webodec3ARCHIVEPreview
Open in TheBrain

martial law insurrect act

renamed 2nd on CA

MERRI OK

remember obama fema camps?

SEE STATE OF EXCEPTION/ EMERGENCY DECL

VIOLENT CRIME BS BLUE DEM CITY EARTH2 FOX ECHO

SEE MASS DEPORT 800 FLA 4 25?

SEE QANON

SEE JAG FIRING HEGS PARLATORE LIAR

SEE FOX 10 CRM WATTERS

SEE POSSE COMITATUS

SEE MILITARZATION // FASCISM

NOTE CRM POD BROS MANTA INSURRECTION

SEE VIOLENCE 5 CIVIL WAR

see courts 4

SEE VETERANS ~

SEE PPL IN STREETS 11 25

---

===

---

---

-=-=

RWW --> $

MAGA activists are pushing for President Trump to resort to extraordinary measures — including martial law — if they believe the midterm elections are "rigged."

-=-=

---

note DC IS BLUE CITY, VIOLENCE JUSTIFIES MILITARIZATION [2026 MIDTERM]: ONLY I CAN KEEP YOU SAFE

an 3 26

President Donald Trump held his first Cabinet meeting since starting the war in Iran. He began with several of his top officials speaking. After Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth talked about how the people of the United States should be praying for him, Trump began talking about crime in Chicago and the recent shooting death of the daughter of one of his staffers' friends.

"It's a young lady who — whose life would be saved if we had — if we did what we did. As an example, in Washington D.C, which is now a safe city, all the time people come up to me in the building, people who work here, they say, 'Thank you so much.' I know immediately what they're talking about," said Trump, talking about the crime rate in the nation's capital.

According to the Council on Criminal Justice data, Washington, D.C. saw an increase in drug crimes in 2025 over 2024, despite the efforts of the federal agents. Cases of sexual assaults remained even. Homicides were down by 21 percent, and 9 percent fewer aggravated assaults, 2 percent fewer domestic violence incidents, while robberies fell by 23 percent, and carjackings (which are included in robbery) fell by 43 percent. While carjackings had been on the rise in 2020, the trend reversed in 2024 and began going down. There were 27 percent fewer motor vehicle thefts in 2025 than in 2024.

Trump's deployment of the National Guard to D.C. happened in the last five months of 2025 and is estimated to cost about $1 million per day after an initial cost of about $1.8 million per day. Trump heralded the Guard soldiers, who he said were "opening doors" for people and "picking up trash." So far, the cost has totaled about $330 million as of the start of February, WTOP said, citing data from the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

Trump cheered the Guard because citizens are "able to walk to work, they walk to work. You all walk to work."

Then Trump dropped the bombshell that his Cabinet officials had been robbed.

"Some of you were mugged. I know you told me stories. Some of you were mugged. One person in particular was viciously mugged in the group right here," he pointed to the people across the table from him. "It's not happening anymore. You have a safe city."

Those sitting across the table from him in the meeting included Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner. Internet searches found no reports of any of those individuals being mugged in Washington, D.C. Vance's home in Ohio was vandalized and broken into, however, in May 2025.

---

AHA doh: 3 26

FLYNN WANTED MIL TO GRAB BALLOTS/VOTING MACHINES; TRUMP T2 IS USING DOJ LAWFARE RETALIATION NO RULE OF LAW TO DO IT; SHERIFF / OATHKEEPER COPYCAT TO PLEASE DEAR LEADER, BUT BUILDS CRED FOR BIG LIE ~ 2026 MIDTERMS

TRUMP SENDS FBI DOIJ TO GRAB BALLOTS BASED ON DISCREDITED BS; USES MIZZOU OUT OF STATE USAG TO DO IT; SEND MARTINE TO LA CHIC BASED ON LIE THAT CRIME VIOLENCE THERE IS NOT CAN NOT BE DEALT W BY CORRUPT INEPT DEM-ONIZED LEADERS

AN 3 26

In Riverside County, California, Sheriff Chad Bianco — a Donald Trump supporter and former Oath Keepers member who is running for governor of California as a Republican — recently announced that his department had seized 650,000 voting ballots cast in a 2025 election. Bianco, at alate March news conference, told reporters, "This investigation is simple: Physically count the ballots and compare that result with the total votes reported.""

