That is a big piece of Washington. What should we call it? “Nancyland?” Maybe so? There are not a great many people living in there behind the wire. There are some apartment buildings between the Longworth House Office Building and the Capitol South Metro Station. It must be hell to live in there. I see that the Monocle Restaurant on D Street just east of Lower Senate Park is inside the wire. They must be doing a landmark business feeding people like Russell Honore for lunch. Too bad the National Guard isn’t on a nice fat per diem. I seem to remember that the Monocle had a take-out window on the side of the building. I wonder if the Supreme Court and the Library of Congress like being behind the wire.
Well, pilgrim Turcopoles, the process is well underway. That would be consolidation of power in the hands of the leftist and globalist coalition.
Nancy and Chucky are building themselves the Nancyland citadel, a place where even such as they can feel unafraid of the onslaught of Proud Boys, pissed off ex-GIs, and people from beyond the horizon in Flyover Country. Honore has recommended the creation of a full time, professionalized MP “battalion” (who knows how big) of the DC National Guard to act in Honore’s words as a QRF (quick reaction force) for quelling attacks on Nancyland from anything beyond the wire. The DC National Guard being what it is we can expect to see a certain uniformity of complexion and political sentiment amongst such a group. Such a unit would amount to a Capitoline Praetorian Guard that would answer to DoD control only as much as the congressional leaders wished that it do so. There might be another career move in this for Honore as Praetorian Prefect.
And what of the once great land beyond the wire? Joe Joe was shown in a comparison last night on Hannity’s show to have grown very feeble. Hannity put up side by side comparisons of Joe in action in 2012 and in 2021. It is not the same man. I don’t like either version. The one still extent was filmed the other day asking Nancy what he should do next in a meeting. I have run a few meetings and for the leader to do that is just laughable. So, pilgrims, who is actually in charge?
And then there is the matter of the 1.9 trillion dollar grab bag that K Harris cast her first tie breaking vote for last evening. This is the “American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.” All but about 10 % of it is pork for Democrat causes far and wide. This, while a trillion dollars from earlier enactments remains unspent or unobligated. Sooo, what we have in these fiscal facts is a massing of so much funny money that the machine can run on empty for a long time even as the cheap money stimulates the economy in the hope of keeping the masses in line. Anyone who knows anything knows that with both houses of Congress in your pocket you re-program money to do whatever you like with it.
And, then, pilgrims we have the “For the People Act,” (HR-1). This piece of work is designed to consolidate electoral power in the hands of the Democrats. It would do that nicely; statehood for the District of Columbia? Two more eternally reliable seats for the Democrats, plus the vote for immature 16 year old children, automatic voting registration, reliance on mail in ballots, etc. Could the Democrats be more obviou?.
Da Plan is clear. pl
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Rescue_Plan_Act_of_2021
How does a democracy survive when a significant majority are uninformed, badly educated and immature and a significant, very loud minority actively hate the country?
As for Honore, he’s just another PR creation (“You can’t fix stupid”) like James Mattis (the “warrior monk”, call sign CHAOS,).
Permanent military policing of DC?
If a so-called “QRF” is really needed then why not just hire more DC Metro police and/or Park police and establish a “QRF” from that force?
Does increasing the security whilst protecting politicians whilst at ‘work’ in DC not increase their vulnerability when they are at home?
If the people can’t go and see them at work maybe they will knock on their front doors instead.
It’s going to be interesting to see how this shakes out at the state level, because most of these policies are targeted at ‘wokesters’, and have little basis in reality. These policies were built and designed in the “DC/Coastal Bubbles”, where the only push back is token and largely ‘optical’ for les deplorables. Urbanites have a completely different set of priorities than we rural folks, and we rural folks have already begun to simply ignore DC edicts, whether via Exec Orders or a completely corrupted congress. The fact remains that there are only around 50,000 enforcement agents around, so once the TV is off, much of this fear mongering never reaches les deplorables.
What appears to be happening is a set of rules for les deplorables and another for the managerial and elite classes – same as ever, but this time supercharged with all that free money. It seems to me that state level politics is the only way to resist this, and as we go forward, this may be the fuel for secessionist fires being lit in various places. Les deplorables got a very small taste of things improving under Trump, only to have their legs swept in this faux election. They are unlikely to forgive or forget, but they also have seen that their votes are immaterial when the vote counting is owned by other interests.
