by Edgar Sandoval (The New York Times)
The Trump administration is deploying a battalion of 700 Marines to Los Angeles to protect federal property and personnel, the United States Northern Command said on Monday.
The Marines are to join about 2,000 National Guard troops in the city, the nation’s second-largest, potentially intensifying tensions after several days of clashes between law enforcement and demonstrators protesting the administration’s immigration crackdown. As of Monday afternoon, the day’s protests around Los Angeles largely remained orderly and peaceful.
President Trump labeled the protesters “insurrectionists,” and California officials said they intended to sue him for taking control of the state’s National Guard without following the legal process. Mr. Trump violated the Constitution and inflamed tensions, they said, by deploying National Guard troops to quell demonstrations against the administration’s immigration crackdown.
There were signs that the tension might spread to other cities. In San Francisco, the police said that more than 150 arrests had been made at solidarity protests late Sunday, though all but one person had been cited and released. Other protests were held across the country to oppose the arrest of a union leader, David Huerta, who made an initial court appearance and was released on a $50,000 bond on Monday afternoon.
The protests in other cities remained small by midafternoon, although the police in New York City appeared to be preparing for the possibility of a larger demonstration later in the day. In Los Angeles, about 150 people have been arrested since Friday, during protests following an immigration enforcement raid.
Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles told CNN that while she condemned the violence, it had been limited. “This is not citywide civil unrest,” she said.
Here’s what else to know:
Trump rhetoric: By calling the protesters “insurrectionists,” Mr. Trump appeared to be adopting a rationale that could allow him to invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act and use active-duty U.S. military personnel to deal with violent protests. So far, the vast majority of protests have remained peaceful, and videos taken on Sunday show that National Guard troops largely avoided clashing with demonstrators. Marine deployment: It was unclear exactly what grounds Mr. Trump and the Defense Department were using to send the Marines, based in Twentynine Palms, Calif., to American streets. Federal law generally bars active-duty forces from domestic law enforcement unless the president invokes the little-used Insurrection Act — a step Mr. Trump has not taken so far. It was also unclear whether the deployment of the Marines, first reported by CNN, meant that the Marines have begun to physically move into Los Angeles. Marching in solidarity: Some of the people demonstrating in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday said they were first- or second-generation immigrants showing solidarity with their neighbors or family members. During a news conference on Monday morning, several family members of the detained held photos of their loved ones and said that they have not been able to communicate with them. Mexican flags: Latin American flags emerged as emblems in the weekend protests. Trump officials have cast flag wavers as insurrectionists and seemed to assume that they are not U.S. citizens. But for many protesters who are American citizens, the flag signifies pride in their roots. Journalists injured: Several journalists have been injured while covering the protests in Los Angeles, including a television reporter who was struck when a law enforcement officer fired a nonlethal projectile while she was on the air. Video showed the moment that the reporter, Lauren Tomasi of 9News Australia, was hit.
(The New York Times)
First let me say that I don’t like anything going on in LA, whether you call it a protest or an insurrection. But it sounds like this article is re-hashing the old, confused sentiment that “the protests were fiery but peaceful” from the George Floyd summer. You can find many video clips online that show the violence mainly coming from the protesters. They even show police cars completely stopped at the overpass where protesters were throwing rocks and trying to break their windshields; it looked like most of the police cars were untouched, but they all stopped and nobody did anything to prevent the rock throwing for quite a long time.
What really puzzles me is the many videos that show protesters burning Waymo taxis. What’s up with that? Also some reports say protesters threw electric scooters into the burning cars — what is going on? Is any of this true? Some of the videos look like AI creations.
Most puzzling might be seeing immigrants from Mexico waving Mexican flags, while demanding to stay in America. Shouldn’t they be flying American flags, if they want to stay here so badly? Or if they’re proud to be Mexican, why are they so desperate to avoid going back there to live? So much of this just doesn’t make any sense.
I believe, though cannot prove, that the violence is being perpetrated by activists not protestors. They are actually undermining the purpose of the protest! It is tragic that they are there to spark violence, not to protest the government’s foul deeds!
Was it violence when Derek Chauvin pressed his knee into George Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds? Various right-wing slobs want to tell you Floyd died of a drug overdose, but anyone with two brain cells left understands that if someone blocks your ability to breath for nine and a half minutes, you are going to die. That is called violence.
Is it violence when masked, unnamed, unbadged, untrained thugs kidnap people who have shown up for their due process immigration hearings? Your hero Trump was supposed to throw out the criminals right? Even though immigrants, legal or otherwise, are LESS prone to criminality than American citizens, that’s the line you bought – right? Why is he going after people who have been peacefully living here for decades then? And please, don’t tell me they are criminals just by being here. In the vast majority of cases, that is a civil matter, not a criminal one. On top of that, he’s going after green card holders and even US citizens.
