According to Brooks, confusion over who is in charge of MPD officers also poses immediate public safety concerns for police and the public. Joe McLean, a lawyer, poses for a portrait in southeast Washington, D.C., on August 13, 2025. McLean worries about the deployment of the National Guard and federal police, and believes it is unnecessary. Credit: Maansi Srivastava/NPR National Crime is down in Washington, D.C., but still a reality in some neighborhoods
"I think it's actually quite dangerous. Whenever you have lots of armed people and lack of clarity over who's in charge of what, you have a really risky situation," Brooks said.
NPR reached out to officials with the District of Columbia Police Union for their view on how the conflict is affecting officers. They haven't yet responded.
With my north facing windows in my office and September rapidly approaching, by 4 PM it is getting a bit dark in my office as evening approaches with the lights off. It seems weird to think how when I leave my office next Tuesday, the next time I will be back it will be September. Whatever happened to summer? It will be a wonderful summer vacation.
Listen to the engine of Big Red on this beautiful summer evening, as I turn onto NY 443. Notice, I wasn't swearing or playing copyrighted music in this clip, so it can have audio. That doesn't happen regularly.
I bit the bullet and I took off from Wednesday though Labor Day to head out to the Finger Lakes for 13 days of camping. I am still incredibly nervous about it all with my old truck but honestly it’s been running quite well, and I’ve been having fun the past few weekends traveling and this weekend it’s out to Schoharie to float in Schoharie Creek and swim at Mine Kill and enjoy the car show. Two days later at the crack of dawn it’s off to get bacon in Rotterdam, grass in Ithaca and then up to camp by mid-day.
Maybe this weekend is just to prove in my mind that summer vacation will be amazing once it finally comes, 🏊 but I also like Schoharie and Shauls Market is amazing, and it’s going to be a hot weekend, and I don’t want to spend it at home. 🌽 🚲 🏕️ I make good money, work hard, I love my job and I shouldn’t spend my weekends moping around home all depressed about my old rig is slowly but surely falling apart and dying. I’ll have to get up to Northern Lights at lunch time, but I still don’t know what I want to get. Something from a plant that is big and bushy, on the satavia side of things. Truth is I hate the smell when other people are smoking it around the neighborhood, but up at camp I just love the beauty, the colors, the giggles an how the fire looks at night. 🔥 Was it Tropical Skittlez I enjoyed so much last year? I want to laugh, carefree and not paranoid.
I packed a lot of things last night, but truth is for two nights I don’t need much gear. 💼 Just my bathing suit, some changes of clothes, tube and this time the paddle, a few things to eat – maybe I should stop for some bananas way in but I’ll get peaches on Saturday at Shauls 🍑 and I will pack things like my toothbrush and razor after showering. 🪒 Got up fairly early this morning though I’m not needing to leave that early, though as I said I want to have time to swing past the store. I think I’m good on cash but if not there is that CapCon drive through at Wally World I can visit though they don’t have small demonation bills.
Potentially rain ☔ to start out the week and cool to close out the month, but I really want an anti-climatic vacation. With the extra two days – – really only three more then usual as usually I do from Friday through Sunday – – I don’t have to feel like every day I’m wasting by hanging out at camp and just reading, or riding my bike and spending days fishing or floating on Foster Pond or just listening to cows moo 🐮 and tear the grass as they graze. It’s really okay to spend some time giggling 🤭 and drinking beer 🍻 with nothing better then to listen to an audio book or read a book about homesteading, the wilderness, or some other world far away from where I am.
I do think slowly but surely the paranoia is fading from ym mind, 🛻 it’s getting easier to enjoy traveling and seeing America again. I don’t think Red will ever make it down on West Virginia again but there will be a new truck and other adventures. ☺️ Who knows if I really enjoy my Michigan and Wisconsin trip next summer in my new rig, I could do a post-election day trip down to West VIrigina. Often that week after Election Day they still have some color in the lower elevations of West VIrigina and it can be milder, though the high country can certainly be frosty or get snow by mid-November. ☃️
Yesterday I had to wear glasses 👓 all day because my eyes 👀 were so irrated. I really want to get LASIK done this autumn. I will just have to tap savings to do that. I need to get my credit limit raise 💳 so I can put it on my cards for points. I should call the bank 🏦 about that soon. Also need to call the state board for something work related but I’ve been avoiding that like so many things in life. My eyes are feeling a bit better today and I’ll wear my contacts, indeed I was able to wear them last night.