There is also the coming rise in energy prices, just in time for the receding of the Covid distraction – any small economic growth is likely to be anemic as transportation costs rise and follow-on inflation stays invisible (not seen because of long term manipulation of said indicators) and eats at cash flows among les deplorables. Rising interest rates are going to come as well, the bank bunch has already thrown that at our feet, so there is more fuel in waiting.
Some rough beast is beginning to take shape outside the DC/Coastal-bubbles, all consequential in nature.
Interesting times, certainly…
Nothing says “unity and healing” like turning DC into an armed garrison with weekly breathless reports of “incoming terror plots” by the Other Side every week.
There is also the very salient fact that GWOT style solutions are being proposed to deal with the fact that someone, somewhere, might be opposed to 8 year old drag queens.
The flip side of that, which the DMV bureaucrats and castrati currently running Fedgov don’t grok is that GWOT style solutions bring GWOT style problems, without the benefits of two oceans to insulate one from the fallout of drone striking a wedding.
Appalachia is Afghanistan with more trees. Huge swathes of the West are functionally ungovernable once you remove an incredibly fragile logistics system.
Future unpleasantness is unavoidable.
Gallo Rojo,
“castrati currently running Fedgov don’t grok is that GWOT style solutions bring GWOT style problems”
They will find that the Preatorean Guard can intimidate the press, the elected opposition and the residents of Metro D.C., but they won’t be back in 435 congressional districts defending every $500 a plate fundraiser, union hall or a thousand and one other places. Thus the Big Tech tracking and social media scoring to arrest for precrime the predetermined guilty. All part of the propaganda of “insurection” while consolidating power.
No offense intended, Colonel, but your comments about President Biden’s physical condition begs a question. I will answer for myself first.
I can say without any fear of contradiction that I, a 74 year old man (75 in a couple of weeks), am nowhere near as spry as I was nine years ago, when I was a mere pup of 66. At 66 I was still working 9 hour days at the SEC (a short walk from the Monacle). Five days a week I rode the bus from Arlington to the Metro at the Pentagon in the morning, then taking the Yellow line to Union Station, and walking (a brisk walk) through Union Station the half mile or so to the SEC. And repeating the commute in reverse order, getting off the bus in Shirlington to have a beer at Samuel Beckett’s, before getting on the 7E to ride the mile or so to my apartment.
I retired at 67 and moved here to California because, at 67, the commute had become too much drudgery to endure five days a week. But I still felt pretty good.
Since I retired, I have had five hand surgeries (trigger fingers). I suffered a second stroke in October, 2019, where it was discovered that I had two congenital heart defects, which had been undisclosed even after my first minor stroke ten years ago. Thanks to the miracles of modern medicine, TPA quickly resolved the effects of the stroke, and a wonderful cardiologist ran a catheter up my femoral vein and patched the two heart defects. While he says I may have another stroke in the future, it will not be due to my heart defects. And in November of last year, I had to have my sigmoid colon removed due to complications from diverticulosis. Thanks be to God I had no signs of cancer in the rotted sigmoid.
So here I am, at 74. My legs hurt from a pinched nerve in my back (a result of pandemic induced laziness, at least in my mind) such that I do not walk as well or as quickly as when I was taking public transit to the SEC and back. My left shoulder is worse than it was 10 years ago, and I am no doubt closer to a shoulder replacement than I was then. My bowels, post anterior resection, are getting better but are in no way back to their pre-surgical condition. In short, while I do not consider myself enfeebled, I am definitely no longer the man I was at 66.
Which, as I said at the beginning, begs a question. Are you as spry today as you were at 71? Is it really fair, Colonel, to compare a man of 78 to the same man at 69 and imply that he should be just as physically vigorous now as then?
It is fine to criticize his policies, in my mind. It is no problem to criticize his party politics, or to criticize the Speaker and Majority Leader, or General Honore for his efforts, or to assert that they are all creating a Democratic bastion against the Republicans. No problem, even though I may disagree with your assessments.
