More soldiers

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Trump administration would send hundreds of additional National Guard soldiers to the nation’s capital after two soldiers were shot in the city Wednesday.

The announced escalation to Trump’s military occupation in Washington, D.C., comes less than a week after a federal court found that the president’s decision to deploy over 2,000 Guard members there was likely unlawful.

“President Trump has asked me, and I will ask the secretary of the Army to the National Guard, to add 500 additional troops, National Guardsman, to Washington, D.C.,” Hegseth said after the shooting Wednesday.

“We will never back down. We will secure our capital. We will secure our cities,” he added. “If criminals want to conduct things like this — violence against America’s best — we will never back down.”

  Democracy Docket

Because if 2,000 weren't enough to keep 2 from being shot, perhaps 2,500 will work. We all know it's not about ANYONE's safety.

West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey (R) said the two Guard members were part of the West Virginia National Guard. He initially said the troops had died but later walked back that statement, saying his office received “conflicting reports” about their condition.

Maybe find out before going public. They are now described as in critical condition.

The shooting occurred just blocks away from the White House. In addition to the Guard soldiers, a suspect, who is now in custody, was also injured.

The Department of Homeland Security has identified the suspect as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national who came to the United States in 2021 under Operation Allies Welcome. CNN previously reported the suspect applied for asylum in 2024, which was granted by the Trump administration in April 2025.

  CNN

Oh. But this is somehow Biden's fault. I'm sure they'll tell us how.

Shortly after Trump’s remarks, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services announced it has stopped processing all immigration cases related to Afghan immigrants “indefinitely pending further review.”

Why?

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has asked for 500 more National Guard troops to be deployed to DC. It also asked a federal appeals court for an emergency stay of an order from a federal judge to remove the National Guard from Washington, DC. Last week, the judge ruled the deployment was unlawful.

Oh, here it is... 

Lakanwal is believed to be from Afghanistan and came to the United States in 2021 under the Biden administration.

[...]

"He previously worked with the USG, including CIA, as a member of a partner force in Kandahar that ended in 2021 following the withdrawal from Afghanistan," CIA director John Ratcliffe said on Thursday.

[...]

On Tuesday, during the traditional turkey pardoning at the White House, Trump touted his administration's takeover of D.C. streets. He said it was "one of our most unsafe places anywhere in the United States. It is now considered a totally safe city."

  ABC

Ooops. Spoke too soon.

Heads up

 

Takes courage.  Good luck, DC.

Another day in America, another school shooting

 

Hmmmm.   Gun control?

Meanwhile, in D.C....

Nice.

UPDATE :05:34 pm

And they're going to lay this on the trans community.

Officials are investigating a series of videos posted to YouTube believed to be associated with [Robin] Westman, according to law enforcement sources familiar with the matter.

[...]

A name change application for a minor born on the same date was approved by a district court in Minnesota in 2020, changing the name of a Robert Westman to Robin Westman, explaining the minor child "identifies as a female and wants her name to reflect that identification."

[...]

Two videos, posted Wednesday morning and since removed by YouTube, show someone flipping through dozens of pages of notes dated over the course of several months, which include what appears to be doodles of weapons, middle fingers, and expletives. There are also repeated references to killing.

The videos, which depict handwritten journals and a display of high-powered weaponry, paint a portrait of a person with a rambling and deeply nihilistic outlook, according to analyses by law enforcement and ABC News.

The writings in the notebooks and on the firearms, which are written in a blend of Cyrillic alphabet, English and other languages, indicate a series of grievances, anger and ideations of harm to self and to others.

[...]

Westman died at the scene from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara said.

  ABC

Occupied D.C.

 

UPDATE 08/26/2025:  An invitation to join the goons.

The D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force.  Even the names they give to their fascist projects sound like something out of '1984'.

Meanwhile, in occupied D.C.

 

UPDATE 08/27/2025:

Give DC residents the same rights of representation the states have

 

Oh my

UPDATE 07:46 am:  

Another reason Trump wants to delay the DC January 6 insurrection trial past election day.

Another day, another mass shooting in America

Make that two days and two mass shootings.

Thoughts and prayers should take care of this uniquely American scourge.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 02:34 pm:

Washington motto: Don't look back

[T]he ghosts of history are never all that welcome in Washington. It’s a place that has a hard time looking back and an even harder time doing anything to rectify past mistakes. The capital has a case of “permanent historical amnesia.”

[...]

Which made it all the more notable when the Senate met on Thursday to take a key procedural vote on a measure to repeal the two-decade-old authorization that provided the legal basis for Bush’s invasion of Iraq. [...] “The last time we’ve had a stand-alone vote on the floor,” for something like this Iraq repeal measure, [Democratic Senator Tim] Kaine noted, “is probably before anybody in the Senate was born. It’s just something that we’ve abdicated.”

[...]

This scheduling offered not only a chance to reassert Congress’s constitutional power to declare war but also the nearly irresistible opportunity to make a political point about the historic folly of that particular war. In their remarks before the Senate overwhelmingly voted, 68–27, to invoke cloture and clear the way for a vote next week.

  New Yorker

But, does the House have to agree?

