Wednesday, July 31, 2019

Anyone who knows Dan Bongino knows he is a regular guest on Fox News and is known for his Conservative views. You would expect him and his book to be extremely partisan, however you would be wrong.  Bongino talks about his career path that brought him to the prestigious PPD (President Protection Detail). Bongino talks about his childhood with a "stepfather" and how his mental, emotional and physical abuse drove him.



I was pleasantly surprised at the chapter regarding President Barack Obama and how he felt proud and honored to be part of it.  He was also very gracious and congratulatory to Obama in spite of his political differences and how nice they were with him. I was additionally surprised that Bongino ascribes, as I do, to Austrian Economics principles.  He also shows signs of Libertarianism although more Right leaning.

Bongino blows the lid off of the mainstream media's report about death threats to President Obama and its increase to over 400%.  I would believe that about Trump but not so much about Obama.  I enjoyed reading about missions I remember watching of TV as most Americans.   Bongino talks about how the new political landscape is more about "Style not substance".   This is sadly true in my opinion.

Bongino speaks about the Secret Service Prostitution issue. His brother, still in the Secret Service during the time it occurred.   The book is extremely informative and gives you vivid insight into the world of Secret Service and the famous/infamous "bubble". I recommend reading this book.



Hardcover: 208 pages
Publisher: WND Books; First Edition, First edition edition (November 19, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1938067363
ISBN-13: 978-1938067365

Saturday, July 27, 2019

Marvel Comics: The Untold Story By: Sean Howe

Very informative book about the history of Marvel.  Marvel was a a juggernaut in the comic book scene many years ago and as of late, even bigger on the motion picture side of the house.  Stan Lee was a visionary and has changed the comic/super hero genre forevermore.


I was never a big "comic book guy", although I encouraged my sons to read them and follow them.  They love them and I am able to always ask them about was in "canon".  

Howe, takes you through the history of Stan Lee and his company and how they changed comic books.  Their rival with DC Comics and how they made it work.

Hardcover: 496 pages
Publisher: Harper; 1st edition (October 9, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9780061992100
ISBN-13: 978-0061992100
ASIN: 0061992100

Filthy Rich: The Billionaire's Sex Scandal--The Shocking True Story of Jeffrey Epstein by James Patterson (Author), John Connolly (Author), Tim Malloy (Contributor)

A sickening tale of power, privilege and child molestation. Jeff Epstein, a billionaire took advantage of over 150 underage girls.  Ages from 12 to 17.


This book is disturbing. However I do not see how else to drive the story without the details. This books dives into the victim's testimony of what happened, in explicit, sickening details. Epstein has handlers that seek out and bring underage girls to his mansion where these young girls would be paid to give Epstein "massages" where he would order the girls to be naked and where he would masterbate until ejaculation.  Furthermore, Epstein would insert his fingers, sex toys and in some cases his penis into these young girls.

Equally disturbing is his ability to literally get away with these crimes. Epstein used his money, power and influence to downgrade the charges he would plead guilty to.  Epstein was sentenced to 18 months however he had a personal guard to sit outside his cell (when he was there), he was allowed to go home via his private driver.  Who does this?  Well the powerful and rich do.

Sadly there are two sets of rules and laws. Those for the common folk, and those for the rich and powerful. Epstein has been tied to Price Andrew, Bill Clinton, Kevin Spacey, Chris Tucker, and Donald Trump. Although those listed here deny any wrong doing, Donald Trump had originally banned Epstein from his Palm Beach club (Mar-a-Lago).

After this book was published, Epstein was re-arrested and as of late, he allegedly attempted suicide in his cell. This debacle of a case shows the breakdown and the problem with big government where something as egregious as this case is allowed to fall through the cracks, or pushed into cracks.  There should have been checks and balances where we identify usurpation of laws and the Constitution.  We see this circus we are living now with Trump where lawmakers have spent all their time on a witch hunt instead of their jobs they were elected to do.

Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; First Edition edition (October 10, 2016)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0316274054
ISBN-13: 978-0316274050

Saturday, July 20, 2019

Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court by Mollie Hemingway & Carrie Severino


I will start by saying that I am 100% supportive of women coming forward and reporting incidents.  I hope moving forward, these incidents will all but die down, but if not,
at least the environment be as such that makes women brave and safe to come forward. However, being the parent of two boys, I am careful to sign on to the "accusations are
enough to publicly convict regardless of proof".


As of this writing, we still have the presumption of innocence.  It seems that the progressive movement is trying to move us away from that. See the Trump, Russia, Collusion,
obstruction circus. We need to ensure that the accused have their day in court with proper legal representation.  Else we will never have an elected official.  Anyone running
for any office at any level could be removed simply with someone (really only a woman) saying they were sexually assaulted. No trial, proof, or anything else; just the allegation
would be enough to have them removed from the ticket.

The purgery traps are an insidious weapon used by lawmakers.  I just read the Papadopoulos book and found it appalling that they asked him about a date and he, not having his
calendar or notes, responded in a certain way, later to be charged with lying to the FBI.

I am concerned that someone or a group of people are perfectly fine with destroying someone's life for the sole purpose of political party and expediency. I think there should be
equal if not more punishment for bringing false accusations against someone.  Not only is it libel and slanderous to the person and can destroy someone's life and family but it
diminishes those who are truly victims of real sexual assault. Any politician found orchestrating the like should be impeached and held to the same. This cannot remain as acceptable
behavior.

Avenatti, the attorney, informed the public that he was representing a victim.  Only to find that she herself had been charged with sexual misconduct, filed false reports and other
discrediting acts.  But then again, look at the attorney.  This attorney is facing over 335 years in prison. Sadly, Avenatti was the liberal media's choice to run for POTUS against Trump.
His client did not have an ounce of believability.  Even mainstream media distanced themselves after it was shown that her allegations were baseless.

It is pretty disturbing how the Senate unfairly and maliciously went after Robert Bork, which created the verb of being "borked" forevermore.  And in hind site, that hearing looked like the Mickey Mouse Club compared to this circus.   The crazy part about it is that if you listen to the speech
given my Ted Kennedy at the time siting what would happen if Borked was confirmed, is exactly what the Democratic Party has become.  I can only imagine what the atmosphere will be like 30 years from now.  It seems like the attacks and total war are getting more violent, more heartless, and without care for anyone.

This book gives a good history on Supreme Court nominees from other administrations. As expected, it goes into detail about the Kavanaugh confirmation and the unsuccessful attacks
that we later saw unravel because of the falsehood of allegations by politically motivated hitmen (or women as it were). I think the women's groups should stand against these false
allegations and rebuke those spewing them as they give a bad name to their movement(s).

Sadly, in 2024 when the Dems take back the WH, they will find a Republican Party that will need to ratchet up the rhetoric and be more vicious than the Dems which will then get
repeated on the Dem side when the Republicans take the WH again. So logically speaking, the situation will exponentially get worse as time goes by.  The new norm is you are guilty as long as someone comes forward, evidence and proof be damned, is a double-edged sword.  No one will be able to hold office and thus we will have anarchy.  If every Congress person, Senator, judge, mayor, governor, POTUS, or any other office is accused, without the need to prove the allegations, then how will anyone be permitted to run for public office, or worse yet, who would be stupid enough to run.


Hardcover: 256 pages
Publisher: Regnery Publishing (July 9, 2019)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1621579832
ISBN-13: 978-1621579830

Sunday, July 14, 2019

Deep State Target: How I Got Caught in the Crosshairs of the Plot to Bring Down President Trump By George Papadopoulos

Interesting book on prosecutorial overreach and political power able to crush anyone who challenges it.  I am sure anti-Trumpers will read this book and say Papadopoulos got off easy and should have fried for his "crimes",  but anyone with a semblance of integrity can understands how this weapon can be used against all of us,  will see that misstating a date or email without the advent of having them in-front of you would be almost impossible.  Try it.  Think back of a customer meeting or meeting with someone and try to remember details about that meeting after a year or more. It would be almost impossible.




Papadopoulos was an ambitious, young, politico that was obvious looking to increase his clout. His "business" is one that puts him at risk from these types of situations. I would not want to be in his role at the time for no amount of money. Now after the Mueller investigation came back with a no collusion decision, I think Papadopoulos' record should be scrubbed.

