Let me apologize in advance for a lament that is more than a little self-serving, but as an author, I feel compelled to speak out. I just received an email from Susan Daniels, the Ohio private investigator who first broke the story that Barack Obama was using a Connecticut Social Security number. Hers is one of the stories I tell in my book Unmasking Obama.

Without my prompting or editing, Daniels wrote a review of my book and sent it to Amazon. Amazon has become not only the most popular way to buy books, but also the primary way authors and publishers keep score. The Amazon sales ranking matters as do the reviews.

Unfortunately, low-level, leftist, cyberbeavers work tirelessly to undermine authors who challenge the progressive agenda. As I note in Unmasking, during the Obama years these clowns “routinely subverted the Wikipedia pages of perceived opponents, wrote one-star book reviews of their work on Amazon, and trolled the ‘comment’ sections of conservative journals.” They still do.

Although I appreciate Wikipedia and donate occasionally, its volunteer editing system is vulnerable to trolls. I wearied of trying to keep up with my own Wikipedia page and protested only when the trolls changed my job description from the routine “conspiracy theorist” to the eye-catching “pornographer.”  Today, for some reason, my Wikipedia page reads as accurately as I have ever seen it. Thanks to whoever is responsible.

Amazon is a different story. The editing here is not done by amateurs. Upon submitting her review, Daniels received the following official notice: “Thank you for submitting a customer review on Amazon. After carefully reviewing your submission, your review could not be posted to the website.”

Amazon then listed the “guidelines” to which would-be reviewers must “adhere.” Before citing the guidelines, I need to share Daniels’s review in full as submitted so the reader can help us decipher which guideline she violated.

Anyone who has ever read any of Jack Cashill's books, knows what a fine writer he is. "Unmasking Obama" may be the best one he has ever written. There is not a wasted word nor unnecessary fact. He introduces the reader to all the "little people," the Lilliputians, who have fought the mainstream media, the crooked politician, the entertainers and the moneymakers who lied to the entire country about who the unknown Barack Obama was/is. Cashill's Lilliputians are the men and women who individually uncovered the truth about the fraud in the White House. They took on the challenge more from outrage of the sham being perpetuated against the country than any other reason.

Throughout his book, Cashill refers to the "firemen," a reference to the book burners in "Fahrenheit 451." They are the betrayers of our country who would deceive everyone given the chance.  But individuals fought back and made a difference. The information they uncovered, which caused some to get sued, some to lose their jobs and even some to be jailed, informed the voters of the country and gave us President Trump instead of the ruthless Hillary Clinton.
The fix was in for Clinton but the Lilliputians ran her train off the track. If you don't read another book this year, read this one by Cashill. It will make you sick when you see how corrupt the country has become but it will inform your future decisions.

Amazon lists the guidelines Daniels might have violated. “Your review should focus on specific features of the product and your experience with it,” Yes, she did that. Amazon does not “allow profane or obscene content.” No, there was none of that.

Daniels did not send “repeated posts” or “make the same point excessively.” Her review was not “spam.” She did “not include URLs external to Amazon.” The only possible guideline she might have violated -- by Amazon’s lights -- was the last one, “contributing false, misleading, or inauthentic content.” If other reviewers have received the same rejection, I would like to know.

That is not the only thing fishy about the Amazon page for Unmasking Obama. All thirteen of the non-fictions books I have listed on Amazon average more than four stars out of five, but each gets at least one “1-star” review. The trolls have seen to that. Their reviews pull the average score down.

My 2013 book about the George Zimmerman trial, If I Had a Son, fits the pattern. Of the 75 customer ratings, 79 percent are 5-star, 14 percent are 4-star, and 6 percent are 1-star. A typical 1-star review, listed under the headline “Bogus Nonsense,” reads as follows, “Totally ridiculous nonsense for the all the conspiracy theorists out there!” That’s it.

This review was posted on June 10, 2020, nearly seven years after the book’s publication. The reviewer mentioned no specific features of the book but did offer false, misleading, and inauthentic content.

My book told a straightforward story of how an innocent man was railroaded and acquitted. The only “conspiracy” in play was executed by Trayvon Martin’s parents and their attorney Benjamin Crump. I did not know about their use of an imposter to play “star witness” until six years after the book’s publication with the release of Joel Gilbert’s film The Trayvon Hoax. The troll did know. That is likely why he weighed in. The review was accepted nonetheless.

The reviews for Unmasking Obama follow a similar pattern. There are 21 posted reviews three weeks after the book’s release. 86 percent are 5-star. 7 percent are 4-star, and 7 percent are 1-star. At first, I took the 1-star review as a good sign: the Left was paying attention. When, however, I tried to read the review, I found, “Sorry, no reviews match your current selections.” It is as if some internal troll inserted a 1-star placeholder waiting for an external 1-star troll to show up.

One more thing: Amazon lists Unmasking Obama in the “hoaxes and deceptions” category where, I am told, it has ranked as high as #1. When I looked it was #12.

I seriously doubt that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is orchestrating these shenanigans, but I also know that big tech employees feel confident they can do a little lefty monkey wrenching without fear of reprisal. Of course, this all might be an innocent screw-up. But smart money is on monkey wrench.

To contact me about similar abuse, please see www.cashill.com.

Image: Amazon