Category: Book Reviews

I recently wrote a book review about Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s book In My Own Words. Now, I just finished Neil Gorsuch’s book, A Republic If You Can Keep it. Similar to Ginsburg’s book, Gorsuch’s book is mostly a collection of writings, speeches, and court opinions. That’s where the similarity ends.

Much of Ginsburg’s book is about Women’s rights and her political ideology. Much of Gorsuch’s book is about his love for the law. I’m not saying Ginsburg doesn’t love the law, it just wasn’t stressed in her book.

Gorsuch stressed he believes in the separation of powers, mostly that judges shouldn’t legislate. He questioned how non-lifetime administrative law judges can be impartial and expressed concern about the volume of rules and regulations passed by the Executive Branch. Laws should be written by the legislature.

Gorsuch is a firm believer that laws and the Constitution mean what they say. At least they should.

His book taught me about stare decisis. Stare decisis is the use of precedent (previous court rulings) to decide on new cases. I learned that stare decisis is only one factor of many that judges use to determine their rulings. Precedent is a major factor in determining the outcome of a judicial ruling, but precedent is not necessarily an overiding factor. Sometimes bad precedents are used to rule on new cases. But not always.

One of his points that interested me was that there is more agreement than disagreement between the justices of an appeals court or the justices of the Supreme Court.

I think his most important point is when a judge is happy with all of his rulings, he’s probably a bad judge. We as laypeople have opinions about court rulings. Some court opinions please us while other court rulings infuriate us. A good judge will base his opinions on the law and his rulings may not always turn out the way he wished it would. Beware of the judge that bases his rulings on his own personal opinions and not the law.

I’m probably more politically aligned with Gorsuch than I am with Ginsberg. One of the things that worries me, a little, was that after reading the book, I now realize Gorsuch will not base his court opinions on his political ideology. He will base his opinions on the law, even if he is unhappy with the way the decision turned out. Even though I may be disappointed in the way his court opinions may turn out, after reading the book, I have acquired a deep respect for the man.

In summary, no matter what your political ideology, I highly recommend A Republic If You Can Keep It for anyone who wants to get insight into how the man thinks.

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Not long ago, I read Unmasked: Big Media’s War Against Trump by L. Brent Bozell. The book is an expose’ about the negative treatment President Trump receives in the press. After completing the book, I decided to get an opposing viewpoint by reading Enemy of the People Trump’s War on the Press, the New McCarthyism, and the Threat to American Democracy by Marvin Kalb. Kalb’s book certainly does present an opposing viewpoint. Here, I will review Enemy of the People and contrast with Unmasked.

Kalb began his book by stating he didn’t take Trump seriously. Kalb saw Trump as a “comic character” and a “real estate huckster”. It was clear from the beginning, Kalb is not a fan of Donald Trump.

Enemy of the People took exception with the amount of press coverage Donald Trump received. Other than comparing the amount of coverage Trump received in relation to what Clinton received, Kalb presents almost no statistics at all. Rather than present hard statistics, much of Kalb’s book are based on what is “obvious” to him. While ignoring the negative coverage Trump received during the Republican primaries, Kalb made the point that Trump won the nomination because he received so much “free” coverage, the other candidates couldn’t keep up. Kalb made the point “The president sucks up too much of Washington’s precious supply of oxygen, leaving news organizations little option but to cover one Trump-related story after another”.

I think that’s the major contrast between the two books. Enemy criticizes the amount of coverage overall, while Unmasked presents statistics criticizing the percentage of negative coverage the President received.

I actually can’t argue much with Kalb’s point about the amount of coverage President Trump receives. He didn’t make the point, so I will. There is a school of thought that any coverage is good coverage. Even though most of the coverage was negative, Trump probably did receive the most coverage. I don’t think it ever occurred to Kalb that the negative coverage (which Kalb failed to mention), helped Trump win the election. Kalb did not like Trump’s message. At all. Trump’s base did like what Trump had to say. That’s why Trump won the nomination, and that’s why he won the election.

