Yesterday afternoon, two guardsmen were shot at 17th and I NW (according to the Washington Post, the shooting was about 30 years south on I from the intersection). The shooter is an Afghan national admitted into the U.S. in 2021 and whose asylum application was approved by the Trump administration this year*, but, as of this morning, a motive is unclear (in the only not-awful moment of this whole event, FBI Director Kash Patel swore the FBI would be relentless in hunting the shooter down, even as the shooter was already in custody).

This shooting was completely unnecessary, as the only reason the guardsmen are here is to function as a political prop for Trump. They should have been at home, getting ready to celebrate Thanksgiving.

And there also was no reason for them to be patrolling 17th & I. Publicly available crime data with spatial dat go back to Jan. 1, 2008. In the last seventeen years, there have been no homicides near 17th and I, and no assaults with a gun since 2018 (as one might expect of an area that is about a four minute leisurely walk from the White House perimeter).

To compound the stupidity, Defense Secretary Hegseth wants to deploy 500 more guardsmen, even though a recent court decision found the deployment to be unlawful (the decision was on a temporary stay). I guess these guardsmen are going to guard the other guardsmen.

I did think fascism would be this tragic, but I didn’t realize it would be this stupid. I hate all of this.

*Of course, the Trump administration that approved his asylum application is blaming the Biden administration.