In the spring of 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson extended what amounted to a draft notice disguised as an invitation. It was not welcome. It was not optional. It marked the moment my life changed direction. I was nineteen years old and already sworn in with the Cook County Sheriff’s Police, having lied about my age to get there. I thought I had outrun uncertainty. I was wrong. I came from poverty. I was partially raised by a single mother whose life was chaotic and unreliable. By the age of fourteen, circumstances forced me to live on my own. It was not a choice. It was survival. To avoid foster care and the grip of social services, I took responsibility for myself early. I held a full-time job, paid my own rent, and attended high school at the same time. I survived by working at a hot dog stand at Montrose and Broadway while going to Senn High School during the day. Junior ROTC gave me discipline and structure, but it never prepared me for a draft notice. Basic training at Fort Le...

Don Lemon is in for the fight of his life.   Lemon   claims he was acting as a journalist, but the reality is, he was acting as a leading provocateur of the invasion of a Catholic Church service who became a part of his own January 18th story.   The last thing a journalist should do is become the story he or she is supposed to be covering.   He is in federal custody right now in Los Angeles, waiting for an appearance before a magistrate.   I suspect he will be held on a complaint rather than an indictment because of the timing.   His release will probably today on his own recognizance due to a lack of criminal record or bail jumping.  The case will be litigated. In the Twin Cities, where it occurred.  Because of the demographics in the Twin Cities, he will be facing  a liberal federal judge and jury.  He will have to pay his own way and lodging for further court proceedings in the Twin Cities.  It’ll be interesting who will pony ca...

I am a former police officer and a private investigator with over fifty years experience specializing in use of force cases. This is not ideology. This is experience. I had planned to wait for the official reports. They will have more video footage and more witness statements. But the essential facts already seem clear. This analysis is based on incomplete information, and it does not need to be perfect to be accurate. Alex Pretti opposed ICE and deportation policy. Fine. He had every right to protest. What he did not have was the right to riot. He attended a protest that devolved into violence. Pretti armed himself with a legally carried 9mm SIG Sauer pistol and spare magazines. Most people who carries semi automatic pistols also carry an extra magazine or two.  There is nothing unusual about that .  Carrying a gun was not the problem. Deciding to physically intervene in an arrest was. ICE agents were lawfully arresting a woman who had become physically aggressive. Prett...

When shootings like those involving Renee Good and Alex Pretti occur, the reaction is immediate and unforgiving. Within seconds, judgment hardens. Two opposing narratives form, each fueled by politics, emotion, and incomplete information. These incidents did not occur in a vacuum. Both individuals placed themselves directly in harm’s way by feloniously obstructing federal ICE agents engaged in official duties. They were not present as passive or peaceful protesters. Each was killed during the commission of a violent felony. The central question is not whether force was used, but whether the force applied was necessary and legally justified under rapidly unfolding circumstances. Multiple videos exist of both encounters. None clearly establish what actually happened. The footage is fragmented, obscured, and inconclusive. As investigations continue, additional video may surface. Only careful, frame-by-frame analysis may eventually clarify the sequence of events. Use-of-force encounters...

Vigilante hero Kyle Rittenhouse is still waiting for the final legal chapter to close in Kenosha, a city whose leaders chose cowardice over duty and chaos over law. When government refuses to protect its citizens, often the vacuum does not stay empty. Order does not politely wait its turn. Someone always steps in. In Kenosha, that someone was a 17 year old kid who showed more spine than the entire political class running the city. Kyle Rittenhouse was cleared of every criminal charge by a jury that actually watched the evidence instead of swallowing slogans. Yet six years later, civil lawsuits still crawl through the courts against him and against government officials who deliberately stood down while their city burned. No urgency. No accountability. Just the slow bureaucratic grind designed to punish by exhaustion. August 2020 was the moment Kenosha exposed itself. Leadership refused to act. Law enforcement was ordered to stand down. Arsonists roamed freely. Property was destroyed...

If the goal is to reduce injuries, then we need to stop pretending that chemical agents and kinetic projectiles are “gentler” options. Tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, and impact munitions put people in emergency rooms. Sometimes they put them in hospitals. Always they create lawsuits, especially in blue states where juries reward bad behavior with lottery-sized verdicts. There is a better tool, and it works. Properly used water cannon trucks drastically reduce injuries. No chemicals. No burns. No broken bones. No permanent damage. Just water. A lot of it. Water cannons are safe, effective, and humane when used correctly. Not to blast people off their feet. Not to injure. Simply to subject disruptive crowds to sustained, miserable conditions. Soaked clothing. Cold exposure. Total discomfort. The fastest cure is simple. Go home. Dry off. Get warm. That is why the political left hates them. They work too well. American law enforcement keeps deploying so-called less-lethal wea...

  The Democrat Party has burned through every shred of credibility it ever had with the American public. Whatever trust once existed is gone, buried, and not coming back. What remains looks like a political ghost ship. No rudder. No compass. Just drifting in circles while the crew argues on deck. Call it the Flying Dutchman of American politics, cursed to wander forever while pretending it knows where it is going. And spare the theatrics. Its real heading is obvious. Straight toward collectivism, dependency, and state control. The sales pitch never changes. Promise riches to people who have none. Promise security to people who feel afraid. Promise fairness to people who do not want to compete. What they actually deliver is dependency, stagnation, and permanent poverty. Everywhere communism or its close cousin socialism has taken root, the result is the same. A tiny elite of party insiders living like royalty, and a massive underclass reduced to economic serfdom. The masses surviv...