own category to differentiate from other works...

It's one of America's most haunting crime stories: four members of a Kansas family brutally murdered on Nov. 15, 1959, at their rural farmhouse. The slayings of the Clutters — chronicled in Truman Capote's book, "In Cold Blood" — have overshadowed the town of Holcomb for the past half century and the trial and execution of the culprits has brought little, if any, closure. For many townsfolk, the wounds have been slow to heal partly because of Capote's critically acclaimed, nonfiction novel that spawned a new literary genre. The book has been reviled in its birthplace by residents because of...

Grand Old Partisan Malcolm A. Kline, November 9, 2009 In his acceptance speech, Virginia’s governor-elect, Bob McDonnell, may have quoted the founding fathers more extensively than the last four U. S. presidents combined have in their entire political careers. But then, he also may have made more such references than many teachers do in their working lifetimes. Among pedagogues, a notable exception to this trend is Colleen A. Sheehan, author of James Madison and the Spirit of Republican Self-Government. “Our core of self –government has been on the wane for a century and grows weaker every day,” Sheehan told an...

In 1934, the Harvard class of 1909 held its 25th reunion—then as now an occasion for members of the American elite to parade in public and celebrate their achievements. But this year the star attraction was a German: Ernst “Putzi” Hanfstaengl, the son of a Munich art dealer and publisher who had joined the Nazi movement and enjoyed personal access to Hitler (Hitler liked hearing him play the piano, as had his Harvard classmates, for whom he composed football fight songs). In the early 1930s he served as foreign press chief for the Nazi party. Ernst Hanfstaengl (center, with raised...

www.catholicnewsagency.com Priest’s new book challenges men to learn ‘true manhood’ by following Christ Fr. Larry Richards San Francisco, Calif., Nov 6, 2009 / 06:17 am (CNA).- Pennsylvania Catholic priest Fr. Larry Richards, aiming to clear up “gender confusion” and to challenge men to pursue holiness, has released a new book titled “Be A Man: Become the Man God Created You to Be.”In the book, Fr. Richards recounts his own efforts to learn “true manhood” and shares inspiring stories from men he has counseled and served in his decades as a priest, a press release from Ignatius Press says.He encourages...

Taxation: Compulsive Failure Sarah Carlsruh, November 2, 2009 Leslie Carbone spoke on October 15th at Accuracy in Academia’s Author’s Night on her book Slaying Leviathan: The Moral Case for Tax Reform. Her book, she began, discusses “how the federal government is uncritically, if not compulsively, making things worse through its wealth-spreading fiscal policies.” Referring to the Constitution, Carbone stated that the main purpose of a government is to ensure peoples’ rights and that progressive taxation—taking a person’s money “simply because they have acquired more than another”—violates those rights. Such policy, she said, is an “affront to justice.” Her book outlined...

[Excerpt] "Sometimes our technology, in creating these securities, outpaces our ability to cope with them." That's what Larry Fink told the New York Times in May 1987 when asked about Howie Rubin's trading disaster. In the past, Fink would have made that statement to a reporter and then celebrated with his team the fact that one of his competitors, particularly one like Merrill Lynch, which he saw as a pesky upstart in the field he aimed to dominate, was now being nailed with massive losses. But Fink wasn't celebrating, because, much like Howie Rubin, he had just gotten his first...

AYN RAND AND THE WORLD SHE MADE By Anne C. Heller Illustrated. 567 pp. Nan A. Talese/Doubleday. $35A specter is haunting the Republican Party — the specter of John Galt. In Ayn Rand’s libertarian epic “Atlas Shrugged,” Galt, an inventor disgusted by creeping American collectivism, leads the country’s capitalists on a retributive strike. “We have granted you everything you demanded of us, we who had always been the givers, but have only now understood it,” Galt lectures the “looters” and “moochers” who make up the populace. “We have no demands to present you, no terms to bargain about, no compromise...

"This is the first president that actually writes his own books since Teddy Roosevelt and arguably the first to write them really well since Lincoln," gushed Rocco Landesman, the new chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. Landesman was referring, of course, to Barack Obama, specifically for Obama's presumed role as author of the acclaimed 1995 memoir, Dreams From My Father. As evidence that Obama did not exactly write Dreams mounts, Landesman gives us a good indication of how America's cultural honchos will react. For a century, in fact, they have been heaping uncritical praise on undeserving artists of...

Launching An American Knight in Washington Written by John Horvat    Thursday, October 29, 2009 On October 27, the TFP Washington Bureau was filled with friends and supporters to hear a presentation on the book, An American Knight The Life of Colonel John W. Ripley, USMC just authored by TFP member Norman Fulkerson. The author presented the book to a full and lively auditorium of some 50 people and later personally signed copies. As a special guest, Duke Paul of Oldenburg from the German TFP, gave the opening remarks commenting on the meaning of chivalry today. Also attending was...