If I see a thug beating up a grandmother and I block the thug’s action, am I the one committing criminal violence? Or is it the thug who is the criminal? You have plenty to say about the heroes who are defending members of their own community, but nothing to say about the thugs.
Guess what? This valley and this county simply WOULD NOT FUNCTION without the immigrants, even if they might be invisible to the Fox-news consumers like you. Los Angeles WOULD NOT FUNCTION without the immigrants. Do you want manufacturing to return to the US from China and elsewhere? Guess who is going to work in the factories? Obese, dumb, lazy American meth addicts? Or hardworking immigrants of the type that made this country prosperous to begin with?
As for Waymo, what is being sold as a next-generation convenience – self driving cars – is actually the end of freedom. You will not be able to drive wherever you want. You will only be able to go where the car will take you – assuming you have enough carbon credits for the journey. Driving your own car will eventually be made illegal. Every single Waymo should be in flames, and those who plot to take away our freedoms should have theirs taken away instead.
You didn’t respect Iraq’s borders (2 million dead, torture camps). You didn’t respect Vietnam’s borders (2-3 million dead). You didn’t respect El Salvador’s borders (80,000 of their poorest dead). You didn’t respect Nicaragua’s borders. You didn’t respect Serbia’s borders. You didn’t respect Syria’s borders. You didn’t respect Afghanistan’s borders. You don’t respect Palestine’s borders. Why should anyone respect your damn borders? Turn off the Fox news and rejoin humanity.
Wow, thanks for answering about the burning of the Waymo taxis! Nobody else has said a word about that anywhere, or not that I’ve seen anyway. You’re making some strange assumptions though: I’m not a Trump supporter at all, I certainly didn’t vote for him. I totally agree that Derek Chavin murdered George Floyd; that clearly was the case, and really it looked like both of those men were not good people. It was an ugly incident that resulted in murder, and that’s unfortunately all too common. What was unusual is the way it got blown up in the media. I absolutely support immigration to the US, but do it in a reasonable way, have them on the road to getting citizenship, or issue work permits. Vet them carefully, don’t allow in convicted criminals. Pretty simple, and pretty much how this country used to do it.
I won’t take time to go through every bit you got wrong, but the Waymo answer was interesting. And, get this: I totally agree that Waymo/self-driving cars are evil, and are another step down the path to total surveillance!! That’s an excellent reason to be against them! But, what does that have to do with ICE rounding people up? Why don’t those who are burning the Waymos announce why they’re doing it?
Maybe it would be good to keep the Waymos a separate issue to really focus on the surveillance state?
Using Palantir is one of the worst things Trump has proposed!! Talk about surveillance state!!
The U.S. government has ordered the military to turn arms against the public. It does not get much worse.
I agree!
To be more exact, the U.S. government has ordered the military to turn arms against U.S. citizens (which constitute the majority).
It’s about time our military protects our own borders instead of violating others’ borders.
(Iran has every right to nuclear weapons, whether we like it or not. Iran certainly never betrayed us like Israel has/does. Israel, BTW, stole its nukes from the US).
If goody-two-shoes groups like HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) don’t like it, let the hypocrites go open Israel’s borders!
Your military hasn’t been involved in anything even remotely honorable for 80 years, and it sure ain’t starting now.
“Your military”??
I got myself kicked out of the US Marines when I realized no Viet Cong ever called me honkey (or goyim, come to think of it).
Israel lobby war criminals are our only enemy, and you’re right, they have been for 80 years:
— ( https://ifamericansknew.org/ )
Look on the bright side…
The sooner the US turns its military against its own people, the sooner the empires collapses and dies.
I know, I know… boo hoo hoo … empire collapse could ruin your whole day! Why should anyone care about you when you vote for wars of aggression and genocide EVERY TIME?
I recall riot control duty from my service in the Marines, camp Hansen, Okinawa. 1970. Came in from a day’s work to check out a flack jacket, helmet, rifle & bayonet, gas mask, and a sack lunch to eat while we watched films on the horrors of venereal diseases and drug addiction sitting on the asphalt parade deck where a screen and projector had been set up as part of what in retrospect appears to have been intentionally intended to make us as irritable as possible. We were waiting for the black marines, who had not had their liberty cards rescinded, and were having one of their civil rights meetings. When they came back to stage their protest man it was like turning on a neon light show at the Fillmore Far East— far out, those cats wore the first day glo colors and having looked at all those ugly b&w movies for hours when the Sgt of the guard hit the crowd with the spotlights they already had James Brown thumping on the early boomboxes we all found in techno-futuristic Japan and Okinawa… a lot of standing around and the cadre, for reasons unexplained, prefer to make a thoroughgoing hardship out of it for all.
So when Trump says “someone paid professional agitators” he probably knows whereof he speaks.