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Trump Orders National Guard to Washington and Takeover of Capital’s Police
- John23832 1y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act Though I guess the loop hole here is that the National Guard would in this case be acting under "state authority" given that typically state-like actions for DC are deferred to Congress. The open question being whether the Executive branch could act independently, or whether they still need explicit authorization from Congress.
- burkaman 1y ago[flagged]
- croes 1y agoThat protects Trump, not his henchmen. And soldiers are expected to refuse orders that are manifestly illegal
- burkaman 1y agoTrue. Has an American soldier ever been prosecuted for obeying an illegal order?
- jacquesm 1y agoI'm not sure what exactly the orders were, but Calley, one of the My Lai massacre war criminals was in fact convicted. But many others who should have been convicted were not. Calley claimed he was following orders from Medina (his SO) but Medina denied giving them.
- sitkack 1y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Calley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Calley only served 5 months behind bars, the other 35 were under house arrest. https://time.com/archive/6878225/the-military-galley-paroled/ https://time.com/archive/6878225/the-military-galley-paroled...
- jacquesm 1y agoFor the cold blooded murder of many civilians. Insanity, and one of those moments that humanity will judge its past by.
- monkey_monkey 1y agoHis henchmen are implicitly protected because he'll pardon them.
- readthenotes1 1y ago[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Tadpole9181 1y agoTrump has pardoned several people who attempted to breach the capital and murder elected representatives to stop the ratification of a democratic presidential election. All he needs is a single paper that says "All members of the military following the orders of President Trump are pardoned for all crimes past and future related to said orders" and - boom - accountability gone!
- jacquesm 1y agoFor now. But there is no reason why a future government of the USA would not see that in an entirely different light. After all, those that went to trial after WWII also argued that their actions were legal and it turned out not to be the case.
- Tadpole9181 1y agoThere is no legal mechanism for unpardoning someone, the constitution only allows it to go one way. It would require an amendment, and we can't even pass laws with this legislature. And for good reason, mind you. Same reason as dismissal without prejudice gets some flak as easily abused for corrupt leverage.
- jacquesm 1y agoA future government is not necessarily bound to the one the preceded it depending on the way the one government changed into the other. And the way things are going right now there is a non-zero chance that the USA will see a reboot of its system of government, if it doesn't actually fall apart into multiple different countries.
- ratelimitsteve 1y agoThis protects Trump, and Trump protects his henchmen. Look at the J6 pardons.
- Aurornis 1y agoThis ruling has been widely misinterpreted. It does not mean that the president can make an unlawful declaration and that the National Guard, for example, must follow it even though the declaration is inconsistent with the law. That said, it’s not immediately clear to me that this would be illegal. The National Guard and the District of Columbia is a unique edge case because D.C. is not a state. To be clear I don’t like this move nor where it is going. I’m not endorsing it, only trying to understand the legal basis.
- burkaman 1y agoYou're right, but if someone down the chain of command refuses to obey a declaration they consider illegal, the president can (and will) just repeatedly fire people until someone does what he wants.
- justin66 1y agoWe're talking about the military. In the worst case he can do a lot more than fire people for their disobedience. He's already indicated publicly that he believes General Mark Milley ought to be hung, although to date his efforts to end the general have not gone further than removing his security detail. (the general is believed to be an assassination target of Iran...) And to go back to the original comment, the president cannot be prosecuted for doing any of this since it's part of his "official duties." I'd expect this Supreme Court to walk back the specifics of this ruling the moment a Democratic president starts pushing the limits, however.
- jameskilton 1y agoNo, I think we all have a pretty clear interpretation of that ruling. If no-one is going to uphold the legality, or lack there of, then there is no rule of law. SCOTUS is not going to hold POTUS accountable. Therefore, Trump is above the law.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- quickthrowman 1y ago
- api 1y agoEven if Trump isn’t the one, this means we are ready for our Caesar and fall of the Republic. Of course I think we’ve been sliding toward our decadent imperial phase for quite some time. This did not materialize out of nowhere. The Executive long ago took the power to declare war from Congress, at least in practice, and that was one of the first huge steps. Personally I think Trump will die, there will be a power struggle, and it will be one of the next few. There’s even some chance it could be a left-populist authoritarian. Political winds can shift fast in an environment like this. Speed running the fall of Rome.
- jacquesm 1y agoRome, for all its might was puny in comparison to the United States. The downfall and/or breakup of the USA will leave the world in pieces. If it happens - which I really hope it will not, though I don't see how at this point it is still unavoidable - millions of people will die the world over. Every two bit dictator will see their chance and grab it knowing the next opportunity to do so will be at least a century away. The number of democracies and the number of people living in an (actual) democracy is already a minority. Democracy may well soon become an endangered species in the zoo of possible governments.