Norman Fulkerson, who has been voicing his conservative opinions on the Messenger-Inquirer editorial page for 11 years, has written a book about another conservative, Col. John W. Ripley USMC.... There was much to admire about Ripley, Fulkerson said, during a recent phone interview. Ripley's military career has been documented in other writings, Fulkerson said, but what he was most interested in was telling the other side of the war hero who in 1972 during the Easter Offensive in Dong Ha, Vietnam, blew up a bridge that "virtually halted the largest North Vietnamese offensive of the entire war." "An American Knight,...

The two little impossibilities want Mami's attention. Loretta, a self-assured and quietly focused 5-year-old, hides squiggly line drawings under the furniture at a relative's home in Alexandria. Lolita, a high-spirited 3-year-old, sways to Beethoven's "Für Elise." Mami scoops up both daughters. They tumble into the soft embrace of the couch, all squeals and nuzzles and squirmy delight. The girls start wriggling loose, and Mami pulls them back. One more hug. For an instant, it's as if releasing them would somehow make them disappear, would confirm their utter impossibility. That Irene Vilar embraces the role of motherhood is a grand incongruity,...

An addiction that only motherhood could cure Irene Vilar tries to explain the pathology that led her to abort 15 pregnancies The two little impossibilities want Mami's attention. Loretta, a self-assured and quietly focused 5-year-old, hides squiggly line drawings under the furniture at a relative's home in Alexandria. Lolita, a high-spirited 3-year-old, sways to Beethoven's "Für Elise." Mami scoops up both daughters. They tumble into the soft embrace of the couch, all squeals and nuzzles and squirmy delight. The girls start wriggling loose, and Mami pulls them back. One more hug. For an instant, it's as if releasing them would...

Thus Saul Alinsky begins Rules for Radicals, his impassioned 1971 missive to the political counterculture which had been galvanized into protest mode during the Vietnam War. I was one of the radicals for whom the book was written, though now I am a conservative mom and grateful American. I began blogging of the Obama-Alinsky connection during the 2008 presidential campaign, and given Obama’s history and his surrounding himself with characters from that Chicago/community organizing/dirty politics nexus, it was difficult for someone with my roots to think anything but the worst about the subtext of his message and his methodology. And...

Cliff May, president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, discusses his recent trip to Pakistan, as well as the situations in Afghanistan and the Middle East. Leslie Carbone talks about her new book, "Slaying Leviathan: The Moral Case for Tax Reform" (Potomac Books, 2009). For more information visit defenddemocracy.org and lesliecarbone.blogspot.com.

Alex Kurtagic’s dystopian novel, Mister attempts to illustrate the everyday consequences of living in a world in which current social, cultural, political, economic, and demographic trends have been allowed to continue. It treats the result of the liberal utopians’ efforts with sarcasm and derision, but its main target is the so-called “respectable conservative,” that has the right instincts and is fully aware of the destructive forces at work in Western societies, but is too preoccuped with maintaining social status and professional prestige to risk voicing politically incorrect opinions. He silently opts for a reactive strategy of avoidance and adaptation, rather...

I am afraid to report that when I compared Thomas Frank's book, which I believe was a cheap hatchet job on the majority of the people of Kansas, and the 2009 Cohen/Winston documentary of the same name, I found that the apple does not fall very far from the tree. A few fundamental themes ran through the film. The first theme is that when Christians and their values are mixed with politics it is the recipe for political doom. The liberal crowd on viewing night seemed quite joyful as the pro-lifer, Phill Kline, is defeated by Paul Morrison for Kansas...

He was a onetime utopian socialist who became an assertive right-winger, a libertarian nudist with a military-hardware fetish, a cold warrior who penned an Age of Aquarius sensation with a hero who preached free love. He won admiration from Ronald Reagan, who enlisted his ideas in his "Star Wars" missile shield, and Charles Manson, who was captured with the novel "Stranger in a Strange Land" in his backpack. He predicted the European Union and invented the water bed. But Robert A. Heinlein, the California-based science-fiction writer who stood over the midcentury decades like a colossus, casts a different kind of...

We know that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin can hunt, and even field-dress a moose, but how will she take to poachers on her book sales? Start-up publisher OR Books has announced plans to publish Going Rouge: Sarah Palin An American Nightmare, a collection of essays about the maverick Republican with a title — and cover design — remarkably similar to Palin’s upcoming memoir. What’s more, OR’s paperback tome will be released on Nov. 17, the same day that Palin’s own Going Rogue: An American Life hits shelves — and one day after Palin’s just-announced, first-ever appearance on Oprah Winfrey’s...

