BREAKING: The US military is officially on the streets of Washington DC. ....

[AverageOldGuy]

11. There are NOT 800 National Guardsmen patrolling the DC streets 24/7

The reported number of deployed troops is 800.

Subtract the support personnel -- cooks, mechanics, medics, admin people, etc. Now you are down to 600.

600 troops will not be on duty for 24 hours. Instead, there will be shifts, probably 3 shifts per day of 200 people each but 20-25 of each shift will be at DC police HQ monitoring radio traffic and coordinating with DC police. All this leaves about 175 on the streets at any one time -- and that's a number on the high end.

Meanwhile, here's a report from the front lines in DC. My daughter is an attorney living on Capitol Hill. She reported the following today.

FBI playing at policing. Yes, there are FBI agents clearly identifiable because they cruise around in black SUVs or black sedans, all with federal government license plates. They monitor the DC police radio and when they hear an arrest or police activity in progress, they run to the scene so they can get on camera “assisting” the DC police.

Smoking weed. Marijuana possession and use is legal in DC provided you possess a small amount, do not sell weed, and use it only for personal consumption. In residential neighborhoods – especially the older DC neighborhoods made up of row houses – it is not unusual for people to sit on their front stoop in the evening, visiting with neighbors, and some folks smoking weed. Over the past two days, FBI agents have freaked out when they smelled marijuana and tried to arrest people for sitting on their front stoop smoking weed. The FBI agents were told to fuck off; they were informed about the DC law, and they left with their tails between their legs.

The churches. DC streets are crowded. In DC are several very large, well-attended churches, most of them Black churches although a couple of white churches have the same issue: Parking. So, on Sundays, at church time, parking is permitted on both sides of the streets around these large churches, and when church is out, no one interferes with those leaving church. Except this past Sunday, when at one big Black church, a couple of genius FBI agents blocked off the streets and tried to ticket drivers leaving the church and were eventually sent packing after church members explained the local customs and told – not asked – the FBI agents to get the hell out of the neighborhood.

Brown people. Reports are now circulating that the FBI agents are stopping cars with brown people driving or in the car. They demand ID, ask about immigration status, and generally harass people.

Trump’s stunt – putting FBI agents and National Guard troops on DC streets – is a failure from the start. It’s a big nothingburger. It’s not the streets-on-fire that Trump hoped for.

If you want to see clear evidence of Trump’s failure, watch the press conferences with the DC mayor and police chief. They are not expressing outrage about the FBI and NG personnel. Instead, they are talking about cooperation while, at the same time, going on with normal police operations.

Trump wanted DC officials to freak out, to pound the podium, to foam at the mouth and denounce him -- they did not take the bait. Trump wanted DC residents to take to the streets, throwing Molotov cocktails, burning buildings. NOTHING has happened or will happen because everyone in DC from the mayor and police chief down recognizes Trump’s move to be a stunt, a shadow-puppet theater, a big nothing . . . all staged by Trump in hopes of prompting riots.

Furthermore, we all know Trump pulled this stunt in an attempt to draw public attention away from (1) the declining economy, (2) his coming failure in negotiating with Putin about Obama, and (3) the Epstein affair, which will not go away and which just may eventually sink Trump.

This deployment to DC is nothing but a stupid Trump stunt that he has dreamed of since his first term. The reaction by the DC leadership and residents is not what Trump expected and he doesn’t know what to do. But his halfwit, drooling MAGAt supporters just love it.