- api 1y agoChina will probably rise up in our place, which is why I think MAGA just handed the world to China. In that first state of the union when he talked about a golden age I was like “yeah, this is the Chinese century. He’s gonna burn it down.” Literally gilding the White House is a caricature of how you’d depict the fall of an empire in bad fiction. An editor would say that was cliche.
- jacquesm 1y agoThere is a pretty good chance of that, I don't see any other contenders. Australia and NZ better watch their back.
- Bender 1y agoChina is going through its own issues at the moment. Larger numbers of people are rising up against the CCP and recent events are becoming more and more frequent. Their government is predictably cracking down harder on its citizens. But you could be right, just not with the CCP but rather whatever government takes its place soon. The riots have not yet reached their precipice but it's getting nasty.
- baggy_trough 1y ago"One set of troops, the District of Columbia National Guard, has historically operated as the equivalent of a state militia (under Title 32 of the United States Code) not subject to Posse Comitatus Act restrictions, even though it is a federal entity under the command of the President and the Secretary of the Army."
- normalaccess 1y agoFrom the Wiki Page: "The Act does not prevent the Army National Guard or the Air National Guard under state authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within its home state or in an adjacent state if invited by that state's governor. The United States Coast Guard (under the Department of Homeland Security) is not covered by the Act either, primarily because although it is an armed service, it also has a maritime law enforcement mission." It's confusing because DC does not have a governor so it looks like an edge case that has not been tested before.
- ratelimitsteve 1y agothe DC national guard is under the direct command of the president. The law may use the words "state" and "governor" but I'd take the other side of any bet that says that will be interpreted to mean that the president doesn't have the authority to deploy the DC guard in DC because of the posse comitatus act.
- pcaharrier 1y agoSuffice to say that before this morning I had only a vague idea about how legally complicated this could get. For instance, there's an opinion from the Department of Justice (albeit an old one) that concluded that the President can use the DC National Guard for law enforcement purposes (in that case, drug interdiction) without running afoul of the Posse Comitatus Act. Source: https://www.justice.gov/olc/opinion/use-national-guard-support-drug-interdiction-efforts-district-columbia https://www.justice.gov/olc/opinion/use-national-guard-suppo...
- chiffre01 1y agoCan't wait for the to have no impact on crime in Southeast.
- susiecambria 1y agoSoutheast only or east of the river? I'd say the latter.
- nickpinkston 1y agoAlmost a "Trump crossing the Potomac" (Caesar / Rubicon) moment, where the Army enters the Pomerium [1] of democracy. Let's hope it doesn't have the same effect (ie the eventual fall of the republic) [1] No military weapons were allowed inside this boundary of ancient Rome. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomerium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomerium
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- cowpig 1y agoIf crime is at a 30-year low, what is the purpose of this? Is it to bring media attention away from the Epstein controversy?
- jacquesm 1y agoIt's a threat. What surprises me is that these people are all still following orders. They know there is no emergency - yet.
- penguin202 1y ago[flagged]
- jjk166 1y agoFor anyone who disobeys the order, it's the end of their career; and every person with a conscience who leaves now will be replaced by someone who will gleefully follow much worse orders in due time. Everyone at the top levels whose job is to actually take a stand against these acts, to serve as a rallying point for others to know when the time to resist has come, have abdicated their duty. If the authoritarians are smart, they will never create a situation where we are backed into a corner, where the time to fight is obvious; we will be convinced that our best course of action is to continue in lockstep with the system in the hopes of fixing it, right up until the slaughter.
- ModernMech 1y ago> every person with a conscience who leaves now will be replaced by someone who will gleefully follow much worse orders in due time. Is that any better than people with a conscience staying and reluctantly following much worse orders in due time? At least when they leave, they send a message of resistance instead of silently capitulating.
- SauciestGNU 1y agoInternal sabotage and/or physical resistance to the execution of unlawful orders (think My Lai type event) might be the more meaningful action for the ethically conflicted service member. I think things would be a lot worse if everyone sympathetic to the people resigned and left only regime loyalists in the ranks.
- jacquesm 1y agoOne way to now a chess match is about to begin is to see people place pieces on a chessboard. There is no thread of our possible history that is colored 'good' for the next couple of years that starts off with deploying the NG in Washington, D.C. As a pre-emptive move it is an overt threat and as a response to something that is actually happening it is complete overkill. Either way, trouble is brewing.
- pohl 1y agoA staged "carjacking" that the police got lucky enough to "stumble upon" — the "victim" of which just so happened to be the DOGE employee known as "Big Balls" — isn't enough justification for the presence of the National Guard for you?