Been continuing to listen to Robert Lover’s Dating Essentials for Men. 🧼🧽 One of the suggestions was to get a house cleaner to clean your apartment or house, so you can bring a girl back there. And the maintaining it after yourself. I don’t know about that. And buying nice clothes. Again, I don’ t care about those things, and I don’t want a girl either that does. And to think more about sex, but I’m like whatever. I do take a lot stock in the importance of listening, asking questions. I talk to much. And not being afraid of strangers and starting up a conversation by asking questions both on the street, and actually clicking on profiles on Facebook dating. But I’ve been busy and I don’t know the whole process seems a bit creepy. Yet, I need to get over that because people wouldn’t be on dating sites if they weren’t interested in meeting new and different people.
I got to take off next week Wednesday through Labor Day. It’s not that hard, just an email. But I’m hesitant to take a summer vacation for so many reasons, not the least my extreme mental confusion about everything in the era of the Trumpster. Why don’t you want more plastic or a dumpster out back?
Rode home last night and it wasn’t at all wet, 💧 but it was humid. I stopped by Hannaford and got milk, eggs, tofu, frozen veggies and grapes which were on sale. They had New Jersey peaches but I figured I’d be much better waiting to get donut peaches at Shauls on Saturday. 🍑 I was tired, I had a big dinner of lots of veggies, onions, tofus and beans, and basically collapsed into bed. 🛏️ I really haven’t been getting enough sleep lately, but everything these days seems just so insane or is the word inane? I am just so tired, and that’s probably because I need summer vacation. But things are so crazy these days in the world. That said, I am enjoying Joel Salatin’s Your Successful Farm Business. 🚜 You’d think by this point with all my reading 📖 I’d be some kind of book smart expert not just on farming but also rural land development and business. But I mostly like listen to his accent and the tangy smell of manure. 👃 Oh, and bacon 🥓 though tofu is pretty damn good too but I don’t eat meat except well for bacon.
I should disable Zillow on my phone, as I’m getting tired of seeing yet another plastic house in suburbs and ghetto houses popping up. 🏠 Apparently Zillow wants me to know still plastic houses in suburbs are avaliable, and if I don’t want that, then there are some excellent cheap houses available in the ghetto. And some wonderful places way out in the sticks, much too far to commute to work. 🐐 But don’t know you plastic houses are good investments, and not everybody has Idaho Pasture Pigs and Boar Goats in their backyard, despite what you might think from watching YouTube or browsing the Facebook. I got sent to Facebook Jail 🚨 last night for trolling the endless advertising of roofing and gutter companies. Plastic houses are good thing, but burning your plastic trash out back is very bad for environment. 🌎 That’s what the woke environmentalist want you to know, but don’t think of ever criticizing the job creators in the plastic industry. They have no fault, it’s all you hillbillies that refuse to waste their time with recycling myth ♻️. I’m all for spreading manure, poop and composted food scraps on fields. 💩 Didn’t rain much yesterday, despite Preska or one of the other cow pokes working the land with a spreader yesterday morning, probably hoping to get some manure on hay fields in hope that rain with get the nitrogen and phosphorus 🌾 where it could make more even more grass.
I need to just bite the bullet and take off starting Wednesday for a long vacation. 🌀 I’ll miss the office summer party at the Lion heart, but I don’t care. It’s stupid, there will be the Christmas Party in a few weeks. I hear there is a risk of a hurricane pushing north next week but that is inevitable, though the cool weather expected over the area for the end of month means a northerly high pressure will be in control and likely push any storms off the coast. 🏕️ Tomorrow I’ll drive into work, maybe visit Northern Lights at lunch time for some grass shopping 🌾 and then drive out to Schoharie assuming I can make it out there without freaking out. 🤪 Things were so much better in my mind until they weren’t.
I know it’s not real, I just got to get on with life and enjoy vacation, but I’m also so troubled about everying. 🧠 I mean how bad can 13 days in the wilderness away from the endless ads for plastic houses, eating clams broiled in beer and so much delicious food from the farm stands, giggling and having fires every other day? 🔥 While I listen to the cows moo 🐮 and rip that other kind of grass that makes milk, beef and manure. 💩 That said, I’m still half seriously investigating grass shops in Ithaca, I’ve been told there are good places out that way. And so much good ice cream. 🍨 I haven’t had any ice cream since the Gas Up during the second week of June, but then again I haven’t taken off a day for vacation since the day before July 4th. So I really need those 13 days in the wilderness through Labor Day in September. I just need to take those days off, get my bacon at 7 AM 🥓 at the For the Love of Bacon and head straight out to National Forest, maybe after a quick visit to one of the Grass Stores heading through Ithaca. I won’t use the actual term, because I’m sure it will reduce my ad revenue, which brought in in $106 so far this month. 💵 Apparently that is nothing like some actual good blogs, that aren’t all about Dreams of having hogs and burn barrel 🛢️ back as I smoke and lay in my hammock in the wilderness, making maps of random shit. 🗺️