The title of the book is Enemy of the People. I think that’s why Kalb wrote the book. Kalb really takes exception with Trump’s use of “Enemy of the People” and “Fake News”. He compares Trump to Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, and Mao Zedong who also used similar terms. He compares Trump’s “drain the swamp” to military coups that promised to combat corruption, improve the judicial system, and clean up rigged elections.

About half of Kalb’s book was dedicated to Senator Joseph McArthy, a Senator who made a name for himself by accusing people of being communists or communist sympathizers. McArthy became a populist Senator until people tired of him and a highly respected journalist, Edward R Murrow, brought him down. The inference of Kalb’s book is Donald Trump is nothing but another Senator Joseph McArthy, Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, and Mao Zedong and it’s time a journalist brought President Trump down.

Marvin Kalb is a lifelong journalist. He doesn’t like is profession being criticized. Any president who would dare to do so is the real “Enemy of the People”. …

,Atomic Habits by James Clear was on the list of recommended books at my local library so I decided to check it out. There was a short waiting list so I reserved the book. The timing was perfect. Just as I was finishing another book, my hold became available. This is my book review of Atomic Habits.

The book is about how to develop new, good habits and shed old, bad habits. The book contains simple, commonsense ideas. To start new habits, make it easy to incorporate new habits into your daily life, start off incrementally (not all at once), and reward yourself for success. To break bad habits, arrange your life or living arrangements to make it harder partake in your bad habit, start off incrementally, and punish yourself when you relapse into a bad habit. It’s important to be consistent in developing new habits and breaking bad ones. Incorporate your habit into your daily routine, but if you miss, try not to miss two days in a row. Same for breaking a bad habit. If you relapse, try not to relapse two days in a row.

To reinforce his points, the author provides numerous examples from his own life, the lives of well known people, and the lives of not so well known people. Overall, I found the book to be an easy read, and plan to incorporate his suggestions into my daily life. If you would like help developing good habits and shedding bad ones, the book will provide valuable suggestions about how to improve your life.

In case you were wondering, I have decided to incorporate the author’s ideas into my daily life. The book is 20 chapters. As I was reading the book, I decided to take up the author’s suggestion and start out incrementally. I decided to read at least two chapters every day. That way I should be able to finish the book in a little over a week. Actually, some days I read more than two chapters so I finished the book in a week. I’ve had a book laying on the shelf for many years. I started reading the book, but didn’t get very far. It’s a long book. If I read two chapters a day, I will finish it. I have another book on hold at the library that should arrive soon. Maybe I’ll read one chapter from each book every day (maybe more). Two chapters between them. That way, I’ll finish both books.

The author mentioned his weekly blog. I’ve had my website for quite a few years now, but only updated it rarely. I decided to get into the habit of updating my website regularly. This is my first post since making that decision. I did another post recently. It was quite long and quite technical. I worked on it every day for weeks (including research). So, if you don’t see another blog post in a week, I will be working on a more involved article or maybe I’ll be posting on my other blog. This one is pretty short. If I’m not working on a longer, technical article, I should be able to knock one out like this at least once a week.…

On one of the Fox news commentary shows mentioned the book, Licensed to Lie. They didn’t give many details, but my interest was piqued. I decided to check out the book from my local library. All the books were already checked out and there was a waiting list. I added my name to the list. After more than a month, I received notice the book was available for check-out.

Licensed to Lie was written by Sidney Powell a female attorney. The subtitle of her book is “Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice”. The theme of her book is Justice Department prosecutors aren’t out for justice, they are out for blood. Win at any cost, even if it means violating ethics rules. Powell’s clients were persecuted (sic) even though they haven’t broken any laws. One of the main points in her book is prosecutors are required to share evidence with the defense but routinely refuse to do so. When she objected on behalf of her clients, her trial judge consistently ruled in favor of the prosecution. She lost her case and appeals because she couldn’t get a fair shake from the “corrupt” Justice Department, the “biased” trial judge, or from the appellate courts.

