“Less than 48 hours after the president threatened to use the Insurrection Act of 1807 to contain protests if governors were not able to get a handle on unrest, Esper said it should be invoked in the United States ‘only in the most urgent and dire of situations.’ He declared, ‘We are not in one of those situations now.'” We’re in an urgent and dire situation all right, but it has nothing to do with the protests. It has to do with a Commander in Chief who is out of control and needs to be publicly constrained by those in his chain of command. Thankfully, for all us, and particularly for the men and women who sacrifice so much to serve America and who have had to watch their ranks soiled by a faux tough guy threatening our own citizens, Defense Secretary Mark Esper says there will be no military for protests as standby troops leave the DC area.

+ As shocking as it is to have a sitting defense secretary publicly split from the Commander in Chief, it’s equally remarkable that a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs has written an op-ed on the topic. Mike Mullen: I Cannot Remain Silent. “Our fellow citizens are not the enemy, and must never become so.” Thank you Admiral Mullen. I salute you.

+ The situation has to be extreme for this pushback to be happening. And it is. CIA veterans who monitored crackdowns abroad see troubling parallels in Trump’s handling of protests. (Sadly, the whole world is seeing it.)