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It Is Time To Close “Fort Pelosi” And Restore Our Symbol of Democracy
With our son heading off today for 4 months of infantry officer training at Fort Benning, Georgia, we chose to make our first trip into DC last night after relocating nearby a couple of months ago for a very nice “send-off” dinner at the Capitol Hill Club, the official club for Republicans. The Democratic club is down the street. For those of you not from Washington, it’s about 2 blocks from the Capitol building.
Our son, a member of the Virginia National Guard, completed Officer Candidate School just as the pandemic was declared near a year ago, and he is just now headed off to infantry officer training (a lot of Army training was suspended or postponed, for obvious reasons, during the pandemic). We’re very proud of his (and his colleagues’) service and professional and personal sacrifice. As I walked by a group of Guardsmen, I spotted a couple that appeared to be from his regiment.
Notably, as some of you know, the Capitol Hill Club borders the fencing and razor wire that comprises a Baghdad-style “green zone.” We were seated at a corner table with a great view of the Cannon House Office Building, towards the Capitol. It was surreal eating a first-rate meal in clear sight of the militarization of our well-lit Capitol complex. We clearly ate better than many of the Guard apparently have.
We encountered a few National Guardsmen, all polite and professional.
They need to go home. All of them. Not according to me but the leaders of the National Guard Association of the United States (NGAUS).
“National Guard soldiers and airmen here in Washington need to return home to their families, civilian employers and regular military obligations. They have completed their mission. They have made us all proud.
“It’s time for local law enforcement to take it from here.”
Amen. Kudos on the Governors from states who have called their troops back home. Shame on our news media for failing to give proper attention to the crass and inappropriate politicization of our National Guard and the establishment of “Fort Pelosi.” Where’s the credible evidence of a serious threat to the Capitol complex?
The same people who hate walls and border control have established exactly that around our symbol of democracy. Shame on the politicians who are either behind or who haven’t stood up to this abuse, hypocrisy, and political farce.
Published in General
Being a (pessimist? cynic? realist?) I can only say, “Not gonna happen!”
The FBI announced this week that there were no weapons found among any of the protestors January 6. That solid fact established under the Biden administration itself will help in the effort to get the National Guard members back to their normal lives.
This is a fantastic group of young people. Congratulations on your son’s promotion. :-)
I like having Washington as a Green Zone. It shows exactly what kind of people are in power. If Americans don’t like it, they can evict them.
Kudos to your son. I hope his training goes well.
I agree.
The fraudulent Biden/Obama/Pelosi administration needs to own this.
This is their brand, their signature, their logo, and it is completely their own choice.
Can they? It is not to clear me that future elections will reflect the will of the people. I feel confident the people in charge (from both parties) are compromised and will do nothing. I don’t see any stories about people protesting the occupation forces.
Exactly. There was an excellent article in NR (for a change) with the subtitle of “Will we soon say goodbye to the consent of the governed?”. It’s disheartening to me that people just don’t understand (or care) that the Dims are deadly serious about making this a one-party government.
My 19 year old son just got back from Airborne School for WI National Guard two weeks ago. I feel for all those soldiers, it’s a farce of a mission.
I really am disappointed that every, I mean every Red State governor hasn’t pulled their respective contingents (I believe that Florida and Texas have). I don’t think our useless Governor Evers has even been asked the question! What’s the mission and does he agree with threat assessment?
See my Comment #38 in the Main Feed. https://ricochet.com/911198/an-update-from-fort-pelosi/comment-page-2/#comment-5313089
Let me summarize for people. Gary says the fence can come down when Blue Anon has all their dreams come true and everyone has TDS. Puts me in the mood some lawyer jokes.
Why don’t sharks attach lawyers in the ocean? Professional courtesy!
That is not what I said. Since this has been moved to the Main Feed, here is what I said:
On 1/6, January 6, 2021, for the first time in 160 years, a mob tried to stop the peaceful count of the electoral college votes. In 1861, the insurrectionists were met with an army raised by Army General-In-Chief Winfield Scott, who ringed the Capitol with not only armed troops who were instructed to shoot to kill, but also artillery. A native Southerner, “Scott also sent a blunt message to those rumored to be planning to demonstrate, disrupt or worse. As he colorfully warned, ‘any man who attempted by force or unparliamentary disorder to obstruct or interfere with the lawful count’ would be ‘lashed to the muzzle of a twelve-pounder’ — a huge cannon — ‘and fired out a window of the Capitol.’” https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-this-was-a-historic-disgrace-20210107-wt27d7akpffjhpa2tka2axpt34-story.html
What we had in 9/11 was a failure of imagination. No one had ever thought that terrorists would fly passenger planes into buildings. What we had on 1/6 was a shocking insurrection, organized by the incumbent President of the United States, whose mobs broke into the Capitol, ransacked the office of the Speaker of the House, invaded the Senate Chamber, chanted “Hang Mike Pence” and killed and injured police officers.
When can the fences come down? I suggest that three things must happen first. After (1) these insurrectionists are sentenced to years, if not decades, of prison, (2) the openly conspiring members of Congress, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), and Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) are expelled from Congress for their part in the insurrection, and (3) there is a broad recognition by the American people that Trump had acted as no President in American history had acted, I would be happy to take down the fence that protects the Capitol. But note, the day after the fence protecting the U.S. Courthouse in Portland, OR was taken down, a fire was lit at its feet. And note that Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House that was closed after 9/11 is still closed to traffic. Trump created the fence around the Capitol. The folks who brayed to “Stop the Steal” are also accountable. I have seen little evidence that either of them have taken responsibility for their actions.
