How presidents use secrecy to protect the nation, foster diplomacy, and gain power Ever since the nation’s most important secret meeting—the Constitutional Convention—presidents have struggled to balance open, accountable government with necessary secrecy in military affairs and negotiations. For the first one hundred and twenty years, a culture of open government persisted, but new threats and technology have long since shattered the old bargains. Today, presidents neither protect vital information nor provide the open debate Americans expect. Mary Graham tracks the rise in governmental secrecy that began with surveillance and loyalty programs during Woodrow Wilson’s administration, explores how it developed during the Cold War, and analyzes efforts to reform the secrecy apparatus and restore oversight in the 1970s. Chronicling the expansion of presidential secrecy in the Bush years, Graham explains what presidents and the American people can learn from earlier crises, why the attempts of Congress to rein in stealth activities don’t work, and why presidents cannot hide actions that affect citizens’ rights and values.

Presidents’ Secrets: The Use and Abuse of Hidden Power

History

Graham, Mary

Americas

Yale University Press

Which SUVs are most likely to rollover? What cities have the unhealthiest drinking water? Which factories are the most dangerous polluters? What cereals are the most nutritious? In recent decades, governments have sought to provide answers to such critical questions through public disclosure to force manufacturers, water authorities, and others to improve their products and practices. Corporate financial disclosure, nutritional labels, and school report cards are examples of such targeted transparency policies. At best, they create a light-handed approach to governance that improves markets, enriches public discourse, and empowers citizens. But such policies are frequently ineffective or counterproductive. Based on an analysis of eighteen U.S. and international policies, Full Disclosure shows that information is often incomplete, incomprehensible, or irrelevant to consumers, investors, workers, and community residents. To be successful, transparency policies must be accurate, keep ahead of disclosers' efforts to find loopholes, and, above all, focus on the needs of ordinary citizens.

Full Disclosure: The Perils and Promise of Transparency

Business & Money

Weil, David

FUNG, Archon

Economics

Cambridge University Press

The Women of Faith® Devotional Bible provides women with the inspiration and resources needed to strengthen their walk with God and build stronger relationships with others. It helps women of all ages and stages in life--mature believers and those who have yet to believe, from all backgrounds, church and non-churched--to grow spiritually, emotionally, and relationally. 
Writers of the devotionals include the well-known and best-loved Women of Faith® speakers: Patsy Clairmont, Barbara Johnson, Marilyn Meberg, Luci Swindoll, Sheila Walsh, and Thelma Wells.
Contributing writers include: Kathy Troccoli, Jan Silvious, Jill Briscoe, Babbie Mason, Point of Grace, and many others.

Women of Faith Devotional Bible: New King James Version

Christian Books & Bibles

Barnes, Christie

Bibles

Thomas Nelson. Inc.

In December 1999, the Institute of Medicine shocked the nation by reporting that as many as 98,000 Americans died each year from mistakes in hospitals--twice the number killed in auto accidents. Instead of strict rules and harsh penalties to reduce those risks, the Institute called for a system of standardized disclosure of medical errors. If it worked, it would create economic and political pressures for hospitals to improve their practices. Since the mid-1980s, Congress and state legislatures have approved scores of new disclosure laws to fight racial discrimination, reduce corruption, and improve services. The most ambitious systems aim to reduce risks in everyday life--risks from toxic pollution, contaminants in drinking water, nutrients in packaged foods, lead paint, workplace hazards, and SUV rollovers. Unlike traditional government warnings, they require corporations and other organizations to produce standardized factual information at regular intervals about risks they create. Legislated transparency has become a mainstream instrument of social policy. Mary Graham argues that these requirements represent a remarkable policy innovation. Enhanced by computers and the Internet, they are creating a new techno-populism--an optimistic conviction that information itself can improve the lives of ordinary citizens and encourage hospitals, manufacturers, food processors, banks, airlines, and other organizations to further public priorities. Drawing on detailed profiles of disclosure systems for toxic releases, nutritional labeling, and medical errors, Graham explains why the move toward greater transparency has flourished during a time of regulatory retrenchment and why corporations have often supported these massive raids on proprietary information. However, Democracy by Disclosure, sounds a cautionary note. Just as systems of financial disclosure have come under new scrutiny in the wake of Enron's collapse, systems of social disclosure deserve careful examination. Behind the seemingly simple idea of transparency, political battles rage over protecting trade secrets, minimizing regulatory burdens, and guarding national security. Like other forms of regulation, disclosure systems can be distorted by narrow scope, flawed metrics, minimal enforcement, or failure to adapt to changing markets and public priorities. Graham urges designers of future systems to heed lessons from early experience to avoid misleading the public.

