Reading List

Tea Party Patriots: The Second American Revolution – Jenny Beth Martin and Mark Meckler

In 2009, an unemployed mother of two and a politically inexperienced northern California attorney met on a conference call that would end up starting one of the largest grassroots political organizations in American history, the Tea Party Patriots. Fueled by the fires of passion and patriotism, Mark Meckler and Jenny Beth Martin have become the faces of the most powerful political movement in the country, empowering their more than twenty million members by using both high-tech advances and the time-tested American tradition of rallying in public. Promoting the basic principles of the Tea Party Movement—free markets, limited government, and fiscal responsibility—the Tea Party Patriots have become the largest tea party organization in the world. With unparalleled access to the inner workings of the movement, Meckler and Martin hope to explain how the Tea Party came to be, what it is and is not, and perhaps most important, provide the first comprehensive, forward-looking document outlining a plan to restore America to its prior greatness. Never before has there been such an audience for this material. Americans of all political stripes have been waiting for a thorough and informative account of this movement. Straight from the co-founders themselves, Tea Party Patriots: The Second American Revolution promises to be the definitive source for a political revolution.

 

Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign That Changed America – Craig Shirley

As late as Election Day, headlines across the country blared that the race was “too close to call.” Even on the verge of his historic triumph in the 1980 presidential election, political observers continued to underestimate Ronald Wilson Reagan. In Rendezvous with Destiny, the long-awaited follow-up to his widely praised account of Reagan’s insurgent 1976 presidential campaign, Craig Shirley tells the incredible behind-the-scenes story of Reagan’s improbable run to the White House in 1980—of how the “too close to call” election became a landslide victory over incumbent Jimmy Carter and independent candidate John Anderson.

 

Reagan’s Revolution: The Untold Story of the Campaign That Started It All – Craig Shirley

Today’s political scene looks nothing like it did thirty years ago, and that is due mostly to Reagan’s monumental reshaping of the Republican Party. What few people realize, however, is that Reagan’s revolution did not begin when he took office in 1980, but in his failed presidential challenge to Gerald Ford in 1975-1976. This is the remarkable story of that historic campaign-one that, as Reagan put it, turned a party of “pale pastels” into a national party of “bold colors.” Featuring interviews with a myriad of politicos, journalists, insiders, and observers, Craig Shirley relays intriguing, never-before-told anecdotes about Reagan, his staff, the campaign, the media, and the national parties and shows how Reagan, instead of following the lead of the ever-weakening Republican party, brought the party to him and almost single-handedly revived it.

 

Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences Americans – Ben Shapiro

From the editor-at-large of Breitbart.com comes a galvanizing and alarming look at the strategy and tactics of leftist thuggery. While President Obama and the left like to pretend that they oppose bullying with all their hearts and souls, the truth is far darker: the left is the greatest purveyor of bullying in modern American history. Bullying has morphed into the left’s go-to tactic, as they attempt to quash their opponents through fear, threat of force, violence, and rhetorical intimidation on every major issue facing America today. Ben Shapiro uncovers the simple strategy used by liberals and their friends in the media: bully the living hell out of conservatives. Play the race card, the class card, the sexism card. Use any and every means at your disposal to demonize your opposition—to shut them up. Then pretend that such bullying is justified, because, after all, conservatives are the true bullies, and need to be taught a lesson for their intolerance. Hidden beneath the left’s supposed hatred of bullying lies a passionate love of its vulgar tactics.

