Newsome: "Don't Give Federal Government Spectacle They Want"
“The federal government is sowing chaos so they can have an excuse to escalate."
“The federal government is taking over the California National Guard and deploying 2,000 soldiers in Los Angeles — not because there is a shortage of law enforcement, but because they want a spectacle. Don’t give them one.”
Newsom X tweet via The Guardian11:11 pm
Hegseth: Marines on "high alert" to Invade Los Angeles
...if violence continues, active duty Marines at Camp Pendleton will also be mobilised - they are on high alert."
Hegseth tweet on X via BBC, cited below
Trump deploys National Guard after clashes in LA
"These operations are essential to halting and reversing the invasion of illegal criminals into the United States. In the wake of this violence, California's feckless Democrat leaders have completely abdicated their responsibility to protect their citizens. That is why President Trump has signed a Presidential Memorandum deploying 2,000 National Guardsmen to address the lawlessness that has been allowed to fester."
-White House press release
This is what I warned about this afternoon. This is what Trump has wanted to do. Trump's target is DEMOCRATS.
California's governor said the federal government's move to "take over the California National Guard and deploy 2,000 soldiers" was "purposefully inflammatory" and would "only escalate tensions".
Exactly right.
In a statement on Friday, Governor Newsom said: "Continued chaotic federal sweeps, across California, to meet an arbitrary arrest quota are as reckless as they are cruel.
Trump hit out at the governor on his Truth Social platform, saying that if he and Bass could not do their jobs, "then the Federal Government will step in and solve the problem, RIOTS & LOOTERS, the way it should be solved!!!"
You see? This is the cop pushing the man on the street. That cop, this Trump, creates a problem where none was before, so that the cop-Trump can do what he wanted to do all along, violently arrest those who push back. This was done to intentionally, to provoke, so that "the Federal Government will step in".
1:55 pm:
Agents Use Military-Style Force Against Protesters at L.A. Immigration Raid
Armed agents in tactical gear threw flash-bang grenades to disperse a crowd in Los Angeles’s Fashion District. Later, agents fired less-than-lethal ammunition at protesters outside a detention center.
NYTWhat Trump wants, what Trump is doing, is to make it illegal to breathe while Democrat. He will not hire you (Jared Isaacman), he will make businesses afraid to hire you (law firms), he will pull funding and contracts by his government from you (universities), he will fire you (prosecutors who prosecuted him), he will deport you, he will do everything the law allows to deprive you of your rights, which include voting and free speech, he will turn his government onto investigating you and arresting you. These are civil rights issues without which a nation ceases to be a democratic republic. We must not stand for it.
What Trump is doing in Los Angeles is provoking people in Democratic cities and states to protest criminally so that he can use "military-style force". We must not fall for it.
Like the Wisconsin state judge who was arrested for frustrating the efforts of the superior sovereign to make arrests, you cannot do what the Los Angeles protesters did. You cannot assault federal law enforcement, you cannot obstruct them--even when they are doing wrong (and there is no evidence that I am aware that the federal agents in Wisconsin or Los Angeles were acting without lawful authority). You cannot do it when the federals' actions are heavy-handed and contrary to federal-state principals of comity.
On the street when a cop wants to arrest you but knows that he doesn't quite have probable cause, he will push you. When we haven't done anything wrong and someone deliberately pushes you, your instinct is to push back. If you push a cop back on the street he will arrest you. Battery on a law enforcement officer; resisting an officer in the lawful performance of his duties with no violence. He provoked you and you fell for it. Cops have a saying, "You may beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride."
Those opposed to Trump policies, as I am, have to understand this deliberate provocation, and we ought not fall for it unless, as Trump says below, we understand the consequences. If one decides that breathing while Democrat, like breathing while Black, is worth losing one's job or worth going to jail--and it is!--then by all means one should. Think before you act. Don't fall for provocation that deprives you of the time to think. If we're provoked into law-breaking, we won't beat the ride to jail.
Musk will face very serious consequences personally, and should be very concerned. As should all of us. Trump's threat is moving the U.S. closer toward becoming a one-party state, such as, oh, for example, Russia.