- cookiengineer 1y ago[flagged]
- nosioptar 1y agoYes, Big Balls allegedly got his ass beat by a couple of 15 year olds. https://abcnews.go.com/US/19-year-former-doge-worker-assaulted-dc-carjacking/story?id=124406722 https://abcnews.go.com/US/19-year-former-doge-worker-assault...
- chrisco255 1y agoBig Balls is only 19 and was intervening, unarmed, in a carjacking attempt of a woman by up to 10 people as reported. DC is one of the highest murder rates in the country. Would you have the balls to protect a woman in that situation?
- estearum 1y ago[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ratelimitsteve 1y ago[flagged]
- penguin202 1y ago[flagged]
- roxolotl 1y agoCreating problems that only you can solve is a proven way to justify authoritarianism.
- jjk166 1y agoThese do not seem like the actions of a an administration that feels the need to justify anything.
- ratelimitsteve 1y agoThey do need to justify it, just not to the people we usually consider to be authorities.
- wffurr 1y agoWashington DC should either be made a state or given to Maryland except for a small federal district. What a load of crap.
- GlenTheMachine 1y agoWe don't want it.
- jihadjihad 1y agoWe’re only ~1/7 of the way through this administration. There is so much more time left on the clock for shenanigans. It’s hard to imagine three summers from now being anything other than a hellscape. I hope to God I’m wrong.
- toomuchtodo 1y agoHope for the best, plan for the worst.
- penguin_booze 1y agohttps://www.project2025.observer/en https://www.project2025.observer/en
- dpkirchner 1y agoI remember when people here on HN were telling us Trump had no relation to Project 2025.
- duxup 1y agoMeanwhile SCOTUS has opted out of doing their job allowing the executive branch to do what it likes (as long as it’s their guy…)
- softwaredoug 1y agoIt’s really the administration of whatever SCOTUS lets him get away with. Trump - by pressure testing the law - lets SCOTUS reimagine the constitutional order.
- FireBeyond 1y agoThe administration has said they will not feel compelled to follow federal court orders. Who is to say they won't ignore orders from SCOTUS either, and go the Andrew Jackson route?
- drivingmenuts 1y agoIs being homeless now a violation of federal law?
- Tadpole9181 1y agoTrump created an executive order on that too, so they're trying: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/07/ending-crime-and-disorder-on-americas-streets/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/07/endi... It directs the executive agencies to seek to loosen any restrictions on non-consentual admission to psychiatric facilities and to force homeless (and people with mental illness) into them. It also aims to end drug abuse recovery programs and says that not having physical space for patients shouldn't stop them, IIRC.
- dragonwriter 1y agoLaw as something distinct from the immediate whim of the executive backed by military force is under (both figurative and literal) attack in the US right now.
- protocolture 1y agoWhats under attack is the idea that this was ever not the case. Laws are arbitrary, temporary and not at all related to justice.
- NoGravitas 1y agoLook, I don't know what you kids are into. But laws are threats made by the dominant socioeconomic ethnic group in a given nation. It's just the promise of violence that's enacted, and the police are basically an occupying army, you know what I mean? Want to make some bacon?
- justin66 1y agoThank goodness somebody flagged this. All this commentary on the collapse of our democracy was really harshing my mellow.
- rchaud 1y agoplus it might divert eyeballs from all the truly critical news about which AI startup got how much in funding to do something 100 other companies are doing.
- ta1243 1y agoThis is literally a news site for startup funding
- rchaud 1y agoIf that were the case there would never be any topics on HN about housing, healthcare, education, elections, war or tariffs, yet the "/best" page says otherwise.
- mring33621 1y agoyou do understand that start-ups are a thing for liberal, democratic, capitalist, free-market folks? That's not the context that we are in politically or socially right now.
- toomuchtodo 1y agoThis is a discussion forum for intellectual curiosity operated from the investment exhaust of a capital market participant. A recent, adjacent analogy is Jeff Lawson taking his Twilio winnings to buy and operate The Onion. The economic mechanizations are usually underpinnings to something more valuable. HN would still be valuable if YC closed up shop tomorrow (and I personally argue, of greater value than the accelerator; value is subjective of course, so opinions will differ on this). Stay curious. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=dang%20intellectual%20curiosity&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
- 1y ago
- Tadpole9181 1y agoFor transparency: NYTimes live stories have dynamic headlines. I've updated the title to match the current headline as of ~12pm.
- mitchbob 1y agohttps://archive.ph/2025.08.11-145539/https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/08/11/us/trump-news https://archive.ph/2025.08.11-145539/https://www.nytimes.com...
- Anonbrit 1y ago[flagged]
- PieTime 1y agoFor the wealthy not the poor
- josefritzishere 1y agoReminds me of the Gleiwitz incident.
