#d-c-statehood — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #d-c-statehood, aggregated by home.social.
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D.C. has its issues, but armed soldiers from other states won’t solve them
After a week and change of wondering when a trip in or out of the D.C. would treat me to the sight of President Trump’s Aug. 11 decision to summon National Guard troops from the rest of the nation to serve as political props around the District, a Bikeshare commute for an event Tuesday provided visible proof: soldiers walking around Lafayette Square.
They were picking up trash.
Going to Union Station Friday afternoon provided a few more reminders: five soldiers, armed with pistols, standing on the upper level of Metro Center (one flashed a thumbs-up for a news photographer), and three outside Union Station, outnumbered by veterans under a tent with signs reminding current servicemembers of their duty to the Constitution.
I asked the three where they were from: Louisiana. After a bit of banter about the weather, I said I hoped they could get home to their families soon.
That’s not because I think the D.C. has crime1 solved–although it is down significantly across the city–but because soldiers are not the way to solve it. Law enforcement is not military service, those two professions have profoundly different missions and rules, and U.S. law has long prohibited using soldiers as cops for sound reasons.
The governors of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina and West Virginia who sent National Guard units to the District should know this, because multiple cities in their states have higher crime rates than D.C. If deploying armed National Guardsmen and women in urban areas helped stop murders, those governors would have done it already with a much smaller travel budget.
But sending a large contingent of soldiers carrying weapons into D.C. in particular does something else: advertise the president’s ability to treat my neighbors across the Potomac as subjects. While it seems clear that Trump broke the law when he sent National Guard units into Los Angeles without the permission of California’s government, the law expressly gives the president control of the D.C. National Guard, with zero input allowed to the District’s government.
Trump may think this show of force makes me nervous. If so, he’s wrong. It makes me angry. And it makes me even more convinced that the only way to end the abuse of power that Congress has also repeatedly enjoyed at the expense of the taxpaying people of D.C. is statehood for the people of D.C.
- My most direct experience of crime in D.C. came in February of 1996, when I was mugged at gunpoint on the sidewalk in front of my apartment building just off Connecticut Avenue. I had maybe $30 in my wallet; I then made far more than that by selling a moderately overwrought essay about the experience to the Post, a journalistic business model that I cannot recommend anybody try to repeat. ↩︎
#DC_ #DCStatehood #DistrictOfColumbia #militarized #NationalGuard #statehoodNow #TrumpNationalGuard #TrumpOccupation #Washington
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"'We greatly appreciate the surge of officers that enhance what MPD has been able to do in this city,' Bowser said at a press conference. 'The difference between this 20-day period of this federal surge and last year represents an 87% reduction in carjackings.'"
I had some vague hope the mayor might have learned something from her handling of the criminal justice reform bill. I guess I thought that maybe her support for #DCStatehood actually meant something.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/muriel-bowser-trump-dc-takeover_n_68af528ce4b0bbcc3f8daa71 #DCPolitics -
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/10/trump-homeless-golf-course-washington-dc
#Trump can't stand the idea that #DC (a majority #AfricanAmerican city) might have some degree of self-governance.
This is another reminder of why we need #DCStatehood now.
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Free DC is holding a press conference and rally tomorrow morning in response to Trump's new attack on DC. Monday, Aug 11, 10am, 815 16th St NW.
https://freedcproject.org/event-list/dc-is-our-home-trump-cant-have-it #DCPolitics #DCStatehood -
"If D.C. doesn’t get its act together, & quickly, we will have no choice but to take Federal control of the City," #Trump added.
Trump’s latest threat to take over #WashingtonDC came after he learned that #ElonMusk protégé & former #DOGE staffer known as #BigBalls was injured in an attempted carjacking Sunday morning in #DC.
#law #democracy #Constitution #ArticleOne #HomeRuleAct #DCstatehood
https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-1/section-8/clause-17
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"DC Residents Still Have No Vote in Congress" (blog) https://markstoneman.com/2024/11/03/dc-residents-still.html #DCstatehood #TaxationWithoutRepresentation #DC
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DC Statehood!! Make it happen!!
#USPol #DCStatehood #DMV #WashingtonDC #DouglassCommonwealth
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"""
…Trump is going after the District—he wants federal control and has promised a total “takeover” of the city he called a “horrible killing field” during his speech at the Republican National Convention last week.…But with Vice President Harris in the race, D.C. is poised to have its biggest advocate ever for statehood in the Oval Office.
Let’s be honest, Harris is practically a native Washingtonian.
"""
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/07/22/trump-wants-take-over-dc-can-harris-make-it-51st-state/
#DCStatehood -
I got the mailer. We're all used to DC candidates talking about being native Washingtonians. This one has that for Eugene Kinlow and "fifth-generation" for Linda Gray, but the headline of "Rooted in the District of Columbia" really takes it to a new level when running against people with names like Ankit Jain and Oye Owolewa. #DCision24 #DCElections #DCStatehood
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DC shadow senator Paul Strauss is chair of a new PAC, DC Statehood Leadership Committee, which is sending out mailers supporting Eugene Kinlow (running for the open shadow senator seat) and Linda Gray (running for shadow representative). Yet another reason to vote for Ankit Jain and Oye Owolewa.
https://efiling.ocf.dc.gov/Disclosure/FilingHistory/16329 #DCElections #DCision24 #DCStatehood -
Mayor Bowser is once again failing to stand up to congressional interference with DC's local lawmaking, this time not defending the Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act. #DCPolitics #DCStatehood
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Today the US House passed the DC CRIMES Act, which would prevent our local government in DC from changing sentences, whether to bring them into line with sentences in the states, to make them consistent with sentences for other crimes, or even to make them harsher. Fortunately our mayor doesn't seem to be echoing the Republican talking points this time, so hopefully Senate Democrats won't be panicked into supporting this attack on home rule. #DCStatehood #DCPolitics
https://wapo.st/3Kob3zT -
Glad that Mendelson is pushing back against the attempt to force cuts, but I see the usual council haters over in the cesspool are drooling at the prospect of Congress intervening to punish their enemies as it did with the criminal code revision. #DCPolitics #DCStatehood
https://wapo.st/49NYzvm -
Councilmember Robert White, on the other hand, gave the right answer (well, aside from "impede" not being the right word). #DCision24 #DCElections #DCStatehood