A useful WaPo map of where Trump Storm Troops are actually operating in DC.
www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/202…
If you know DC, what this map tell you is: They're making the gaudy show of strength in areas where it matters least and will do least good. Except for sheer spectacle.— James Fallows (@jfallows.bsky.social) August 16, 2025 at 8:51 AM
===
Objectively risible. They are going where the tourists can see them and where the media live and eat.
— Maryn McKenna (@marynmck.bsky.social) August 16, 2025 at 9:36 AM
===
At least DC's upscale shopping districts have finally been made safe by armed men standing around with nothing to do.
— Pete Kotz (@petekotz.bsky.social) August 16, 2025 at 9:55 AM
===
They want to be near the nice restaurants
— Steve Holmes (@bottyguy.bsky.social) August 16, 2025 at 9:36 AM
===
I wonder what it would look like if police call/crime locations were added to the map. I’m not familiar with DC, but I’m guessing there wouldn’t be much agreement.
— Breah LaSarre (@blasarre.bsky.social) August 16, 2025 at 9:50 AM
===
Correct (filtered Assault with weapon 2025)
— a Chuck (@achuck-ten.bsky.social) August 16, 2025 at 10:46 AM
===
— danaiolos.bsky.social (@danaiolos.bsky.social) August 16, 2025 at 11:39 AM
===
But seriously…
Agree that this is worth watching, all the way through.
— James Fallows (@jfallows.bsky.social) August 15, 2025 at 4:02 PM
===
On one hand, Republican officials call themselves "warfighters."
On the other, they become whiny crybabies at the thought of setting foot in DC streets and New York City subways that literal schoolchildren navigate every day without incident.
Real macho stuff.— Hillary Rodham Clinton (@hillaryclinton.bsky.social) August 14, 2025 at 8:01 PM
===
A reminder that the initial days of this takeover have given no pretense whatsoever to escalate to an *armed* occupation. If anything, it’s emphasized how dumb and wasteful this is. So Trump arming the occupation troops is a sign that want more violence.
— Garrett M. Graff (@vermontgmg.bsky.social) August 16, 2025 at 2:33 PM
JiveTurkin
The whole thing is a classic Trump show. But it does work for him. DC does have a high violent crime rate, but most of it is in areas that he and other Republicans could care less about. So put the shock troops in Georgetown and the National Mall where they are visible and there is virtually no violent crime, and say it’s working. The people who care about the unconstitutionality don’t need to be convinced that the orange pedo is an abomination.
cain
That post by Hillary is 100% titanium (sorry won’t use gold, that’s like Trump’s color)
cain
@JiveTurkin:
Indeed. I mean, the whole thing is just PR stunt that costs tax dollars millions of dollars.
piratedan
goddammit, we’re going to have to create our fucking Reichstag moment aren’t we? – The entire Nazi Caucus of the 47 Administration.
damn, considering these guys draw down on sleepy car patrons in fast food drive thrus, I’m guessing that one of these choads, somewhere, somewhen is going to deliver because there are certain elements in LEO that want to make it so….
Suzanne
This entire stunt is designed for photo ops. Images of armed goons in front of recognizable buildings, so the patrons of the Ohio diner can see these pictures and feel that little frisson of excitement.
FFOTUS is literally the worst person in America, and he engages in this blindingly obvious manipulation and imagecraft, and it makes me fucken crazy because it works.
trollhattan
BBC has learned you cannot possibly be too cynical figuring out Trump’s motives. Our media could take a cue.
How Trump’s drive to his golf course shaped homeless crackdown
JWR
Yeah, someone <cough>Putin</cough> planted another great and original idea to extend Russia’s genocidal war in the Orange Fart Cloud’s brain. A “mere ceasefire” my arse! From NBC:
Dan B
@piratedan: You mean the police and troops would incite a riot? Is unpossible for our fine boys in blue!
Jackie
I just heard WV’s governor Morrisey is sending 300 – 400 NG troops to DC, per MSNBC.
Dan B
@Suzanne: The Orange Pustule has company like Stephen Miller, RFK Jr., Kristi Noem, etc. etc.
trollhattan
@Jackie:
They can dig coal in Foggy Bottom.
Suzanne
@Dan B: I was going through security at MSP yesterday, and they had a couple of screens hanging up over the lines playing some little feel-good video with Kristi Noem.
I was already working on my bad aura and I held my middle finger up high in front of the screen. I ain’t Minnesota nice.
ETA: I got a speeding ticket on the way to the airport. DEEPLY UNCOOL, PAUL BLART.