Democracy by Disclosure: The Rise of Technopopulism

Administrative Law

Brookings Institution Press

As we approach the 30th anniversary of Earth Day (the first of its kind was April 1970), congressional debate about environmental protection often remains paralyzed and polarized. But across the country, environmental pragmatism is gaining ground. The Morning after Earth Day explores how policymakers, business executives, and citizen groups are fighting novel political battles and sometimes making peace with surprising compromises. After a generation of progress in reducing large sources of industrial and municipal pollution and in improving management of public lands, today's environmental conflicts are more complex. They involve controlling pollution caused by farmers, small businesses, drivers of aging cars, and homeowners, as well as minimizing ecological threats on private land. Remedies often lie in politically treacherous territory--persuading ordinary people to change their daily routines rather than ordering big business to adopt new technology or government officials to manage land differently. As Mary Graham shows, practical approaches are resolving immediate disputes and providing clues for future policy. But core dilemmas remain. They include how to reconcile environmental protection with respect for private property, how to balance federal and state authority, and how much to rely on behavioral versus technological change. Only by reclaiming the debate about these dilemmas from extremists and confronting them head-on will the nation build a solid foundation for the next generation of environmental policy. Copublished with the Governance Institute

The Morning after Earth Day: Practical Environmental Politics

The Morning After Earth Day: Practical Environmental Politics

As we approach the 30th anniversary of Earth Day (the first of its kind was April 1970), congressional debate about environmental protection often remains paralyzed and polarized. But across the country, environmental pragmatism is gaining ground. The Morning after Earth Day explores how policymakers, business executives, and citizen groups are fighting novel political battles and sometimes making peace with surprising compromises. After a generation of progress in reducing large sources of industrial and municipal pollution and in improving management of public lands, today's environmental conflicts are more complex. They involve controlling pollution caused by farmers, small businesses, drivers of aging cars, and homeowners, as well as minimizing ecological threats on private land. Remedies often lie in politically treacherous territory--persuading ordinary people to change their daily routines rather than ordering big business to adopt new technology or government officials to manage land differently. As Mary Graham shows, practical approaches are resolving immediate disputes and providing clues for future policy. But core dilemmas remain. They include how to reconcile environmental protection with respect for private property, how to balance federal and state authority, and how much to rely on behavioral versus technological change. Only by reclaiming the debate about these dilemmas from extremists and confronting them head-on will the nation build a solid foundation for the next generation of environmental policy. Copublished with the Governance Institute

Science & Math

Earth Sciences

Brookings Institution Press and the Governance Institute

Amazing Freedom: Devotions to Free Your Spirit and Fill Your Heart

Forty devotionals told through diverse women authors offer a multidimensional view of why and how seekers can find amazing freedom in Christ.

Amazing Freedom: Devotions to Free Your Spirit And Fill Your Heart

Johnson, Barbara

Johnson, Nicole

Meberg, Marilyn

Clairmont, Patsy

Religion & Spirituality

W Pub Group

Infinite Grace: The Devotional (Women of Faith)

This lighthearted and inspirational collection of brand new devotions shares a message of grace with the warmth and wisdom fans have come to expect from Women of Faith.
Boundless Grace offers a love that has no limits, offering a spacious freedom for the woman who trusts in the Lord every day.
Unfathomable Grace reaches deep into the heart, showing that wherever you go, God is always there ahead of you.
Immeasurable Grace is the overflowing, never-ending fullness of life and joy hid in the heart of God for his children.
Eternal Grace shelters us through the storms of life and walks with us even through the valley of the shadow of death. 
Together, forty devotionals told through the authors' diverse voices give a multidimensional view of why and how we can find infinite grace in Christ. Includes a special tribute section remember Barbara Johnson. Sheila Walsh, Luci Swindoll, Mary Graham, Patsy Clairmont, Marilyn Meberg, Thelma Wells, Carol Kent, Sandi Patty, and others remind you that even if time is scarce in the busyness of life, God's grace never is!

Kent, Carol

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Books by Graham, Mary