Well, howdy there, Internet people, it's Bell again.

And welcome to the Roads with Bell.

Today is July 17th, and we're going to talk about the Roads to California, the National Guard, and you.

We've got a couple of different stories involving the U.S. military that kind of come together

as far as those of you who will want to hear about them. So we're going over both.

First is the news out of California. The National Guard is releasing thousands of troops from

active duty. These are the troops that were deployed to California as part of Trump's

overreaction to demonstrations in California against his policies. The initial deployment, just like

all the manuals suggest, actually caused the demonstrations to spread. But as the Guard deployments

remained relatively subdued and the

expected military crackdown never really materialized, they basically stuck within the confines

of what was allowed by law. And since then, it's been relatively mellow. Their deployment wound up

being a giant waste of resources that only served to

inflame tensions and undermine U.S. military morale and raise questions about authoritarian measures

that could be taken by the administration. Even though it appears that the troops stuck to the

confines of the law, there are still a number of questions about whether their deployment was totally legal.

The reality is that this type of deployment is to be used in the most extreme circumstances.

The lack of incidents involving National Guard personnel is going to make their

deployment much harder to defend in court as the legal battles continue to progress. The deployment

was directly opposed by state officials. Governor Gavin Newsom released a statement shortly after

news of the windown came out.

For more than a month, the National Guard has been pulled away from their families,

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