Perhaps it is a fair criticism to denegrate Biden for “asking Nancy what he should do next in a meeting.” But perhaps not. Even putting the context of the question aside, we all do, at our age, have “senior moments” from time to time, don’t we?
Again, and again no offense intended, the question. Are you at 80 as spry a man as you were at 71?
Chuck light
An interesting new form of ad hominem attack from a partisan Democrat. I am not president of the United States. I know my limitations and he should as well but he sought the officer lying and cheating all the way. I see, you want me to shut up and stop molesting your boy. He is now a blithering idiot and cannot possibly carry the weight needed in the job. The presidency of the US is not an honorary position. The Democrats have an interesting attack dog in you. What was the address of the building you worked in? The Yellow Line does not run through Union Station at least not in my feeble memory.
Chuck Light:
You bobbed and weaved around the core question:
How well does a not-well 79 year old perform in one of the most demanding (physically and mentally) jobs in the world?
Answer:
See for yourself – not well.
The man obviously has early dementia, being propped up by a coterie of lefty anti-American puppeteers and the POTUS wannabe DOCTOR Biden.
You apparently spent your career in the swamp, so he’s your guy
TV
Whoever Chuck Light is, I doubt it is a Washingtonian. Union Station is on the Red Line. To get there on Metrorail it would have had to do something like change to the Red Line at Gallery Place. From Gallery Place most of the SEC buildings are a short walk but I guess it wanted to mention The Monocle and that is just a few hundred feet from Union Station.
The old SEC building was a short walk from the yellow line stations at Archives and Gallery Place.
This old SEC building was also a short walk from the Red Line station, Judiciary Square. To ride to Judiciary Square on the Red Line would, however. require a change from the Yellow Line at either Archives, Gallery Place, or MetroCenter.
The new SEC building is at Union Station on the Red Line.
Union Station is the next east station after Judiciary Square. By “at Union Station”, I mean you never have to go outside to get to the new SEC building…there’s a long corridor to it from Union Station just beyond the Amtrak gates.
The Monacle is a short walk to Union Station, but the above commutes would never require going past it.
However, he may be thinking of the Orange Line instead of the Yellow Line. A number of the Orange Line stations service Arlington (but not Shirlington or the Pentagon). The closest Orange Line station would probably be Capitol South. That commute would involve a walk through the Capitol grounds and bring you very close to the Monacle.
tpcelt
Oh Bullshit. Btw he specified the new building and gave me its address.
All of that might be relevant, might be, if you were running for POTUS. Joe Biden did run for POTUS, trying valiantly to hide from the voting public in the process so that we might not notice that he had aged beyond measure and was no longer capable of doing the job. (Assuming that he ever was.) Some of us did notice. Some did not. Others did and pretended not to.
Chuck Light,
Remember Matsu and Quemoy? I think sometimes this year you’ll be reminded. That will come after Biden, steered by his trusty, single-minded Zionist foreign policy team, sleepwalks off his ledge into a war in the Persian Gulf.
When? I think about June.
How? Easy. It’s happening just like FDR’s assistant secretary of state Dean Acheson did to the Japanese about June 27, 1941, while FDR was preoccupied with, and then off on, his voyage to Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, to meet Churchill and plan the war. Acheson froze Japanese assets in the US, which meant Japan and her navy, which had just arrived uninvited at Cam Ranh Bay, were going to be completely out of oil probably sooner than 18 months. Which meant war.
Same thing now. We’re in the wrong Thucydides trap. Iran is being bankrupted by American sanctions. There is a point of no return that will be reached by early summer. Iran will start the war. Iran has very little choice. The hard-liners are taking over.
And then, after the deepwater pier at Mina Salman, Bahrain –which would include the four British and the roughly eight still functional, old-timey American Avenger class minesweepers– gets blown to smithereens, and the Gulf gets like, you know, shut down for months on end– then what happens? Plenty happens.
But out of sight and presently mostly out of mind, eclipsed by our forever race and religious war with Islam, in the US Navy’s WestPac, (a different, more spacious nautical realm, far removed from the Pentagon): boom! China takes Quemoy and Matsu.
