Who would guess any of this from reading the mainstream media? Instead we read almost exclusively about how he freed Cuba from the greedy clutches of U.S. robber barons and bestowed his formerly downtrodden countrymen with free healthcare and education.

“Propaganda is vital–the heart of our struggle,” Castro wrote in 1965. And today the concept is as valid as ever. History records few recruitment drives and propaganda campaigns as phenomenally successful or as enduring as Castro and Che’s. It’s high time to expose the scam.

The Longest Romance documents how a fawning U.S. media abets Castro’s propaganda campaign and its astounding worldwide success. Castro’s colorful cachet as worldwide icon of anti-Americanism and as pioneering beatnik allows his record as a warmonger, racist/Stalinist and the godfather of modern terrorism to be forgiven, ignored and falsified. The Longest Romance exposes this record, the abettors and the falsifiers.

Also covered will be potential reforms to Medicare and Medicaid, two major entitlement programs that, if not reformed to ensure sustainability for those who really need these programs, will be bankrupt by 2024.

There are a number of important lawsuits that will come before the courts this year on issues such as the exchanges, employer and individual mandates, and the contraception mandate. These will be highlighted and their potential impact on the law will be discussed.

Finally, there is the issue of defunding the Medicaid expansion and the federal tax subsidies which, unless changed, will add tremendously to the cost of health care in this country. With the current fiscal crisis, these programs must be scaled back.

Like welfare reform, the battle to bring about meaningful health care reform is a long-term fight. We must not give up. The election of 2016 will be very important for the future direction of health care. A reform plan will be offered. If Obamacare is not repealed and replaced, the U.S. will be on the road to a single-payer, “Medicare for All” system such as exists in Canada. We, too, will face long waiting lists, rationed care, and a lack of access to the latest technology and treatments. Examples will be given. America will be on the “Road to Serfdom” and there will be no off-ramp.

In Flight of the Eagle, Conrad Black provides a perspective on American history that is unprecedented. Through his analysis of the strategic development of the United States, from 1754-1992, Black describes the nine “phases” of the strategic rise of the nation, in which it progressed through grave challenges, civil and foreign wars, and secured a place for itself under the title of “Superpower.” He addresses the present times and America’s future in the hopes that it will return to the dynamism of great leadership and pre-eminence in the world, which it richly earned and still shows signs of today.

America 2.0 was the transformation of American life by powered machinery. The shift toward corporate labor, and away from individual and family autonomy, led to economic insecurity for families and tradespeople. Americans demanded protections they had not needed in the past. At the same time, face-to-face local governance was replaced with increasingly distant and unaccountable bureaucracies, difficult-to-manage large cities, and the entanglement of government power with private business. The costs and burdens of this powerful, centralized state are becoming ever clearer. We are living in a period of crisis, as America 2.0 collapses around us.

Yet America 3.0 is already emerging. We have already begun to adapt our institutions and to forge new arrangements that are appropriate for a post-industrial, networked, decentralized society. The transition will not be smooth, but it is the only path forward. This book provides a roadmap to the American future, illuminated by fundamental insights into our deeply-rooted underlying culture of freedom and liberty.

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“Many pundits­­—and, polls say, most Americans—think America’s best days are behind us. In America 3.0 James Bennett and Michael Lotus argue that our best days are ahead—if we take the trouble to understand our past. We need to build on the unique American institutions that enabled previous generations to produce the successful agricultural America 1.0 and the even more successful industrial America 2.0 and to cast aside elements which prevent us from creating an even more successful post-industrial America 3.0.”

Michael Barone
Senior political analyst for The Washington Examiner, American Enterprise Institute resident fellow, and coauthor of The Almanac of American Politics

“Capitalism, argued Joseph Schumpeter, relies upon creative destruction. In recent years, we’ve seen a lot of destruction while the creation has been less appreciable, at least in the eyes of many. James Bennett and Michael Lotus offer a glimmering vision: we are at the dawn of a miraculous era of creativity. This is a valuable book not just for its hopeful vision of America’s destiny, but for its concrete insights into the forces and trends pushing us to our rendezvous with destiny.”