- doom2 1y agoWhy is the current level of crime in DC worthy of deploying the National Guard, but January 6 wasn't?
- hopelite 1y ago[flagged]
- zekrioca 1y ago"Only idiots answer a question with another question."
- conorcleary 1y agonull statement
- fnordlord 1y agoAs a software engineer, I'm offended. I thought our only two options for answers were "what are you trying to do?" and "why do you want to do that?"
- tastyface 1y ago"For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law."
- throw0101c 1y ago> "For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law." AFAICT, from Peru's General Óscar Benavides: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Óscar_R._Benavides https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Óscar_R._Benavides
- Auracle 1y agoTrump pushed to have the National Guard there to keep the peace on January 6th: https://cha.house.gov/2024/9/transcripts-show-president-trump-s-directives-to-pentagon-leadership-to-keep-january-6-safe-were-deliberately-ignored https://cha.house.gov/2024/9/transcripts-show-president-trum...
- Herring 1y agoTo be fair, he's right. In a well-functioning judicial system, he'd be in a tiny jail cell right now.
- AnimalMuppet 1y agoThat is not wise. (I'm ignoring the question of whether it's legal or constitutional or justified. Those are important questions. They matter. But for this comment, I'm ignoring them.) Trump just made himself owner of the crime rate in DC. Every crime that occurs there is now Trump's failure. That is not something that he's going to want.
- Tadpole9181 1y agoAs if that matters. He never takes responsibility for literally anything. Blames other people for his appointees and laws. All negative consequences are always someone else's fault. And his base gobbles it up. Heck, even it did get attributed to him - it doesn't matter. 47% of conservatives said they'd still support Trump even if he raped children with Epstein: https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/fact-check-47-republicans-still-130000101.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/fact-check-47-republican...
- ta1243 1y ago[flagged]
- croes 1y agoAnd you will see how no crime will be reported. Do you really think he will let out numbers that make him look bad
- llm_nerd 1y agoHe can, of course, almost completely stop crime in Washington D.C. Simply ignore all rights -- something this admin is getting really eager to do -- and then dump enormous, completely irrational amounts of resources into it. Boom, big win and look at how crime-free the empty streets are, aside from the dozen police on every corner, snipers on every roof. Is there anything to learn from that? Of course not. Aside from the liberty for security trade, should every town increase the police budget by 50x? Is that actually a solution for anyone?
- yupitsme123 1y ago
- sugarpimpdorsey 1y ago[flagged]
- jeffbee 1y agoDallas had 108 murders in 1H 2025. Where's their invasion force?
- sugarpimpdorsey 1y agoDallas has 5.6x the land area and nearly double the population. You can't lie with numbers that are easily provable.
- SirFatty 1y agoWhy does land area matter exactly?
- kstrauser 1y agoIt doesn't, at all. It's born from the same complaint that, say, NYC outvotes the rest of the state although it's only a tiny portion of the total size.
- sugarpimpdorsey 1y agoBecause it permits such nonsensical statements such as "France has more murders per year than London" (therefore London is safer by comparison QED). When you can draw arbitrary borders, you can make the numbers mean whatever you want.
- dwpdwpdwpdwpdwp 1y agoCrime counts are normalized to crime rates with respect to population, not land area. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b... And you'll see that Washington D.C. doesn't make the top ten for rates of any of the major violent crimes (murder, rape, etc.) nor for the "Total" violent crime.
- jmclnx 1y agoDC out of control crime ?? He should look at Mobile AL, but we all know facts mean nothing to him.
- normalaccess 1y agoHe would have to get permission of the governor. I think there is a loop hole for DC because it has no governor. "The Act (Posse Comitatus Act) does not prevent the Army National Guard or the Air National Guard under state authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within its home state or in an adjacent state if invited by that state's governor." Wiki Page on the Posse Comitatus Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act
- Tadpole9181 1y agoLike he got permission from California's governor? Trump has abdicated any pretense of following the law at this point, it's approaching offensive to use "following the law" as a defense now.
- goatlover 1y agoGavin Newsom sued Trump over nationalizing the California NG against his wishes and those of the LA mayor.
- zug_zug 1y agoHe'll do anything to distract from epstein.
- kcplate 1y agoUm…Is any one of note in public still talking about that? Way way out of the news cycle now.
- zug_zug 1y agoReally? I saw news about it just today. It's never dropped of my news, from him moving Maxwell to a minimum security prison, to questions about whether he'll pardon her, to the signed letter with illustrations he wrote for Epstein's birthday. I don't think the world will ever forget, certainly my social circles and social media are still buzzing with it. In many ways it's more damning than watergate, though people are debating whether to call it Epsteingate or Pedogate.