Click, click go the dominoes. Taiwan will know it is going to have to go back to the mainland. We are going to see an entirely different, and far more dangerous Pacific.
Remember what Will Rogers said? “When I die, I want to die like my grandfather, who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car. ”
I think the doctors have given you some good innings to come. Same here. Cheers. 🙂
Taiwan will know it is going to have to go back to the mainland.
The mainland might destroy Taiwan, but the mainland must not be allowed to enslave Taiwan. Some Taiwanese would prefer death to Communist enslavement; other Taiwanese would hope that the chains of Beijing would rest lightly on them. Those who prefer death might yet make things very uncomfortable for those who prefer life as slaves and for Beijing. Perhaps no one in the USA would notice. I do not look forward to such things. I pray that they might yet be avoided. Unquestionably the planet would be safer if Beijing did not control Taiwan. Whether such a situation can be achieved without the deaths of many Taiwanese remains to be seen. If the worst happens, the Beijing captures Taiwan with its manufacturing intact, the USA will not be safe.
Recall that the USA has considerable dependence on foreign-made semiconductors.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/10/bloomberg-super-micro-motherboards-used-by-apple-amazon-contained-chinese-spy-chips/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/timbajarin/2021/02/16/why-tsmcs-arizona-fab-is-strategic-for-techs-future-in-the-us/?sh=7b17dd201c8a
If the USA allows Taiwan to be enslaved by the mainland, the USA will find it difficult to procure electronics that do not eavesdrop on behalf of Beijing. Perhaps a sufficient number of Taiwanese expats could move to Arizona and start up a new TSMC plant (as has been planned for years). Or perhaps the Americans could make their own semiconductors again.
Thank you for that interesting and disturbing information. I agree with you completely that China has no concerns for human rights or for democracy. China is our most dangerous adversary. China is our Thucydides trap. Not Islam. Not Iran. I respectfully submit that the devastation that a war with Iran will cause in the Gulf, the sheer size of such a war in the Middle East and Indian ocean region at large, the question of conscription, of internal sabotage, of the blood tax, all this and much more, will reveal surprising American weaknesses. There has been a revolution in military affairs. China will see the Persian Gulf chaos as providing an opportunity that simply must be taken. Most recently Taiwan has been talking about independence. As the full stunning, disastrous reality is brought home to the world, even India will become involved. Russia will immediately begin to provide logistic support, food, medicine… Russia is not going to let the Americans and Israelis back into Iran, in the way that they were internally esconced there during the reign of the Shah. Given what the United States is becoming, that could be suicide. We have to make the pivot to the Pacific, and it is simply not happening.
I will say it again. We are in a very dangerous situation. I have some sense that this is the worst I have ever seen it in the Gulf. Keep up the sanctions, push them towards bankruptcy, keep up the relentless Zionist propaganda , insinuate Israeli military assets into the Gulf Arab states, keep humiliating them, drag your heels –that’s it, war with Iran by June.
Tidewater – I stole that for use elsewhere. I don’t know whether it’s funny because it’s macabre or in spite of that. I think it’s that sudden realisation of what grandfather had been doing that gives it bite, so perhaps the second.
It reminds me of a joke that was said to have come out of the Ukraine at the most vicious period of the war. Whether it did or not I don’t know but it fits. Though I suppose it would fit anywhere.
Some politicians were on a train that had crashed miles away from anywhere. When the rescue teams got there they found that every last politician had been buried by the villagers.
“But – but surely some of them were still alive, at least”
“Yes, they kept on telling us that. But you know how it is with politicians. They always lie”
Thank a RINO.
What was the excuse when Biden was younger, but Obama still declared Biden could screw up anything. It was obvious during the primaries Biden had lost it completely and voters rejected him appropriately – he was well past his sell dat.
But the Democrat Party machine put Biden on life support, when faced with what they thought would be an unwinnable Bernie Sanders alternative. Democrats wanted to win and they knew they had just the right election formula to do it in 2020.
The candidate did not matter – the public sector union fealty did. Bernie was a risk because he wanted free money for everyone; not just the public sector unions. So in this case Democrats did prove they were not really socialists – just special interest power mongers.