In the summer of 2008, two months before Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, Richard S. Fuld Jr., the firm's chairman, was continuing his desperate efforts to find a lifeline. They had begun in March, shortly after the demise of Bear Stearns, when Mr. Fuld called the legendary investor Warren E. Buffett seeking a capital infusion, to no avail. Lehman had raised money elsewhere, but that didn't help for long, and its condition again was worsening.Adapted from "Too Big to Fail: How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System — And Themselves." The book, being published Tuesday by...

As a scientist claims modern athletes are weaklings, evidence has been forward that our male ancestors were not only faster, stronger and fitter, even their womenfolk would have wiped the floor with today's emasculated men. That's the central claim of Manthropology, a new book by Australian anthropologist Peter McAllister. In the book, subtitled The Science Of The Inadequate Modern Male, McAllister presents evidence that pre-historic Australian Aborigines could easily have outsprinted even Usain Bolt, today's fastest man on Earth. The basis of his findings? A set of 20,000-year-old preserved human footprints discovered in the Outback. They belonged to a party...

Imagine a cheerful, observant, talkative man who, as he advances into late middle age, becomes impatient with much of the world around him and starts complaining. Yes, he’s an immigrant from Britain, but that doesn’t mean he approves of open immigration policy. Sure, he has a Chinese wife, but that doesn’t mean he favors diversity as a social goal. Certainly, he thinks America draws its strength from religion, but that doesn’t make him a believer in God. He is definitely a conservative, but much of what passes for conservatism these days fills him with dismay. Imagine further that, during a...

I kept bumping into people referencing “Unintended Consequences” by John Ross. It sounded impressive so I decided I should read it. It is impressive – and massive – 860 pages, and a novel. The main character is Henry Bowman and the book follows him from youngster to present day. The theme of the book is the gun culture in America. It outlines the US Government’s relentless and irrational war against the gun culture in general – and the private ownership of firearms in particular – in this country, for most of the 20th century. It was impossible to read this...

LONDON -- Many prehistoric Australian aboriginals could have outrun world 100- and 200-meter record-holder Usain Bolt in modern conditions. Some Tutsi men in Rwanda exceeded the current world high jump record of 2.45 meters during initiation ceremonies in which they had to jump at least their own height to progress to manhood. Any Neanderthal woman could have beaten former bodybuilder and current California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in an arm wrestle. These and other eye-catching claims are detailed in a book by Australian anthropologist Peter McAllister entitled "Manthropology" and provocatively sub-titled "The Science of the Inadequate Modern Male". "If you're reading...

Francis Phillips hails a stunning study of Catholic resistance to National Socialism 16 October 2009 John Frain subtitles this book, Catholic Resistance in the Nazi Era and at first glance it might seem a well-trodden path, adding little to what is already known. For instance, negative publicity given to the alleged "silence" of Pope Pius XII during the War has led to a succession of scholarly studies of his attitude and behaviour towards Jewish victims of Nazi persecution. But Frain's terms of reference are wider than this; he examines every level of Catholic opposition to Hitler, particularly in Germany: the...

Living With Osama bin Laden: First Wife Tells of Husband's Bid To Train His Sons As Suicide Bombers Daily Mail Reporter 12th October 2009 Osama bin Laden was a tyrant who trained his own children to be suicide bombers and murdered their pets, his first wife has revealed. In a new book about her time living with bin Laden, Najwa Ghanem has told how she gave birth to 11 of his 14 children because bin Laden said that Islam needed many warriors. And millionaire bin Laden would not allow any modern appliances in his home, even refusing his son medicine...

As retailers count their robust preorders for Sarah Palin’s upcoming memoir, “Going Rogue: An American Life,” a small publisher out West says his decision to issue “Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska’s Political Establishment Upside Down” by Kaylene Johnson, was one of his best. The book, an unauthorized look at Palin’s life that begins with her early years in Alaska and ends with her winning the governorship, was published originally in May 2008, by Epicenter Press, based in Kenmore, Wash. Kent Sturgis, president, says that the biography sold 13,000 hardcovers and 80,000 paperback copies. Demand was so great that...

One year ago, Sarah Palin burst onto the national political stage like a comet. Yet even now, few Americans know who this remarkable woman really is. On September 3, 2008 Alaska Governor and vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin delivered a speech at the Republican National Convention that electrified the nation and instantly made her one of the most recognizable women in the world.

Former Secret Service agent opens window into private lives of presidents October 14th, 2009 Jamie Weinstein In his In the President’s Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents they Protect, journalist Ronald Kessler gives us a peek inside the intimate lives of our presidents. Through interviews with over 100 secret service agents from the past and present—dating all the way back to John F. Kennedy—Kessler paints a picture of what our presidents are like when no one is looking. They're always watching. We learn from the agents Kessler interviews that John F....

