So as I was walking to my bleeding-heart-liberal shift at DC Community Kitchen today...

As usual, I had to walk past Fort McNair.

Fort McNair is one of the most strategically important US military bases, not for tactical reasons but because it houses the best and brightest military minds of the American military.

The National Defense University, the Inter-American Defense College, and the United States Army Center of Military History are all based there.

For the first time in the five times I've walked this route, there were four NG members outside each gate. The NG soldiers had handguns.

Just inside both gates, locked and secure, were checkpoints manned b full-service Army soldiers carrying M4 rifles, same as I've always seen walking by,

Take from that what you will.