MS NOW's Steve Benen, in an opinion column published on March 24, argues that Bianco is conducting an "investigation that appears entirely baseless" and could be used as a "template" for MAGA Republicans to challenge election results they don't like.

"For those inclined to be charitable," Benen explains, "there is a relatively benign interpretation of these developments. It's possible, for example, that Bianco is simply trying to generate attention for his longshot gubernatorial candidacy. Relatedly, the sheriff likely realizes that ballot seizures will please the White House, which in turn, may lead to greater institutional support from his party in the coming months. The move, in other words, may very well be little more than an elaborate campaign stunt that will have little practical impact and will be largely forgotten after Bianco loses. But then, there are the less benign interpretations of what transpired."

The "Rachel Maddow Show" producer notes that Bianco's investigation "comes on the heels of Trump sending the FBI to seize election materials in Georgia in response to other assorted conspiratorial complaints."

"The broader concern is that a template is taking shape, offering precedents for law enforcement to start making plans to seize ballots in areas nationwide — after or even during official counts," Benen warns. "What's more, the more frequently this happens, the more Americans may be led to believe it's normal and routine for law enforcement officials to seize and impound ballots — despite the fact that this is neither normal nor routine."

---

---

AN 1 26

While the idea might once have seemed "far-fetched," the U.S. may now be descending into a second civil war due to Donald Trump's embrace of "anarchy," according to a new analysis from The i Paper.

In a piece published on Thursday, veteran BBC News foreign correspondent Paul Wood wrote that the scenes of "mayhem on the streets of Minneapolis" have experts seriously questioning whether or not the U.S. is on track for a civil war. The idea has been floated for years now, typically by members of the party in opposition to the current president, but in light of Trump's aggression towards blue states and his flouting of the constitutional order, the suggestion has taken on a dire urgency.

Wood related the story of a 2024 exercise conducted by the University of Pennsylvania to "game out how a conflict within the US might begin," with the involvement of former government officials and military officers. The results, Wood argued, strikingly similar to the events now unfolding in Minneapolis.

"In the exercise, a violent confrontation develops between state and federal forces in Philadelphia," Wood explained. "It begins when the president of the day orders a controversial operation to detain undocumented migrants, despite opposition from the mayor and the governor. He attempts to federalise Pennsylvania’s National Guard but the governor resists. The Guard stays loyal to the state and the president then sends in the regular army. The result is an armed conflict between state and federal forces: civil war."

Professor Claire Finkelstein, who led the exercise, told Wood that it was becoming increasingly likely that Trump might invoke the Insurrection Act in response to pushback against his deportation agenda. This would allow him to deploy the military within U.S. borders, setting the stage for the outcome reached by her 2024 exercise.

Finkelstein compared the prospect to Dwight Eisenhower invoking the act to enforce the desegregation of schools, after the governor of Arkansas had called in the state's national guard to block nine black children from attending an all-white school. In that instance, the president had the backing of a Supreme Court ruling, whereas Trump has "no judicial backing" for his deportation agenda's "hardline tactics."

Recently, former GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, once a staunch Trump ally turned critic, warned that the American people were being "incited into civil war" after the killing of Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis.

“Both sides need to take off their political blinders,” Greene said. “You are all being incited into civil war, yet none of it solves any of the real problems that we all face, and tragically people are dying.”

---

---

CONTEXT

2ND MURDER PRETTI 1ST AND 2ND AMEND

AN 26

A leading Republican candidate for governor in Minnesota has withdrawn from the race, citing the Republican Party’s “stated retribution on the citizens of our state,” and saying he cannot count himself a member of a party that would do so.

Chris Madel’s announcement Monday morning, just two days after federal agents shot and killed a second U.S. citizen in Minneapolis in under three weeks, was deemed “stunning” by the Minnesota Star Tribune.