Two decades ago, Bush and the Republicans were nearly united in their embrace of a brash militarism that sought to topple Saddam and transform Iraq and the broader Middle East in the process. [...] [B]acklash to the conflict arguably gave rise to the Presidencies of both Barack Obama—who first rose to fame as an antiwar state legislator—and Donald Trump. Trump is a Bush-basher of long standing, and he often framed his takeover of the Republican Party as an explicit repudiation of the extended Bush family and its internationalist legacy. Trump has said Bush “lied” to start the war, that he should have been impeached for how badly it was conducted, and that, over all, Bush had a “failed and uninspiring Presidency.”

There's one point on which I'm in agreement with Trump.

Much as the Vietnam War did for a previous generation, the failures in Iraq shattered American confidence, shaped future debates over the use of military force, made the concept of democracy promotion itself suspect, distracted from rising threats posed by the revisionist great powers Russia and China, and splintered the previously unquestioned Republican commitment to a robustly internationalist American foreign policy.

[...]

DeSantis, back in the pre-Trump era of 2015, publicly bashed Obama for not providing enough arms to Ukraine. His flip-flop is so telling. There may still be Bush-style internationalists left in Washington, but it says everything about the trajectory of the Party’s foreign-policy thinking that both of its 2024 front-runners think that’s not where the primary voters they seek stand.

[...]

In a remarkable statement dismissing the [Russian invasion of Ukraine] as little more than a “territorial dispute,” DeSantis seemed to signal how much he thinks Republican sentiment has shifted since the Bush era. You don’t have to support the disastrous invasion of Iraq to acknowledge that Russia’s barbaric war of aggression against its neighbor Ukraine is wrong, and yet that is where both Trump and DeSantis have now landed. [...] DeSantis’s comments to Fox News’ Tucker Carlson [...] drew strong pushback from the remaining Republican hawks in the old Bush mold. The Wall Street Journal editorial board called it his “first big mistake.” Lindsey Graham called it a “Neville Chamberlain approach” of appeasement. Nikki Haley pointedly observed that DeSantis was just “copying” Trump with his new position.

[...]

Many officials other than Bush himself, of course, have admitted the invasion was a mistake, “a grave and costly error,” as the former Bush speechwriter David Frum wrote in The Atlantic this week. I believe there is a straight line that leads from that debacle to the political mess we are in today.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

He's gonna love this

An intersection near the White House where federal law enforcement used chemical irritants and flash-bang grenades earlier this week to clear a peaceful demonstration against racial injustice has a new name: Black Lives Matter Plaza.

[...]

On Friday, in addition to unveiling “Black Lives Matter Plaza,” honoring the national movement aimed at combating systemic racism and police killings of black Americans, the District also teamed up with local artists to adorn a stretch of 16th Street NW in front of the White House in giant yellow lettering bearing the group’s name.

  Politico

However...

The D.C. chapter of the Black Lives Matter global network quickly rejected the plaza name and street painting as “performative.” The group accused D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser of attempting to distract from “her active counter organizing to our demands,” which include a reduction of the city’s police budget and the reinvestment of those funds in other community priorities.

They're tired of talking about improvements. They'd like to SEE some.

😲

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

If you don't count them, you don't have them

Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) announced Wednesday that the city will lift its stay-at-home order on Friday and enter phase one of reopening.

Bowser said that the virus is still circulating but said the city had met its metrics of a 14-day decline in community spread of the virus as well as adequate testing and hospital capacity.

[...]

While new cases have generally been declining, the city did see an uptick over the Memorial Day weekend. Instead of resetting the clock on the 14-day countdown back to zero days, though, officials paused the clock and then continued counting when cases again started to decline, allowing for the reopening to occur this week.

  The Hill

Was the White House pressuring the mayor by any chance?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

The District of Columbia this week became the latest jurisdiction to endure scrutiny, with the city using a “community spread” metric — excluding nursing homes, correctional facilities and others — as a justification for reopening the area.

  Politico

In your face

Ditch Mitch the Bitch

What a pig.

UPDATE:



I guess Mitch hasn't read the Republican Party Plantform of 2012 & 2016:

Let it be so

The Senate will never approve.  McConnell may not even bring it to a vote if it gets there.  

Ditch Mitch.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Adding to the Pile of Lawsuits Against Trump

I can't remember just how many lawsuits were involving Trump when he took office - I seem to recall reading something on the order of 20+, but I could be misremembering. At any rate, here's a couple more.

Attorneys general for the District of Columbia and the state of Maryland say they will sue President Trump on Monday, alleging that he has violated anti-corruption clauses in the Constitution by accepting millions in payments and benefits from foreign governments since moving into the White House.

  WaPo

Didn't Trump's DOJ just claim that's not illegal for the president?

The Department of Justice (DOJ) claims President Trump can accept goods and services from foreign governments without congressional approval, despite the constitutional prohibition against U.S. officials' acceptance of foreign payments or gifts without congressional approval.

[...]

The DOJ argued in a Friday filing that the constitutional provision, known as the emoluments clause, doesn't apply to fair-market transactions, like hotel bills or office rent.

  CBS

Perhaps we're about to find out.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

FURTHER UPDATE:  A mindblowing bit of that report:

It says the U.S. General Services Administration, which handles federal real estate, wrongly allowed Trump’s company to continue to lease the Old Post Office building, where Trump built his D.C. hotel, even though a clause in the contract said no elected official could remain on the lease.

The GSA initially said Trump would have to fully divest from the hotel after the election. But after Trump proposed increasing GSA’s budget, the suit says, the agency issued a letter saying Trump was in full compliance.