 

Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto – Mark Levin

“Levin has delivered a stalwart conservative manifesto written by a conservative who doesn’t want to re-brand and repackage conservatism into liberalism. He draws on founding principles, not polls, to lay out the agenda for the Right — and to illuminate the fatal flaws of statism.” — Michelle Malkin

“This has the answer for everything you’ve asked yourself about yourself, and why you believe what you believe.” — Rush Limbaugh

“Mark Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto couldn’t be more relevant or important. It is a masterful restatement of conservative principles that is succinct…and yet comprehensive. It is thoughtful and deep but highly readable. It is timely yet timeless.” — David Limbaugh, TownHall.com

 

Free Market Revolution: How Ayn Rand’s Ideas Can End Big Government – Yaron Brook and Don Watkins

“Free Market Revolution will raise the ire of every statist, socialist and crony capitalist. Rand understood – as do the authors of this all-too-timely book – that free markets are, indeed, moral while Big Government is manifestly not.”—Steve Forbes

“A powerful and unapologetic case in support of capitalism. For those who think more government will solve our nation’s problems, Free Market Revolution will open your eyes. For those who can already see the light, it will sharpen your vision.”– Peter Schiff, CEO of Euro Pacific Capital, Inc., host of the Peter Schiff Show on www.SchiffRadio.com, and author of The Real Crash: America’s Coming Bankruptcy—How to Save Yourself and Your Country.

“Free Market Revolution is must-reading for an age in which the government seems to be treating Atlas Shrugged not as a warning, but as a how-to manual.”–Glenn Reynolds, Professor of Law at the University of Tennessee and blogger at Instapundit.

 

Shadowbosses: Government Unions Control America and Rob Taxpayers Blind – Mallory Factor

“The Tea Party Patriots’ three core values are free markets, fiscal responsibility and constitutionally limited government. All three values are under assault by Shadow bosses who fight for closed markets, fiscally irresponsible contracts and greater government (and government union) control. In the striking new book SHADOW BOSSES, Mallory Factor lifts the veil on the Shadow bosses’ game. A wake-up call to all Americans – and especially to parents of school-aged children in Shadow boss-controlled schools.” – Jenny Beth Martin, Co-Founder and National Coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots

 

Underdogma: How America’s Enemies Use Our Love for the Underdog to Trash American Power – Michael Prell

“Analyzing and refuting the common assumptions of anti-Americanism is a critical contribution to the global political debate. Thank goodness for this effort.” —UN Ambassador John Bolton, author of Surrender is Not an Option

David versus Goliath, the American Revolutionaries, “The Little Engine That Could,” Team USA’s “Miracle on Ice,” the Star Wars Rebel Alliance, Rocky Balboa, the Jamaican bobsled team and the meek inheriting the Earth.

Everyone, it seems, loves an underdog. Why is that?

We begin life tiny and helpless, at the mercy of those who are bigger and more powerful than us: parents and guardians who tell us what to eat, what to wear, how to behave (even when to sleep and wake up). From childhood into adulthood, we’re told what to do by those who wield more power—our parents, teachers, bosses government. So naturally, we have a predisposition to resent the overdogs and root for the little guy.

 

Democracy Denied: How Obama is Ignoring You and Bypassing Congress to Radically Transform America – and How to Stop Him – Phil Kerpen

Democracy Denied by Americans for Prosperity vice president Phil Kerpen is a guide to understanding and defeating the radical agenda that President Barack Obama is implementing by unilateral regulatory action through his agencies and czars. Democracy Denied exposes the Obama administration’s agenda that disregards the American people, Congress, and the U.S. Constitution–and offers a plan of action to stop it.

 

Common Sense Economics: What Everyone Should Know About Wealth and Prosperity – James D. Gwartney, Richard L. Stroup, Dwight R. Lee and Tawni Hunt Ferrarini

With minimum use of jargon, the authors aim to provide concise and organized insight into economics. Targeting both beginners and experienced executives, they teach basic principles and also provide perspective on the influence of political rules and policies on people and nations. Employing the popular convention of “lists,” the authors offer “Ten Key Elements of Economic Theory” (including there is no such thing as a free lunch; hence, we must choose among alternatives since productive resources are limited while human desire for goods and services is virtually unlimited); “Seven Major Sources of Economic Progress” (including the legal system); “Ten Elements of Clear Thinking about Economic Progress and the Role of Government” (competition, a disciplinary force, is as important in government as it is in markets); and “Twelve Key Elements of Practical Personal Finance” (including don’t finance anything for longer than its useful life, avoid credit-card debt, and purchase used items.) This is an excellent, readable primer in economics. Mary Whaley