I feel Trump will pardon him and have his record expunged.  That would be the right thing. Sadly, the Left would blow that out of proportion.  I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican, but anyone with half an ounce of integrity will see that the discrimination against Republicans both in the media and by the public is unprecedented.  I continue to say that in order to normalize this culture of hate towards a specific group , we need to make political affiliation a "protected class". Any attack against someone because of said association, would be tried as a hate crime. Although I do not like regulations, most laws, political parties, and have even railed agains "hate crimes" as they are crimes and should be treated as such, I do not see another way out.  Sadly, this behaviors is akin to that of race wars which if you look back in history is a hallmark for one of the political parties.

The book takes you through the 2 year whirlwind of an International Foreign Affair guy associated to a Presidential Campaign. It reads as a novel with hints of cloak and dagger, Presidential Campaigns, law enforcement overreach and a love story all rolled up.

The book is well written and was engaging. I am sure Papadopoulos wishes he had all the details in this book during the FBI meeting. The one takeaway here is NEVER SPEAK TO LAW ENFORCEMENT WITHOUT AN ATTORNEY, AN ATTORNEY YOU TRUST.   If you are unclear which should be anything they ask since they have the advent of planning the question well in advance, should be "I am not sure" or "I cannot recall".

I truly hope we get to the bottom of this flagrant overreach of power and corruption so that we can feel more comfortable in helping FBI and other LOE without fear of ourselves being caught up in it.



Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: Diversion Books (March 26, 2019)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1635764939
ISBN-13: 978-1635764932

Sunday, July 7, 2019

Obstruction of Justice: How the Deep State Risked National Security to Protect the Democrats by Luke Rosiak,

Wow.  Just wow!  This is certainly a travesty of justice.  This book only shows you that there certainly is two sets of rules.  The Gull of these politicians calling for Trump's head and presidency
because of collusion and obstruction and then you see this....  well, lets just say there is a high level of hypocrisy.  This is a well wriiten, well researched, engaging, book.  It is non-partisan although
the book calls out the disfunctional, corrupt, Democratic Party and the complaisant inept Republican Party.  Incredibly, the Democratic Party is either the most corrupt political party or the the most inept, or possibly both.  Incredible how this is the party that wants to take more power from the people and push Socialism.  These people should not only not have that power but should all be investigated, tried and convicted for high treason.




Risiak covers, in detail the crimes of, the corrupt Awan family which had unauthorized access to Democratic Congressmem and Women's login and passwords.  I have been in the IT field for over 28 years, and I can  tell you that this stinks to high heaven.  From a policy and procedure perspective, the Democrats have shown either complete ignorance or contempt for the policies that I can assure you they have signed off on.  No one should EVER give their credentials to anyone, for any reason.  If the IT person needs to work on your account, they can change you password and then have you change it.  Ideally, they would have YOU log in and do a GoTo Meeting, WebEx, or something of the sort if it is absolutely necessary.  Not even sure why Democrats or Republicans are able to higher their own IT people.  Congress should provide IT staff that have been thoroughly vetted and have the proper clearance. Incredible that you read this book and you see the pattern:  Hillary did not know the (c) meant confidential, destroyed the server and devices even after being subpoenaed (obstruction, the real one), Debbie Wasserman Shutlz did not know that she could not use Dropbox and then blames
IT for not doing something about it, her IT people lost a server and all the data on it, devices, etc, then under the same inept and corrupt DWS, the DNC supposedly gets hacked and they never provide the server to the FBI for them to do an investigation rather the FBI takes the work of Crowdstrike.  The FBI is equally complicit in this issue.  They have a lot of work to do for me to trust and respect them.  They have showed time and time and time again that they at worst or corrupt as they come
and at best have been careless and inept; either one being disturbing.

This case was probably the worst show of corruption, cover up and and overall, a truse travesty of justice.  I truly hope that our current AG investigates this further and although I am not a lawyer, I hope that if the AG can prove that there was corruption at the highest
level, that they can resind the BS outcome and whitewash of the crimes commited by the Awans.  Republicans do not get a free pass on this one.  In my opinion, they are complicit in this travesty and should be dealt with in conjunction with the Democrats.

