XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.atheism, alt.politics.trump   
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   From: tmc2025a@sace.con   
      
   tRUMP has expanded his military campaign against the United States by   
   deploying armed troops to yet another major metropolitan area, announcing   
   on Monday that he is sending the National Guard into Washington, D.C., to   
   “liberate” the city.   
   The D.C. operation, launched two months after the start of his Los Angeles   
   crackdown, broadens a police-state-style domestic campaign that some senior   
   Trump administration officials describe to Rolling Stone as a “shock and   
   awe” show of force, a reference to the foreign war in Iraq that Trump has   
   pretended to oppose.   
   It’s only going to get worse.   
   The president and his top government appointees are publicly stressing that   
   this will not end with D.C. and L.A., that other military options are very   
   much on the table. The facts, the laws, and data do not seem to matter:   
   Trump and his team believe he can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants,   
   including using the U.S. armed forces for domestic political purposes as   
   well as intimidating his enemies. His team is privately putting together   
   plans for him to do just that.   
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   “Make no mistake, this is just the beginning,” U.S. Attorney for the   
   District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro — a staunchly pro-Trump former Fox News   
   host whom the president tapped specifically to “crack skulls” — said Monday   
   night.   
   At a press conference Monday announcing that the federal government had   
   seized “direct” control of D.C.’s police department and that the National   
   Guard would soon occupy the city, Trump warned that if he and his officials   
   decide they “need to,” he will deploy military forces to other Democratic   
   cities, too. The president named a few, including Chicago, Oakland, and   
   Baltimore. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat whom Trump attacked by   
   name, compared Trump’s use of the military to the Nazis tearing apart   
   Germany’s constitutional republic, per the Chicago Tribune.   
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   Trump has long yearned to unleash the military on American soil for his   
   political agenda, and the D.C. and L.A. deployments this summer are   
   critical stepping stones in his increasingly authoritarian government’s   
   vision for punishing his enemies Democratic area of the country, carrying   
   out his brutal immigration agenda, and making life hell for unhoused   
   people. Trump said on Monday that federal forces will work to remove   
   “homeless encampments from all over our parks,” and that the unhoused will   
   not be “allowed to turn our capital into a wasteland for the world to see.”   
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   One of Trump’s biggest regrets from his first term in the Oval Office,   
   according to former and current senior Trump advisers, is that he didn’t   
   use military forces and other federal assets to crack down harder than he   
   ultimately did in the summer of 2020. As the Covid-19 pandemic raged, and   
   as racial justice protests spread throughout the country, one of the   
   president’s big ideas was to shoot Black Lives Matter protesters near the   
   White House. One reason this didn’t happen is that his Secretary of Defense   
   at the time was not in love with the idea.   
   Rolling Stone reported in October 2024 that Trump and his team have been   
   plotting a second-term takeover of the D.C. police for a long time —   
   regardless of the actual level of unrest or street crime. The plotting   
   extends far beyond the nation’s capital.   
   In recent months, according to government officials and other sources with   
   knowledge of the situation, administration staff and lawyers have crafted   
   detailed plans and menus of options for Trump to feed his desire for   
   replicating and proliferating his militarized crackdowns — on immigrants   
   and citizens alike — to different Democratic strongholds. National Guard   
   troops are already mobilizing in D.C., and Trump has privately said,   
   according to two sources familiar with the matter, that if he sees   
   something that he feels crosses his line (like if street protests in the   
   city grow too big or if he deems them a threat suddenly), he will gladly   
   order larger numbers of troops to nation’s capital, as he did in Los   
   Angeles earlier this year.   
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   Trump has insisted to administration officials that it’s ridiculous that   
   troops like National Guard members are not allowed to conduct various forms   
   of domestic law enforcement, sources add. The president and his   
   administration to some extent have had their hands tied on this due to the   
   Posse Comitatus Act — which prohibits using the military for domestic law   
   enforcement — though that isn’t stopping them from actively exploring ways   
   around the law. “There are ways things were done, and that’s not always   
   going to be how they should be done now or tomorrow,” a senior Trump   
   administration official tells Rolling Stone.   
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   The senior administration official, as well as other Trump officials, note   
   that it is a priority of the president’s that these kinds of military   
   deployments — in L.A., and now D.C., in times of relative calm — become   
   normalized in American political culture. Trump has long believed he should   
   be able to wield the might of military forces on American soil in ways more   
   commonly associated with authoritarian states. He now has a government   
   stacked full of loyalists who want to help him realize this goal. “He’s   
   gonna do more of them,” another Trump administration official says,   
   referring to siccing the military on deep-blue cities, using crime and   
   immigrants as justification. “He promised he would do this, and now he’s   
   following through on those promises.”   
   Administration figures are speaking openly about potentially expanding the   
   use of federal forces into cities across the nation. “You look at Los   
   Angeles, Chicago, Boston, and New York — they’re also facing record numbers   
   of homicides and violent crimes. It’s natural for us to look at Washington,   
   D.C. — if we can really clean this up and we can get rid of this plague of   
   crime and violent activity that’s happening in our nation’s capital — could   
   that be a blueprint and a model for other communities around the country?”   
   Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department   
      
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