Deadly Spin by Wendell Potter

Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR Is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans by Wendell Potter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Every American should read this as soon as possible. It's a tell-all by a health care insurance insider. Reading this book is critical to understanding, and not just the health care debate taking place in this country right now, but many of the political debates we're all wallowing in.

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Unhinged by Omarosa Manigault Newman

Unhinged: An Insider's Account of the Trump White House by Omarosa Manigault Newman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is mostly Omarosa’s memoir with a focus on her business and personal relationship with Donald Trump over the years.

The first half the book was well-written and compelling. The second half was basically a laundry list of the things that we all know Trump did. In general, it didn’t contain a lot of new information, but it seemed as neutral as anyone could possibly be on the topic of the 2016 Election and subsequent Trump administration. Omarosa was also on the Ready for Hilary campaign- and Trump himself was fairly recently a Democrat. At the same time, Omarosa was really game on for the Trump campaign (more on that later) so she's as neutral a reporter as we could hope for.

The biggest complaint a lot of readers have that I agree with is that Omarosa didn’t take enough responsibility for her role in the campaign. I'm not an Apprentice-watcher so I'm not familiar with her television alter-ego. I am familiar with her political leanings and volunteer work. I met her a few times in person. I have little doubt that she is basically a good religious person but with a big healthy dose of ambition. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being ambitious regardless of whether you're a man or woman. The problem is when ambition causes you to do things contrary to ethics/the golden rule for the sake of that ambition. I'm an attorney, don't tell me you have to sometimes to get ahead. There's nowhere worth getting that badly. It is possible, as she claims, that she was a little gaslighted into her position due to her long-term friendly and professional relationship with Trump, but even so, she should really take responsibility for her (albeit small) role in reaping destruction on the country. Absolutely everyone on his campaign should take responsibility. Absolutely everyone that voted for him should. Absolutely everyone that didn't vote should take responsibility. Absolutely everyone in his family that didn't try to steer him to a retirement home instead should take responsibility. But what I didn't enjoy reading was how it wasn't really Omarosa's fault because she didn't really do anything wrong. I mean, for one thing, I already read that one- the Comey book.

Don’t read this if you’re looking for new information. Don’t read it if you have some irrational hatred for Omarosa because then nothing will sink in anyway. Read it if you’re curious how an intelligent person with a relatively neutral political stance viewed the events in real time.

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Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff

Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff


I'm not going to give this a star rating for the time being. I'm just going to share my thoughts for now.

For me, the first question is how do I know anything in this book is true? Well, the most convincing thing is that there isn't a lot of "new" information in this book so much as there is a more complete picture based on behind-the-scenes information from inside sources. A lot of what is in this book has been public information in terms of Trump speeches, interviews, and tweets. The author himself was given White House access and claims to have been there for a lot of the events. About a half of the book is information and impressions that must have been provided by Bannon. Bannon's information appears colored by his dislike of Jared and Ivanka Kushner but does not appear otherwise significantly biased. (By which I mean that Bannon is pretty open about the ways in which he's evil, and isn't too bothered about it.) Jared Kushner himself leaked a great deal of information which seems to be in play in the book as well-- especially trash talk about Bannon. That leaves very little which I have any reason to doubt. Perhaps there isn't any good reason to believe the details of Trump's relationship with Melania, but that appears to be it.

Even though there's not a lot of new or shocking information, I think the book's full narrative of events is useful. For example, before reading this book, I kept thinking that maybe Donald Trump was "crazy like a fox." But after reading this, my impression is that he's just really ignorant (more than I thought) and even less curious about reality than I thought he was. He seems to believe he can just invent his own reality and buys into it to a certain degree. All of this is puzzling and troubling and definitely gives different coloring to how I view recent political events.

The conclusion is that Trump is unfit to be president according to his own advisors. Additionally, his advisors are unable to educate him or restrain him in any meaningful way. He is inconsistent and has poor impulse control. The "fire and fury" quote which the title uses is from Trump's threats to North Korea, but the book ends before the bulk of his North Korea threats. The whole world is at danger from this presidency and everyone knows it, but the people with the power to do anything about it, Senate Republicans, refuse to do anything.

PS: The Prologue and Chapter 1 aren't written as well as the rest of the book. If you find the beginning annoying you might want to reserve judgment until Chapter 2.

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Dispatches by Michael Herr

Dispatches by Michael Herr
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Really powerful nonfiction account of the Vietnam War. Intense.

Though by no means the central point or theme of this book (which was something like war is hell) the problems of the free press struggling against direction from business, government leadership, and the military is notable particularly because of our current political problems.

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