“Devlin,” the anonymous, alienated agent of the Central Security Service who takes on all America’s enemies, both foreign and domestic, is back in my new thriller, Shock Warning, out this week. (The Kindle edition will be released on Oct. 4)

It’s the third in the series that began with Hostile Intent in 2009 and continued with last year’s Early Warning. This volume concludes what I call the Skorzeny Trilogy, after the chief bad, Emanuel Skorzeny, the shadowy German billionaire who’s waging a private war against both Devlin, the American president, Jeb Tyler, and the West as a presidential election looms.

In this excerpt, the publishing mogul Jake Sinclair, who’s also made it his mission to destroy Tyler, has just learned of a terrible accident in California, and gets his best reporter — the sexy Principessa Stanley (who figured prominently in Early Warning) — on the case:

CHAPTER ELEVEN

New York City

The news was breaking as Jake Tyler entered the offices on Sixth Avenue.  Normally he didn’t come to New York much, certainly not since they’d moved the corporate base of operations to Los Angeles in some choice Century City property he just happened to own.

He’d flown in on his private jet, and if there was one rule he had on his private jet it was that he was not to be disturbed for any reason whatsoever, short of Selenites landing at Bowling Green or, worse, Carbon Beach.  Or Elvis, reappearing in Branson.

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I was terrified of the prospect of a third party candidate. A three-way, split vote might very well … if the third candidate were viable and interesting … insure the re-election of the worst President in American history, Barack Obama. Nothing would make James Carville happier.

Unless, of course, this third party candidate were Hillary Clinton!

Carville would be strapping on two Colt 45’s, lock n’ load, and mosey on down to the 2012 OK Corral right  behind the Secretary of State. Hillary Clinton is now, if you don’t mind my saying so, Carville’s “Main Man”.

James Carville is not, if you remember, a “Judas” like former Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico.

The Third Party Possibility was a worry I had dispelled awhile ago when Glenn Beck seemed adamant about not running for the Presidency on a Third Party ticket.

Now we have James Carville absolutely certain that someone, so far unnamed, will run against both the Republican and Democratic Candidates.

“I think,” said Glenn Beck in November of 2009,“a third party candidate is going to win in 2012!”

Was Beck talking about himself then?

No.

Beck, in 2009, mentioned Sarah Palin as a third party candidate.

Is Carville echoing the notion?

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I’ve written several articles skewering HBO for producing political projects destined to air immediately prior to the 2012 election, where the vast majority of the cast and crew are passionate Barack Obama supporters, and where the content is aimed at the Democrat’s two favorite Republican villains: Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney. So, when I sat down to watch HBO’s Too Big to Fail, I prepared myself for the worst. What I didn’t expect was the big surprise awaiting me.

Too Big to Fail, which premieres on HBO on May 23, 2011, features a star studded cast recounting the events that led to the financial crisis and bailouts by the U.S. government in 2008. It is a mini-series packed into a 98-minute made-for-television movie where several essential characters are quickly introduced and where finance and economics are casually discussed. It may help if one has a baseline of knowledge about the crisis before watching the movie. If one doesn’t know who Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke, and Timothy Geithner are or what Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, and AIG are, it may prove slightly difficult to follow.

Although the Director, Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential, 8 Mile), was limited to telling a very long and complicated story in a very short amount of time, he was able to skillfully pull it off. Perhaps this is because the screenwriter, Peter Gould (Breaking Bad), deftly adapted Andrew Ross Sorkin’s 2009 prize winning New York Times Bestseller, Too Big to Fail. (more…)

If I were to have told you five years ago that somewhere in the near future, we would see a candidate whisked into office not based on any previous political accomplishments, not for any stellar track record with the American public, but by the sheer magnitude of his celebrity… 

   …Wait, did I just describe the Barack Obama circa ’08 or did I just describe Donald Trump? 

