Steven D. Levitt: Freakonomics

Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner are economists who use statistical analysis to answer very common questions. And sometimes the answers aren't anything like what you would expect them to be.

While this is not technically a "conservative book" and Levitt is certainly not a "conservative author," I include it here because this book so enrages liberals. But to be fair about it... parts of the book also enrages conservatives too.

The book is a collection of 'economic' articles written by Levitt, an expert who has already gained a reputation for applying economic theory to diverse subjects not usually covered by "traditional" economists; he does, however, accept the standard neoclassical microeconomic model of rational utility-maximization.

In Freakonomics, Levitt and Dubner argue that economics is, at root, the study of incentives.

The book's topics include:
Chapter 1: Discovering cheating as applied to teachers and sumo wrestlers
Chapter 2: Information control as applied to the Ku Klux Klan and real-estate agents
Chapter 3: The economics of drug dealing, including the low earnings of crack dealers
Chapter 4: The role legalized abortion has played in reducing crime.
Chapter 5: The negligible effects of good parenting on education
Chapter 6: The socioeconomic patterns of naming children

One example of the authors' use of economic theory involves demonstrating the existence of cheating among sumo wrestlers. In a sumo tournament, all wrestlers in the top division compete in 15 matches and face demotion if they do not win at least eight of them. The sumo community is very close-knit, and the wrestlers at the top levels tend to know each other well.

The authors looked at the final match, and considered the case of a wrestler with seven wins, seven losses, and one fight to go, fighting against an 8-6 wrestler. Statistically, the 7-7 wrestler should have a slightly below even chance, since the 8-6 wrestler is slightly better. However, the 7-7 wrestler actually wins around 80% of the time. 

Levitt uses this statistic and other data gleaned from sumo wrestling matches, along with the effect that allegations of corruption have on match results, to conclude that those who already have 8 wins collude with those who are 7-7 and let them win, since they have already secured their position for the following tournament.

Despite round condemnation of the claims by the Japan Sumo Association following the book's publication in 2005, the 2011 Grand tournament in Tokyo was cancelled for the first time since 1946 because of allegations of match fixing.

The authors attempt to demonstrate the power of data mining. Many of their results emerge from Levitt's analysis of various databases, and asking the right questions. The authors hypothesize that various incentives encourage teachers to cheat by assisting their students with multiple-choice high-stakes tests.

Such cheating in the Chicago school system is inferred from detailed analysis of students' answers to multiple choice questions. But first Levitt asks, "What would the pattern of answers look like if the teacher cheated?" The simple answer: difficult questions at the end of a section will be more correct than easy ones at the beginning.

Dubner and Levitt

Perhaps the most controversial part of the book is Chapter 4, which uses statistical data to prove that the legalization of abortion in 1973 resulted in fewer neglected and unwanted children, and the net result was that 20 years later there was a dramatic decrease in the crime rate.

As uncomfortable as that theory sounds, it is hard to refute. Conservatives claimed that the crime rate came down due to "right to carry" laws and tougher sentencing guidelines. Liberals claimed that the crime rate went down due to gun restrictions like the Brady Bill. It turns out they were both wrong. The truth was... an entire generation of criminals simply wasn't born.

Mark Levin: Men In Black

Mark R. Levin is a brilliant attorney, an author and the host of American syndicated radio show The Mark Levin Show. He also held several posts in the Reagan Administration.

He is president of the Landmark Legal Foundation, has authored bestselling books and contributes commentary to various media outlets such as National Review Online where he is a currently credited author.

This is Levin's first book, written in 2005, and is subtitled: How The Supreme Court Is Destroying America.  Levin advanced his thesis that activist judges on the Supreme Court (from all parts of the political spectrum) have "legislated from the bench."

Men in Black is a forceful indictment of what Levin identifies as an increasingly 'activist' court for amending our national Constitution in the guise of construing it.

Levin, accuses the Supreme Court of corrupting the ideals of America's founding fathers. The court, Levin explains, has pursued an ideology-based activist agenda that oversteps its authority within the government. Levin examines several decisions in the court's history to illustrate his point, beginning with the landmark Marbury v. Madison case, wherein the court granted itself the power to declare acts of the other branches of government unconstitutional.

He devotes later chapters to other key cases culminating in modern issues such as same-sex marriage and the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill.

Like effective attorneys do, Levin packs in copious research material and delivers his points with tremendous vigor, excoriating the justices for instances where he feels strict constitutional constructivism gave way to biased interpretation.

This is a powerful well written book that makes a strong case for judicial restraint, and a return to strict constructivism rather than allowing judges to legislate from the bench.

Another highly recommended book from The Conservative Review.

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Michelle Malkin: Culture of Corruption

Michelle Malkin (née Maglalang; born October 20, 1970) is an American conservative blogger, political commentator, and author. Her weekly syndicated column appears in a number of newspapers and websites.

Her fourth and most recent book  Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies,  was released in July 2009 and was a The New York Times Non-Fiction, Hardcover Best Seller for six weeks.

Malkin said she hoped the book would "shatter completely the myths of hope and change in the new politics in Washington", described the Obama administration as run by "influence peddlers, power brokers and very wealthy people."

Malkin rightfully calls this administration "one of the most corrupt administrations in recent memory."