A nominee Sanders may well have been an unwinnable nominee. But I don’t think that is what motivated the ClintoBiden Obamacrat leadership elite of the party. I think they were afraid that if Sanders did get nominated, and did win, that he would begin very thoroughly cleaning all the Clintoads out of the Party.
And even if Sanders would have only had a Cheney’s Chance ( 1 %) of winning, the Inner Party Lords of the DemParty didn’t want to take even that much risk.
They had already decided that they would rather see Trump re-elected than to see Sanders elected even once. Of course once the Joemala team was insalled on the ticket, the DemLords tried to win the election. But my feeling remains that keeping Sanders off the ticket was their Job # 1, even if it would have meant a Trump victory.
I am not saying that a nominee Sanders would have had even a Cheney’s Chance of winning. I am saying that I still believe that the DemParty feared that he might have a Cheney’s Chance of winning, and that was a chance they were not willing to take.
A member of the committee recommended the book 1491 a few weeks ago and I have been reading it and enjoying it greatly. It has this about the ancient city of Cahokia (East St. Louis) that is about a 2 mile long palisade the religious and economic elite built about the year 1000. It reminds me of Chuck and Nancy’s wall and their desire for a QRF to protect them from the ‘deplorables’: . . . It seems unlikely the palisade was needed to deter enemy attack (in the event, none materialized). Instead it was probably created to separate the elite from the hoi polloi, with the goal of emphasizing the priestly rulers’ separate, superior, socially critical connection to the divine. . . Cahokia’s rulers tried to bolster their position by building even bigger houses and flaunting ever more luxury goods. . . It did no good. A catastrophic earthquake razed Chokia in the beginning of the 13th century, . . it was a similar magnitude of the 1811 and 1812 (New Madrid) earthquake. . . the social unrest turned violent: many houses went up in flames. “There was a civil War,” Woods said, “Fighting in the streets. The whole polity turned in on itself and tore itself apart.”
After that give the second one an eyeball https://www.amazon.ca/1493-Uncovering-World-Columbus-Created-ebook/dp/B004G606EY/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1615129220&sr=1-3
Col. Lang,
This is the end of the Republic.
I’m increasingly worried that the unthinkable is becoming the probable. And not because anyone wants it, but because these people will break the country.
– Eliot
I think that for being president of any country, you have an obligation to be lucid enough, intelligent enough, cultured enough, commited enough and responsible enough to take the charge, otherwise you should have the honor, honesty and courage to refuse the job.
The same would be said for any occupation which requires great attention of full senses and which involves care or responsability for a respectable number of people, like could be being a teacher, a civil airlines pilot, metro driver, ship captain, a doctor, a minister, a gobernor, a central bank director, and so on…
That said, and taking into account the kind of people currently in charge at the helms of not only the US but also main Western governments and alliances, I fear not venturing myself too further if I bet any 16 years old would do better…
Responsability does not go proportional to age, there are people who never grew further 4 years old…
In the ancient world, not few leaders had to take over at tender age, even way before teenage, eventhough they counted with one or several mentors, I do not recall they were doing so horribly as they are doing those in charge right now..
The world is just a mess, and that is not because of the teens, we have enough with coping with you all…
I tend to agree with Deap on this, that it’s more the bureaucracy circling the wagons, with the left as the useful idiots, than a real movement.
That this bureaucracy choses a holographic puppet, who wasn’t considered a viable candidate, when he was sentient, suggests extreme weakness, not strength. I would give it better than even odds the wheels will continue to come off, at an ever increasing rate.
It’s a negative feedback loop.
Even the left will come to realize they are being thrown under the bus.
Tidewater to Tidewater,
That should be July 26, 1941!
I think it was on August 3 that FDR boarded the cruiser USS Augusta, the flagship of the Atlantic fleet –must have been literally hoisted up by a sling, a physically nearly broken man, off of USS Potomac, the presidential yacht– this was out in Vineyard Sound –and with a destroyer escort and in the company of the USS Tuscaloosa, sailed for Newfoundland. German wolf-packs were prowling the Atlantic in 1941; these were the ‘Happy Times.’