- prophesi 1y agoYeah it's been hard for it to leave the news cycle when there are new developments still happening all the time. Latest one being a federal judge denying the request to unseal the transcripts for cases relating to Ghislaine Maxwell. And at least going by Ground News, seems to have been widely covered by outlets today. https://ground.news/article/judge-rejects-unsealing-ghislaine-maxwell-grand-jury-transcripts https://ground.news/article/judge-rejects-unsealing-ghislain...
- kcplate 1y agoMeh. DC federal takeover and Trump/Putin Alaska are the dominant news stories on both CNN and MSNBC. There was one story above the fold on MSNBC homepage regarding Trump and Epstein on MSNBC and that story was more about how Vance’s downplaying comments could be read as supportive of more disclosure. Another story well below the fold on Epstein which is more about his victims than Trump. CNN has one story way below the fold on their homepage mentioning Epstein *for subscribers only. The story is effectively dead. Whatever legs people thought this had are effectively gone except for the rabid progressives who just want anything they can to damage Trump…or the Qanon crowds. In my opinion, those two folks belong together and can enjoy their alignment, two ends of the horseshoe.
- jmuguy 1y agoI have this theory that one easy way to curry favor with Trump is tell him about some previously esoteric/unused power the executive has. So much of what he does seems to just be because he can do it, and not because it actually has a real goal or purpose. Like a kid playing with toys. I realize he says that tariffs are meant to bring in revenue or increase domestic manufacturing or [pick random reason]. Or that he's doing this due to DC apparently turning into Fallujah but looking back over his first term and now this one, its the same pattern.
- edot 1y agoThat’s an interesting observation. I’ve wondered how he can be so “creative” if you can call it that, but I guess if you have lots of assistants who can read all of the “well, technically you can do XYZ” sections buried deep in odd legal texts, and you enjoy doing stuff just to get more limelight, these actions are inherently attention grabbing because they are so novel.
- tastyface 1y agoYes. The really dangerous people are Miller, Vought, and their Project 2025 allies. I’m quite sure they’re constantly workshopping new and exciting ways to expand dictatorial power.
- noisy_boy 1y agoI think it is not only limelight. He is a conman/hustler type of personality based on all the things he has done in the past so he probably likes loopholes and shortcuts that can be exploited. Doing things fairly and correctly are slow and for losers in his book.
- cosmicgadget 1y agoThey need to fully test their boundaries before midterms. It probably helps that SCOTUS is overturning injunctions now while things are kind of mellow.
- beeflet 1y agoI choose to believe that trump's whole campaign is motivated out of spite for getting ribbed after the birther movement. Everything he does, he does it to flabbergast the democrats "because he can" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeGpLg0b3DE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeGpLg0b3DE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC1NGWM8gP8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC1NGWM8gP8
- ElijahLynn 1y agoSomeone is testing something out...
- Gigachad 1y agoPreparing for when the Epstein list leaks.
- dragonwriter 1y agoThat's not even speculation, he explicitly stated plans to do the same in cities beyond the capital, and even named some likely targets. This is, fairly overtly, a step (not the first step, but another step) towards a nationwide militarized police state.
- mullingitover 1y ago[flagged]
- normalaccess 1y ago[flagged]
- moribvndvs 1y agoShe is. https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/violent-crime-dc-hits-30-year-low https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/violent-crime-dc-hits-30-...
- gottorf 1y agoThe data is publicly available: https://mpdc.dc.gov/dailycrime https://mpdc.dc.gov/dailycrime. By any measure, it shows a horrifying level of crime, disorder, and antisocial behavior. If DC were a country, it would be among the top 20 most murderous in the world. DC has had home rule for over 50 years. If this is a 30-year low in violent crime, it's all the more proof that radical change needs to happen soon, not something to be proud of.
- VerminOctopus1 1y agoMan this rhetoric is so empty and frankly idiotic. It’s not a country. It’s not a state. Compare like for like instead of doing these nonsense comparisons for dramatic effect.
- gottorf 1y ago26.6 murders per 100k in 2024 is neither empty nor idiotic. It's distressing. Why don't you compare that to peer cities around the world and see how it stacks up. You're right that I don't need dramatic effect; it's terrible on its own. You seem to be very invested in the idea that cities like Baltimore, St. Louis, or New Orleans have it worse. You're right. What relevance does it have?
- throw0101c 1y agoIIRC, the Guard was not called out on January 6, 2021: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_6_United_States_Capitol_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_6_United_States_Capito...
- Kapura 1y agoyeah, well, those guys believed (or found it convenient to believe) the lie that trump actually won the election. why would he call the guard on them?
- lantry 1y agoa lot of people defended Trump after jan 6 by saying he offered the national guard but was turned down by the mayor. Now he is suddenly able to deploy the national guard regardless of the mayor's input.