Let me first state that this is not an endorsement, nor a prediction regarding Donald Trump’s viability as a presidential candidate. I have no idea as to whether an iconic walking haircut with teeth can be elected to the Oval office, but the more I think about it, the less it would surprise me. What is important is that we remember this; Barack Obama the politician was never elected to office. Barack Obama the celebrity was. 

The Barack Obama with arguably the most far-left track record in the senate and when he wasn’t voting radically left, he voted a mere “present” at least one hundred and twenty nine times… America didn’t know a thing about that Barack Obama. The Barack Obama who graced the covers of men’s magazines, Hollywood tabloids and was declared “vewwyy sexy” by Barbara Walters, that’s the man who leads this country.  He had one thing that no other candidate had and that was his status as a pop-culture icon. 

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So that impromptu press conference on Friday was fun. For a brief moment, I felt like I had traveled back to the mid nineties, and every year of time travel had knocked a sandwich off Bill Clinton. He resembled one of those inflatable “party Clintons” you hire for events – but Obama had neglected to blow this one up.

There, our President actually said, “I’m going to take off,” letting Clinton take over – something he could not resist. Handing him the podium was like giving him a Playboy Bunny made of hot dogs. He didn’t know whether to eat it, or bang it.

And, it reminded me of trying to buy a car. Faced with two sales guys of murky seniority – it’s the top guy who ends up heading out to close a bigger deal. For some reason, I’m always stuck with the rambling, folksy guy. He’s got all the time in the world to tell you about his grandkids. That’s Clinton.

So what does this say about Obama?

That he’s too cool for school.

He’s a man with other things on his brain (egg nog, maybe) and boy is he tired of our lack of appreciation. So a hand-off to Bill made sense. Afterward, the old man can play Santa at the house.

Which leads me to this great idea I have for a new cop show. One cop is the aloof guy – confident in his ambivalence, tired of your complaining. The other, a jovial narcissist, never missing an opportunity to insert himself in comical situations, and women. (more…)

Please enjoy this excerpt from the first and second chapters of “The First Assassin.”

CHAPTER ONE

Saturday, February 23, 1861

When Lorenzo Smith heard the chugging of the train, he felt for the revolver at his side. His fingers met its smooth handle, hidden beneath his black coat. Then he found the short barrel and the trigger below. Smith had reached for it a dozen times in the last hour, but he wanted to be certain that the gun was still there. It will make me a hero, he thought. It will change history.

Listening for the rumble of the train had been difficult. A loud mass of people waited for its arrival at Calvert Street Station. Smith did not know how many were there, but they must have numbered in the thousands. The noisy throng spilled from the open-ended depot onto Calvert and Franklin Streets. Inside the station, where Smith stood, shouts bounced off the walls and ceiling. This place of tearful departures and happy reunions had become a hotbed of agitation.

The train’s steam whistle pierced the din of the crowd. The engine would pull into Baltimore on schedule, at half past noon. Heads bobbed for a view. Smith struggled to keep his position near the track. He had picked it two hours earlier, when the flood of people was just a trickle. He was not sure precisely where the train would stop, but he thought he had made a good guess about where the last car might come to a halt. He wanted to be within striking distance. (more…)

Stop the servers!  Jackson Williams at the Huffington Post has a newsflash:  Actor Matthew Marsden Hides His Right-Wing Political Views.

This raises a couple of questions.  The first is, “Who is Mathew Marsden?”  Well, he was an up-and-coming young English singer and actor with athletic roles in Rambo and Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen.  Which leads to the second question – why would writer Jackson Williams be so giddy about the revelation that Marsden apparently does not hew obediently to the Hollywood left’s party line?

Well, it sure isn’t because he’s interested in giving Marsden’s career a boost.  Like the grinning little snot in every elementary school class who gets off on the high of narc-ing out the other kids to the schoolmarm, Jackson’s purpose was to tattle to every producer, agent, actor and other Hollywoodoid that Marsden had been a bad, bad boy.  He exercised his right to think for himself. Maybe Jackson should wear a sash:  “Political Hall Monitor.”  But it’s clear that his article is simply a nomination of Marsden for a spot on the New Hollywood Blacklist. (more…)

The other day I was asked if I thought I would ever come face to face with writer’s block.  I had to laugh.  Inasmuch as I generally write about things that annoy, frustrate or just plain drive me nuts, running out of material or losing the impulse to complain in print are among the very least of my worries. 

