Reader Daniel Kibblesmith requested this item about how I’d treat an expanded universe from Robert Ludlum’s espionage novels. Here at Balladeer’s Blog I’m about responding to you readers. I had sprinkled my reviews of Robert Ludlum’s Top Seven Novels with observations of what I would have liked to see in terms of offshoots or spin-off stories. So, since Expanded Universes are becoming all the rage in recent decades here’s an outline of my fan fiction-style view of an Expanded Robert Ludlum Universe.
I. BEOWULF AGATE – Series of short stories or a made for cable series. The tales would be set from the 1950s to late 1970s, ending just before the events in The Matarese Circle. Ludlum’s fictional intelligence organization Consular Operations would take center stage.
Brandon Scofield, codename Beowulf Agate, one of the main characters of The Matarese Circle, would be shown pulling off his highest level defections from the Soviet Union in his best “Cold War version of the Scarlet Pimpernel” style. Every so often he would clash with his archenemy – KGB Agent Vasili Taleniekov. To up the suspense level sometimes Taleniekov would win their clashes.
II. OPERATION: MEDUSA – Another series of short stories or a made for cable series. Ludlum’s Operation: Medusa was his fictional version of the Vietnam War’s real-life Phoenix Project. Operation: Medusa was the top-secret, paramilitary Black Operations outfit in which David Webb aka Jason Bourne got his first covert experience.
Officially disavowed by the U.S. government, Medusans spent the final few years of the Vietnam War pulling off assassinations, abducting and torturing information out of North Vietnamese movers and shakers, committing acts of sabotage AND facilitating escapes from POW camps. David Webb, his brother Gordon, D’Anjou (Codename: Echo), Alexander Conklin and “The Monk” himself, David Abbot would be the main characters but we would meet new Medusans, too. Continue reading
WE NEED THIRD PARTIES. Independent voter site Balladeer’s Blog remains the only place on the web that criticizes both of America’s major political parties equally. Some Democrat politicians – even Ilhan Omar – are bravely crossing party lines to praise the Trump administration’s coronavirus efforts. 
Even now the worthless corporate media fixates on calling people racist for correctly saying “Chinese Coronavirus” and ignoring the way there is no condemnatory intent behind such labels. SPANISH Flu, GERMAN measles, etc. Even the Democrats at CNN have called it the “Chinese Coronavirus” on several occasions beginning on January 22nd of this year.
ONE LITTLE INDIAN (1973) – Light-hearted family western. James Garner portrays Corporal Clint Keyes, who, after clashing with his Indian-hating superior, escapes a potential hanging for it and rides off into the desert with a pair of camels left over from the ill-advised American Camel Corps attempt in the 1800s. 
Balladeer’s Blog’s theme of Top 20 lists for the year 2020 continues with this look at a score of James Garner films. NOTE: The Great Escape is not included, only because Garner was part of an ensemble cast in that movie. 
MAVERICK (1994) – Though James Garner was technically playing a supporting role to Mel Gibson in this film, Gibson was portraying Bret Maverick, the character Garner had turned into a sensation in the 1950s. Since this movie would not exist without the cultural cache built up by James’ portrayal of both Bret AND “Pappy” Beauregard Maverick (in old age makeup) this definitely counts as a Garner film. 
BARBARIANS AT THE GATE (1993) – In this telefilm based on the best-selling non-fiction book, Jim plays F. Ross Johnson, the real-life president of RJR-Nabisco who unleashed one of the most chaotic and frenzied leveraged buyouts in Wall Street history during the “greed is good” 1980s. 
Openly gay Brandon Straka, founder of the #WALKAWAY movement, continues to speak for so many of us former Democrats who were driven away from that increasingly unhinged political party to become Independent voters. 
“Send in the clown? He’s already here.” That should be the new campaign slogan for the endlessly entertaining buffoon Joe Biden, the man that the corrupt Democrats have selected to rob Bernie Sanders of their presidential nomination this time around. 
No wonder Bernie Sanders has vowed for now to stay in it! Biden even wandered off-camera while babbling, forcing his handlers to hurriedly place a Biden logo on screen hoping to cover for it. Hilarious! 
And no, that doesn’t mean I’m saying to ignore precautions. I’m only pointing this out because of the media frenzy which has been approaching Y2K proportions. Yes it is serious but don’t get hysterical. 
Even the most ardent Joe Biden supporters have come to wonder if Joe is mentally fit enough to be campaigning for president or if he is being pushed forward by selfish staff and hangers-on who are only interested in how it will advance THEIR interests if he succeeds. 
*** DEMOCRAT CHUCK SCHUMER THREATENS SUPREME COURT JUSTICES – Reaching a new level of thuggery even for the party of slavery, the Ku Klux Klan and Jim Crow, Senator Chuck Schumer threatened Supreme Court Justices who make decisions that the Democrats don’t agree with. 
Independent Voter site Balladeer’s Blog likes to keep readers updated on those of us who have chosen to #WALKAWAY from the increasingly repulsive and out of touch Democrats. Shakem Akhet, leader of South Carolina’s #BLEXIT answer to #WALKAWAY, recently reflected on the reasons he and other African Americans are leaving the Democrats. 