Nukular Biskits
Good evenin’, y’all!
Suzanne
@Nukular Biskits: Sup, friend!
Interesting Name Goes Here
Gee, it’s almost like handing over control of our governance to a bunch of childish, narcissistic nutjobs because the competent people weren’t doing exactly what people liked was a stupid-ass idea.
Nukular Biskits
@Suzanne:
T-storm just rolled through, dropped a lot of rain, and the temps. We needed both.
Nukular Biskits
@Interesting Name Goes Here:
Yeah, but the libs were completely owned and that’s all that mattered.
Dan B
@Suzanne: Good job! Did your finger have fine form?
trollhattan
@Suzanne:
If ever a situation begged for a hacker to swap in the South Park Kristi.
Baud
@Interesting Name Goes Here:
BUT HER LAUGH!
Baud
@trollhattan:
Hackers are a big disappointment. When’s the last time they did something for the good guys?
zhena gogolia
@Interesting Name Goes Here: You sound like me.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Never. Они все русские.
Suzanne
@Dan B: My salty salute is honed to perfection.
Dan B
@Nukular Biskits: Seattle got hours of drizzle followed by real rain of about half an inch. Plants are looking up but there’s no rain in the forecast. We’re in drought with lots of big trees full of pitch that burns like crazy.
Ohio Mom
As someone who once, long ago, briefly lived in the DC suburbs, I look at at the law enforcement vehicles in the video and think, “Geesh, the streets aren’t continually congested enough, you have to clog them up some more for no good reason?”
I hope it’s miserablely humid and unbearable for all those goons in their billet proof vests.
Martin
So the new CA map is projected to pick up 5 Dem seats, not the 9 that Newsom was saying was possible because getting to 9 would have required violating section 2 of the VRA and they either didn’t want to risk the map getting invalidated for that reason or being part of the effort to overturn the VRA.
My guess is that if USSC chooses to overturn the VRA after hearing arguments in October they’ll issue a ruling immediately rather than wait for the end of the term so that some states can get in new maps under the wire, but only those states that can redraw maps without the voters.
trollhattan
@Baud:
Phoenix: media1.phoenixnewtimes.com/phx/imager/u/magnum/13101936/screenshot_2022-02-24_11.32.15_am.png“
Baud
@trollhattan:
Gotta start somewhere.
Suzanne
@Nukular Biskits: I could use some rain and lower temps. I really don’t like heat. I don’t like sun. I would probably love Vladivostok if not for the fascism. Minor detail.
trollhattan
@Baud:
If I were in Phoenix it would be “the weather” first “Putin” second.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
“DC does have a high violent crime rate” is based on…what…exactly? Faux “News” talking points?
Various web sites report this various ways and there’s nothing close to unanimity when it comes to rankings. Nonetheless, a look at two sites:
newsweek.com/map-cities-homicide-rates-crime-2112196
security.org/resources/most-dangerous-cities/
And DC doesn’t make the Top 10, it’s #19 in one of those. I apparently live in a crime ridden hell hole in Denver (which doesn’t seem to make a dent in the number of entitled whites from elsewhere moving here en masse) based on how some sites plug and chug the numbers plus the commentary from our white exurban population.
And there are other sites with variations on their listicles of “Most Crime Ridden Hellhole Cities in ‘Murka” but they all are consistent in terms of DC not being close to the title it held a generation and a half ago, which many people here experienced first hand back in the day.
Suzanne
@trollhattan: Phoenix just had their hottest August day ever: 118 degrees. That’s too hot to fuck anything.
lamh47
Open thread…ok…watching the Book of Eli for the first time ever and I can totally see how after watching this movie why Denzel was so damn good in Equalizer!
trollhattan
@Suzanne:
Was there just once in August–hundred-teens and monsoons, 99 at midnight. What fresh hell?
Steve LaBonne
A new genre- unreality TV.
Nukular Biskits
@Dan B:
This is the first what I’d call significant rain we’ve had a in a while. Ms. Biskits said it poured yesterday before I got home from work, but it only lasted a few minutes … there were spots in the yard under the trees where the soil was completely dry.
Today’s storm (and it was a nasty one) took care of that but nearly all of it has already soaked in.
We need more.
Suzanne
@trollhattan: That’s kinda standard for August there: hot and miserable! They’ve been having 100-degree overnights every year for about 15 years now.
And, as an extra added bonus, it’s so extremely dry that your nose bleeds and your snot turns to rocks and your skin gets chapped and cracks and flakes off!
