What differentiates David Charles Grusch — who claims that the US government has in its possession “intact and partially intact craft of non-human origin” — from previous people making similar claims?

The big and obvious difference is that his back story seems to check out. For purposes of comparison:

Bob Lazar, a celebrity in the “The Truth is Out There” community, claims degrees in physics from MIT and electronics from CalTech. Neither university admits he studied or graduated there. He claims to have worked as a physicist at the Los Alamos Meson Physics facility. The facility says “nope.” He claims to have worked at a UFO research facility near the notorious Area 51, for the US Navy, as a contractor with defense firm EG&G. EG&G says they’ve never heard of him.

Grusch, on the other hand, apparently really is a former US Air Force officer, really did work for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office, and really did represent the NRO with the Defense Department’s Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force. Those vouching for him include a retired colonel who also served on the task force, and a current official at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center. He filed at least two “whistleblower” actions (in 2021 and 2022) with the Intelligence Community Inspector General relating to the claims we’re hearing now.

If we discount the possibility that Lazar’s true credentials were disappeared by a Grand Conspiracy to Hide the Truth, he doesn’t look very credible.

Grusch, on the other hand, looks credible indeed … to those who trust the US government.

I don’t trust the US government.

I truly do want to believe that at least some “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena” (aka UFOs) are spacecraft of extraterrestrial origin.

I think there’s an at least mildly convincing circumstantial case for the idea that the post-WW2 technological revolution received assistance from a distance — reverse-engineered technology from crashed/captured alien craft, or even direct, helpful contact from the people who built and piloted those craft.

But to really believe it, I’d need to see real proof, not just claims un-backed by physical evidence, no matter how seemingly credible the source.

My gut feeling about the Grusch disclosures is that we may be seeing a “modified limited hangout” — a term coined by John Ehrlichman in planning the Watergate cover-up, but most concisely defined by Stuart Wexler and Larry Hancock in their book Killing King; Racial Terrorists, James Earl Ray, and the Plot to Assassinate Martin Luther King Jr.:

“[A] modified limited hangout involves providing a story that is a mix of truth and falsehoods; when the false part of the story is exposed, the hope is that the receiving party throws the baby out with the bathwater.”

The idea being that when Grusch is somehow discredited, or discredits himself, the public will go back to sleep on “the UFO issue” for a little while longer.

If that’s the game, well, the truth will still be out there. We’ll find it sooner or later.

But probably not from the government.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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As I write this, former US president Donald Trump’s probably finishing up his morning shave routine and picking the suit he’ll wear to his arraignment, later in the day, on 37 federal criminal charges relating to his possession and handling of “classified information” since leaving office. For this matter, if nothing else, Trump deserves the thanks of a grateful nation.

Wait … what?

Yes, really.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m no Trump fan, nor do I entertain much doubt concerning either his guilt or his silliness in pushing the matter well beyond the point where  special counsel Jack Smith had to decide between pulling the indictment trigger or capping off his 30-year prosecutorial career as a legal laughingstock.

It’s that silliness, that pushing, for which Trump deserves our thanks.

As a small-time con artist — he’d likely be worth more today if he’d just stuck his inheritance in an indexed mutual fund instead of risking it on weird scams — and B-list entertainer, Trump mistakenly thought that going political dilettante for a few years would endow him with the same kind of immunity/impunity enjoyed by his opponents and predecessors.

Turns out that’s not how it works. The American political establishment holds a grudge. So much so that in bringing Trump down, it puts its own members in real legal jeopardy for perhaps the first time.

It’s not that American politicians aren’t crooks. They are. But traditionally they face few if any, and light if any, penalties for their crimes. That’s probably about to change.

It’s too early to tell if there’s real evidence behind House Republicans’ allegations that Joe Biden and his family members took millions of dollars in foreign bribes, but if the evidence is there, Biden and Trump may well end up sharing a special “Executive Suites” prison wing with their respective Secret Service details.

Once the dam breaks, that wing might require subsequent expansion to make room for bribe recipients like Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas and “classified information” mis-handlers like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

OK, maybe not those two —  some culprits will probably enjoy de facto amnesty/pardon, especially if they’ve retired from politics and can bring themselves, unlike Trump, to shut up — but being a crooked or corrupt politician seems like it’s about to get riskier. I wouldn’t want, for example, to be a member of Congress who wasn’t a millionaire when elected and who has somehow since attained a level of wealth my government salary doesn’t explain.

If Trump’s presidency and post-presidency does produce that kind of result, I’ll take his supporters’ claims that he’s the greatest president in history a little more seriously than I used to. And maybe even donate to his prisoner commissary fund.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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You’ve probably heard the expression “a solution looking for a problem.” The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact isn’t really such a thing. It’s more like a problem looking for another problem. But, thanks to Washington Post columnist Jason Willick, I’ve finally found some reasons to like it.

Why is it a problem?

Here’s how the NPVIC works (or would work if implemented): Once states commanding a total of 270 or more electoral votes joined, each of those states would award its presidential electors to the winner of the “national popular vote.”

That’s clearly unconstitutional without an added bit that it’s unlikely to get. Per Article I, Section 10, “No State shall, without the Consent of Congress … enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State …”

The NPVIC isn’t likely to fare well in the US Senate, where every state of any size receives two seats. Smaller states also get more relative weight in the electoral college. Why would they give that up?

Of course, it’s always possible that a rogue Supreme Court might find an “if you hold your mouth just right” way to miracle an exception into the congressional consent requirement. But in theory (unfortunately MOSTLY in theory), the Constitution is changed by amendment, not by fantasizing popular fairy tales into it.

So while I can’t say I’m particularly enamored of the electoral college and its “weighted” way of deciding presidential elections, the NPVIC doesn’t seem much better.

Or didn’t, until I read Willick’s column.

“The winner-take-all electoral college has limited the number of viable candidates to two in most elections,” he writes. “A popular-vote free-for-all could invite five or six or more. If politicians would just need a national vote plurality to automatically be awarded the compact’s 270 votes … more candidates would think they have a chance. Larger candidate fields would lower presidential vote shares and weaken presidential mandates.”

Willick considers all of that a “concern.” I see it as very much feature rather than bug.

Five or six viable choices instead of two? That sounds great.

Presidents without perceived “voter mandates” to do whatever they happen to feel like doing because they happen to feel like doing it? Even better!

Add to that: Presidents whose parties didn’t control at least 34 Senate seats would no longer enjoy effective immunity from conviction upon impeachment. We’ve seen four presidential impeachments and zero convictions in the history of the US, even though the accused was plainly guilty in at least three of those four cases.

More presidential choices? Less presidential power? No presidential impunity? What’s not to like?

None of that would likely be enough to save the existing system. Nor, certainly, enough to make it really WORTH saving. But we could do worse.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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