- dboreham 1y agoIsn't that...a lie?
- chrisco255 1y ago[flagged]
- foobarchu 1y agoI don't understand how you people keep bringing up dementia for Biden but not for Trump. Have you listened to the man speak?
- throwaway173738 1y agoIt’s just bare motivated reasoning. Their football team had the ball so anything they do is okay. Meanwhile when Reagan started showing dementia symptoms they made him go get evaluated.
- 1y ago
- throw0101c 1y agoIIRC, the Guard was not called out on January 6, 2021: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_6_United_States_Capitol_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_6_United_States_Capito...
- tootie 1y agoTrump repeatedly said he didn't have the authority to call them.
- more_corn 1y agoWhy would he call the guard on people he sent there?
- lenkite 1y agoIt was Pelosi's call and she denied the request from the Chief at the time https://x.com/ChiefSund/status/1954975181106970823 https://x.com/ChiefSund/status/1954975181106970823
- LatteLazy 1y agoUmmm, the law cited by the Chief clearly states the guard can be called to assist by the senate sergeant at arms OR the house sergeant at arms OR the Capitol Police board. Pelosi didn’t do it. But she wasn’t responsible for doing it, and the board Mr Sund chaired could have done it themselves much faster. And all of this is just what they are allowed. It did not stop trump from doing his job. Which he didn’t… https://policy.defense.gov/portals/11/Documents/hdasa/references/2_USC_1970.pdf https://policy.defense.gov/portals/11/Documents/hdasa/refere... Provision of assistance Assistance under this section shall be provided - (A) consistent with the authority of the Capitol Police under sections 1961 and 1966 of this title; (B) upon the advance written request of - (i) the Capitol Police Board; or (ii) in an emergency - (I) the Sergeant at Arms and Doorkeeper of the Senate in any matter relating to the Senate; or (II) the Sergeant at Arms of the House of Representatives in any matter relating to the House of Representatives; and (C)(i) on a temporary and reimbursable basis; (ii) on a permanent reimbursable basis upon advance written request of the Capitol Police Board; or (iii) on a temporary basis without reimbursement by the Department of Defense and the Coast Guard as described under paragraph (1)
- commiepatrol 1y ago[flagged]
- intermerda 1y agoWhat a disgusting comment. Trump has really made America ugly.
- baserater 1y ago[flagged]
- neonate 1y agohttps://archive.md/cLI2c https://archive.md/cLI2c
- zmmmmm 1y agoI'm curious how it plays out if Trump simply refuses to allow electors from non-republican states physical access to attend congress after the next election. My understanding is, they have to be physically present to cast their votes. It would seem, he could literally just deploy the NG and physically prevent them and that would be sufficient to swing the election.
- cosmicgadget 1y agoI am not sure he needs to be that overt.
- delfinom 1y agoDoesn't make sense because they would still need a majority electoral votes. If the election goes gop, then keeping the Dems out does nothing. If the election goes dem, then keeping Dems out also pushed the process nowhere. First past the post yo.
- evan_ 1y agoif they delay the vote long enough they can say there’s no clear winner and the house effectively gets to appoint the president.That’s what they were trying to do on January 6. This time it has the neat side effect of letting them cleanly appoint Trump for a third term without him being elected twice, which (it will be claimed) does not violate the 22nd amendment. “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice”
- nobody9999 1y ago>I'm curious how it plays out if Trump simply refuses to allow electors from non-republican states physical access to attend congress after the next election. My understanding is, they have to be physically present to cast their votes. Your understanding is incredibly confused. Yes, electors need to meet within each state to cast their ballots at a location specified by each state. Those ballots are certified by (a) state official(s) (on or before December 12th) and those ballots are then forwarded to DC (IIRC, to the National Archives) and those certified ballots are conveyed to the capital for counting on January 6th. So, no. The electors needn't go to Washington DC to "cast their ballots." In fact, if they did so on the appointed day for them to cast their ballot, they'd be unable to do so, as that process would be proceeding without them in the state which designated them as an elector. I really hope you're not an American citizen.
- 1024core 1y agoHe just wants to make sure something like January 6 does not happen; i.e., there's no possibility of a reverse Uno when he actually _does_ try to steal the election this November. He knows fully well that he's going to lose the House, and possibly the Senate this November. And MF hates to lose, he's got such an ego.
- aaronbrethorst 1y agoUS midterms are in 2026.
