Joseph I. Lieberman - Böcker

“Child support in America is a national disgrace.  There is no more widespread and profoundly consequential example of lawlessness in our society today than fathers’ refusal to care for their children after divorce.”—Joseph I. Lieberman More than half the men in America who have been told by a judge to pay child support disobey the order, forcing millions of mothers and children to live in poverty.  In this much-needed book, Joseph I. Lieberman, attorney general of Connecticut and one of the country’s leading experts on the child-support problem, explains the laws and offers practical guidance on how women can avoid becoming victims of nonsupport. The first step is to arrive at an agreement that has a chance of being followed.  The book therefore describes in detail the factors that should be considered in negotiating a fair settlement—for example, how to determine the child’s needs at present and in the future; how to determine the father’s ability to pay and the mother’s to contribute; and how to protect the child’s financial rights in the event of the death of the father or his remarriage or relocation.  Later chapters provide advice on applying for a needed increase in the amount of child support-and on countering the father’s efforts to reduce his obligations. Throughout the book, Lieberman focuses on workable solutions.  For the individual mother, this may mean taking various steps to see that an existing law is enforced by the courts.  From a broader perspective, Lieberman argues for forceful new state laws that will automatically subtract child support from a father’s income—whether it be wages, bonuses, unemployment compensation, or retirement benefits. Child Support in America includes a directory of the state agencies charged with enforcing the law and of the national organizations that are working to reform legislation.  The book will be an invaluable reference for lawyers, social workers, and others who advise custodial parents as well as for men and women embroiled in child support disputes.   “Child Support in America Is the most comprehensive and easily understood guide for women in big trouble currently available.  Many children could be saved if both fathers and mothers would just read Lieberman’s book before they go to court in divorce matters.  He walks the layman through the law’s thorny thicket better and more cheaply than the expensive divorce lawyers most people usually hire.”—Justice Richard Neely, Supreme Court of Appeals, West Virginia “A passionate book about the dismal state of child support enforcement laws.”—Jay Katz, Yale Law School

In a vigorous defense of public life, Senator Joseph Lieberman defines the duty, the honor, and the privilege of the public lives of politicians in the face of perennial American cynicism.Americans have always been suspicious of government and have misunderstood and mistrusted those in public life. This attitude is even more prevalent as the boundaries that once separated public and private have fallen. Lieberman argues that some of the public's mistrust is based on a misconception of what public life is and why we need it. He describes life as he has lived it over three decades in the public eye with all its purpose, privileges, pressures, and pleasures. Lieberman asks fundamental questions about what standards of behavior should be expected of politicians in the sharply partisan, big-money, search-and-destroy atmosphere of politics today. Who should set these standards? Is there room for a public figure to "be human," to "make mistakes"? Is there a line beyond which the personal behavior of a public official is nobody's business? Do citizens have an obligation to understand and determine the responsibilities of public life? Drawing widely from his own experience as a politician and his pride in public service, Lieberman makes a passionate, hopeful argument for the value of public life. He believes it plays a place necessary role in our democracy and more Americans need to embrace it if we are to sustain our self-government.

A groundbreaking memoir featuring the personal recollections of former Senator Joe Lieberman and his wife, Hadassah, of their 2000 vice presidential campaign.From the second they find out that Joe had been chosen by Al Gore as his running mate, the Liebermans' lives drastically changed—privacy vanished as political handlers took over. Now, Joe and Hadassah recount the excruciating vetting process, the exhilaration of the Democratic National Convention, the tension of the debates, and finally, the drama of Election Day and of the contentious weeks that followed. Thrilled to be running in a national campaign that they regarded as immensely important to the national purpose, and profoundly moved by the audiences that came to see and hear them, the Liebermans nevertheless admit that it was a complicated and demanding experience. The Liebermans' voices alternate throughout the book as they describe the excitement, their sense of the honor of being chosen, the extraordinary and sometimes exhausting demands, and the satisfactions and joys of the hard-fought campaign they waged as a team. Woven throughout this inspirational but cautionary tale are the Liebermans' opinions, including their take on Joe's being the first Jewish vice presidential candidate and on Hadassah's debut to a national public as a first-generation American and child of Holocaust survivors. An Amazing Adventure is an honest, high-spirited, revealing, and ultimately optimistic book from the candidate and his wife on the American way of running for national office.