How someone as corrupt as the Awans were able to stay in the employ of the government by way of the Congress people, is astonishing.  They should have been doing ongoing background checks as in spot checks to ensure that there people are not falling out of compliance.  This is why they run your credit again before you close on a house to make sure you have not done something stupid before you close.  This is normal in the IT world.  I ran a Security Operations Center and we had to constantly check the employees backgrounds and credit to make sure they were not a risk.  All companies and organizations have written policies and procedures, especially public companies due to the very same idiots in the House and Senate (Sarbanes Oxley), HIPAA, GLBA, PCI and others specific to them where it is required to have a written policy and procedure and PROOF that ALL employees have read and understand the content.  Most organizations to pop quizzes on the same policies and procedures throughout the year and post follow up to any changes.  If the policy says NO House data on any outside servers, they government does not even need to block Dropbox (although they should), but it would be impossible to define each and every service that is an "outside server" (e.g. Dropbox, Google Drive, One Drive, SpiderOak, Box, Crashplan, Backblaze, Glacier, iDrive, Apple iCloud Drive, etc,).  That would mean that the government and organizations would need to track every single product that gets released and ensure they update their policies and that the users sign it. No data on outside servers is understood as ANY server that is not controlled by the government.  If they can not figure that out, they do not belong in D.C. and certainly should not be in control of anything or anyone.

I hope the Democrats and the Republicans voters start to hold their own accountable.  Remember, if you change the D's to R's and the names to Republicans, you would be demanding their heads on a platter.  I mean, look at the Trump investigation(s); they continue even after Muller came back and said no collusion.  It is as moronic as the Birther movement.  Since the Dems are in a "special council" mood, they should assign others to this and the many other cases of corruption regardless of party.

Hardcover: 311 pages
Publisher: Regnery Publishing (January 29, 2019)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1621579433
ISBN-13: 978-1621579434


Saturday, July 6, 2019

Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel by: Tom Wainwright

Interesting perspective on the drug trade from the jungles of the countries that produce the coca to the streets where street level thugs sell the final product, which is usually "stepped on" a bunch of times. The markup is astronomical.



This book also explores a different approach to the drug crisis we have in this country. At 100,000 feet, it looks, walks and sounds like a boondoggle for the U.S.  we have endless amounts of funding that goes into the "drug war" which never really seem to yield any victory of said war. Most of the money seems to fund black ops in other countries and as support for a black market the cartels continue to exploit.   The authors approach looks at the demand side and not the supply side.

The author uses an analogy about a cow and the price of a steak at a steak house.  If you take the "street price" of the steak vs the price of the cow, the profit is huge. Therefore, cocaine in Columbia sitting on an airfield, is not worth the value of those kilos on the streets of the U.S. Back in the day, you could buy a kilo of cocaine for around 17k.  You could step on it and yield 1500 grams. Selling it on the street, would yield $120,000 which is $103,000.00 in profit. And in case you are wondering, I was not a drug dealer but knew many of them growing up in Miami.

This is definitely a different kind of book.  To me, being a libertarian, I believe drugs should be legal.  Not just from a personal decision perspective, but a huge incarceration problem we have today, as well as the power and money the cartels are taking.  Author talked about designer drugs that people are creating to combat the legality problem.  These drugs are truly dangerous.  Anyone that lives in Miami or monitors the news here, will remember a few years back where there was a man eating a homeless man's face in a Bath Salt bing.  I say, we know how weed and cocaine make people act, "the devil you know...."

The book covers history of famous drug kingpins I grew up hearing about (Lehder, Escobar, Ochoa, and Griselda Blanco).  The Mexicans pretty much took over after the crack down in Columbia (no pun intended).  The book covers the way the Mexican cartels formed franchise like organizations and took it to the next level.  Today they are extremely strong and powerful.  

The book is well researched and presented in a way that flows and keeps you engaged.

22 Billion Dollars



Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: PublicAffairs; 1st edition (February 23, 2016)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1610395832
ISBN-13: 978-1610395830