Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

MANY people in custody, with many others being sought for Vandalization of Federal Property in Lafayette Park. 10 year prison sentences! @FBIWFO pic.twitter.com/mrLyxbWNvq

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 26, 2020

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The Battle of the Little Bighorn was fought on this date in 1876 (only four years before my grandfather Harvey Burgess was born). I've been to the battlefield three times: in 1964, 1989, and 2014. (I guess I'm on the quarter-century plan, which means I'm due to go again in 2039, when I will be 82 years old.) I've read many books about the battle and am still forming my opinion about what happened on that fateful day. In case you're interested, the best book I've read on the subject is John Gray, Custer’s Last Campaign: Mitch Boyer and the Little Bighorn Reconstructed, foreword by Robert M. Utley (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1991). The battlefield is sacred ground to me. Katherine has instructions to scatter my ashes on the battlefield when I exit this vale of tears.

Here is a reconstruction.

Seven years ago today, as I was heading out to get my allergy shot, I saw a starving dog in the street near my house in Fort Worth. He was looking at a girl eating a banana, perhaps hoping she would share. I completed my errand, but couldn't stop thinking about him. When I got home, he was lying in the doorway of a neighbor's house. I took some food to him to lure him to my house.

When he was in the back yard, I fed him both dry food and canned food, topped off with fresh water. (It was a scorching hot day.) When he finished eating, he came to me and put his big coconut head in my lap. I was hooked. He's been with me ever since.

Since I found him on the 137th anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, I named him Autie. That was George Armstrong Custer's nickname while growing up. When I took Autie to the veterinarian for shots, on 5 July, I was told that he was seven months old. Backdating, I got 5 December for his birthday. That's Custer's birthday! How cool is that?

The pictures show Autie on the day I found him and today. I call him "the impossible dog," and not just because he shouldn't have survived the starvation. You'd have to live with him to understand what this means. Suffice it to say that he has the energy and enthusiasm of 10 dogs. Imagine winning the Tour de France, which is the hardest sporting event in the world (by far). As soon as you cross the finish line on the final stage, you are informed that (1) you won the PowerBall lottery and (2) you've been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. You'd be ecstatic beyond words, right? You'd shriek, pump your fist, and jump for joy. That's how Autie acts every day, before every walk. I kid you not.

As hard as he is on me, I love Autie dearly. I told him on the first day of our friendship that I would always take care of him, and I have (and will).

P.S.: Autie weighed 29 pounds on the day I found him. He weighs 90 pounds now.

Here is Kurt Schlichter's latest column.

To the editor:

A letter writer objected to the idea expressed by Sarah Posner in an op-ed piece that any of Donald Trump’s evangelical loyalists ever said that the president was “divinely anointed,” calling it “misinformation” and asking who has ever said such a thing. Here’s a short list:

Last November, former Energy Secretary Rick Perry said that Trump is “here at this chosen time because God ordained it.”

Franklin Graham, the son of Billy Graham, said in June 2019, “God was behind the last election.”

Brad Parscale, Trump’s campaign manager, said in April 2019, “Only God could deliver such a savior to our nation.”

In addition, Trump evangelical advisory board leader Paula White, former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and former Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) have all expressed similar sentiments.

Maybe Posner was not so far off after all.

Rich Eames, Los Angeles

Note from KBJ: Now do Obama.