Citizen Writers Fighting Censorship by Helping Americans Understand Issues Affecting the Republic.
News coverage like the reporting on Thursday’s terrorist attacks in Virginia and Michigan lead one to question the abilities of far too many of today’s reporters. What should be done about it?
I worked in newspapers as a civilian for 33 years. I do not recall any other veteran in the newsroom over that time. Journalism schools should require two years in the military—or at least boot camp.
The Founders built a system based on an assumption that now sounds almost quaint: government power would be limited by reality. Communication was slow. Information was scarce. The federal government had trouble collecting taxes, let alone tracking the daily movements of its citizens. If the government wanted to watch someone in 1790, it needed a horse, a spy, and probably a tavern receipt.
In October of 1961 the Cold War was already a tense, paranoid chess match played with nuclear weapons instead of pawns. The United States and the Soviet Union were staring each other down across oceans, missile silos, and enough megatonnage to turn the planet into a glowing charcoal briquette. But Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev decided the world needed a reminder of just how big the Soviet hammer could be. So the Kremlin did what any superpower with a bruised ego might do. They built the largest nuclear bomb in human history and lit it off over the Arctic.
Iran has killed 875 Anerican soldiers, Marines, airmen and sailors since the ayatollahs seized the government 47 years ago.
Start with Clausewitz. His most famous line remains the most brutally accurate description of war ever written: war is the continuation of politics by other means. In other words, wars are not random explosions of violence. Nations fight because they want political outcomes—territory, influence, regime survival, deterrence, or control of strategic regions.
A side benefit of the Operation Epic Fury is testing the war materiel of the Russian and Red Chinese military. With little exception, they are failing again as they did in the extraction of Maduro from Venezuela
Let’s retire the fairy tales.
The U.S. dollar is not backed by gold. It’s not backed by “faith.” It’s not backed by vibes. It’s backed by power — specifically the kind of power that sails in carrier strike groups, negotiates trade deals, controls sea lanes, writes sanctions law, insures shipping, and can ruin your economy before your stock market even opens.
Remember the old election question of who will take the call at 3 AM? But our beloved President trump doesn’t wait to take calls. On Saturday, Trump made the call at 3 AM. A joint attack by Israel and the USA wiped out 8 leaders in the Islamic regime in Iran
No, I don’t think this will result in World War III, despite my headline and stock illustration, but wars do not always turn out quite the way you expect. Der Führer certainly didn’t expect Germany to have been virtually destroyed, Hideki Tojo did not expect Japan to be utterly defeated and bombed to smoking ruins, …
The cost of military action is real. But there are times – and the Iran situation is exactly such a time – when the cost of inaction is infinitely greater than the cost of action.
February 28, 2026 is another Red Letter Day in history. It’s so amazing to be alive and witness it like a spectator sport from the safety of America. The U.S. and Israeli attack on Iran is an international reset.
Somewhere between speeches about “supporting the troops” and glossy recruiting commercials, the United States quietly decided that a guaranteed military pension was a little too generous. Not immoral. Not unfair. Just… expensive. And so, without much noise or public debate, the traditional 50% military retirement pension was downgraded, rebranded, and sold as “modernization.” Enter the …
When the M1 went ashore in Normandy, no one wondered who owned the blueprints. When the M16 went to Vietnam, arguments over chrome lining, ammunition specifications, and intellectual property simmered behind the scenes. The rifle itself became entangled in acquisition disputes and contract language. Even improvements—like later A2 modifications—unfolded within a world shaped by lawyers as much as logisticians.
Enter the War Powers Resolution — Congress’s attempt to look relevant after Vietnam without actually reclaiming its authority. The War Powers Resolution is often defended as a guardrail. In reality, it’s a constitutional fig leaf stapled to a surrender note.
Over the past two years, federal agencies have quietly moved from curiosity about artificial intelligence to formal requirements to identify, inventory, and govern its use. If an AI system influences decisions, analysis, or operations—especially if that system is commercial, third-party, or not owned by the government—someone is now expected to document it. Contractors are learning this lesson the fastest. If AI touches a deliverable, an auditor somewhere wants to know about it.
Nearly a hundred years ago, Sir Herbert Butterfield sat down and committed the unforgivable sin of telling historians, strategists, and polite academics something they still hate hearing today: war is not a clean system. It is not a spreadsheet problem. It is not solved by better charts, prettier maps, or a PowerPoint deck with the right color palette. War—every war—boils down to frightened human beings trying to reconcile self-preservation, honor, faith, and meaning while other frightened human beings try to kill them.
At the Munich Security Conference, Secretary of State Marco Rubio did something unusual in modern diplomacy: he told the truth politely. He reaffirmed America’s commitment to Europe, praised NATO, spoke warmly about shared history and civilization—and then, in effect, slid a note across the table that read: You’re going to have to handle more of your own business.
That was 1967. Vietnam was raging. Cadets were not being groomed for cable news panels or Senate confirmation hearings. They were being prepared for jungles, rice paddies, ambushes, and body counts. Humor, especially gallows humor, wasn’t a problem to be solved—it was a survival mechanism. The name “Fighting Cocks” wasn’t vulgar to them; it was irreverent, aggressive, and just juvenile enough to signal that these were young men who understood they were not being trained for polite society. They were being trained for war.
