The On The Bookshelf Podcast

Anton Chaitkin's Second Volume in "Who We Are" series-19th century

 Anton Chaitkin, Historian and Author of Who We Are: America's Fight for Universal Progress, from Franklin to Kennedy: Volume II - 1830s to 1890s.

Against the darkness of feudalism and barbarism, 600 years ago, man’s creativity gained us amazing scientific knowledge and new capabilities. We developed the means to achieve a better life, and a better human race, not through breeding an elite and crushing our non-elite brothers, but by appreciating what we were accomplishing, what we were making possible, and humbly seeing that this was God’s gift to us, to improve and protect our species.

Yet a dangerous vulnerability in our character remained from the former dark times. We were mentally stuck, absurdly, as if we were illiterate peasants who lived in isolated villages, fearing and hating and brutal to outsiders whom they did not know to be akin to themselves -- human.

This is suicidal to human society. A society that is advancing always uses individual gain and benevolent action toward others, coupled together. But we would be trapped in these darker mindsets except when better leadership and bolder innovators taught us to use these new-found powers to help ourselves forward.

Who We Are by Anton Chaitkin is a work of patriotic dissent, written to challenge the direction in which America has been led by globalist elites. Chaitkin argues that the United States is being misgoverned by individuals who serve the interests of a transnational financial and political clique, rather than the American people.

The book examines how the country has been drawn into perpetual wars, while its infrastructure and public services deteriorate. Meanwhile, vast wealth circulates in unregulated offshore accounts and speculative markets, fueling corruption and military aggression.

Chaitkin calls for a return to America’s founding principles of progress, sovereignty, and industrial development. He believes that only a deep, honest investigation of American and world history—free from the distortions of imperial narratives—can reveal how the nation was derailed, and how it might still recover.

Who We Are explains:

• How the USA rose to industrial power, high living standards, and world influence

• Who promoted this rise, by what strategy and through which projects

• Who has opposed the nation’s progress, and for what reasons.

Only this contrast of the two operative sides – the republic versus the empire - will allow the reader to see:

• How we have gone wrong

• How other nations – some deemed our enemies -- have adopted policies which made America successful, policies which we have abandoned; and

• How our misleaders represent the interests we have always had to fight against to win national progress.

We have to know ourselves, in order to build a new philosophy for our society.

The True Story of Dark Mney Network ARABELLA of Leftist Billionaires

Scott Walter, author of Arabella: The Dark Money Network of Leftist Billionaires Secretly Transforming America.(Encounter Books)

Exposes Arabella Advisors as a major "dark money" operation that channels billions into progressive causes through opaque networks and deceptive grassroots groups, revealing its significant influence on U.S. politics and its far-reaching impact on issues from Supreme Court nominations to election manipulation.

The Gates Foundation decided in late June to halt making grants to nonprofit funds administered by the consulting firm Arabella Advisors. 

Some nonprofits that work with Arabella are already seeking distance from the firm in order to preserve their relationships with the Gates Foundation, which primarily supports health initiatives around the globe.In addition to its consulting work on behalf of nonprofits and philanthropists, Arabella also manages several “dark money” funds that support Democrats and the progressive movement.

The Gates Foundation has disbursed or pledged about $450 million to nonprofit funds administered by Arabella over the last sixteen years, according to the foundation’s records. It is one of the earliest, and largest, backers of nonprofit funds managed by Arabella.

 

Over the last few years, Arabella has become a target of conservative watchdogs because of its work with groups that funnel money toward progressive causes. With President Trump back in the White House, the political risks have only mounted.They, and others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal and sensitive conversations.

While billionaires like George Soros, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett are well known as left-wing megadonors transforming the country’s politics, few Americans know about Arabella Advisors, a “dark money” operation that channels much of this money into particular causes via pop-up groups designed to look like grassroots outfits. Citizens across the spectrum will be shocked to learn how Arabella’s empire secretly operates using arrangements that produce the darkest of “dark money.”

Thanks to the author and his colleagues at the Capital Research Center, which first exposed Arabella, even the mainstream press have begun to report on this scandalous story. As this book reveals, Arabella is a major player in battles over Supreme Court nominations, environmentalism, abortion, Medicare for All, fake local news outlets, “Zuck Bucks” that manipulate election offices, lawsuits brought by Democratic super-lawyer (and Steele dossier booster) Marc Elias, and much more.

The money is staggering. In the 2018 election cycle, Arabella’s nonprofits took in $1.2 billion, more than double the fundraising of the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee combined. In the 2020 election cycle, Arabella’s fundraising spiked to $2.4 billion.

This mountain of money explains why the left-leaning major media are alarmed. Arabella is “the indisputable heavyweight of Democratic dark money,” warns the Atlantic. A “dark-money behemoth,” says Politico. An “opaque network,” says the New York Times, that funnels “hundreds of millions of dollars through a daisy chain of groups supporting Democrats and progressive causes.”

