AMENDMENT I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
AMENDMENT X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
U.S. Code § 12406 - National Guard in Federal service: call
Whenever—
(1) the United States, or any of the Commonwealths or possessions, is invaded or is in danger of invasion by a foreign nation;
(2) there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States; or
(3) the President is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States
The protestors in Los Angeles have grievances. They have not been violent. They have been assembled peacefully.
They have played music and danced.
Street vendors have been out selling frutas and aguas frecas, as well as helping wash tear gas out of protestors' eyes. Read in the Los Angeles Times.
There are a few hundred protesters in a small area. One square mile out of about 500 square miles of the City of Los Angeles has been under curfew, and the protests occupy a fraction of that space.
It got really tense and scary when National Guard troops were ordered to deploy. They were not needed; all they did was to inflame the situation.
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Yes, there have been some ne'er-do-wells who have tried to agitate, and they have been arrested. There were some thrown objects and a couple Waymo self-driving cars set on fire. This is bad and unlawful, but it wasn't a lot. There was a ton of graffiti, which is wrong, but which is not violence or looting.
To head off any criminal acts by bad actors, Mayor Karen Bass declared a curfew on Monday night, from 8 p.m til 6 a.m. There were about 200 arrests Monday night for curfew violations. The curfew is to last for another few nights.
And through it all, the Los Angeles Police Department has been effective in handling the crowds by themselves. There is nothing for the troops to do.
Largely, the protesters have been peaceful and law-abiding. You may not know that from the cable TV news feeds. They live on spectacle.
The media haven't shown you the good citizens who are cleaning up the graffiti, and for that matter, the debris left behind from law enforcement, like spent tear gas canisters and rubber bullets.
The lawlessness that is in Los Angeles comes from the top. Back in Washington D.C, 3000 miles away, there are the illegal acts of TACO Don. He pulled up the National Guard and Marines into the city of Los Angeles unnecessarily but also illegally.
Calling up the National Guard troops by the president violates the 10th Amendment, as well as federal law that codifies the circumstances in which the National Guard is to be put into service. Namely, that the order "shall be issued through the governors of the States." Furthermore, the National Guard is to be ordered when under these specific circumstances: to (1) repel invasion of the United States by a foreign nation, (2) suppress a rebellion or danger of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States; or (3) execute federal laws when the President is unable to do so with the regular forces.
(1) There was no foreign invasion; (2) there was no rebellion. It was a First Amendment-protected protest. And (3) local and state officials stated that their regular forces were effective and sufficient to control the crowds.
Not only that, the rollout of the Guard was ill-planned and detrimental to the troops themselves. We have rottenness at the top. Just look at these "losers and suckers."
They have to sleep piled up on the floor, using each other for pillows for lord's sake. They are not getting paid because they haven't received orders yet! They have been forced into something that they do not want to do.
Morale is extremely low for the Guard troops and Marines. Ya think?
As for the use of the Marines, well that is also completely improper and illegal without an invocation of the Insurrection Act, which he did not do and which would have been completely bonkers in this situation. Using them as a police force – which so far they have not done, as they have been there "guarding federal buildings" – would be agianst the Posse Comitatus Act.
Oh and by the way, fellow taxpayers. This is costing us $134,000,000.
Soldiers in the streets of a United States city because a few hundred people are protesting the wrongs of a corrupt administration. What is happening?
The events is Los Angeles are scary. The precipitating actions, the capricious raids by ICE officers (or who we are told are ICE officers; there is no real way of knowing if they are real officers or off-the-rack Joe Schmo thugs who are kidnapping people), were chilling and angering.
They aren't going after criminals, rapists, people who eat cats. They are going after brown people. Period.
Look at this from down the road from me. People who are breaking their backs to bring us food and to send a few dollars home to their families.
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| Chris Britt |
We have a dictator on our hands, friends, who wants to intimidate and strong-arm his way into unfettered power.
We must not let that happen.
Resist and Protest!
We must get out into the streets as planned on Saturday, June 14. There are protests planned nationwide, in communities large and small, and we need every body there.
I've noted before, studies show that historically it has taken just 3.5% of the population to peacefully take to the streets for a regime to fall. Be among those 3.5%. Be there Saturday, and every time we are called to the streets.
Read this from Anne Lemont:
Why I’m going to a ‘No Kings’ rally against Trump, and you should too
Usually when people announce, “Here’s the thing,” I want to ask, really? Did God stop by today with cheese danish for the both of you, to tell you what the thing was?
But here’s the thing: We’re going to need you this Saturday.What is happening in Los Angeles with the National Guard is not simply President Trump’s brainstorm to move past the Musk scandal. It is the next step in his tryouts for autocracy.
