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For many historians, the violence stemming from the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6 brought to mind the pivotal year of 1814 when British forces in the War of 1812 tried to burn down the iconic building that was just fourteen years old at the time. The History After achieving victory over U.S. military forces at Bladensburg, Maryland, earlier that day, and seeking revenge for the sacking of York (present-day Toronto), the foreign invaders looted the Capitol first, then set the southern and northern wings ablaze, eventually destroying the Library of Congress. The British burned about three thousand...

Poor Justin Trudeau. The Canadian prime minister must have been relieved to be done with President Donald Trump, only to learn that Joe Biden plans to tell Canada to pound sand as one of his first priorities. According to reports, Biden wants to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline immediately, a pointless and economically destructive gesture meant to appease his party’s climate fanatics.

During his opening remarks, Lloyd Austin stated: We also owe our people a working environment free of discrimination, hate and harassment. If confirmed, I will fight hard to stamp out sexual assault, to rid our ranks of racists and extremists, and to create a climate where everyone fit and willing has the opportunity to serve this country with dignity. The job of the Department of Defense is to keep America safe from our enemies. But we can’t do that if some of those enemies lie within our own ranks. Democrats in recent days have sounded the alarm over the prospect...

The Army National Guard has removed 12 members from their role in President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration security, according to National Guard Bureau Chief Army Gen. Daniel Hokanson. Two individuals were flagged for “inappropriate comments or texts” – one identified through their chain of command and another through anonymous reporting – while an additional 10 were identified by the FBI through “standard” vetting done on participants before all inaugurations, Hokanson told reporters on Tuesday.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the dumbest administration on earth. Make America Senile Again. Joe Biden was supposedly elected to end all the madness. Make the crazy stop. Give in to the media’s lunatic four-year temper tantrum so the rest of us can get a wink of sleep.

They came to Washington “to shake things up,” Reuters recalled last fall, but the lawmakers known as “the Squad” — New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Massachusetts’s Ayanna Pressley, Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib, and Minnesota’s Ilhan Omar — soon learned that the “political fast-lane can be perilous.” Is it, though? Without any accomplishments to speak of, the Squad nonetheless has received widespread obsequious media coverage. Only last week, 60 Minutes reporter Lesley Stahl asked Nancy Pelosi, “Why does AOC complain that you have not been grooming younger people for leadership?” It’s not often a prestigious journalist asks the speaker of the House to...

It was embarrassing, really. A few days after internet provocateur Matt Drudge broke the news of the Clinton/Lewinsky Scandal, the President took the rostrum, wagged a finger at the cameras and declared, ‘I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky…’ It was Drudge again who noticed that Clinton’s left eye seemed a bit darker than the right. Drudge posted blowup photographs of the president and indeed one could see just a bit of purple under makeup foundation. Hours later, beneath a red siren, Drudge proclaimed: “Source Confirms, Hillary’s Bullseye!”. The headline writers at the New York Post...

Two Army National Guard members were removed Tuesday from the security operation to secure President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration after they were found to have ties to fringe right group militias, the Associated Press reported Tuesday. No plot against Biden was uncovered.

When it comes to getting from point A to point B, taking to the air is the quickest way possible, obviously. For commercial fliers, nothing was faster than the British-French designed Concorde SST, which could reach Mach 2.04 (2,180 km/h) at cruise altitude. The supersonic transport had an excellent safety record until 2000 when Air France flight 4590 crashed just after taking off from Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport. It re-entered service, but rising costs grounded the plane permanently three years later. The Concorde’s record for cross Atlantic commercial travel has yet to be beaten, but when it comes to raw...

Several elements of Carlson’s monologue — which was swiftly lapped up by the faithful on social media — distinguish him from his forebears. He’s also drawn lines for potential rivals to cross, if they dare. First, and strikingly, is Carlson’s pronounced willingness to strike out against Conservative, Inc., and the small government apparatus that funded much of the early opposition to the last Democratic president. “Members of the media call for a secret police agency. This is the stuff of libertarian nightmares,” Carlson said. “It’s what they claim to hate. Where are they now? Why isn’t billionaire libertarian man of...