Scott Walter is president of Capital Research Center. He served in the George W. Bush Administration as Special Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy and was vice president at the Philanthropy Roundtable, editing Philanthropy magazine and producing donor guidebooks on aid to the poor, public policy research, and other topics. Walter has testified on “dark money” nonprofits to the US House and Senate, IRS, and state legislatures. He has written for and been quoted in such outlets as the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Dr. Beth Felker Jones explains "Why I Am a Protestant"

What does it mean to be Protestant? How can its strengths shape faith in the modern world, and how should its challenges be addressed? With clarity, warmth, and theological depth, Beth Felker Jones explores these questions in Why I Am Protestant. This book
offers a positive, theologically grounded reflection on both the beauty and complexity of the Protestant tradition, inviting readers into a deeper understanding of the Protestant faith and its place within the broader Christian community.

Alex Marlow on the Weaponization of US law against Donald Trump

 

Alex Marlow, editor-in-chief of Breitbart News and two-time New York Times bestselling author of Breaking the News and Breaking Biden, returns with his third book: BREAKING THE LAW: EXPOSING THE WEAPONIZATION OF AMERICA'S LEGAL SYSTEM AGAINST DONALD TRUMP (Threshold Editions), a fearless and thoroughly researched exposé on the new political battleground: the American legal system. In this urgent and gripping book, Marlow turns his sharp investigative lens to the legal cases targeting President Donald Trump-and what they mean for the future of the conservative movement and the rule of law in America. BREAKING THE LAW reveals how legal institutions are being repurposed as political weapons. Marlow not only exposes the players and tactics behind this unprecedented campaign but also makes bold predictions about where this trend is heading-and what conservatives must do to fight back. Hailed "a must read" by President Trump, Marlow's book is both timely and timeless. It's the first major retrospective on the 2024 election and how the legal war on Trump influenced voters, media narratives, and the conservative base. This is Alex Marlow at his most uncompromising and clear-eyed.

With the same meticulous reporting and narrative drive that defined his previous works, BREAKING THE LAW offers a provocative and authoritative response to one of the most consequential legal and political stories of our time.

Alexander Marlow is the New York Times bestselling author of BREAKING THE NEWS and BREAKING BIDEN. He serves as editor in chief of Breitbart News Network, where he started as Andrew Breitbart's first employee at the age of twenty-one. He is also a national talk radio host and podcaster. Alex has been on the cover of Time and Newsweek, named in Forbes's 30 Under 30, and called "perhaps the most significant media figure in America."

Jane Esiner with a fascinating and insightful Carole King bio

“Carole King: She Made the Earth Move” Jane Eisner (Yale Jewish Lives/Yale Univ. Press)

This is the story of the woman who wrote many of the songs that are the soundtrack of my life, and probably yours as well. Yet her life story is little known, in part because she has spent most of her life somewhat afraid of the spotlight and disdainful of celebrity. Did you know Carole King has been married four times (none of them to James Taylor!), she has four children, and her oldest, Louise, is her manager; that she went to extraordinary local public schools in Brooklyn, starting her career as a teen?

Carol (no “e” at the end, that came later) Joan Klein King Goffin Larkey Evers Sorensen, of Brooklyn, then Los Angeles, then extremely rural Idaho, was the daughter of first-generation Americans whose own parents has escaped pogroms in Russia to travel for a fresh start in the USA. Her parents met at Brooklyn College in 1936 where Sidney Klein was a chemistry major and Eugenia Cammer was an English and Drama major. Their marriage was troubled, they separated, reconciled, and eventually divorced.

Carole was born in 1942; she had a younger brother (Richard) who was born in 1948 deaf and extremely mentally challenged so he was institutionalized. The piano in the Klein household became a link between mother and daughter, and it would be Carole’s spaceship to adventure and musical joy. Promoted ahead of her peers she started junior at age 10, smart, talented, petite, and not as mature as her classmates. Carole would begin high school at age 13. She would graduate in 1958. But “her life was shaped by two dramatic trends in postwar America: the rapid decline in antisemitism, and the flourishing of popular music youth culture.”

She fell in with young musicians like Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel, and Neil Sedaka; peers who were all writing songs. Neil introduced her to Ahmet Ertegun, who with Jerry Wexler headed up Atlantic Records. The next day she went to see Don Costa at ABC-Paramount Records who offered her a contract. Soon, she met Gerry Goffin, and they made magic music together. They also got married and made two babies. They got a record contract with Don Kirshner of Aldon Music in the legendary Brill Building.

Their fellow composers and lyricists there included Lieber and Stoller, Bacharach and David, Sedaka and Greenfield, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Berry and Greenwich! Carole wrote and arranged constantly, and she and Gerry were asked to write for the Shirelles, a hot new girl group. Their song? “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” They became the first Black female group to have a #1 hit and a million-seller. The team of King & Goffin became legendary. Many great songs followed, hits for all kinds of young singers. Sadly Gerry was bipolar, and their marriage didn’t survive. She and the two girls moved to California, she met Toni Stern and another team was born. A second career resulted in a second husband, and two more kids. But the male relationship that lasted a lifetime for Carole was completely platonic and natural and easy: James Taylor.

The next huge step: 1971’s iconic album, Tapestry, one of the most important LPs ever. It lasted on the Top 200 Billboard Album charts for 46 years after winning 4 Grammys! She was home nursing a new baby and her produced Lou Adler accepted them for her. More successful albums followed (and two more disastrous marriages, the last of which took her and the kids to Idaho for “a five-year adventure”. Carole King was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as songwriter with Gerry Goffin in 1990, and in 2011 as a singer. In 2014, a musical about her life (Beautiful) opened on Broadway.