The draft proposal of recommendations comes just over a month after Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) tapped retired Lt. General Russel Honoré to review security around the Capitol in the wake of a mob of former President Trump’s supporters laying siege to the building in an attempt to prevent the certification of President Biden’s Electoral College victory.
Let’s see. Let’s not forget that we currently also have the purge of the armed forces to root out those defined as extremists on the right. It’s not the same as a personal loyalty oath to the leader that was required of the German military under Hitler, but it’s a way to make sure our military is composed of people unlikely to turn on the left no matter what.
Following President Biden’s inauguration, 5,000 National Guard troops were moved to a parking garage to rest and sleep. This drew the outrage of several states when they saw their troops having to sleep on the garage floor. The troops have now been allowed back into the Capitol and former President Trump has offered them rooms at the Trump Hotel D.C.
The more than 25,000 National Guard troops called to provide inauguration security remained in place Thursday and will continue to patrol the near-vacant capital city until federal agencies release them, military officials said.
You don’t need 25,000 armed National Guard troops to protect an inauguration, and you certainly don’t need that and more to protect a mostly virtual inauguration.
The riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, likely could have been contained and people kept out of the building with a couple hundred more riot police, or maybe a few hundred.
The failure to have any semblance of adequate security, despite apparent FBI warnings of possible trouble, is one of the baffling aspects of that day. It’s why the Chief of the Capitol Police has resigned, and there needs to be a thorough investigation of how the Mayor of D.C. and others rejected requests for additional help.
Yet what is happening in D.C. now looks more like a military defensive posture than riot control or even an attempt to defend against small groups planning violence.
The Pentagon is moving forward to satisfy a congressional directive in the 2021 defense policy bill that will result in the renaming of at least 10 Army bases and possibly two Navy ships that honor the Confederacy.
Russia has revived a Soviet-era research facility to test weapons in severe Arctic conditions as the Kremlin aims to boost its defence in the resource-rich region. This also comes at a time when the country faces military challenges along its western borders. Sergei Karasev, senior official at the Central Scientific-Research Institute for Precision Machine Engineering, Russia’s weapons maker, announced in a statement on Thursday that it had restored testing chambers at the facility to simulate extreme conditions, including extreme heat, cold and wet weather.
The task of the panel, which has an open-ended mandate, is to take a deep look within the department to uncover “systemic discrimination, unconscious bias, [and] white supremacy,” Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan said today.
The country’s ethical committee of the armed forces ministry gave approval in order for France to keep up with countries which are already working on similar projects.
Research is also being done to create pills which will keep soldiers awake for long periods and surgery to improve their hearing.
Ontario is reporting 1,676 new cases of COVID-19 Tuesday, and 10 new deaths due to the virus.
Health Minister Christine Elliott says 588 new cases are in Toronto, 349 in Peel Region, and 141 cases are in York Region.
Military reservists preparing for possible deployment in Prairies as COVID-19 rates soar
All of the army divisions and joint task forces across the country were asked earlier this fall to check how many part-time soldiers would be available for duty so as to have 300 reserve soldiers in each area, a senior defence source said.
This country’s membership in the Five Eyes military-intelligence alliance — which consists of Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand — has been damaged by a lingering espionage and law-enforcement scandal in Ottawa that’s been shrouded in secrecy.
In September 2019, the RCMP’s highest-level intelligence official, Cameron Ortis, was arrested and remains in jail. No trial date has been set and court documents have been sealed.