Jonah Goldberg
Editor at large National Review Online, author of Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning

“Obamacare just hasn’t caught on with the American people. It is still opposed and resisted by most Americans. That was not supposed to happen. Theorists of the blue social model (or America as Sweden) were confident that once in place, Obamacare would set down roots in American democracy and become immovable. But alternative models of health care—red social model alternatives—are increasingly demanded by the voters. That’s true in economics, social welfare, and almost every other department of government. James C. Bennett and Michael J. Lotus predict that America’s future will be a better version of its traditional past, rather than an imitation European Union. They argue their case brilliantly and persuasively. This book is in danger of giving conservative optimism a good name.”

John O’Sullivan
Editor at large National Review, author of The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister: Three Who Changed the World

Key episodes illustrate how the Founders dealt with thorny wartime issues: Who decides war strategy? When should we use military tribunals over civilian trials? Should we inflict harsh treatment on enemy captives if it means saving American lives? How do we protect citizens’ rights when the nation is struggling to defend itself? Beirne finds evidence in previously-unexplored documents such as General Washington’s letters debating torture, an eyewitness account of the military tribunal that executed a British prisoner, Founders’ letters warning against government debt, and communications pointing to a power struggle between Washington and the Continental Congress.

Vivid stories from the Revolution frame Washington’s pivotal role in the drafting of the Constitution. The Founders saw the first American commander in chief as the template for all future presidents: a leader who would fiercely defend Americans’ rights and liberties against all forms of aggression.

Blood of Tyrants pulls the reader directly into the scenes, filling the void in our understanding of the presidency and our ingenious Founders’ pragmatic approach to issues we still face today.

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“Gripping. Relevant. Revolutionary. This page-turning historical thriller is packed with fresh factual narratives that draw the reader into the scenes to show how the United States earned its stripes. The wisdom of 1776 was never more crucial than today.”

—Amy Chua
Yale Law School professor and best-selling author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, Day of Empire, and World on Fire

“What are the constitutional powers of the president in time of war? Do his war powers grant him authority to establish military tribunals, torture enemy prisoners, and override Congress in the determination of military strategy and operations? As Logan Beirne demonstrates in this fresh and stimulating history of the American Revolution, Commander-in-Chief George Washington confronted these questions and established precedents that have continued to shape presidential war powers down to our own time.”

—James McPherson
Princeton University professor emeritus, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom, and best-selling author of Crossroads of Freedom

“Blood of Tyrants strips away the fantasy and lays bare the violence and political intrigue needed for the American Revolution to succeed. Lurid, horrifying, scandalous. I could not put it down.”

—William Eskridge Jr.
Yale Law School professor, author of The Republic of Statutes, and descendant of George Eskridge, the godfather of George Washington

“What can we learn about America’s proper comportment in today’s dirty wars from a long-dead, white male, slave-owning aristocrat of the 18th century? A lot, it turns out. Logan Beirne’s paean to Washington’s wartime wisdom and belief in constitutional government is a timely, insightful, and much-needed reminder of why America does best at war when it honors rather than erodes its founding principles.”

—Victor Davis Hanson
Senior fellow in classics and military history at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, and author of Carnage and Culture and A War Like No Other

“This myth-defying book tells how our first commander in chief dealt with the hard issues of war, including military commissions, the rights of Americans, and the interference of Congress. Those who want an unvarnished account of how a great leader handled nasty and messy problems of war: prepare to be shocked, amazed, and educated.”

—Hon. Michael W. McConnell
Stanford Law School professor, director of the Stanford Constitutional Law Center, and former federal judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit

David Kopel explains why the right to keep and bear arms has always been central to the American identity, and why Americans have resisted gun control. The American Revolution was sparked by British attempts to confiscate guns. After the Civil War, America changed the Constitution to defeat America’s first gun control organization, the Ku Klux Klan. When Hitler and Stalin demonstrated how gun registration paves the way for gun confiscation which paves the way for genocide, Americans resolved to make sure it never happens here.

Gun control is not an issue of left vs. right, or urban vs. rural. Liberal icons such as Hubert Humphrey and Eleanor Roosevelt recognized the right to arms as fundamental to preventing large-scale tyranny by criminal governments, and small-scale tyranny by ordinary criminals. Barack Obama’s gun control program is founded on disinformation, and is a direct assault on the Constitution.