Hillary Clinton, as you may or may not know, has a podcast (you can listen to it above). And yesterday her guest was U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. And, as you can imagine, she did not pull her punches on soon-to-be-former President Donald Trump.

Just before the outbreak of the American Civil War, inventor Richard Jordan Gatling designed the world’s first successful rapid-fire weapon. Technically not a “machine gun” in the modern sense, it was spring-loaded and hand-cranked. The forerunner to the weapons that were to come, the Gatling gun’s operation centered on a cyclic multi-barrel design that allowed for its rapid-fire, but also facilitated cooling of the barrels. The Gatling gun did see some limited use in the Civil War but proved its worth during the Spanish-American War when it was employed to great success in the campaign in Cuba. Declared obsolete in...

The Keystone pipeline would, if it were allowed to, carry crude from the oil sands of Alberta to Nebraska, where the pipeline would link up with the existing distribution network to send that oil on to refineries in the Gulf of Mexico. This would benefit Canadian producers and their investors, American refineries and their large, excellently paid work forces — those good, high-paying, blue-collar jobs Biden talks about — and, most important, American consumers, who would have access to yet another source of fuel at attractive prices from a nearby friendly country. This sort of thing is the point of...

The GAU-8 Avenger is one impressive weapon system and the foundation of the A-10 Warthog, despite its age, won’t go away anytime soon. Used for combat during the time of the Gulf War in 1991, the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt – also known commonly as the “Warthog” – destroyed more than 900 Iraqi tanks, some 2,000 other military vehicles, and approximately 1,200 artillery pieces. The aircraft also reportedly shot down two Iraqi helicopters.

Developed by the Russian-based Uralvagonzavod (UVZ) and officially unveiled during the May 2015 Moscow Victory Day Parade, the T-14 Armata is the new generation of main battle tank (MBT). Unlike many current Russian military platforms, which are largely legacy holdovers from the Soviet era, the T-14 is truly something new. Design The outline of the tank, from its hull to its long and boxy turret, more closely resembles modern western tank turret designs and is quite the departure from past Soviet designs.

We often hear calls for national unity when presidents are inaugurated. And we’re sure to hear them again, despite the fact that we are still divided, red and blue, liberal and conservative, coastal city and heartland town. But we should not despair. We’ve been divided since the birth of the republic, when the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists, the Hamiltonians and the Jeffersonians, fiercely debated our form of government. In the end, guided by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, we came together.

In what surely will be a topic of debate in the days ahead, Fox News opinion host Tucker Carlson in his opening monologue last night came out swinging, declaring that: “Our capital city is currently under military occupation. By Inauguration Day, there are expected to be more than 26,000 armed federal troops in Washington. No living American has seen a moment like the one we’re watching now.” He pressed on nearly twenty minutes overall. Here is a little more of what he said (video above),

With the benefit of hindsight and the catalyst of the Capitol debacle, it is easy to see Donald Trump for what he was: a cruel joke—cruel precisely because he was so close to what we wanted in this moment. He was a bona fide fighter, by all appearances, though sometimes excessively so; to those on his side the benefits seemed to outweigh the embarrassments, and to opponents he offered at least as much laughter as he did real cause for concern. At a time when millions of Americans struggled to find dignified work, he offered a populist conservatism and a...

Crowd building at Washington Monument on 6 January, 2020 A thread for images of DC under military lockdown, and DC with the throngs of Trump supporters on 6 January. What I am hearing about the military lockdown in DC is profoundly disturbing. It is without precedent, and appears to be a show of force more than anything else. It shows how deeply the deep state distrusts the American people. President Trump's call to the Capitol on 6 January, is exactly the opposite. It was based on an inherent trust of the American People. Let us build a montage of pictures...

Almost all of my period drama viewing is based on books from Austen during the Regency to the Edwardian E.M Forester. Given these are stories that say something about the human condition you do hope to extract something edifying. Then you have your books and period dramas that are analogous to grabbing a gallon of your favorite ice cream and just enjoying it as a guilty pleasure. Belgravia is an example of the second. I must admit when I saw the opening shot indicating we are in Brussels in 1815 I immediately paid attention. Yes, yes…they are going to re-create...