Maryland Governor Larry Hogan has ordered the withdrawal of the National Guard from the city of Baltimore, Agence France-Presse reports. Baltimore mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake lifted the 10 p.m. curfew this morning.

When Texas Gov. Rick Perry sent National Guard soldiers to the Mexico border to much fanfare earlier this summer, he couldn't say how long they'd be there. It turns out he also couldn't pay them: At least 50 soldiers haven't seen a paycheck and are getting sustenance and vehicle fuel from a local food bank.

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon has called for a "systematic" recalling of the state's National Guard from policing protests in Ferguson. The order follows a night of relative peace in the St. Louis suburb, where tensions remain high, but violence appears to be diminishing.

There are fifty states in our blessed union. There is only one state that holds an open election for the general who will command its National Guard forces. The reason is to keep black people from being too powerful. The result is that a convicted stalker may end up with all the tanks and guns.

Wha—? Maybe—? No, I have no idea, I'm not going to bother trying to evaluate. This surreal video apparently shows a pair of National Guard trucks driving down the street in Manville, NJ, fully submerged in water. At the end of the video, camo-uniformed guardsmen climb out the windows and onto the vehicles' roofs. As the increasingly annoying cameraman wonders, "How is that possible?"

Wisconsin's new Republican governor, Scott Walker, wants to get his austerity budget rammed through the state's new Republican legislature, and he just supposedly doesn't have the time to deal with public employee unions. So he's introduced a proposal to eliminate workers' collective bargaining rights for wages, pensions, and other benefits while sharply raising their required contributions. And if these employees respond by striking? The proposal allows allows state authorities to fire workers who "participate in an organized action to stop or slow work" or who "are absent for three days without approval of the employer."