Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton exposes Obama administration secrecy, secrets, and corruption by providing behind-the-scenes details of what America's leading government watchdog has uncovered in its and successful legal battles to pry loose secret documents from a stonewalling Obama administration.
Judicial Watch, America's largest non-partisan government watchdog, has investigated the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations. Judicial Watch is the group that helped impeach Bill Clinton and took the Bush White House secrecy all the way up to the Supreme Court. Since the beginning of the Obama administration, this grassroots group has filed over 700 open records demands and dozens of lawsuits, including a successful fight over the secret Obama White House visitor logs. In this book, Fitton reveals what Judicial Watch has uncovered in its battles on high-profile issues, such as the bailouts, Obamacare, terrorism, the Black Panther scandal, czars, the ACORN network, illegal immigration and stealth amnesty, the Obama White House's actions against FOX News Channel, and Obama's radical Chicago connections.
The book provides highlights of Judicial Watch's historic role in pursuing corruption and the truth during the Clinton and Bush administrations. "The Corruption Chronicles "comprehensively highlights how the Obama administration, which promised to be the most transparent administration in history, became the most secretive in a generation, and it exposes the inside facts that the Obama administration has desperately fought--sometimes in court--to keep from the American people. A major feature documentary film is slated to debut nationally in late Spring 2012 and will tie in to and support the release of "Secrets." Both the film and the book will educate the American public about the Obama White House's creation of a government "transparency crisis" in Washington, DC.

The three years covered by this anthology represent the only time in Mikhail Bakunin's life when he was able to concentrate on his work and sustain a consistent output of speeches and writings. Only one of these texts has appeared before in an unabridged English translation. All dating from the period of Bakunin's propaganda on behalf of the First International, they thus belong to a period central to Bakunin's anarchism and mark the height of his influence during his lifetime.
Robert M. Cutler's introduction traces the development of selected themes in Bakunin's pre-anarchist thought--beginning with his acquaintanceship with German idealist philosophy-- through his anarchist period. In this way it reconstructs Bakunin's concept of the role of the International in the revolutionary movement and provides a new interpretation of his theory and practice of revolutionary organization. The chronology and annotated bibliography make this collection an ideal introduction to Bakunin and a useful reference work for specialists.

The thesis of this book is that people enter into social contracts because they are different from one another and have incentives to cooperate. In economic life, people have identical interests-namely, their own se- interests-so they have an incentive to compete. The social worlds that we create, or map, and those that are already mapped for us are increasingly complex, and thus the tracking of rationality is not so straightforward, although it is everywhere evident. In a sense, this book grew out of two questions: Why hasn't the United States had a second revolution? Or is the revolution yet to come? Many have discussed the current crises that confront contemporary society, such as great economic inequalities, poverty, the declining quality of jobs, the growing power of corporate elites, and racial antago nisms. I attempt to understand these problems in terms of the radical restructuring of social life by economic and spatial forces. My specula tive thesis is that social organizations must reinforce social contracts and nurture the opportunities for them to be forged. However, contemporary organizations, particularly economic ones, have internalized the princi ples of economic markets, thereby inducing competition and easing out cooperation. In defining social contracts, I draw from Rousseau and also from Marx and his analysis of use value. One hopes that new organiza tional forms based on principles of democracy and community will evolve. In a diverse, multicultural society, this requires great mutual understanding and cooperation and the recognition of differences."

'Walter Berns's latest book is must reading for every judge, law student, or member of the general public who wants to know more about our Federal Constitution. Berns concisely and clearly relates the history of the document but brings it down into modern, everyday life with an excellent discussion of the difference between 'rights' and 'interests' which keep getting confused by the United States Supreme Court.'

Unlike texts that overwhelm with irrelevant details, Kollman gives students a simple framework, consistently applied: politics is about collective dilemmas and the institutions that solve them. How can 535 members of Congress get anything done? The committee system. How can the president change immigration policy? Executive orders. How do we get people to the polls? Voter mobilization strategies. Kollman's concise text gets to the conceptual heart of political science.

These essayists examine the future of the Commonwealth and Canada's role as an independent nation participating fully in both the Commonwealth and in the wider association of the United Nations.

his new offering from AP (R) teacher Karen Waples and college professor Scott Abernathy is tailor-made to help teachers and students transition to the redesigned AP (R) U. S. Government and Politics course. Carefully aligned to the course framework, this brief book is loaded with instructional tools to help you and your students meet the demands of the new course, such as integrated skills instruction, coverage of required cases and documents, public policy threaded throughout the book, and AP (R) practice after every chapter and unit, all in a simple organization that will ease your course planning and save you time. We've got you covered!