Madel recorded a nearly eleven-minute video explaining his decision to withdraw.

“United States citizens, particularly those of color, live in fear,” he told supporters. “United States citizens are carrying papers to prove their citizenship. That’s wrong.”

“ICE has authorized its agents to raid homes using a civil warrant that need only be signed by a border patrol agent. That’s unconstitutional, it’s wrong. Weaponizing criminal investigations against political opponents is unconstitutional, regardless of who is in power,” he continued.

Madel also pointed to the “countless United States citizens who have been detained in Minnesota due to the color of their skin. I personally have spoken to several law enforcement officers, some Hispanic, and some Asian who have been pulled over by ice on pretextual stops,” he said.

“Driving while Hispanic is not a crime,” Madel added. “Neither is driving while Asian.”

The Star Tribune reported that Madel “launched his campaign for governor as a staunch defender of law enforcement and had **:{recently provided legal counsel to Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis on Jan. 7.”}:

“I do this because I believe the constitutional right to counsel is sacrosanct,” he said.

He also called the federal operation in Minnesota, Operation Metro Surge, “an unmitigated disaster.”

---

AN 1 26

Donald Trump's ego appears to be driving a conflict with the various "hardcore nationalists" in his administration, according to a new analysis from The i Paper, with his desire to be "loved and thanked" conflicting with their desire to go further in cracking down on immigration and protestors.

The administration is facing mounting unrest in Minnesota, where over the weekend, federal officers killed another American citizen, intensive care nurse Alex Pretti. This death, only weeks after the killing of Renee Good by an ICE officer, has soured more and more Americans on Trump's immigration crackdown plans, which were already tanking the president's approval on immigration, one of his key issues overall.

Writing for The i Paper on Monday, James Ball wrote that the administration is largely uninterested in discontent and protests from Democratic voters, and in fact seems to "relish" causing them pain and distress. The killing of Pretti, however, is driving away increasing numbers of independents and even some Republicans. This has created a conflict, Ball argued, between Trump's desire to be popular with non-Democratic voters and the desires of key figures in his administration to go as far as possible with the immigration crackdowns, as part of their plot to fundamentally remake the U.S.

"The problem for Trump in responding to this self-inflicted crisis is that while most of the American public hates what they are seeing in Minneapolis, some in his White House love it. This is what they came into office to do," Ball wrote. "Trump is surrounded by hardcore nationalists who see him as their vehicle to rebuild America – and mass deportations are the first step in doing that. A faction led by Stephen Miller, and represented by the ambitious US Vice President J.D. Vance, is leading this hardline movement. They are urging the President to go further, all but openly seeking an excuse to activate the Insurrection Act, enabling them to send in American troops into American cities."

Trump, meanwhile, wants on some level to be seen as a unifying figure and as a great president, typified by his recent focus on legacy projects. This instinct, Ball argued, will cause him to pull back on issues like Minnesota when they become toxically unpopular, despite the ambitions of his top officials.

"The main obstacle standing in their way is Trump himself, who, on some level, still wants to be loved and thanked by the nation he so divisively leads. Even now, he complains about the difficulties of building the new White House ballroom, wondering plaintively why anyone would mount legal challenges against a building project he sees as his legacy," Ball wrote.

He continued: "Trump is a petty and vindictive man who wants revenge on his enemies, but he still wants to be seen as a unifying figure – he has more than once spoken of his wish to one day be represented alongside other great presidents on Mount Rushmore. Trump doesn’t look at the footage out of Minnesota and feel horror in the same way most of us do, but he understands that it’s bad for him – trapping him between the hardliners he’s surrounded himself with, and his own political instincts."

---

---

MMA

  1. ### Right-wing streamer Asmongold calls for anti-ICE protesters to be “put in a camp” for “mandatory labor” of 5-10 years

01/20/26

  1. ### Nick Fuentes: “Please pull the trigger. Please kill them, Mr. President. … I'm not actually wishing for violence, but please send in the military and restore order.”

