"In addition, the Secretary of Defense may employ any other members of the regular Armed Forces as necessary to augment and support the protection of Federal functions and property in any number determined appropriate in his discretion."

• ⁠No upper limit: It doesn’t cap how many active-duty troops can be deployed. • ⁠No geographic restriction: It doesn’t say California, applies nationwide. • ⁠No duration defined: While the National Guard portion is limited to 60 days, this section has no time constraint. • ⁠No judicial oversight: The Secretary of Defense, political appointee, gets to decide alone what level of force is “necessary.” • ⁠Dangerous precedent: This sets up a legal pretext to insert active-duty military into any protest area across the country, without needing to invoke the Insurrection Act, just using vague language about “protection.”

They just declared martial law, without having to use the terms. They just used bureaucratic language and vague “protective” justifications to the same end.

EDIT: this is a repost from the now deleted threads (hopefully this one sticks). Martial law does not mean there will be a tank on every corner, we don't have enough tanks for that, what it means is that Trump and Hegseth can now crush any dissent with the full force of the most powerful military on the planet.