Every Christmas since 1949 the Wall Street Journal has published In Hoc Anno Domini by Vermont Royster. It tells the story of how the advent of Christianity liberated humankind from the shackles of Roman oppression. Its message is timeless and applies with particular force to today’s struggle between those who believe that the secular state is almighty and all-encompassing and those who believe that the dictates of the state must be subordinate to our natural, inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Even though Royster wrote of Christianity, his fundamental message supports everyone of whatever religious or...
Just when you thought the House Democrats’ slap stick impeachment show couldn’t sink any further into low comedy, along comes Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s threat to embargo the articles of impeachment unless the Republican-controlled Senate establishes removal trial procedures to her liking. As a negotiating technique, this would appear to be sub-optimal. As in who cares if she never forwards the charges to the Senate? The only historical precedent that I can find for Pelosi’s stratagem is to be found in Mel Brook’s Blazing Saddles. When Cleavon Little (pictured above) is appointed the first black sheriff in a town full of...
Today, as a prelude to tomorrow’s farcical impeachment vote, President Trump launched a pre-emptive strike against the Democrats by means of a scorching letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It is a comprehensive summary and powerful refutation of the Democrats’ deranged three year effort to disenfranchise the sixty-three million Americans who voted for Trump by undoing the 2016 presidential election. I found reading it to be enjoyable and cathartic. It is a six page fist-pumping, stand-up-and-cheer tour de force. This letter makes clear that the president and his team have marshaled the entire spectrum of the damning facts – including...
Today my friends at The American Spectator published my advice to President Trump and his allies on the best way to defend against his upcoming impeachment. The article with readers’ comments can be accessed by clicking on this link to the TAS website or you can read it below. The imagery – especially in the last line – is a bit sanguinary, but, if he were here, I think General George “Old Blood and Guts” Patton would approve. Patton on Impeachment: The Democrats Have Stuck Their Heads in a Meat Grinder | The American Spectator Seventy-five years ago today, 200,000...
I had a very pleasant chance encounter today with retired Philadelphia Police Officer Bob Hurst who long ago served as head of the department’s “Granny Squad”. At great risk to their lives and safety, Bob and his colleagues on the squad spent years disguised as old women, derelicts, drunks and otherwise vulnerable victims trolling the streets of Philadelphia for armed robbers and violent felons. (The picture above is purportedly of Bob in disguise.) When attacked, the decoy officer and his back up team would arrest the assailant. Sometimes they were required to use deadly force. In the late 1970s and early 1980s,...
Pictured above is a reasonable dramatization of the upcoming House Judiciary Committee impeachment proceedings as envisioned by Chairman Jerry Nadler. Donald Trump would be the guy in overalls. Quite understandably, Pat Cipollone, Counsel to the President, has rejected by return letter Nadler’s ridiculous bums-rush invitation for the president to participate in the Democrats’ rigged, partisan, Punch-and-Judy slapfest impeachment farce. Counsel’s letter is a masterpiece of legal concision which specifies in detail all of the many ways that Nadler’s proposal fails to satisfy the basic elements of fairness, due process and constitutional law. For a good summary by Fox News of...
Hope you had a happy and harmonious (i.e., politics-free) Thanksgiving. This year, for the first time in decades, my bride and I sheltered in place instead of joining the nationwide mass migration to visit kids, grandkids and relatives. We skipped the home-cooked turkey, too, and dined out on professionally-prepared Thanksgiving cuisine. Not exactly a Norman-Rockwell-Hallmark-Channel family event, but not bad. Meanwhile, The American Spectator published my article about the Office of Inspector General’s report on the many deficiencies of the FBI’s faux program for validating the reliability of its confidential informants. You can access it by clicking this link. Or...
