Category Archives: General

On this day in 1876, Jack McCall murdered Wild Bill Hickok in Deadwood, South Dakota. The so-called ‘dead man’s hand” Hickok was holding isn’t entirely known. Two black aces and two black eights are accepted. The fifth card, if even dealt, is not.

First, something about Hickok: he was a folk hero known for his life on the frontier as a soldier, scout, lawman, cattle rustler, gunslinger, gambler, showman, and actor, and for his involvement in gunfights. Some fictionalized, some not. He was, though, a legend during his life.

Back to the fateful hand dealt him. Even the black aces and eights have been called into question by a man claiming to have retrieved the cards. The man gave the cards to his son, who then told another person that the cards were the ace of diamonds, the ace of clubs, the two black eights, the clubs and spades, and the queen of hearts. But there was no evidence to support the claim.

Hickok’s biographer, Joseph Rosa, wrote about the hand in which the fifth card was the queen of clubs, along with the black aces and eights. The two pairs, black aces and eights, became known as the dead man’s hand, but they weren’t associated with Hickok until 50 years after his murder in yet another book.

The fifth card is open to speculation. The nine and the jack of diamonds come up often. The fifth card has been described as a bullet to the brain from behind because, for Hickok, it was.

The story of Wild Bill has fascinated me since I was a child. I watched the television show in the 1950s featuring him and his fictional sidekick, Jingles, played by Guy Madison and Andy Devine. I had the lockbox from the show and a fringe coat like the one Jingles wore. My parents got me the Wild Bill outfit, including two six-guns and a holster. It came with a white shirt and pants with black fringe. That is another story in itself.

Later, I followed the path of Wild Bill from Illinois to South Dakota, where he died at 39 years of age in Saloon No. 10, and read up on the trial of Jack McCall. McCall was found not guilty but tried a second time; the defense of double jeopardy failed on technical grounds. From trial and appeal, McCall was hanged in just under three months. That is speedy justice and interesting to read about.

I played some poker at No. 10 and won a decent amount of money playing blackjack, enough to get my photo taken with the lovely lady dealing cards. I still have the photo.

In two months, I’d be 13. One week away was fun, but like an eternity away from the pitcher’s mound, the only sport I would ever excel in. Seventh grade would be starting. We couldn’t wait. The year before, our seventh grade moved to a separate school four miles away. A new principal not following traditional discipline, instead believing you could reason with kids that age was in charge. The stories of chaos, some true, some not, made the place sound exciting to me. But the school fired the principal, and the new one was tough. So much for the wrong kind of fun I was looking for. But my grades went up. I still favored myself as a tough guy, but would find out the following Spring I wasn’t necessarily the cock of the walk, though it didn’t deter me from thinking I was. We moved to a new home around July. I had a clock radio in my room and listened to the latest songs for an hour or so before falling asleep. Every morning before the bus came, my neighbor, a little older, would walk to my driveway and we’d smoke a couple of cigarettes. He wasn’t there because he liked me, but I thought so at the time. It was because we had piles of dirt in front of the house from the excavator that hid us from the eyes of our parents while we smoked. I still remember the first day of school. I was in the new principal’s office within a few minutes after exiting the bus due to an incident that had occurred. It was a transformative year, though, and taught me how to write long paragraphs like this, literally from the episode on the first day. Sixty years ago was a great time to grow up.

Right now, Tulsi Gabbard will go down in history as an American hero.

Gabbard’s tenure as Director of National Intelligence (DNI) in 2025 demonstrates she is an American hero through her commitment to depoliticizing the intelligence community, ensuring unbiased analysis for national security decisions.

She has prioritized counterterrorism, making clear the threats of illegal border crossings by individuals with terrorist ties. Tulsi has become an advocate for better information-sharing with local agencies. It’s working, it seems. Not to take away the thunder of Kristi Noem, we have, I believe, two straight days of zero illegal crossings.

Gabbard is working to push for election security through paper ballots. If done, it eliminates vulnerabilities in our election processes and restores public trust in the process, reinforcing public trust in the system.

Her biggest contribution will be bringing down bureaucratic resistance within the intelligence community, what we call a big part of the “deep state,” reflecting her reformist stance. Therein lies the biggest contribution, which can lead to justice being dealt out to Obama, Brennan, Comey, Clapper, Clinton, Rice, Kerry, Biden, and their minions.

This is not Gabbard’s full description of her work as DNI, but to me, it makes her the superstar in the Trump administration.

Today is the first anniversary, if one wants to call it that, of the assassination attempt on President Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. The iconic photo of Trump, fist raised in the air, letting supporters know he was okay and imploring them to fight on, is seen by some as a turning point in the campaign. Mark Zuckerberg called it “badass.” Jeff Bezos was impressed. The Trump base was galvanized, and it changed the political landscape.

There were those who believed Trump was being politically persecuted, yet with each new attack, he bounced back stronger. Now, his opponents were seen as trying to kill him. And the gun was sighted for what very well could have been a fatal headshot. However, a “miracle” then occurred; some call it divine intervention.

As the assassin squeezed the trigger, Trump turned his head, referencing a chart on immigration statistics displayed on a jumbotron. Slow-motion footage and photos from the rally show the bullet flying past his head, missing a fatal impact by mere millimeters, six to be exact, 1/5 of an inch. Look at it this way: a classic #2 pencil used in schools measures about 6 to 7 millimeters across its narrowest point. Not much room for error.

Some say the bullet hitting his ear and being non-fatal averted a civil war. I can’t speculate on it. It’s possible. There are those who say it was a publicity stunt. Logically, it makes no sense. No one tries to pull off a stunt like that, turning their head in a split second to take a bullet to the head area from an assassin who killed firefighter Corey Comperatore and wounded three others. No one takes a shot to the head as a campaign assist, and liberal and conservative media acknowledge that it was a real bullet and Trump was hit.

However, there are legitimate questions that need answers. Six U.S. Secret Service agents were suspended without pay for their roles in security failures during the July 13, 2024, assassination attempt on Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The suspensions, ranging from 10 to 42 days, affected agents from supervisory to line-level positions. The agents were reassigned to roles with reduced operational responsibility upon their return.

The investigation showed significant operational lapses, including poor communication and coordination with local law enforcement. The suspensions follow a bipartisan House report stating the incident was “preventable” due to leadership and training failures.

As far as divine intervention, perhaps so. Did God shift Trump’s head at just the right moment to allow a .223 bullet from an AR-15 to speed past his head at 2,700 FPS? If so, it’s a miracle from God as worthy as those in the New Testament. Not all people are going to consider it a possibility.

But that photo of Trump with his fist raised, blood on his face, and the American flag in the background, with Trump calling on the faithful to, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” told me he was saved to serve. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg praised Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s response to nearly being assassinated, calling his raised fist after the incident “one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen in my life.” 

Matthew 28:20: “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” To me, it means we see God everywhere because he is everywhere. It’s not about literal sight; it’s about spiritual awareness.

You may be thinking the representation is only an optical illusion, and you’d be right. But on the theme, we see a street scene full of everyday life, yet subtly revealing Christ when you look closer. His presence can be hidden in plain sight, waiting to be recognized with spiritual eyes.