01/20/26

---

---

  1. ### LindellTV host Emerald Robinson claims Patrick Byrne “got called in to the White House”

01/16/26 1:47 PM EST

  1. ### Nick Fuentes suggests ICE killing Renee Good is “probably a good thing” because the “future is at stake, whether white people exist as a race”

01/16/26 11:19 AM EST

  1. ### Media Matters weekly newsletter, January 16

01/16/26 10:50 AM EST

  1. ### Newsmax host dismisses reported incident of ICE teargassing a baby: “Well, like, that sucks. But why was the six-month-old, even exposed or near tear gas in the first place?”

01/16/26 10:10 AM EST

  1. ### Jesse Watters: “This is a Minnesota insurgency. They’re conducting guerrilla warfare against federal agents.”

01/15/26 8:51 PM EST

  1. ### “Arrest them all”: Right-wing media back Trump as he threatens to use the Insurrection Act

01/15/26 6:45 PM EST

  1. ### New polling shows a majority of Americans are concerned about ICE's killing of Renee Good. Fox News figures have claimed otherwise.

01/15/26 6:18 PM EST

  1. ...### Matt Walsh on Minneapolis: “The whole city must be taught a lesson. How much do we have to deal with from these people? They must be punished.”

01/15/26 3:48 PM EST

  1. ### Megyn Kelly suggests people are protesting ICE because they aren't having sex

01/15/26 3:38 PM EST

  1. ### Nick Fuentes says “podcast bros” being against mass deportations is “a very bad bellwether” for “where the middle is”

01/15/26 2:36 PM EST

---

MMA ALL

  1. ### Fox host Emily Compagno voices support for Trump invoking the Insurrection Act: “There is absolutely ground for that”

01/15/26 1:55 PM EST

  1. ### Megyn Kelly on Bari Weiss and Tony Dokoupil: “This is a lesbian's idea of what women want”

01/15/26 1:45 PM EST

  1. ### Benny Johnson: “Invoke the Insurrection Act in Minneapolis”

01/15/26 12:58 PM EST

  1. ### Steve Bannon: “Insurrection Act first, troops second, mass deportations third.”

01/15/26 12:52 PM EST

  1. ### Jeanine Pirro isn’t going rogue. She’s the tip of the spear.

01/15/26 12:51 PM EST

  1. ### Laura Loomer advises JD Vance to distance himself from Tucker Carlson

01/15/26 12:36 PM EST

  1. ### Tim Pool: “At what point will Trump just do it? Invoke the Insurrection Act. Round these people up.”

01/15/26 10:42 AM EST

  1. ### One year in, Fox News can’t decide if it’s a “booming” Trump economy or Biden’s economic “mess”

01/15/26 10:11 AM EST

  1. ### Tucker Carlson says the US taking Greenland would end NATO, calls it a “huge victory for the world and for the United States”

01/15/26 9:55 AM EST

  1. ### On Fox, Former Deputy National Security Adviser KT McFarland claims, “at the end of the day we're going to get control of Greenland”

01/15/26 9:44 AM EST

  1. ### Fox host: President Trump has “got all the justification” to invoke the Insurrection Act in Minnesota

01/15/26 8:53 AM EST

  1. ### On MS NOW's Deadline: White House, Angelo Carusone discusses MAGA podcasters breaking with Trump over ICE

01/14/26 6:48 PM EST

---

AN 1 26

The fatal shooting of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good by a U.S. Customs and Enforcement (ICE) agent in Minneapolis was followed by large protests all over the United States, from Portland, Oregon to Philadelphia (where a crowd of demonstrators gathering outside City Hall).

Allies of President Donald Trump are aggressively defending the agent and claiming that he acted in self-defense, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Vice President JD Vance. Noem even described Good as a "domestic terrorist." But many others on both the left and the right are attacking the shooting as excessive force, and former Judge Andrew Napolitano — a right-wing libertarian/conservative legal analyst for Newsmax — believes that the agent should face criminal charges.

Good's death came four days after U.S. forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and transported him to a federal detention center in New York City. And Salon's Brian Karem, in an article published on January 9, draws a parallel between the two events — both of which, Karem argues, show that Trump is feeling increasingly emboldened.