This first time in paperback is the best comprehensive examination of the development of constitutionalism in Poland. In particular, this book examines Poland's long-term constitutional history, the adoption of a new constitutional framework after 1989, and the establishment of structures and procedures designed to institutionalize enduring respect for constitutional rules and principles. Notwithstanding continuing challenges in Poland, the groundwork for constitutionalism based on notions of limited government and reflective of European constitutional norms has emerged from the collapse of the communist system of power.

In These Estimable Courts Damon Cann and Jeff Yates explore how citizens feel about the government institutions at the front lines of jurisprudential policy-making in America - our nation's state and local courts. The book's central focus concerns a primary question of governance - why do people support and find legitimate the institutions that govern their lives? Cann and Yates evaluate the factors that drive citizens' support for their state and local courts and that influence peoples' perceptions of the proper role of these courts in our society, as well as how judicial policy-making should be made. A viable democracy depends upon citizen belief in the legitimacy of government institutions. Nowhere is this more evident than in judicial institutions. Courts depend heavily on a reservoir of public good will and institutional legitimacy to get their decrees obeyed by the public and implemented by other policy actors. It enables courts to weather the storm of counter-majoritarian decisions and remain effective governing bodies whose edicts are respected and followed. These Estimable Courts takes advantage of new original survey data to evaluate citizens' beliefs about the legitimacy of state courts as well as a number of important related concerns. These include peoples' views concerning how judges decide cases, the role of judges and courts in policy-making, the manner in which we select judges, and finally, the dynamics of citizens' views regarding compliance with the law and legal institutions.

"Your Rugged Constitution" was first published sixty-four years ago. It quickly became a go-to resource for generations of young Americans (and some older ones too) who wanted to understand the guiding principles of our nation. Now in reissue, this truly rugged and much-admired classic is sure to inform, and also delight readers with its retro 1950s ethos. "Your Rugged Constitution" proceeds through the text of the Constitution with descriptions that are put in clear, easy-to-understand language, accompanied by commentary and lively drawings so you can easily grasp all the ideas and concepts. Under each section and clause, you (yes, you, fellow American ) learn which powers you give to the federal government, and what you get in return. "Your Rugged Constitution" helps readers understand that the Constitution is no mere historical document, but an important contract between you and your government.

This book provides up-to-date coverage of developments in British government and politics written by a team of leading experts. An indispensable reference book, it covers the entire political year and includes chapters on the constitution, government and administration, the law, Parliament, public policy, devolution, foreign policy, relations with the EU, local government, elections and public opinion, the party system, pressure politics, the media and democracy, plus a statistical appendix.

Participatory governance has a long history in India and this book traces historical-intellectual trajectories of participatory governance and how older Western discourses have influenced Indian policymakers. While colonial rulers devolved power to accommodate dissenting voices, for independent India, participatory governance was a design for democratizing governance in its true sense. Participation also acted as a vehicle for localizing governance. The author draws on both Western and non-Western theoretical treatises and the book seeks to conceptualize localizing governance also as a contextual response. It also makes the argument that despite being located in different socio-economic and political milieu, thinkers converge to appreciate localizing governance as perhaps the only reliable means to democratize governance. The book aims to confirm this argument by reference to sets of evidence from the Indian experience of localizing governance. By attempting a genealogy of participatory governance in the West and in India, and an empirical study of participatory governance in India, the book sheds light on the exchange of ideas and concepts through space and time, thus adding to the growing body of literature in the social sciences on 'conceptual flow'. It will be of interest to political scientists and historians, in particularly those studying South Asia.

Providing a unique resource for readers seeking to understand the relationship between presidents, parties, and Congress, this book offers a new explanation of the motivations, strategies, and impacts of presidential midterm campaigns. Congress has been shaped by an unlikely force-presidential involvement in midterm campaigning. This book argues that midterm campaigning is a presidential Trojan horse and that in undertaking it, presidents have brought their parties to heel; indebted individual representatives and senators to them; and broken the ability of Congress to effectively check the executive office. Midterm Campaigning and the Modern Presidency looks at why presidential midterm campaigning emerged during the post-war period and why it did not emerge sooner; it then describes how presidents have shrewdly coordinated their midterm actions to not only shore up their immediate needs but also to remake in their own image both their party and Congress as a whole. Not merely about any particular election or candidate, the book shows that presidential midterm campaigning has a lasting impact on the behavior of Congress and on the future course of American political affairs. Examines all presidential midterm campaigning from 1954 (the inception of the "imperial" presidency) through 2014 Includes case studies of nine presidents as midterm campaigners: Johnson, Taft, FDR, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Clinton, Bush, and Obama Shows that presidents use campaigns not to aid their own party but to reshape it around their own ideological preferences Explains the relationship between presidential midterm campaigning and the U.S. party system Explores how presidential midterm campaigning affects subsequent Congressional behavior and federal elections

Offering an engaging overview of the U.S. presidency and all past presidents, this valuable tome asks a variety of questions, from the trivial to the topical, that further expands one's understanding of America's highest office. With an intriguing range of questions about religious affiliations, unusual backgrounds, and tidbits of odd trivia--from "Which president killed a man in a duel?" to "Who was the first Baptist to become president?"--this reference also covers former presidential candidates, first ladies, key appointments, and election results. Revealing important answers to foreign policy questions and decisions made during times of war, as well as presidential actions in times of economic boom and bust, isolationism and expansion, and economic policies and unusual anecdotes, this fun and absorbing anthology provides a thorough overview of more than 200 years of U.S. presidents.

