Last June Knowledge is Good published a post titled “Graduation Day at the Army War College and KIG Goes for the Gold”. In that piece, I plugged two books written by a young Air Force officer who I was privileged to meet at the graduation. The piece contained a link to Amazon.com and urged readers to buy the books through this blog site so that Knowledge is Good would receive a sales commission (i.e., a kickback) from Amazon. Then I forgot all about it. A few days ago, Amazon deposited $25.70 in my bank account. Like the little kid in...
Last Thursday I attended another meeting of the Saturday Evening Club (which by tradition never meets on a Saturday), a dinner hosted by The American Spectator at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington, D.C.. Back in July, I attended a previous such dinner at which the guest of honor was President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. This time, the guest of honor was Attorney General Bill Barr. Attendance was limited to 30 media, political, and business big wigs. How or why I came to be included in this group remains a complete mystery, but I wasn’t about to turn down an invitation to...
“Tickling the wire.” That’s the slang expression used by law enforcement personnel to describe the process of trying to breathe life into a moribund or unproductive wiretap. When the subjects of such surveillance fail to discuss their criminal activities over the monitored telephones or at the bugged premises, surreptitious steps can be taken to induce them to do so. For example, in the case of a federal wiretap on a drug dealer’s telephone, if few incriminating communications have been intercepted, the local police can be enlisted to conduct an apparently unrelated car stop, interrogation and search of the subject. This...
Citing anonymous law enforcement sources, the New York Post and TMZ.COM are reporting that convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was found hanging in his Manhattan jail cell with a bedsheet wrapped around his neck and secured to the top of a bunk bed. According to the Post, Epstein, “who was 6 feet tall, apparently killed himself by kneeling toward the floor and strangling himself with the makeshift noose.” TMZ.COM reports being told that “the bed sheets were tied to the top of a bunk bed and Epstein either hurled himself off the top bunk or had his feet to the ground and...
The convenient death of accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein while in federal custody has set off a firestorm of controversy and speculation. Was it homicide or suicide? Was he murdered by others acting on behalf of his wealthy and powerful friends who might be exposed or incriminated in his upcoming trial? Was he killed by another inmate looking for street cred or acting out of a hatred for child abusers? Whether murder or suicide, how could the staff at the feds’ Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan have failed to keep such a high profile defendant from harm? According to...
Consider this excerpt from the “manifesto” issued by the shooter who murdered 22 people in an El Paso, Texas Walmart store: “Remember: it is not cowardly to pick low hanging fruit. AKA (sic) Don’t attack heavily guarded areas to fulfll (sic) your super soldier COD [Call of Duty first person shooter video game] fantasy. Attack low security targets. Even though you might out gun a security guard or police man, they likely beat you in armor, training and numbers. Do not throw away your life on an unnecessarily dangerous target. If a target seems too hot, live to fight another day.” According to...
So last Monday I attended a dinner hosted by The American Spectator at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington, D.C.. There were approximately 30 attendees including the guest of honor, President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Other luminaries were Jeff Lord, the former lone conservative piñata on CNN who now appears on Fox News, Byron York of the Washington Examiner, John Fund of National Review, nationally syndicated political analyst Michael Barone and Bob Tyrell, the founder and publisher of The American Spectator. With the exception of me, everybody else was either a government, business or media big wig. I kept looking around the...
In the 1940s, my parents lived in a small Georgia town where my father had his dental practice. He was friends with the chief of police and on good terms with many of the patrolmen. The police station was on the route between our house and my father’s office. When he walked home from work, it was not unusual for him to stop in and share pleasantries with whoever was on duty. Dad loved to tell the story about one such visit during which one of the patrolmen expressed concern about his appearance. “Doc,” he said, “you look worried. Somethin’...
My friends at The American Spectator published my article titled The Art and Science of Cross-Examining Mueller which is an expanded and much improved version of my previous post on the same subject. It generated a flood of emails and a great deal of interest after it was was picked up by Powerline, Real Clear Politics and Lucianne.com. Happily many readers caught and approved of my juvenile and completely tasteless reference to Deliverance at the end of the piece. The American Spectator is converting to a pay site*. Nevertheless, you may still be able to access my article on TAS’ website for...
In a desperate effort to squeeze political advantage out of the Special Counsel’s report exonerating Donald Trump and his presidential campaign of conspiring with Russia to affect the outcome of the 2016 election, Congressional Democrats have subpoenaed Robert Mueller to testify before the Oversight and Judiciary committees of the House of Representatives. They apparently believe that Mueller’s testimony will further their impeachment narrative by drawing public attention to those portions of the report interpreted by some partisans as demonstrating that President Trump obstructed the investigation of his non-conspiracy with Russia. Quite understandably, Congressional Republicans have been slapping their foreheads in...
Today my friends at The American Spectator published KIG’s post about John Dean’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee (John Dean? Seriously?) under the much better headline A Mafia Hit Man’s Assessment of John Dean subhead Jerry Nadler knows how to pick ’em. Here’s the link to the TAS article. In writing the article, I relied in part on Geoff Shepard’s excellent book The Real Watergate Scandal – Collusion, Conspiracy, and the Plot that Brought Richard Nixon Down. Geoff joined the Nixon White House directly out of Harvard Law School . He later served as Nixon’s Deputy Defense Counsel during the Watergate...
In the running-around-with-their-hair-on-fire department, the Congressional Democrats just topped themselves with yesterday’s bizarre testimony of convicted felon John Dean before the House Judiciary Committee. Students of history may recall that Dean served in the Nixon White House as Counsel to the President and pled guilty in 1974 to obstruction of justice for his role in covering up the ties between Nixon’s Committee to Re-Elect the President and the Watergate burglary. Since then, Dean has become a CNN commentator. Under the leadership of Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D. NY), the committee is investigating whether or not President Trump obstructed justice based on...
My wife has two nephews who graduated from West Point in the 1990s. The older one graduated in the top ten of his class at the Academy and devoted his military career to Army aviation. He did flight test work on helicopters, served in the Middle East and finished out his service with the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne). Known as the Night Stalkers, the unit is comprised of flight crews who have undergone the rigorous special forces selection process and who are highly trained and proficient in nighttime operations. It specializes in dangerous anti-terror missions worldwide. My wife and...
Pictured above is my wife’s Uncle Charlie landing on Utah Beach seventy-five years ago today. He is the soldier in the right foreground. He made it off the beach and fought across France and into Germany before the war in Europe ended. Despite being in the thick of the fighting, he survived and returned home to raise a family and live in peace. Like most of his generation of war fighters, he said very little about his combat experiences. One day, however, over drinks, he quietly reflected that “D-Day in Normandy was the noisiest day of my life. I was...
Here’s my latest in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer regarding the Virginia Beach massacre. Since many Inky readers are far left of center, I anticipate that this piece will cause many heads to explode. If you are like me and derive perverse amusement from that sort of thing, click on this link to view the article on Inquirer.com where you will be able to read the posted comments. [Parental advisory: some reader comments may not be suitable for children.] I want to thank the editors at the Inky for running this and my other pieces. Each time they do so, they receive...