"(Trump) Administration officials used nearly the same language in describing Renee Nicole Good as they did the alleged narco-terrorists," Karem notes. "Trump said she was 'very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self-defense.' He also blamed the death on the 'Radical Left' and said they are 'threatening, assaulting and targeting our Law Enforcement Officers and ICE Agents on a daily basis.'"

Karem fears that Trump will use the outrage following Good's death as a pretext to impose martial law and cancel the 2026 midterms.

"Trump is hell-bent, along with those who work for him, on total control," Karem warns. "Good's death is likely to foment more anger and hatred, both of which Trump bathes in. Should something nasty befall ICE officers, Trump would gladly declare martial law. And speculation is rife that he could cancel the midterm elections — since he's scared to death he’ll be impeached should the Democrats regain control of Congress in November…. Renee Nicole Good is an example of how Trump villainizes American citizens. Maduro shows how Trump exploits the villainy of other villains. The oil tankers are symbolic of his greed and reality-show tendencies."

Karem adds, "All three of these examples show that the consequences of Trump are very real and increasingly acute. At this point, they are painfully and terrifyingly obvious. Be prepared for martial law."

*Brian Karem's full article for Salon is available at this link.

----}:

only fox tv?

USMC 2 TOURS 45% RULE TO SHOOT, PIZZA WOMAN SHAKING

INFLU INSTIGATORS then run to fox cam

MOLOTOV TENTS BURN NOT BY PROTESTORS

120 DAYS SOLD HOMES

ice enjoy cruelty, post vid soc med; riot staged 2 feds in plain clothes w/ cams? drones? push out 4 blocks

15 agents manhandle daca w expired lic; woman w small kid walked when filmed

The Truth Behind "War Ravaged Portland" | Jerrod Zisser | TMR

[

The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder

1.98M subscribers

Dec 31, 2025 The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder

Check out Jerrod Zisser on ⁨@theringoffire3228⁩ Watch the Majority Report live Monday–Friday at 12pm EST on YouTube OR via daily podcast at http://www.Majority.fm Send us IM messages during the live-stream with our free Majority Report App: http://majority.fm/app Subscribe to MR's daily AM Quickie newsletter: https://am-quickie.ghost.io

The Truth Behind "War Ravaged Portland" | Jerrod Zisser | TMR - YouTube

---

---

AN 12 25

The U.S. Supreme Court handed President Donald Trump a rare, if temporary, loss on Tuesday, over his efforts to deploy the National Guard in Illinois.

The Court rejected the Trump administration’s emergency request to send troops to Chicago. The administration had claimed that troops were needed to protect federal agents.

“At this preliminary stage, the Government has failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois,” the Supreme Court declared, according to The Washington Post.

The Post called the ruling a “major defeat” for the Trump administration that “could have far-reaching effects,” and a “significant setback for his campaign to push troops into cities across the country over the objections of local and state leaders.”

In rebuffing Trump’s bid, NBC News reported, “the court at least provisionally rejected the Trump administration’s view that the situation on the ground is so chaotic that it justifies invoking a federal law that allows the president to call National Guard troops into federal service in extreme situations.”

“Those circumstances can include when ‘there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion’ or ‘the president is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.'”

The high court reportedly also cited the Posse Comitatus Act, which limits the use of the U.S. Armed Forces to enforce domestic laws.

Bloomberg Law’s Jordan Fischer reported that “In a 6-3 order, the court says at least at this stage the administration has not overcome the Posse Comitatus Act.”

Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, calling it a “Huge loss” for the administration, wrote: “SCOTUS tells Trump no on deployment of Illinois Nat’l Guard, finding a valid exception to the Posse Comitatus Act doesn’t exist.”

Dissenting were Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil M. Gorsuch.

---

---

an 12 25

In a court ruling posted on Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer ruled that the National Guard soldiers must leave Los Angeles. But his comments on the ruling include a sharp warning.