On Saturday, Trump celebrates his birthday in Washington with a gigantic military parade, at an estimated cost of $45 million. He is a fun-loving guy. It’s “The Music Man” meets the National Day parade in Pyongyang.So we need you to consider showing up at one of the “No Kings” protest rallies that are also being held Saturday all across America. I will be attending one, because it’s important and because it will do my hopeless heart good. It could do the same for you — lift you, remind you of who you are. You show up, we give you hope. It’s a great offer: When my grandson was little, and wanted something from me, he would put both hands on his hips, present a trade, glare fiercely, and say, “Deal?” So, deal?We the people make the best placards — my favorites from the “Hands Off” march were “Honk if you never drunk-texted war plans” and “Now you’ve pissed off the grandmothers.” There will be the old songs of the civil rights movement and the protests that stopped the Vietnam War. It’s friendliness, right action and food trucks. Heaven.Saturday is one week before the summer solstice, and this is how I am going to celebrate the last week of spring. I don’t approve of summer, all those mosquitoes and crop tops. If I were God, I would have skipped over it. But spring gives us green, growing, new life. Frogs start to sing again in the rains. They’ve been waiting, and all of a sudden they’re saying, I’m here, hydrated, and I’m going to tell you about it. Spring is new voices.Winter came with MAGA. The next season will be about new leaders and orators who will emerge in this weekend’s rallies. We’ll be the frogs of springing.People who say something can’t be done should get out of the way of the rest of us who are trying to do it.I will celebrate the last week of spring with tens of thousands of people at the San Francisco Civic Center. Just ordinary citizens with a moral compass, we won’t have a plan or strategy to save this hurting nation, but we will show up heartsick, angry, peaceful and exuberant, the young and old, babies, the Gens X, Y and Z, people of every ethnicity, spiritual path and none at all. The love we have for this beautiful, beleaguered democratic nation will be our little light to see by, and shine.Once a small group of people from my church, mostly old, were at a weekend retreat in the redwoods. At the end of an evening, it began to pour buckets of rain. They had to get back to their cabins in the darkness. They were OK until the lights of the retreat house faded; they were in the pitch dark. A narrow, precarious bridge separated them from their cabins, and they were afraid to cross it blind. But the youngest old man had a keychain with a tiny flashlight on it that gave off a thin beam of light, and so, holding on to each other’s shoulders and waists, guided by the thin beam of the penlight, they crossed the bridge.I wish all the people who will meet in my city could cry together for what has been destroyed and besmirched, all the people dying since Musk got USAID dismantled. But we liberals mostly don’t cry: We fret, like little children. At least, I do.When infants discover those tiny fingers of theirs, they jiggle the fingertips of one hand against the other and look exactly as if they are knitting. This is exactly what we will be doing on Saturday: knitting a peaceful resistance to dictatorship, to the politics of cruelty.Remember the old bumper sticker that said, “Democracy is a verb”?One of the old women in the dark downpour at that retreat 40 years ago was Mary Williams. I was still drinking when we first met. She adored me despite my being a walking personality disorder. Her son was in prison, her health precarious, and she was poor, but when she was sad, she always told me, no matter how dark her life, “Annie, I know my change is gonna come.” And it would.I lived on a tiny houseboat and had almost no money; Mary lived in the projects. She would bring me little baggies full of dimes, sealed with twist ties. I got sober, and then had a baby, without a husband or a steady income. But whenever life felt too hard, I’d see or remember Mary at the altar, sharing her hardships and pain, announcing, “But I know my change is gonna come.” It always did: a second wind, a visit from an old friend.When my baby was 3, a book of mine took off unexpectedly, and I explained to Mary that we were doing better now. But she still brought me those baggies. She knew I didn’t need the money, but that I needed the dimes.I am looking at one of those bags on my bookshelf now — I’ve saved it all these years — and man, do I need the dimes more than ever — faith, love, hope; good people. Our change is gonna come, maybe not next Thursday right after lunch, but it will, if we stick together, don’t give up, and keep taking the next right action. Remembering this will be the gift of Saturday’s protest march. So here’s the thing: You who are terrified, sad, exhausted and just plain gobsmacked? Maybe show up on Saturday. Come democracy with us.
When you go....
Spread the word to your friends about safety! Please know that there may be agitators out on Saturday that will not only provoke, but act illegally and try to turn peaceful protests into bad situations.
If you find yourself in that situation, the advice going around is to SIT DOWN. Stay down, lower your signs, and be quiet. Do not answer their provocation.
If you are in need of a sign idea, Stephen Colbert found this one: "I drink my horchata warm because FUCK ICE!"
A Few Memes
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| Watch an angry Jimmy Kimmel tell about the situation here. |
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| Nick Anderson |
We're all feeling it....
The hypocrisy is astounding.
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| Adam Zyglis |
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| Nick Anderson |
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| Drew Sheneman |
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| Ohio-men's-locker-room Jimbo was upset that people were flying Mexican and other flags |
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| And don't forget: 45 delayed the National Guard by hours that day |
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Come democracy with us!