When you factor in that Barack Obama is my president, Joe Biden is my vice-president, Nancy Pelosi is next in line, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer are my senators, Brad Sherman is my congressman, Antonio Villaraigosa is my mayor and Jerry Brown is lurking in the wings to be my governor, do you really think I’ll be turning my pen into a plowshare anytime soon?    

But at least now you might have a better handle on why I look back so fondly on what I have come to regard as the good old days when an American’s major complaint was that he had taxation without representation. 

On top of everything else, I live in Los Angeles and have spent most of my adult life laboring in Hollywood, a place that some people regard as less an actual location than a state of mind.  I agree it is a state of mind in the same sense that paranoia and schizophrenia are states of mind.  (more…)

Now, there’s something very troubling about the couple who snuck into that White House dinner – and it’s not just their “Easy-Bake oven” hair, or their beady, heat-seeking eyeballs.

No – it’s something else… and that something else makes me want to freeze Tareq and Michaele Salahi solid, board them up in a box and drop them into an Arctic sea, “Blob” style.

Part of it, I guess, is that they’re social climbing chuckleheads – the desperate kind whose quest for notoriety trumps productive living. In their heads, getting close enough to lick a Joe Biden hair plug is worth whatever sacrifice – especially if the sacrifice isn’t theirs.

And, as it turns out, it wasn’t.

Today, the head of the Secret Service has announced that because of the security breach at last week’s dinner, three agents are now on administrative leave. And that’s the price for your fame, Tareq and Michaele: three tarnished careers. Congrats. (more…)

Mark Twain’s famous quote, “Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel,” resonates loudly in my mind as I finish Sarah Palin’s captivating story, Going Rogue.

But Palin ain’t buying it by the barrel, she’s got a whole pipeline of pure grade indigo flowing from the North Slope as she pumps up the volume on her NY Times #1 bestselling memoir.

When I got about halfway through the book I set it down, stepped outside of my Washington, DC townhouse and went for a run around the U.S. Capitol. Listening to the Outlaws, Marshall Tucker Band, and Lil Bow Wow (my daughter slipped that one in there) on my iPod, the recurrent thought in my mind was that this woman is far more qualified to be president of the United States than the current occupant of the White House. (more…)

Images have power. Propaganda and marketing are based on the power of the image and the thoughts and feelings that the image conveys. A photo op pulled off well can make a politician’s career. A photo op done badly will torpedo it.

Michael Dukakis riding around in a tank destroyed his presidential run. So is the power of imagery.

When I was a teenager a street artist named Robbie Conal put up grotesque pictures around Los Angeles of Ronald Reagan and his cabinet members like James Watt and Ed Meese.

These images had power over the long term and many street posters by Conal, other artists, a left-wing media and academia all worked in aggregate to change West LA which was Reagan’s home district to the left-wing bastion of “people’s republics” communities it is today. I am not asserting that Conal alone had this affect, but in interviews from the mid-eighties, Conal clearly stated that it was his goal to change public perception and public opinion with his art. (more…)

I like finding examples of left-wing media bias as much as the next guy but I suppose that guy would have to be another right-wing nut job like me in order to enjoy it as much as I do. Anyway, over the weekend I was watching all the hype for the big Obama Afghanistan announcement on Tuesday when I saw a little gem of a news story on Headline News. There she was, the former darling of the left-wing press — Ms. Anti-War herself — Cindy Sheehan, leading a huge war protest in front of Travis Air Force Base outside of Sacramento, CA.