- 1024core 1y agoThis goes deeper than I thought .... ;-)
- yalogin 1y agoMy first thought is, I don’t know how bad his involvement with Epstein is that he has to go to these extents to distract people. But this time around he has a playbook of “inching towards autocracy” very well defined and milestoned. He is executing on it very well too
- jmward01 1y agoI was in a very negative space earlier this year due to the current direction the US is heading. Mostly because I am someone that doesn't want to hear problems without a call to action I can actually engage with. The things that are happening at the national level are very hard to do anything about but I did realize that I could engage at my local level so I decided to just start showing up. I now regularly attend my local city counsel meetings. I don't go and make a bunch of remarks but I have, on a few occasions, added to the public comments and, I think, I was listened to. If you want to effect change my recommendation is to show up. At a minimum you will get far more informed but you may just find that you can actually make a change too.
- beeflet 1y ago[flagged]
- tomhow 1y agoPlease don't ever post mean swipes like this on HN, not matter who or what it's in reply to, but especially not something as benign as that comment. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- nutribueno 1y ago> If you want to effect change my recommendation is to show up. I have reservations about this line of thought. For one, the people at the local city counsel have been showing up for a long time, all over the country in fact. If the actions they took have brought them here, of what use were the actions? And second, I would like to see some hard evidence that you have in fact effected/enacted change by showing up beyond just being more informed and participating in what can otherwise be (from personal experience) either a snooze-fest or an echo chamber.
- cj 1y agoWhy discourage people from attending their local city meetings? Sure, it might be a "snooze-fest", but you're not there for excitement.
- xyst 1y agoThis is quite awful. Courts are doing nothing. Balance of powers, checks and balances have been weakened through attrition and external forces — wealthy businessmen/lobbyists.
- IAmGraydon 1y agoWhat he did is not illegal. What are the courts going to do? All he has to do is name any random thing he considers to be an emergency, and calling up the National Guard in DC is completely within his rights.
- softwaredoug 1y agoIn practice - so far - the facts on the ground don’t seem to look like a takeover. More like “more resources for local cops from feds”. Which I’m not saying is good, but we should separate the bluster from the reality. From this article https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/08/11/trump-dc-fbi-national-guard-deployment/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/08/11/trump-dc-... On national guard, 200 people at a time focused on administrative work: > U.S. Army spokesman Col. Dave Butler said that most National Guard troops live locally and that the idea is to deploy them in shifts of 200 soldiers each to provide a round-the-clock presence. > The troops for now will be focused on providing logistical and administrative support to free up D.C. police officers, similar to their support role at the southern U.S. border. And they basically don’t want to actually run the police dept: > Trump named Terry Cole, the head of the DEA, as interim commissioner of the D.C. police. Cole told Police Chief Pamela A. Smith on Monday evening that the federal team is hoping for the Metropolitan Police Department to lead the effort, > Cole described Trump’s takeover of the department as more of a collaboration, and he stressed that officials would meet and work together to figure out where to deploy resources, the official said. Basically they’re putting bodies out there so DC can put more local cops in the streets. And they really don’t know how to run anything when it comes to policing DC. How would they? They need the local cops to actually understand the issues. Not saying any of this is good. But wanted to add this context.
- justin66 1y agoIt's entirely ridiculous that you're taking the federal government's words about its intentions at face value.
- softwaredoug 1y agoI’ll change my mind when there’s news beyond what I’ve stated. I feel confident in what I’ve stated because all parties (DC and Feds) are saying similar things. But to take the opposite maximalist “Trump is a maniacal dictator” position ignores the pattern of bluster and back down from Trump. Save your mental sanity. His goal is your outrage. He doesn’t have a plan.
- throwihimout 1y ago[dead]
- aeon_ai 1y agoDC often serves as America's protest stage. Controlling its police means controlling what kinds of dissent are permissible at the symbolic heart of democracy. Controlling the physical space around Congress, the Supreme Court, the federal bureaucracy means that every legislator, judge, and federal worker sees the Guard on their commute. The message is environmental and atmospheric. Propaganda for the governing class. Power made visible to those for whom there is intent to intimidate. Extending that, DC notoriously exists as an anomaly violating the foundation that the US was founded on. It is a city that isn't a city, a population with little representation in the federal apparatus that controls it. DC's legal vulnerability makes it perfect for testing. What works there can be threatened elsewhere. "We did it in Washington" becomes the precedent. The 30-day limit isn't a constraint. It's a demonstration period.
- a-posteriori 1y agoThis reads a little bit like AI. Particularly the sentence flow of the final few lines.
- random3 1y agoBecause that’s what it is.
- aeon_ai 1y agoWe ought to refuse to address the content of the message if there is even a single em-dash — things written with AI can’t be true, aren’t worth considering, and lack substance or merit.
- random3 1y agoEither have opinions or don't, but don't delegate opinions to chat bots. It defeats the purpose of discussion forums. Also slop is only partially due to the model. The rest is the prompt and editing process. It's tiresome to read to ChatGPT-specific bombastic drama like "The 30-day limit isn't a constraint. It's a demonstration period."