The result is a Libya that is today under the sway of heavily-armed jihadist brigades that make no secret of their allegiance to al-Qaeda, proudly flying the al-Qaeda flag in broad daylight in Benghazi and other Libyan cities. Moreover, as the September 11 Benghazi attacks make clear, if America reversed course in Libya in order to join forces with jihadists, the jihadists remain exactly as they ever were, with the same ideology and the same hatred of America.

Exploding the myth of NATO’s “humanitarian intervention,” The Jihadist Plot tells the real story of the Libyan rebellion. It traces the itineraries of some of the notorious veterans of international jihad who served as the rebellion’s leading commanders and strategists and shows how NATO helped to create a new jihadist hero at the siege of Sirte. And it reveals that long before the onset of the so-called Arab Spring, Libya’s own al-Qaeda affiliate, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, had devised a plan to bring down the Qaddafi regime using some of the classic methods of jihadist terror: a plan that would be put into practice in the rebellion of February 2011.

That country, the America of the 1920s, looks a lot like the America of today. One would think, then, that the President who successfully navigated these challenges, Calvin Coolidge, might be esteemed today. Instead, Coolidge’s record is little known, the result of efforts by both the left and right to distort his legacy.

Why Coolidge Matters revisits the record of our most underrated president, examining Coolidge’s views on governance, public-sector unions, education, race, immigration, and foreign policy. Most important, Why Coolidge Matters explains what lessons Coolidge—the last president to pay down the national debt—can offer the limited-government movement in the post-industrial age.

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“This is a very energetic and engaging amplification of the strong points of Coolidge’s presidency and administrative techniques. It is a welcome addition to the growing literature on whether Coolidge was, as Charles Johnson claims, an underrated and commendable leader, and not, as majority historical opinion has long held, a simplistic and dangerously detached president. It is a lively and imaginative case presented by a very promising young historian and commentator.”

—Conrad Black,
author of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom, Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full, and the recently published A Matter of Principle.

It turns out that our Cal wasn’t as silent as we thought. Coolidge’s life speaks volumes about the sad state of contemporary politics, and may offer a map for the way out. Charles Johnson’s smart and entertaining book about our witty, wise, and humane 30th president is a must-read for anyone who cares about the history of the presidency, or its future.

—Tucker Carlson, co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Daily Caller

In a time when we suffer from the follies of a celebrity president, Charles Johnson’s short sparkling account of Calvin Coolidge, the citizen president who valued experience over theory and individual accountability rather than social salvation, is a welcome occasion.

—Fred Siegel, scholar in residence at St. Francis College and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute

To preserve our freedom, we must recover both our principles and our past. Calvin Coolidge is a figure from the past who possessed profound knowledge of our principles and the eloquence to explain them. Charles Johnson—precocious, energetic, and knowledgeable himself—brings real ability to the work of recovering Coolidge, and so he helps us to better know our country and ourselves.

—Larry P. Arnn, president of Hillsdale College and author of The Founders’ Key

“Johnson’s book is essential reading for those interested in presidential leadership. He shines the spotlight on one of America’s most successful, yet unappreciated, chief executives. Knowing full well the proper use of executive power, Silent Cal had a steady hand on the ship of state. Johnson makes the case that Coolidge should enter the pantheon of America’s great Presidents.”

—John Yoo, law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

“Charles Johnson’s Why Coolidge Matters is a timely, riveting profile of one of America’s most unsung presidents. We all have much to learn from Calvin Coolidge’s adherence to thrift; devotion to his Christian faith; emphasis on character and civic virtue; and demonstrated commitment to public service and first principles. Myths on both the Left and Right abound about “Silent Cal.” Johnson’s vibrant scholarship clears the air and sheds new light on a commander-in-chief who modeled long-forgotten, but desperately needed, leadership traits of restraint, discipline, and prudence. As the conservative movement ponders its future, Why Coolidge Matters provides a compelling reason to look to its forgotten past for inspiration.”

—Michelle Malkin, author, blogger, and syndicated columnist