Blogs and Other Posts

Of all the departures from the West Wing in the last month, Stephen Bannon’s departure on Friday was by far the most disturbing to President Trump’s base. After less than a full year serving to drive Trump’s America first agenda, he was forced out. Bannon has been called a variety of things, most of them deeply unfair, but he was, and is, one thing for sure: the loudest and truest voice to the America First agenda among the Trump team. What’s troubling about Bannon’s departure is that the strong voice that was advocating day in and day out for the…

The quiet crisis hitting America’s suburbs is an unusual one, one that most on first blush wouldn’t quite believe if not dismiss. But it is in fact a very real threat and getting more deadly by the day. The crisis is opioids, and it’s been building for years, but as with so many “crises” was never fully acknowledged or addressed over the past decade. Last week, President Trump declared, “The opioid crisis is an emergency. And I am saying officially right now: It is an emergency, it’s a national emergency. We’re going to spend a lot of time, a lot…

For nearly five months, the firm Fusion GPS, hired by Democrats to research and write an “intelligence report” that the most senior members of the Obama administration circulated widely last summer and fall, has been stonewalling a U.S. Senate committee investigation. That “report,” many believe, was the basis for charges of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign.  So why are they being allowed to stonewall? In February, Sen. Chuck Grassley sent questions to Fusion GPS about the dossier and the firm’s role in the scandal, and was rebuffed. The firm claimed it would not answer questions due to attorney-client privilege and First Amendment rights….

I recently caught up with New York Times’ bestseller Brad Thor to discuss his new book, Use of Force, which comes out June 27. Ned Ryun:  Were there any real-life events that inspired the writing of this book? Brad Thor: A bunch. I call what I do “faction,” which is where you don’t know where the facts end and the fiction begins in my thrillers. The laptop discovered in a terrorist safe house is real, as were all the plots hidden on it. The ISIS/Mafia nexus is real, as is the attack methodology in the book. The smuggling background, the secret Spec Ops training base…