Oh my, your tank train is so BIG
The New York Times reports, “Shortly after President Trump praised the National Guard for their work in Los Angeles, Mayor Karen Bass reminded residents that the troops had not arrived.” To be clear, this is Donald “Truthful Hyperbole” Trump we’re talking about. Troops should arrive within 24 hours.
Also:
A third day of protests against immigration raids was expected to take place in the Los Angeles area on Sunday, hours after President Trump took the extraordinary action of ordering at least 2,000 National Guard members to assist immigration agents clashing with demonstrators.
The announcement by Mr. Trump — who said that any protest or act of violence that impeded officials would be considered a “form of rebellion” — was an escalation that put Los Angeles squarely at the center of tensions over his administration’s immigration crackdown and made rare use of federal powers to bypass the authority of California’s governor, Gavin Newsom.
Let’s be clear on what’s happening. Trump has stopped short of invoking the Insurrection Act over this concocted (or is it verkochte?) emergency. Steve Vladeck explains in detail what these troops can and cannot do under Trump’s memorandum. They are for support of DHS officers and arrestee detention efforts.
This is more muscle-flexing from the White House in advance of Donald Trump’s birthday parade on Saturday when he will attempt to prove to the world that he has “no problem” with the size of his … ego.
Marcy Wheeler is on the same page as I am about Stephen Miller, Trump’s Wormtongue. She believes there’s more to this putsch than owning L.A. libs:
This was a natural escalation stemming directly from Stephen Miller’s shrill tantrums demanding that ICE focus more on law-abiding undocumented people rather than the criminal aliens he lied about during the election. The escalation comes in the wake of Elon Musk’s meltdown, which might otherwise make passage of Trump’s reconciliation bill funding a massive expansion of Miller’s gulag.
[…]
This inital use of federal troops in a blue city should be understood as an effort to build pressure to help pass the bill. It should also be used as an example of the danger of passing the bill — the kind of authoritarianism that Miller intends to wield if the bill does pass.
Stay tuned and insist that your senators say No.
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