Michelle Malkin has done an excellent job of laying out a coherent, well-researched, and systematic roadmap of corruption, self-serving favors, and criminal activity all linked to our President and his network of thug insiders. She clearly lays out the proven links between the players and the overwhelming evidence of the role of money and corruption on how things get done in Washington. 

In chapter two of the book, "Bitter Half: First Crony Michelle Obama", she describes Michelle Obama as "steeped in the politics of the Daley machine" and as having based her professional career on nepotism and old white boy network connections.

Never before in our history has an administration taken office with more inflated expectations of turning Washington around. Never have a media-anointed American Idol and his entourage fallen so fast and hard. In her latest investigative tour de force, and Malkin delivers a powerful, damning, and comprehensive indictment of the culture of corruption that surrounds Team Obama's brazen tax evaders, Wall Street cronies, petty crooks, slum lords, and business-as-usual influence peddlers.

In Culture of Corruption, Malkin reveals:

* Why nepotism beneficiaries First Lady Michelle Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are Team Obama's biggest liberal hypocrites--bashing the corporate world and influence-peddling industries from which they and their relatives have benefited mightily
* What secrets the ethics-deficient members of Obama's cabinet--including Hillary Clinton--are trying to hide
* Why the Obama White House has more power-hungry, unaccountable "czars" than any other administration
* How Team Obama's first one hundred days of appointments became a litany of embarrassments as would-be appointee after would-be appointee was exposed as a tax cheat or had to withdraw for other reasons
* How Obama's old ACORN and union cronies have squandered millions of taxpayer dollars and dues money to enrich themselves and expand their power
* How Obama's Wall Street money men and corporate lobbyists are ruining the economy and helping their friendsIn Culture of Corruption, Michelle Malkin lays bare the Obama administration's seamy underside that the liberal media would rather keep hidden.

Michelle Malkin

The administration that promised "hope and change" and a new transparency in government has provided nothing of the sort.

We just have repackaged cronyism and corruption wrapped in the guise of "change we can believe in." Same favoritism and corruption, just different crooks lining their pockets and feasting at the government trough.

This book is a must read for every American. Malkin lays out a powerful well documented case that exposes the hype and spin and uncovers the truth about this corrupt cabal of self serving thugs. I recommend this book highly.

David Horowitz: The Art of Political War

This isn't a new book, it was first published in 2000. But it is an essential book if you want to understand how a small group of radicals can seize control of our government and our culture.

The author David Horowitz, a former leftwing radical himself, explains how the radical left has become so successful in dominating our nation. They do this in the same way all successful enterprises operate: they work harder at it, and they want it more than than their adversaries do.

They are willing to take more risk, and they are willing to bend or break laws to achieve their ends.  Essentially, this is a war in which only one side is doing the actual fighting.

The conservatives play by all the rules, and take their inevitable defeats graciously. The liberals will employ any means or method to win, because for them winning is essential.

Conservatives usually blame their failures on the media or unscrupulous opponents, and fail to see the real culprit is themselves. This book shatters the complacency of establishment conservatives. David Horowitz shows how Bill Clinton's generation, having mastered the art of political war, has spent the last ten years clobbering conservatives in and out of government. The best-selling author of Hating Whitey and Other Progressive Causes has the strategy to fight back.

Horowitz explains that the radical left has an innate advantage that skews the playing field towards them. They all come from an activist background, so they understand how to manipulate the masses. They all were in the Anti-War Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, the Women's Rights Movement, the Environmental Movement, or the Gay Liberation Movement. Meanwhile, the conservatives all come from the Rotary Clubs, the Junior Chamber of Commerce and the Boy Scouts.

Eventually, the radical left elected their own President, a man whose only work experience was as a "community organizer" for a radical group.

Anti war protests have stopped. Obama won, and it's his war now.

This book is actually a collection of essays, the first one being the largest and most important.  Horowitz opens his book with the six principles of politics that liberals understand and conservatives do not.

He next warns against the essentially liberal inclination to supervise the lives of a "helpless" citizenry. This "Puritan impulse" promises shipwreck for conservatives who fail to keep liberty as their watchword.

The success of the left is nowhere more evident than in the politics of race.

Revisiting a recent controversy in which Time branded him a "real live bigot," Horowitz probes an ugly strain of left-wing racism and reflects on the prospects for true racial justice.

He concludes with a profile of the radical mentality-hidden but real-of the American left. In 1972, the bomb-throwers took their battle from the streets into the McGovern campaign and became the activist core of the Democratic Party. A genuine ideological left thus entered the heart of America's political culture.

Once a notorious radical himself, David Horowitz understands the mind of the left better than any other conservative. Horowitz was raised by parents who were members of the American Communist Party, and who took him on summer vacations to Moscow!

During the early 1970s, Horowitz developed a close friendship with Black Panther Party founder Huey P. Newton. In Horowitz's subsequent writings, Newton is depicted as equal parts gangster, terrorist, intellectual, and media celebrity.

As part of their work together, Horowitz helped raised money for Newton and assisted with the running of a school for the children of Party members. He further recommended that Newton hire a bookkeeper, Betty Van Patter, who was then working for Ramparts.

In December 1974, Van Patter's murdered body was found floating in San Francisco Harbor. Horowitz, who was certain that the Panthers were responsible, had his suspicions confirmed by several Party members.

He has cited that experience as the catalyst which led him to reject Marxism completely.

The Art of Political War is an indispensable guide for the battles of the campaign season and beyond. Anyone who wants a better understanding of how the radical left has achieved so much success should read this book.