There is something very moving about this story to me. Thinking about the scars of war on people, in this case, top national leaders. (Almost all the expatriates I knew in Spain had been affected by the war.) Churchill arrived on board HMS Prince of Wales, a King George V battleship, from Scapa, the shortest, safest run possible. He would have known the captain, Captain ‘Jack’ Leach, and surely would have broken bread in the wardroom with him and his officers. The Captain had already been through the battle of the Denmark Strait, on 22 May 1941, when Prince of Wales had been in a heavy-weight slug-fest with Bismark. His bridge chart room had been hit, navigating officers killed. (Three hits on Bismark.) His ship was just out of the yard after repairs. Four days after Pearl Harbor, HMS Prince of Wales would be sunk by Japanese air power. The Captain and many of his officers and crew would be dead within months. I wonder if Churchill ever said or wrote anything about his more personal feelings about this.
Admiral Sir Dudley Pound was on board for the conference. What lay ahead for him–27 June-10 July 1942, about a year later, then, was the heartbreak of the disaster of convoy PQ 17. And it was almost certainly his, and only his, fault. And the reason for his mistakes was thought to be caused by advanced age and mental confusion. It was hushed up.
What happened was that naval intelligence received word that Tirpitz was coming out, probably from Trondheim. This meant that some, or even many, of the valuable PQ-17 convoy escort of warships, who provided antiaircraft protection against the Heinkels, were going to be in serious trouble if they were forced to engage Tirpitz. That had to be, and the destroyers knew that. But Pound seems to have lost his nerve. He ordered the entire naval escort to abandon the convoy. This for many was simply incredible. Horrifying. Two-thirds of PQ-17 was lost in Arctic waters. The convoy simply broke up. The Heinkels sank lone ship after lone ship after lone ship. Antiaircraft gunfire from a convoy group, off of bow and stern gun platforms which had been added to ships, was surprisingly concentrated and deadly. There was fury all through the merchant marines and the navies involved. I was once told that there were sailors and allied merchantmen killed in enormous bar-room brawls among these sundry sea-going men over this abandonment. (The Merchant Marine lost more than the US Marine Corps, I think, in WWII.) And then, in the end, Tirpitz did not come out.
This was a direct consequence of age and mental confusion on all-important leadership decisions, exactly what is being discussed here.
Tidewater – “The Merchant Marine lost more than the US Marine Corps, I think, in WWII.”
The US Merchant Marine did have the highest casualty rate of any service in WW2: 3.90%. Or one out of 26 compared to one out of 34 in the Marines or one out of 48 in the Army. But in numbers of war dead they had less than half of Marine KIA.
Sadly they never got recognition as veterans until 40 years later, and just recently were given VA medical benefits.
Leith
8th US Air Force lost more men than the US Marines.
8th Air Force also had a 7.7% casualty rate in WW2, almost double the rate or more of any other branch or major unit (other than the silent service as mentioned elsewhere in this thread by Bill H).
But even that is miniscule compared to the 25% total casualty rate of the Soviets.
We owe them all a debt of gratitude.
Not sure what is being proven in this discussion, but the percent casualty might not be the way to do it (whatever it is). The denominator is the size of the entire force and most of the denominator in most of the forces never saw combat/went in harm’s way, being “in the rear with the gear” etc.
I don’t know about the 8th AF other than, if you were bomber flight crew, it was rare to complete the required number of missions, but then there were both USMC and Army infantry units that experienced > 200% casualties. A rate of 80% to 100% was common in most line companies.
Eric Newhill
The deaths in ground forces are nearly all in the infantry where, in sustained combat infantrymen and junior officers die in great numbers. That is why the CIB was created. In an infantry division only a couple thousand are actually exposed to direct fire at any one time. This is from a force of fifteen thousand more or less. The rest are in armor, artillery, support services, supply, etc.
US Merchant marine seamen are honored in a Murmansk, Russia cemetery. Have photos. Along with touching tributes to fallen Polish soldiers as well
US Navy submariners had the highest percentage causality rate of any branch of the service, almost 23%. Fifty-two U.S. submarines were lost during WW II with over 3,500 men.
