You can’t go home, but you can’t stay here, says Congress

Politico reports that thousands of troops were kicked out of their abysmal housing sleeping in the halls of Congress. After securing the American political elite during the inauguration they were summarily kicked out. They had to seek sanctuary in a parking garage.

In response to cries of betrayal, they were allowed back in to continue to sleep on the floors and in hallways.

Thousands of National Guardsmen were allowed back into the Capitol Thursday night, hours after U.S. Capitol Police officials ordered them to vacate the facilities, sending them outdoors or to nearby parking garages after two weeks pulling security duty after the deadly riot on Jan. 6.

One unit, which had been resting in the Dirksen Senate Office building, was abruptly told to vacate the facility on Thursday, according to one Guardsman. The group was forced to rest in a nearby parking garage without internet reception, with just one electrical outlet, and one bathroom with two stalls for 5,000 troops, the person said. Temperatures in Washington were in the low 40s by nightfall.

“Yesterday dozens of senators and congressmen walked down our lines taking photos, shaking our hands and thanking us for our service. Within 24 hours, they had no further use for us and banished us to the corner of a parking garage. We feel incredibly betrayed,” the Guardsman said.

POLITICO obtained photos showing the Guard members packed together in the parking garage, sleeping on the ground.

In other news, thousands of National Guardsmen will remain in D.C. at least through the end of the month. Military Times reports;

About 10,600 troops remain on duty right now, Air Force Maj. Matthew Murphy, an NGB spokesman, told Military Times. The other 15,000 troops are in the process of heading back home now, he said.

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But about 7,000 troops will remain through the end of the month, he said.

“Some agencies are requesting continuity of operations, additional support and recuperation time for their forces to regroup. Approximately 7,000 National Guard personnel are anticipated to provide that assistance through the end of the month,” said Murphy.

D.C. National Guard troops will remain on-post until at least Jan. 30, Mayor Muriel Bowser said during a Thursday afternoon press conference. Future deployment of the DCNG depends on future threats, she said.

“We are evaluating … what we think would be intelligence from federal partners that suggest the need” for continued or future DCNG presence in the city,” she said.

Never letting a crisis go to waste, they see a great opportunity to turn D.C. into something resembling a military junta.

Bowser said she asked Christopher Rodriguez, director of the city’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency, to “begin working with our partners to deal with the threat of white extremism and any other threat to our city.”

Rodriguez said that “the threat of right-wing extremism is here. You saw it on Jan. 6. It continues to be a persistent and real threat to the District of Columbia and the region.”

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“It is very clear any joint session of Congress should be a special security event or some package like that,” she said.

Fox News also has a brief bit that shows the massive scale of the security effort around the Capitol for the inauguration of the most popular presidential candidate of all time;

More than 25,000 National Guard members from all 50 states, three territories, and Washington, D.C., were supporting federal and district authorities at the 59th presidential inauguration Wednesday, according to the latest figures released by the National Guard Bureau.

Homeland Security was working with all of its 200 partners, including National Guard troops, as well as at least 14,000 law enforcement officials and 5,000 Department of Defense employees.

For those not keeping count, that’s at least 45,000 military and law enforcement for a city with a population of less than 700k people. That means for every 15 residents of the city there was one member of the security team. For comparison’s sake, the ratio of inmates to guards at federal prisons is 9.3 to one.

Category: "The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves", "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Biden, Disposable Warriors, National Guard