Tomorrow, as it has done every Thanksgiving since 1961, the Wall Street Journal will publish The Desolate Wilderness, an account of the Pilgrims’ journey to America, followed by a commentary, And the Fair Land, written by Vermont Royster, a native of North Carolina who held many positions at the the WSJ including being its editor from 1959 to 1971. Royster started the WSJ’s annual tradition of publishing both pieces on Thanksgiving. Unlike the J-school know-nothings who infest today’s media, Royster had a life outside the confines of journalism that gave him an appreciation of this nation, its forbears and its accomplishments. In 1940, he left the...
As previously reported on these pages, progressive lawyer Larry Krasner was elected District Attorney of Philadelphia with the massive financial support of billionaire George Soros. Prior to taking office, Krasner had sued the City of Philadelphia approximately 75 times for alleged civil rights violations by members of the police department. Now that he controls the prosecutor’s office, Krasner has established a record of indifference to the rights of crime victims and their families. See KIG posts Larry’s Law and United in Grief. Last week, after Krasner spoke at a conference on criminal justice reform, I submitted an opinion piece to...
So far the Democrats’ impeachment proceedings have been so one-sided and devoid of fundamental fairness that they give kangaroo courts a bad name. The preliminary witness interrogations have been conducted in a secret subterranean bunker, the Republican minority has been denied subpoena power, its ability to question witnesses has been severely curtailed, the President’s lawyers have been excluded, and so on. And those procedural restrictions and more have prevailed in the public hearings conducted by Rep. Adam Schiff (D. USSR). These proceedings have been so one-sided that it is hard not to laugh at the farcical level of unfairness to...
Pictured above are two extraordinarily courageous and remarkable women. Linda Schellenger, in grey, is the mother of a young man who was stabbed to death in Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Square. Maureen Faulkner, in black, is the widow of Philadelphia Police Officer Danny Faulkner who was brutally murdered in 1981 by leftist icon Mumia Abu-Jamal. Both women are victims of Larry Krasner, Philadelphia’s progressive District Attorney, who was elected with a $1.7 million campaign contribution from George Soros. The picture was taken earlier this week at Lodge 5 of the Fraternal Order of Police, which represents Philadelphia police officers, shortly after Maureen...
From 1958 to 1962 I attended Marist College, a Catholic military boys high school in Atlanta. Every year our cadet “battle group” would march in the Armistice Day parade. In those days, the Atlanta public high schools had Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps programs whose participants would also march. The public school JROTC uniforms consisted of World War II vintage Eisenhower jackets and matching dark brown trousers. In contrast, our dress uniforms were comprised of blue-grey tunics and white “duck” pants. In short, we looked different and were easily identifiable as the boys who went to Catholic school. In those...
Thursday my wife and I attended The American Spectator‘s annual banquet at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. The guest of honor was Wall Street Journal opinion writer Kimberley Strassel. I was fortunate to be seated next to her during the festivities. In addition to being a brilliant and insightful columnist, she is very friendly, enthusiastic, sweet-natured and down-to-earth. She was born and raised in a small Oregon logging community, graduated from Princeton and has had a hugely successful career at the WSJ. When I introduced myself to Kimberley, I said that I write for The American Spectator. She...
This morning I was interviewed on Chicago’s AM 560 WIND regarding the strange death of Jeffrey Epstein. Amy Jacobson and Dan Proft, hosts of the Morning Answer, played the hot mike audio of ABC News Anchor Amy Robach complaining about how, for three years, her network spiked her scoop about sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of young women. They then cut to me for my analysis of the circumstances surrounding Epstein’s death. Here’s the link to a YouTube video of the show. My remarks were basically a rehash of my recent post The Epstein Autopsy- the Plot Thickens with a...
Dr. Michael Baden, the noted forensic pathologist and former Chief Medical Examiner for New York City, recently appeared on Fox and Friends to discuss the death of alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. At the request of the decedent’s brother, Baden observed Epstein’s autopsy and is investigating the circumstances under which the accused died while in federal custody at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan. As both a prosecutor and private practitioner I have worked death cases with Dr. Baden and found his extensive knowledge, professional experience and outstanding analytical abilities to be invaluable. And, while I have worked with other...