Nukular Biskits
@Ohio Mom:
Having been in DC this time of year, I’d say it’s as bad, if not worse, than South MS.
lamh47
Goodness I love this new era of NFTG old man Denzel Washington…LOL.
This press tour for Highest 2 Lowest is the most we’ve seen of old man Denzel…and I love it
Shana
We drove back from a week in Rehoboth Beach today and dropped our niece at Union Station to catch a train back to NYC. There were about 10 of those military not-tanks with a bunch of guys doing a lot of nothing except walking in front of cars dropping off or picking up in front of the station. We then made our way to Constitution Ave to get on I-66 to get home. When we got close to the White House at about 17th or 18th the cops had the street blocked off and we had to divert south to Independence Ave past the African American Museum where there was an inexplicable police presence in order to get onto 66. I suspect the blockage on Constitution was for Trump’s benefit. It’s all such performative bullshit.
Adding for the non-DC folks: Constitution and Independence Aves run along the north and south sides of the Mall.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Nukular Biskits:
Having lived in DC this time of year, then Central Misery for a helluva lot longer, and then in places like NOLA for extended periods this time of year, your neck of the woods (NOLA counts) still “wins” for shittiest heat and humidity. ;)
Nukular Biskits
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Sorry but NOLA is in a league of its own.
I’ve been down there this time of year and I’m of the considered opinion that “Nawlins” ain’t fit for human habitation during the summer months.
And that those who do live there are super humans.
lamh47
@Nukular Biskits: was literally just talking to someone bout my home town and how the humidity can drain ya as much as the heat can!
Geminid
The Texas Tribune reported on an Emerson poll of Texas’s Republican Senate primary. It showed incumbent Senator John Cornyn and Texas AG Ken Paxton in a virtual dead heat; Paxton 30%, Cornyn 29% with 37% Undecided.
Cornyn was trailing Paxton substantially in previous polls, but groups associated with Republican Senate leadership unleashed a barrage of attack ads against Paxton to good effect.
This is a bitter and hard-fought primary contest that will suck up plenty more money. The candidates may find slim pickings in the Permian Basin though, with oil prices headed south and the Saudis opening the taps. U.S. oil production hit a record recently but it could be a while before it is equalled.
Jay
DC Shows Up.
bsky.app/profile/iwillnotbesilenced.bsky.social/post/3lwkewjqw4c2j
Pigs being Pigs,………..
Another Scott
@Suzanne: I was out in Las Vegas for a conference a few decades ago. In the summer. It was very sunny and 100-ish during the day. Not as hot as Phoenix, obviously, but pretty miserable to be out and about in business attire.
The thing I hated the most about the experience was how dry it was. I got a giant ZAP shock every time I approached our rental car. It hurt! And there was seemingly never anything good around to ground myself well enough before touching the door handle.
Of course, I can’t stand dew points much above 70F either these days, so it’s always something… :-/
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Nukular Biskits
Wish Prof Bigfoot was around, I’d really like him to see this.
H/T to Adam Silverman for posting this as part of his thread about how (for the most part) military personnel are NOT suited for law enforcement operations.
I highly recommend you take a look: About Face: Death and surrender to power in the clothing of men.
mrmoshpotato
“Your father never loved you!”
LOL!
WaterGirl
@Jackie: Why? Without permission?
MagdaInBlack
@Nukular Biskits: That’s good. Thank you.
Nukular Biskits
@MagdaInBlack:
Thank Adam, not me.
prostratedragon
@Nukular Biskits: This is terrific, thanks. Pulls together many things I’ve been thinking about our era of tactical bread knives and the disappearance of military plain fatigues and business uniforms. Like the tie-in with the claim of perpetual innocence.
waspuppet
I went around downtown DC on Monday looking for federales and I literally didn’t find any. Now I see my mistake was going to areas where there might have been a need for more law enforcement personnel.
LAC
@JiveTurkin:
Some perspective on the “high violence crime rate” comment. I am not going to normalize this presence by “of course DC has a high violent crime rate” because we know where that leads…
“…according to crime figures published by Washington DC’s Metropolitan Police (MPDC), violent offences fell after peaking in 2023 and in 2024 hit their lowest level in 30 years.
They are continuing to fall, according to preliminary data for 2025.
Violent crime overall is down 26% this year compared to the same point in 2024, and robbery is down 28%, according to the MPDC.
cain
@lamh47:
It’ll eventually collapse. Especially, like records – people start watching the old movies.
I do love our Denzel though. A national treasure. I’m a forever fan. I’ve picked up his affectation “my man!” – I use that all time :D