Author: Vic Socotra

Postcard From The Swamp: First Cut

There is a dizzying amount of stuff percolating up from the fetid waters of the Tidal Basin here in DC. It was not an unprecedented event- Attorney General Barr decided not to show up up an inquisition by House of Representative staff attorneys, though he did appear before the more user-friendly Senate committee yesterday. Eric […]

The Man Who Saved the Republic

It is the first of May, a famous holiday celebrated by the former Soviet Union and its satellites as a victory for the proletariat. It is not as big a deal as it was before Communism collapsed, but Venezuela might disagree. NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers formally retired on May 4, 2018, just a couple […]

Getting Lucky

(Military intelligence asset and mobster Lucky Luciano). I am sorry to plow old ground again, but this is a flip account of the involvement of Naval Intelligence with a unique troika of New York law enforcement and The Mob. Forgive me. I just binge-watched the Sopranos and am a little nostalgic. I was tipped off […]

Life & Island Times: Eat It and Like It

Let me briefly interject into my ongoing, but hopefully soon to end, unMuellering to say that Easter Sunday morning’s musing about my early years were spiced by W’s surprise provision of Asian 5-spice bacon (an unredacted recipe is below). We learned how to make this courtesy of our southernmost friend Rose C, who we suspect […]

Arrias: Korea, Mueller and National Security

The majority opinion seemed to be, in the wake of the last summit between North Korea and the US, that the summit was a failure. As there was no agreement, I suppose that’s an accurate, if limited, assessment. If the whole point of the summit was to produce an agreement, no matter what that agreement […]

ANZAC Day

This is a special day, and you may or may not be aware of the significance of the holiday remembering the men of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps who were ordered to assault what Winston Churchill called “The soft underbelly” of Europe at Gallipoli. It wasn’t. My son marched on this day in […]

Swamp Postcard: Internal Bubbles

Well, it is actually a quiet week in the swamp. Many of the Creatures are out in the hustings, addressing the great inequalities of a society whose largesse is the greatest in the history of this pesky species. With the issuance of the Mueller Report, one might expect that lane of hysteria would quiet, but […]

Stupid Plastic Shoes Pt.2

The Office of Strategic Information: Part Two of the Post 9-11 Saga “Stupid Plastic Shoes” “The Office of Strategic Influence, or OSI, was a department created by DoD in October 30, 2001, to support the Global War on Terror through coordinated Psychological Operations- PSYOPS- at target countries around the world. OSI was prohibited from operations […]

Arrias: Metaphors?

A good friend – a keen observer of the human condition – asked the other day if the Notre Dame fire is a metaphor for the destruction of the Western World? There’s an instant recoil from that suggestion; of course things will be okay! Then you start to think about all the negative news of […]

Life & Island Times: UnMuellering

Gentle Readers, given the events of last week, Marlow has struck out in an adventure that includes collusion, of a sort, one generation reflecting change against the one that give them life. Balancing the joy of a crisp morning and full light creeping up the pastures, I gave a prayer of thanks for the things […]