In honor of John Wooden's 99th birthday, here are 99 things you may, or may not, know about the legendary former UCLA basketball coach: 1. He was born in Martinsville, Ind., on Oct. 14, 1910. 2. Wooden led Martinsville High to the Indiana state title in 1927 and runner-up finishes in 1926 and 1928.

Corsi explains how policy-makers are manipulating the economic panic of our time to advance a "globalist" plan that would undermine American sovereighty.

LOS ANGELES -- Legendary former UCLA men's basketball coach John Wooden is celebrating his 99th birthday today with the release of a new book that he co-wrote. Wooden coached the Bruins to an unprecedented 10 NCAA championships in his final 12 seasons, including a record seven in a row from 1967 to 1973. ...In addition to his championships and 620-147 record as UCLA's coach from 1948 to 1975, Wooden was acclaimed for the values he espoused. He had three rules for his players -- don't use profanity, be on time and never criticize a teammate.

In 'Impossible Motherhood,' Irene Vilar, now a mother of two, writes of what led her to have 15 pregnancies ended. Reporting from Denver - Irene Vilar's house, a charming old place on a leafy block outside Denver, is a monument to her mothering. Half the downstairs has been transformed into a preschool, with picture books, educational toys and art supplies in organized disarray. Outside, her little girls, 3-year-old Lolita and 5-year-old Loretta, are decorating the walkway with brown-eyed susans plucked from the garden. It is a scene of almost magical domesticity. Inside, their mother, a striking 40-year-old literary agent with...

In a draft chapter that failed to make the final editor’s cut, the late Senator Ted Kennedy boasted that he had slept with more than 1,000 women during his life. The Senator also recounted that he was quite pleased that it only cost him a total of $10 million in hush money. “In a way, the drowning of Mary Jo helped keep down the costs,” Kennedy wrote. “My ability to skate on that convinced many of my subsequent conquests to be reasonable in their demands lest a similar fate befall them.” The chapter also expressed some regret over the Kopechne...

The Original Comeback Kid by: Malcolm A. Kline, October 08, 2009 American presidents of both parties, all too often, need to be appreciated at a distance. Of the 20th Century chief executives, perhaps only Ronald Reagan holds up well under scrutiny. Truly, the more you know about him, the more there is to like. Even a few academics are starting to appreciate him. “Political scientist Andrew Busch conducted a content analysis of major presidential speeches from Lyndon Johnson through Reagan and found that Reagan cited the Founders three to four times as often as his four predecessors,” Steven F. Hayward...

Fusing together entries on Fleming’s famous 00-agent and detailed information on cases of espionage, real-life spies, MI5, SIS, CIA, KGB, and others, Historical Dictionary of Ian Fleming’s James Bond asks the question: What proportion of Fleming’s output is authentic, and what comes directly from the his imagination?

The unprecedented pre-order sales of Sarah Palin’s memoir, Going Rogue, have prompted numerous attempts to either explain, or dismiss, her popularity. Steve Schmidt, the chief strategist for the McCain campaign, pins his hopes for the future on Mrs. Palin… squarely between her shoulder blades, with a knife. Says Schmidt: I think that she has talents, but my honest view is that she would not be a winning candidate for the Republican candidate in 2012, and in fact, were she to be the nominee, we would have a catastrophic election result. In the year since the election has ended, she has...

James Wesley Rawles is probably one of the foremost survival preparation experts in America today. His survivalblog.com website has more than 135,000 readers, he is frequently a guest on national radio shows, and he has been interviewed in many influential newspapers and magazines. The new reprint of his novel “Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse” has been hovering around the #100 mark on the Amazon ranking list for many months, which is a remarkable record. “Patriots” is a combination of a novel and a survivalism textbook, which made it difficult for the book to excel in both directions at the...

From the fringe left Daily Kos to mainstream media outlets such as CNN and MSNBC learned a tough lesson on Thursday as they awoke to find Sarah Palin's Autobiography Going Rogue: An American Life atop the pre-order best sellers lists and daily sales boards for Amazon, Barnes and Noble and nearly every other book retailer websites. The announcement of Palin's release date on Wednesday caused an outbreak of attacks on the former Vice Presidential candidate that would lead you to believe that she had announced a Presidential campaign rather than a book release. Thousands of Internet and print articles attacking...

Fifty one rejection letters -- that is the number Irene Vilar received before she finally found someone to publish a tale so extreme it would surely be fiction if it wasn't her personal story: A woman who says she had 15 abortions and describes it as an addiction. The book, Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict -- a graphic and disturbing tale of one woman's abortions and her personal quest to understand her actions -- is bound to provoke a fury when it is released next week. It is no surprise that publishers backed away. Ms. Vilar says the...