Tidewater,
Perhaps the criticism if Pound is unfair. Ordering the convoy to scatter was the right call for an approaching Tirpitz. We have a benefit of hindsight which he lacked. Just a year or two before he was characterized as a “cagey old fox” for his sly scuttling of Winston’s Operation Catherine plan. Maybe he just made a mistake. The British navy has a history of targeting officers when things don’t go the way the political leaders wish they had. They put Admiral Byng in front of a firing squad for much much less.
Antifa and its subsidiaries are going to be acting out their childish frustrations tomorrow March 6th in Eugene and other Democrat strongholds. They call their riots “create and destroy”, as usual getting it backwards. Unlike the fake news reporting on the scary nonexistent right wing attack on the 4th, the local news is calling tomorrows planned destruction a planned demonstration. The Dems will tolerate this attack on the people and the cities because Antifa, The Youth Liberation Front and BLM are their spoiled children and grandchildren, grown naturally without parental control.
https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/abolish-the-police-antifa-protest-slated-for-beginning-of-march-and-the-group-is-calling-for-violence/
That is a big piece of Washington. I thought it was ridiculously big until I saw it included the House and Senate office buildings. That way too much. At the very most I would have included the green space bounded by 1st Street NE, Maryland Avenue, 3rd Street NW and Pennsylvania Avenue. Even that’s too much. I’d much rather just harden the Capitol building itself. The building design lends itself to that kind of security.
A trained and equipped DC National Guard QRF doesn’t sound like a bad idea to me. It could be called up for the Capitol or the White House when needed. Other than that, they act like every other National Guard unit and go about their normal lives. I would not want to see a massive expansion of the Capitol Police or other active federal force. That would be a Praetorian Guard.
Where the battalion size comes from is probably based on what was eventually used at the Capitol and at the White House last summer. The force called up to protect the White House consisted of FBI, BATF, DEA, BOP, US Marshals Service riot control units, over 3,000 NG from at least 6 states, and 1,600 active duty troops from Fort Bragg (200 MPs and an element of the 82d Airborne’s Immediate Response Force kept nearby). That was nuts, but it did keep the White House from being breached. I doubt there was any serious intention to breach the White house, but if it was weakly defended, it could have easily happened. That would have been a violent coup attempt. It probably would also have sealed Trump’s reelection.
TTG
you have different understanding than I about the full time DC NG battalion. There are and have always been full time NG soldiers, company clerks, armorers, staffies. To create a full time NG MP battalion is a different matter. Such a unit would inevitably be a highly politicized force that if in non federal service would have the power of arrest. What we are talking abut are “asphalt soldiers,” police troops occupying the capital of the US.
I’m familiar with those full time AGR soldiers. I knew some who went from from one 3 year tour to the next until they had 20 years active duty. I know at least some of the staffies in NG units work that way. A lot of these AGRs man the STARCs. They are definitely highly politicized. Being so close to the Governor, it’s inevitable. I do not see this as a full time DC NG unit if there is such a thing. They would have some full time staffies like most NG units and probably two weekends a month training like 19th SFG(A) units do. I can also see a company each in the Virginia and Maryland Guard.
TTG
I don’t agree. These would be a fully functioning full time unit.
The whole take cover of the Capitol by militias was BS. The news militia but didn’t name it it. Since when did der media not name a white ring group even if it wasn’t white, say, like the Proud Boys. All they did was fight Antifa as any American should do. Defending statues. businesses, property is radical. Our gomint, media, intel, soc media are in cahoots to control us. Controlling thinking, as the they bragged about in the times article, is totalitarianism. It’s the only way to a Utopia.
In response to Chuck, you are confusing physical and mental condition. I know Octogenarians who are mentally as sharp as a whip. I also know 60 year olds who are physically basket cases.
We are entitled to a President who is functionally adequate whatever his age.
walrus
It is not a matter of confusion.
I dunno. This whole idea of the political power elite hiding inside the wire seems to me like idiotic drama queen hyperbole for the media to lap up and use to reinforce some wrong ideas for the loyal followers; i.e. political theater + a little true fear. Looks to me like a couple troops of Boy Scouts with sling-shots could successfully besiege and breach that little autonomous zone.