Comparative study has emerged as the new frontier of constitutional law scholarship as well as an important aspect of constitutional adjudication. Increasingly, jurists, scholars, and constitution drafters worldwide are accepting that 'we are all comparativists now'. And yet, despite this tremendous renaissance, the 'comparative' aspect of the enterprise, as a method and a project, remains under-theorized and blurry. Fundamental questions concerning the very meaning and purpose of comparative constitutional inquiry, and how it is to be undertaken, are seldom asked, let alone answered. In this path-breaking book, Ran Hirschl addresses this gap by charting the intellectual history and analytical underpinnings of comparative constitutional inquiry, probing the various types, aims, and methodologies of engagement with the constitutive laws of others through the ages, and exploring how and why comparative constitutional inquiry has been and ought to be pursued by academics and jurists worldwide. Through an extensive exploration of comparative constitutional endeavours past and present, near and far, Hirschl shows how attitudes towards engagement with the constitutive laws of others reflect tensions between particularism and universalism as well as competing visions of who 'we' are as a political community. Drawing on insights from social theory, religion, history, political science, and public law, Hirschl argues for an interdisciplinary approach to comparative constitutionalism that is methodologically and substantively preferable to merely doctrinal accounts. The future of comparative constitutional studies, he contends, lies in relaxing the sharp divide between constitutional law and the social sciences. Comparative Matters makes a unique and welcome contribution to the comparative study of constitutions and constitutionalism, sharpening our understanding of the historical development, political parameters, epistemology, and methodologies of one of the most intellectually vibrant areas in contemporary legal scholarship.

The book edition of "Constitutions of the World from the late 18th Century to the Middle of the 19th Century" is the most complete and academically thorough collection of its kind. It contains constitutional documents from all over the world, written from 1776 to the end of the year 1849. This collection includes about 1,000 constitutions, human rights declarations, and draughts of constitutions that never came into force, from this period. These early constitutional documents were collected and examined in archives and libraries all over the world, as part of a project by the Deutsche Forschungs-gemeinschaft (German Research Foundation).Using the original documents, experts from American and European universities reconstructed the authentic constitution texts for each country, and annotated them in their respective original languages. Each volume contains a short introduction, a main part with the edited constitution documents of a country, comments and an index.The unique value of the complete edition lies in its making all constitutions, from the early phase of modern constitutionalism, accessible in a reliable, authentic text version for the first time. These constitutions were widely scattered until now and, in many cases, unknown.

The recent Iran-Contra experience brought to light how intricately the political process revolves around questions of who knows what and who decides what should be secret. In this provocative new book, David Sadofsky offers a comprehensive examination of the relationship between the structure of American government and the treatment of information. With an emphasis on Watergate, the Vietnam War, and Iran-Contra, the book reveals a structural dynamic in U.S. government that replicates deep conflict over the control of information. The conflict often takes on the dimensions of a Constitutional confrontation. "Knowledge as Power" explores the dynamics that lead to such confrontations as well as the resulting resolutions and information policies.

"Knowledge as Power" concludes that the presidency and general government bureaucracy project a conservative model for the control of information. They broadly gather information, use it as desired and limit its disclosure. Sadofsky demonstrates how this conservative model blocks Congress and the American people from valuable information and violates constitutional rights. Written from the premise that the key to understanding modern government is understanding its information policies, this book will be of great value to both students and scholars of American government, civil liberties, constitutional government, and public administration.

This book provides a timely and revealing account of women's constitutional strategies and struggles. It compares and contrasts the latest constitutional developments within the United Kingdom with women's past and present struggles in countries including Canada, the United States and South Africa. Through theoretical engagement and practical experiences, the contributors develop crucial arguments on the nature and effect of constitutional change, equality, women's rights and representation.

The book uses a biographical approach to analyse the potential for, forms of, and constraints upon bureaucratic leadership in modern government. Case studies, written by experts in the different fields, assess the impact of particular officials operating in Whitehall, the United States federal government, the health service, local government, and Europe. The book brings together an innovative methodology with a wide policy coverage.