- muzani 1y agoI've often asked what the point of constitutional monarchies were, but this seems like a good one. The king has nearly no power. He's a figurehead. He's just there to press the "STOP" button when things have gotten out of hand. But whenever a king abuses this power, the lawmakers cut it from him. So he just sits there in a palace, living luxuriously from tax money. In good times, we ask why he's allowed to do this (but not out loud, that would be illegal). Kings have control over the military. The prime minister has control over the police. In absolute monarchies like Saudi Arabia, there's no separation between the police and the army; soldiers are out there enforcing the law. In constitutional monarchies, you can't elect someone into Commander-in-Chief; the prime minister has to convince the king that it's something worthy of military action. As the king is well fed, it's difficult to bribe or blackmail kings into acting against the state. I'm not saying it's a better system by any means - the US of A has seen plenty of wars and maybe it's best to have an elected Commander-in-Chief. But just some thought from a systems design standpoint.
- gottorf 1y ago> I've often asked what the point of constitutional monarchies were, but this seems like a good one. Bagehot divided the dignified and the efficient. I've long thought that one glaring downside of the American presidential system is that it tries to combine the two roles in one office.
- dragonwriter 1y agoNon-monarchic parliamentary democracies often separate the head of government (prime minister) and chief of state (president); it’s not exclusively a thing done by Constitutional monarchies. Instead, lacking the separation is, among representative democracies, a distinguishing (mis)feature of Presidential systems.
- muzani 1y agoThat's interesting. Which countries do this?
- jimt1234 1y agoI'd hate to be a cop in DC. We all saw people get pardoned by Trump who admitted to assaulting law enforcement officers on Jan 6th.
- kachapopopow 1y agoI made a concious effort to just stop looking at politics. Uninstalled twitter, stopped reading all news, stopped mentally engaging with friends when they bring up political topics, but holy ** this guy is making it impossible.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 1y agoWorks when/where archive.md is blocked: No Javascript required x=https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/08/11/us/trump-news echo url=$x|curl -K- -A "googlebot" > 1.htm firefox ./1.htm
- Smeevy 1y ago[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- billy99k 1y ago[flagged]
- thrown-0825 1y agoThere is a simple, direct, and immediate solution to this problem.
- buyucu 1y agoIs Trump trying to distract from the fact that he was part of the Epstein thing.
- black_13 1y ago[dead]
- thealecpow 1y agoSetting aside whether federalizing D.C. policing is wise, there’s a simple checkbook question people miss: Guard deployments aren’t free. In D.C. 2020, the Guard put the peak daily cost at ~$2.65M for ~5,000 troops, about $530 per Guard/day. That’s a decent order-of-magnitude yardstick for today. Source: Reuters (contemporaneous) – https://www.reuters.com/article/world/what-was-the-cost-for-the-national-guard-to-deploy-in-dc-up-to-26-million-a-idUSKBN23J05Y/ For a rough scale: 800–1,200 troops = mid–six figures per day, before you add transport/lodging decisions that move the number a lot. A recent LA activation was budgeted $134M for 60 days ($2.2M/day) off DoD testimony, which matches that ballpark. If you want a plain-English explanation of what drives those day rates (lodging, per diem, lift, command overhead) and how to scale them, this explainer lays out the math: https://www.thepricer.org/how-much-does-national-guard-deployment-cost-per-day/ https://www.thepricer.org/how-much-does-national-guard-deplo...
- doublerabbit 1y ago> Guard deployments aren’t free. https://www.usdebtclock.org/ https://www.usdebtclock.org/ is stil ticking along nicely.
- zitsarethecure 1y agoA fun game is to replace "Donald Trump" in news stories with "Hillary Clinton" and to imagine the reaction if they were otherwise identical.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- FrustratedMonky 1y agoNo mention of Andor? The send in troops to inflame the local population. ICE causes conflict that local population eventually fights back against. Federal Gov needs to roll in the real army to seize control. Profit?
- metalman 1y agopsssssssst, psssssssssst, hey ,mexico, pssssst, ya over here it's Canada, let's take em now while there distracted, heck they might not mind!
- yusege 1y agoIt's not my country. However, it's disheartening to see the citizens of the USA view this move as acceptable. It's a populist move taken without any communication or consultation with locals. This is Trump's way to authoritarianism. He can negotiate with his allies about tariffs because he thinks it hurts the USA. But he just chose to bully his allies. But he always backs down from tariffs to dictators. He hasn't talked about the crimes in red states. He talks about the blue states 7/24. He has not been behaving responsibly. You are losing your democracy. I hope you can understand this in the future elections, if it's not too late to understand. And please read about 1914-1939 Germany.