The real battle will involve controlling the individual states. Texas, Florida and the Dakotas and others in that sector are already proving that the globalists’ reach is limited. Purple states risk civil unrest if the agenda is pushed too hard. Many of those Governors are savvy enough to not be suicidal.
Many of the Wokies don’t like the Democrats either. This is especially true of ANTIFA. For BLM, whatever Biden hands them, will never be enough. The street revolution by the “oppressed” will continue. The dogs will be off the Democrat leash.
Incidentally, IMO, Cuomo’s problems coincidentally (?) began when he started to make noise about lifting cold restrictions in his state. To my amazement, he made a statement that if the restrictions aren’t lifted that there “will be nothing left to save”. A day or two later, he came started to come under heavy attack.
The conspiracy is not sustainable because the end – the objective – is not attainable. They will have nothing and be happy drones is a twisted pipe dream. The more the Democrats try to consolidate power, the stronger the resistance and threat of true civil unrest on a mass scale + state secession grows. This is a forlorn hope on Chucky and Nancy’s part. My opinion anyway. Too bad there will be destruction of the Constitution and economy in the meanwhile.
We are all gonna die from covid has morphed into….. we are all gonna die because of crazed conservatives. Thanks to Democrat drama queens.
Right, Deep.
Covid can only go away if there is another great fear that furthers the consolidation of power and the destruction of the Constitution.
Covid panic is becoming unsustainable for economic and social reasons. Even most democrats see that now. So…..
The fun and games in Nancyland require unimaginable amounts of dollars as fuel and I suspect that gas tank is going to run dry, and that right soon.
Indeed. The fiction that endless amounts of money may be conjured out of nothing will soon be dispelled.
The supply of money will never run out as long as Democrats control the printing presses. It is the value of those freely printed dollars that is more problematic.
Will the cheaper dollar simulate US exports leading to a global trade boost and domestic trickle down or will resultant domestic inflation take us back to the Carter years. Tending more to value fixed income investments in my own life, higher interests rates look good to me.
None of the above condones what the Democrats are ramming down our throats right now. Just that their lens may be subjectively different, than those of us who are terminally risk and debt-adverse.
Standard California answers when trying to raise the alarm about increasing the national debt: “They’ll find the money” and/or ‘You found money for the Vietnam-Iraq Wars, so find the same money for Medicare for All, free college and guaranteed housing and food for everyone else,` including all open border illegals.”
California Dreamin’ ……….coming soon to a state near you.
Col Lang
It appears that the Dems are forgetting that to govern you need to project an aura of confidence and ability. This is how a few hundred Brits could govern India. If you hide behind barbed wire and thousands of troops you instead show that you are afraid of those you claim to govern. Once that happens anything can happen and it wont matter if if the Dems or Reps are in power. You wont have the consent of those you govern and you can only stay in power using brute force. Compare and contrast India and Pakistan which started off from the same base.
To quote Yeats – Things fall apart the Centre cannot hold.
Dont count on the military to hold the country together – see if nuclear arms kept the USSR in one piece
Does it go as far as the Smithsonian Natural history museum and the great Art Museum? Grant on horseback? (An absolute masterpiece of the statue makers art, btw.) Sounds like it must. If so a disgrace and outrage IMO. Or have the woke done away with Brontosaurus, the blue whale, Francisco Goya, Picasso and Vincent Van Gogh? Nothing would surprise me. How do you raise a child in a world like this?
Fourth and Long
Grant in the Wilderness, the only man who could have beaten the despised Lee and “his boys.”
The statue is a brooding, intense masterpiece scarcely concealing the unworldly menace he foretold. The layout is impossible to exceed as well, IMO – looking off in the distance across the long lawns into the distance where the monument to his Commander, President Lincoln awaits in shadow. Even more profound is the effect understatement. Grant on his horse is easy to miss. He is not a looming colossus on the scale of the Lincoln and Jefferson statues. But without him – what? Unknown.
Fourth and Long
“the unworldly menace he foretold.” What menace, the Slave Power? Nancy Pelosi? Grant won in the Overland Campaign by being willing to lose more men than Lee had in his whole army at the beginning of the campaign, and guess what? Grant still had the same number of men that he had started the campaign with. They just kept sending them forward in a process of attrition that was truly a meatgrinder.