The book also devotes a few chapters to the prosecution of Alaska senator Ted Stevens. He was also persecuted by a corrupt Justice Department. Only he was eventually vindicated. Different judge, different appeals court, different outcome.

Powell’s book goes into depth on the trials, prosecutions, and appeals surrounding the Enron scandal. Even though it wasn’t the primary intent of the book, the book is a good expose` about what happened after the Enron collapse.

Licensed to Lie reminded me of a courtroom drama TV show except Powell book is about the legal process. The jury had already found her clients guilty. In the book, she is going before the judge multiple times to argue the legal issues surrounding her case. More often than not, she lost.

U.S. attorneys rarely lose. When they have their teeth around a defendant, they’re not going to let go. They will do whatever it takes to ensure victory. As I read about the drama of appeals, court battle after court battle, the government spending millions on the persecution, I wondered how can these defendants afford all the legal fees that went into their defense and appeals. After reading the book, I’m glad Justice Department attorneys don’t have a beef with me.…

The Spy Who Couldn’t Spell by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee is an account of Brian Regan, a dyslexic Air Force Master Sergeant who downloaded thousands of pages of highly classified information then tried to sell the information to foreign governments. The book begins when the FBI intercepted a coded offer to sell secrets to the Libyan government. The FBI didn’t know who sent the message, but this person must be caught. If the information fell into the wrong hands, there would be immense damage to the U.S. military and intelligence apparatus. Cracking the codes would be key to determine who the traitor was.

Due to his dyslexia, Brian Regan never learned to spell properly. He performed poorly throughout his school age years. Ostracized by other students, Regan was an outcast who barely made it through school. When it came time to graduate high school, he was given an opportunity to take an exam for entrance into the military. He passed the exam by cheating, and received a high enough score to be admitted into a school for Military Intelligence. In spite of his inability to spell and poor performance throughout is school years, Regan did well in Military Intelligence. Regan’s dyslexia was actually an asset because people with dyslexia are able to see patterns that would be difficult for people without dyslexia to see. Regan excelled and advanced rapidly through the enlisted ranks, achieving the rank of Master Sergeant. That’s when his advancement began to stall. As a Master Sergeant with a family, Regan’s debt started to get out of control. The resolution of his debt problems and his path to financial security and was to offer the nation’s secrets for sale. Regan printed off thousands of documents, smuggled them out of the office, and hid them in the woods all without detection.

The subtitle of the book is A Dyslexic Traitor, an Unbreakable Code and the FBI’s Hunt for America’s Stolen Secrets. As an intelligence analyst, Regan received basic instruction on secret messages and codes. Code breaking was not Regan’s primary specialty but he did use his training and self instruction to develop his own secret codes. Coded messages are a major part of the story as the book provides history lessons and instruction about codes and cyphers and the FBI’s efforts to crack Regan’s secret messages.

The agents were able to track the messages to Regan and catch him in the act of espionage, but that wasn’t the end of the story. There would be a trial, and the agents still needed to find the thousands of documents Regan had hidden – before they fell into the wrong hands.

It seems the United States government doesn’t know how to keep its secrets. Time and time again we hear of people who download thousands of pages then leaked the secrets to WikiLeaks. Although The Spy Who Couldn’t Spell is the story of Brian Regan, it does briefly mention other notorious spies who stole sensitive information. Why do all of these people have access to information they don’t need for their jobs? Why do these things happen over and over again? Why was Regan able to print off and smuggle thousands of documents out of a secure facility – All without detection? How can a person unable to manage their debt maintain their security clearance? The book doesn’t answer these questions. These are questions the government should answer.

The Spy Who Couldn’t Spell was well written, informative, and held my attention throughout the book. Anyone interested in secret codes, stories of espionage, traitors, and FBI investigations, should find this to be a captivating book.…