I had a hard time sleeping after 1/6. Finally after Biden’s inauguration, I started sleeping well again. While I have disagreed with Biden’s policies, I can sleep well again. Just as Jerry Ford healed the nation after Nixon, Biden is healing the nation after Trump.
I am not ashamed of my first vote for a Democrat for President in 48 years; I feel wholly vindicated by it after 1/6. I was right that Trump posed an existential danger to the Republic, and thank goodness he has been removed. Once he is fully removed from the American Political scene and repudiated, I will be able to vote for Republicans again.
Trump should have been impeached and convicted by an overwhelming margin of Republicans in Congress, just as Nixon was facing. It is ironic that liberal New York State will impeach and remove Governor Andrew Cuomo and will serve as an example to Republicans and Conservatives throughout the nation.
Reminds me of Copland’s Lincoln Project Portrait.
You name the camp appropriately, Camp Pelosi. It’s pretty clear that Pelosi is the instigator and driver and perpetuator of this fiasco. Even Ellen Holmes Norton wants the Guard gone. There was a brief moment of hilarity when Pelosi and company realized that a lot of the Guard members were Trump voters and supporters. Gave them a bit of a scare, but only because they have lost touch with reality altogether. Other than that, it is all insanity all the way down. Pelosi seems to have descended into madness, sort of like King George III after he lost his American colonies: The Madness of Speaker Pelosi. She has lost all judgment. All capacity to assess threats. Imagine her making nuclear decisions as commander-in-chief. It is a toss-up in my view as to which, she or Joe Biden, is less in control of their cognitive capacities.
Which brings up a dilemma for Democrats: When they have to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Biden, he of the Potemkin Presidency, they have in line Harris, who slept her way up the political ladder and parlayed that into the Vice Presidency, whom no one likes; and Pelosi, who can not be trusted with anything. Seems like Biden has a pretty deep bench of Amendment 25 protection.
Pelosi’s little speech to the National Guard was apparently an attempt to be seen as a military commander, but had the opposite effect: What is this nut doing here? A Dukakis moment. Her attempt to get the Joints Chiefs to remove the nuclear codes from Trump raises a question of a coup attempt. Nancy should be investigated. Perhaps Impeached and tried. Her best defense may be an insanity plea. Her four years of Impeachment insanity, aided and abetted by the entirety of the Democrat/Deep State/Media/Academe cabal, remains, still, evidence of her mental derangement (a virtual paranoid delusional state shared by over half the country, it would seem). Her futile Impeachment duex of a President who would not be tried until out of office was an insane fiasco of the highest order.
That Impeachment did, however, reference the Impeachment of Warren Hastings as the poster case precedent for trying Impeached officials out of office. Even the likes of Jonathan Turley inveighed ponderously on that precedent, which, once one becomes acquainted with this history, should be the poster case for establishing why no one should be impeached once out of office, The poor man, who served Britain with fidelity, and it was so proved eventually, was viciously attacked by none other than that conservative paragon, Edmund Burke, who comes across as a vicious hack obsessed with wreaking some sort of vengeance on Hastings for unfathomable reasons using vicious lies. Sort of like an early version of Adam Schiff. So much for that Icon of Conservatism (at least as Yuval Levin and pretty much everyone at National Review would have it). Feet of clay.
I mean, you’re right. She’s a nutcase who should be removed from office, but who has the political will to do it? On the Republican side, the GOPe barely lifted a finger in defense of President Trump — who was absolutely not an “existential threat” to the Republic, unlike the Democratic Party — and a handful of them vote for Impeachment. (Traitors.) So I can’t see them suddenly discovering a backbone to remove Pelosi. They probably secretly side with her.
We have two political parties who, outside of a handful, fear and hate the people they rule over. And act unconstitutionally all too frequently.
I fear a revolution will be necessary to return to the Constitutional Republic our Founders designed.
Please leave me my delusions.
Political will? What’s needed is a mechanism for removing her. Only the people in her district have that. The rest of us don’t have any means to do that, political will or not.
I’m in favor of moderate term limits for members of the House — maybe 10-12 terms. Pelosi has now served 34 years, which is enough time to corrupt even the best of them.
But we’ll never have term limits because too many of the people who say they are in favor want draconian limits, which means the arguments against term limits will win.
Don’s solution:
Members of the house would only be able to serve an additional term if the budget was balanced.
(‘Kills lots of birds with one stone. ‘Probably not implementable.)
I am growing more and more in favor of term limits. Up to now, I have said that experience is important, and newbies have to have a steep learning curve. Nowadays, I think that the learning curve is one of learning the pathways of corruption, and this gets worse with experience.
You only need extremely modest term limits to retire the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Ted Kennedy (who is gone now but stayed far too long). Get rid of those extreme long-termers to keep Congress from being a job for life, and it will do a lot of good. And you won’t give up on any useful level of “experience,” which the term-limit opponents will successfully make into a big issue. We can have a good debate on just how much experience is needed to work for us, vs how much experience tends to work against us.
My stock response used to be that we already have term limits: For the house, it’s two years but the voters have to confirm it.
That’s a good point. We should point out that we’re not really proposing term limits; we just want the current limits adjusted.
I used to think that way. I used to say, “I’m uncomfortable with limiting the choice of the voter. If they’re that bad, it’s an opportunity for someone new to make their case to the voters in the congressional district.”
But if the position of Congressman was *intended* to be temporary, an opportunity to take a break from one’s day job to serve the country, then I’m all for term limits.
In the interest of sounding like a broken record, I’ll point out that I don’t have an opportunity to vote Nancy Pelosi out of office, even though her great period of incumbency gives her district big advantages over the rest of us. So the ballot box is not much use except for my own member of Congress. And if I vote my own out in favor of a newbie, that gives her district even more of an advantage over mine.
Aye, that’s the rub, for sure!