Except Ms. Sheehan’s protest really wasn’t all that huge. It looked like Cindy and about seven or eight of her aging hipster friends had gotten some gas money together, made a few signs and a rented U Haul truck for a trip from the Bay Area up to Sacto. I sometimes confuse Cindy’s pals in Code Pink with the pink hats my mother’s old friends in the Red Hat Society wore. Except the Red Hat ladies are out for fun and the Code Pink gals seem to have gotten out of bed on the wrong side. To be honest, I felt a little sad for Cindy. I think I could get more people over to my house for an Amway meeting. I didn’t see how less than a dozen people doing anything would rate national news time. However, Ms. Cindy was getting more airtime on HLN than the entire 9/12 weekend demonstration did, and though we may disagree about how many folks were there, I think we can all agree it was a little more than twelve. (more…)

So, President Obama’s speech wasn’t a bad one, but it wasn’t a great one either. If anything, it reminded me a little of Osama bin Laden’s speech – the one where he told us exactly when he was going to take down the World Trade Center. And remember the speech given right before Pearl Harbor – the one where the Japanese Imperial Headquarters let us know when the planes would arrive? Eerily similar.

I kid. Those speeches never took place – because our enemies never tell us when they’re going to attack. But we’re different. Not only do we tell them when and where, but also, how long before we’ll go home. Terrorists? Alas, they have patience in spades. A few years is nothing when you`re looking at an eternity with 72 virgins.

But look: this is war, and we need to call it war, and when we fight a war, we must back the President. So I`m with him 100 percent. But I wish he`d, you know, embrace the damn thing – and say we`re going to destroy these bastards, minus the egg timer. And to me, the coach shouldn’t talk strategy out in the open until after the game, when we`ve beaten the pants off the other team. (more…)

I see a great story in Roxana Saberi. Don’t you? A can’t fail, high-concept, four-quadrant script with a unique storyline. In fact, I’d expect a bidding war no less severe and cutthroat for the rights to Roxana’s story as that for Lone Survivor. You know. A MARIE in Iran meets MISSING kinda thing.

A young and beautiful former Miss North Dakota and reporter for the BBC and NPR, among others, falsely arrested by misogynist Iran and tagged with a series of escalating charges, from buying wine to reporting with expired credentials to espionage, charges even Roxana’s lawyer has not officially seen to date, but upon which Ms. Saberi was just sentenced to eight years in the Iranian Hell of Evin prison in a one-day kangaroo court trial. Coercion was also involved, including a threat to kill her.

Any questions as to who and what we’re really dealing with here now? (more…)

America has had both good and bad presidents. We have survived and prospered under both types because we are a blessed land of freedom and plenty. The election of Barack Obama is not something I wished to see happen but it is reality and all I can do is go on with my life and hope that the ideas I profess in opposition to his will resonate with others. I can only hope that those who believe in my ideas take action when Obama’s term is up and make wiser choices of leadership for America at that time. Until then, Obama is my president and I have respect for him and wish him the best.

I was not surprised or depressed to see the people that supported Obama celebrating in Chicago on election night. Their party was out of power for eight long years and they deserve to celebrate their return to political relevance. I was not unhappy at all to see black people in America celebrate Obama’s electoral accomplishment. I have believed for many years now that Dr. King’s dream of overcoming was a reality for all people in this country but if it took a man of color to ascend to our nation’s highest office to prove it to black people, I celebrate their happiness. If Obama’s election means an end to racial strife and an end to people longing for equality in our country, then I celebrate that too. (more…)

We’re glad.

Despite witnessing the unprecedented sycophancy of the past few days. Despite the fact that our friends are walking around with silly grins on their faces like they’ve been popping tabs of ecstasy. Despite having to listen to breathless journalists in Washington D.C. hyperventilating as they spoke about being a part of history. “I think I just saw the top of his head! Yes that was it! This is historic!”

It’s better than the alternative.

I’m only speaking for those of us in New York and L.A. I know there are a lot of you in flyover country who don’t know what I’m talking about, but you have to understand what it is like living among people in “the business.” We’ve been surrounded by bitterness so long, we just want everyone we know to be happy for a little while.  (more…)