Helen Plum Library

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...

Eight of the last twelve presidents were millionaires when they took office. Millionaires have a majority on the Supreme Court, and they also make up majorities in Congress, where a background in business or law is the norm and the average member has spent less than two percent of his or her adult life in a working-class job. Why is it that most politicians in America are so much better off than the people who elect them- and does the social class...

In this remarkable book Republican Dennis Hastert (R-IL) passes on the lessons he learned from his long political career.

The United States today faces unprecedented problems at home and abroad, and numerous commentators have suggested the country shows signs of civilizational decline analogous to the fall of Rome. In Horse Sense for the New Millennium, author Wesley Allen Riddle offers a lens for interpreting modern political events and presents a conservative commentary on American life and politics during the first decade of the 21st Century. The time and events detailed...

An insightful rethinking of the meaning of the First Amendment's protection of religious freedom.   The Founders understood religious liberty to be an inalienable natural right. Vincent Phillip Muñoz explains what this means for church-state constitutional law, uncovering what we can and cannot determine about the original meanings of the First Amendment's Religion Clauses and constructing a natural rights jurisprudence of religious liberty.   ...

Recent research on the U.S. House of Representatives largely focuses on the effects of partisanship, but the strikingly less frequent studies of the Senate still tend to treat parties as secondary considerations in a chamber that gives its members far more individual leverage than congressmen have. In response to the recent increase in senatorial partisanship, Why Not Parties? corrects this imbalance with a series of original essays that focus exclusively...

The U.S. Senate is a book in the Fundamentals of American Government civics series, exploring the inner workings of this important part of the legislative branch. As with Selecting a President, this book is written for all audiences, but voiced toward high school seniors and college freshmen-or any citizen interested in a concise yet authoritative exploration of this representative entity. Written by former Senator Tom Daschle, and co-written by acclaimed...

They come to Washington for varied and complex reasons-driven perhaps by some deep emotional commitment to an issue, or believing that their time in Congress can make their dream of the presidency a reality. No matter what their motivation or particular route, freshmen have three traits in common: they will be members of one of the most powerful deliberative bodies on the planet; they will have far less leverage and influence than they might have...

La literatura hegemónica sobre la Constitución de 1978 suele referirse a un texto constitucional aprobado tras un proceso modélico de transición de la dictadura a la democracia y que recoge las modernas tendencias del constitucionalismo europeo. Una Constitución exitosa, por tanto, que ha dado pie a la época de mayor desarrollo social y económico de la historia de España. Frente a este relato, existe otra lectura no tan entusiasta, ciertamente...

Washington is no longer about lawmaking, it's about moneymaking Conventional wisdom holds that Washington is broken because outside special interests bribe politicians. The reverse is true: politicians have developed a new set of brass-knuckle legislative tactics designed to extort wealthy industries and donors into forking over big donations - cash that lawmakers often funnel into the pockets of their friends and family. Inside this best-selling...