to this? i'm not working on one personally. we regularly get calls. liberty counsel is working on other cases similar to this, intrastate custody disputes and we have two cases where the orders came out of california and texas, and one of them was texas and one was alabama being asked to recognize those orders. i'm actually working on the same-sex marriage case in new york, challenging same-sex bill passed there. >> host: we have been talking with professor recent na lindevaldsen, and author of this book, "only one mom my" it's published by new revolution publishers. is that self-published. >> guest: it nose. it's a new publisher. >> host: thank you for your time. >> you're watching become tv on c-span2.

>> next, from liberty university, book tv talked to ken blackwell below the blueprint, one of his two recently written books. >> host: ken blackwell,y your book, you write that the constitution of the united states stands in the way of what barack obama wants to do. what do you mean by that? >> guest: well, president obama, a week before his election in 2008, said, his own words, we are a week away from fundamentally changing the united states of america.

if you look at the constitution and its overriding purpose, is as an instrument that is structured to put a check on the growth, the power, and the intrusion of government, the way that you grow and expand the power of the central government, is to change the constitution or to ignore it. and so what we did, ken and i, in "the blueprint" was to do an expo say on the activities of the obama administration to fundamentally ignore, go around, under, or over, the constitution, and so we saw, and we see, the constitution as being the big rock in the road to the president's promise to

fundamentally change the united states of america. >> host: is it different than what other presidents have done? >> guest: there have been times within our 236 years of existence where presidents have tried to concentrate power in the central government. richard nixon used his powers to expand the powers of the central government through a variety of programs. but this has been different exponentially in terms of degree and extent to which the president has tried to concentrate the power of the government in washington, dc. the beauty of the constitution is that it is an instrument and a set of ideas.

again, that limits government. it believes that free men and free women and free markets can do just about anything, and at the end of the day, it is that constitution that has made us an exceptional nation. and 236 years we have become the most prosperous, the most democratic republic, in all of human history. and so to ignore it to try to get around it, over it, or under it, is it fundamental challenge to our exceptionalism and the whole notion of limited government. >> host: ken blackwell, in "the blueprint" one example you use is the white house system. >> guest: most presidents have had perhaps at the most five

guards. this president has had about 25 to 28 czars, and what they do is they ignore the separation of powers and they ignore the congressional oversight. if there has been a department that has been established by congress, then it has to report to congress, it has to disclose information. there's a degree of transparency that is not in existence when you create a czar. it becomes a creature of the executive branch. it is sort of shielded from the demands for transparency, and it's fundamentally changes the equation and the relationship between the three branches of government. >> host: former secretary of state for ohio is ken blackwell. your co-author is ken krokowsky.

who is he? >> guest: he is a bright young constitutional attorney, a constitutional scholar. he and i worked tote at the american civil rights union, but most notely at the family research council and here at liberty university. over the last five years we have collaborated on written works as well as speaking engagements across the country. the blueprint and the second book, resurgence, how constitutional conservativism can save america, are works we enjoyed doing together. >> host: and book tv will also be talking him about the book, resurgent. you can watch that in future weeks on book tv on c-span. ken blackwell, in your book,

"the blueprint," you compare presidents bush and obama to pressures hoover and roosevelt. what is that analogy? >> guest: hoover set the table for roosevelt, and i believe that president bush set the table in his last 18 months for this substantial power grab by barack obama. at the end of the day what is fundamentally challenging about the obama administration and their effort to expand the power of the federal government, and the executive branch within the federal government, is that the president has taken what has been a casual tendency by past presidents and he has put muscle on the bone. he has done it at alarming

speed, and in an alarming scale. so that you see not only his use of -- i'll give you an example. in 2009, "newsweek" magazine had a cover store. the cover story was that we are all socialist now. well, the heck we are. but what "newsweek" magazine was talking about was that president obama had reversed what had been done in the clinton gingrich years to balance the budget, to actually end -- reform welfare, and we were moving back very rapidly in the first year of the obama administration to an expanded welfare state. and so it's -- this represents a

clash of world views, and the role of government. we believe, as we have advanced in both of our books, that limited government, free markets, and a vigorous defense of u.s. interests in the world, will in fact continue us on a path of prosperity and worldwide influence. what president obama has said is that he really can't put his finger on why we are exceptional nation. he said because the chinese believe that china is exceptional, and the brits believe that britain is exceptional. and the russians believe that russia is exceptional. well, the reality is that they're not.

compared to -- it's not that they haven't made tremendous contributions, but it has been a particular form of government that understands from which our prosperity flows, and we believe that the second paragraph of the declaration of independence holds the form lamp we hold this truths to be self-evident. my dad used to say that means that any knucklehead should be able to get it. that we're endowed by our creator with certain unail illinoisable rights which means or right don't come from government. government cannot give you our rights. our rights flow from god, and as a consequence, governments can only protect and recognize those rights. governments -- our rights are not grants from government. but they're gifts from god. and that among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit

of happiness, and i think it's a particular order that we have been given these rights. very difficult to enjoy liberty if you're dead. so we have first obligation of government is to protect life. and it's very difficult to pursue liberty -- purr sure happiness if you're not free. and so we look to that framing of our constitution which the declaration is, for the answers of what has made us exceptional, and it's been limited government, and optimum permanent liberty and i think this government has gotten it right. >> host: two issues you talk about in your book are current. number one, health care. the supreme court as we tape this interview is about to hear arguments on the healthcare legislation. and the second one i wanted to ask you about is talk radio. the role of talk radio, city of los angeles recently passed a

resolution banning racist talk or shock talk in their city. >> guest: well, look. the obamacare is classic overreach. atit's basically clear evidence that this administration has given up on free markets developing and advancing a healthcare system in medicine to the point of sort of taking over and concentrating power and the government -- this is clearly -- obamacare has put us on a path to one payer system and one payer is government. and so it's not only going to interfere with the doctor-patient relationship, it will in fact answer questions that one might have about, end

of life decisions for the wide range of individuals who find themselves in that situation at this point in their lives. so, i think that the individual mandate -- i think the substantial overreach in obamacare, moving it from a consumer-based system to a government-controlled system, it will probably be found unconstitutional by the court. and as it relates to free speech, look, one of the principles of our country is the right to exercise free speech. and because we normally speak as a way of representing what we believe in terms of our

individual conscious, and so we see this administration not only attacking free speech, but we see -- well, we see an attack from the left only on free speech. we see this administration attacking the freedom of religion or the freedom of conscious. so, taken together, that's problematic. i would -- the u.s. ambassador to the human rights commission and we talked about political rights and the rights of free speech, and nobody likes hate speech. but the way to combat hate speech is not to stamp out all speech or speech that you don't like. you beat hate speech, you conquer hate speech, with more speech.