Ryan Goodman, a legal scholar and editor-in-chief of JustSecurity.org, highlighted a key excerpt on page 10:

"Indeed, at the motion hearing, Defendants confirmed their position that, after an initial federalization, all extensions of federalization orders are utterly unreviewable, forever. That is shocking. Adopting Defendants’ interpretation of Section 12406 would permit a president to create a perpetual police force comprised of state troops, so long as they were first federalized lawfully. Such a scenario would validate the Founders’ 'widespread fear [of] a national standing Army,' which they believed 'posed an intolerable threat to individual liberty and to the sovereignty of the separate States,'" the judge wrote.

Goodman said that the case has "national implications."

The Atlantic's ‪Quinta Jurecic called it a "drops mic" ruling.

Sorting through the ruling, legal analyst Joyce Vance also highlighted key points in the judge's decision.

---

an 1125

A new report published by former U.S. military officers this week decried president Donald Trump’s politicized use of the military and warned of the “eroding” effects his continued use of it will have, per a report from The Guardian.

Since returning to power in January, Trump has become increasingly reliant on domestic military deployments in furtherance of his agenda. This has most notably included the use of National Guard forces to aid in immigration enforcement efforts, particularly in major cities, like Chicago and Los Angeles, that are run by Democratic elected officials.

His administration has also seen numerous firings of high-ranking officers and lawyers who have been unwilling to support certain parts of the president’s agenda.

All of these issues are at the heart of a new report, titled “The Perils of Politicizing the U.S. Military,” which warned that Trump’s use of the military for partisan purposes are damaging to the separation of the armed forces from political matters and the public’s trust in it to act apolitically.

“The use of troops, bases, and ceremonies in partisan settings has blurred the line between military service and political messaging, eroding morale and public trust in the military’s apolitical character,” the report read.

Released on Monday, the report was authored by retired Navy Admiral Steve Abbot, retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, former Army Secretary Louis Caldera, retired Army General George Casey, former Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James and former Navy secretary Sean O’Keefe.

The former officials continued: “When service members, senior leaders, or military symbols are perceived as aligned with political agendas, the public begins to see the institution as partisan rather than national – and once eroded, that trust is difficult to rebuild. This loss of trust makes it harder to recruit across the political spectrum, harder to retain talent, and harder to reassure allies and deter adversaries abroad.”

---

---

AN 11 25

Two government lawyers under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama write in*The Economist* that President Donald Trump has been signaling he may use the powers of the presidency to challenge the results of the 2026 midterm elections if they are not to his liking.

Jack Goldsmith and Bob Bauer say that while " the House race thus offers Democrats their best shot at putting some brakes on the Trump juggernaut," the president has been "actively stoking"public mistrust in the electoral process and that could pose a problem again next November.

"More ominously, under the banner of defending 'honest elections', he appears to be laying the groundwork to challenge and possibly manipulate them," they write.

"His words and actions strongly suggest he may use the formidable powers of the presidency — and possibly even the armed forces — to resist 2026 electoral results he dislikes," they add.

Trump, they write, has framed any of his electoral losses as "proof of opponents' fraud," pointing to his exhaustive efforts to overthrow his loss to President Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

"His charges have weakened the once-bipartisan consensus that election administration should be insulated from politics," they write.

The authors say to expect both the Republican and Democratic parties to mount legal challenges in races they seem to be losing "by alleging error, fraud or other irregularities, demanding recounts and contesting results in the courts," but they say these "struggles could enter a whole new dimension owing to Mr Trump’s apparent readiness to use the redoubtable powers of the presidency to deny election results."

This must be taken very seriously, they write, especially considering the "heretical idea" Trump himself posed on Truth Social in which he said that states "must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, for the good of our country, to do."

This, they note, "flies in the face of the Constitution," yet Trump "has issued an executive order that claims presidential authority to impose on states his own view of the needed voting rules — including proof of citizenship, revised machine standards and limits on mail-ballot counting."

Trump has also put election deniers in key posts, they note, and with those in place, he "could order many kinds of federal intervention."

"But perhaps the gravest worry is that Trump will deploy the armed forces under the Insurrection Act," they write. "Trump could claim his opponents are obstructing election laws and call in troops to enforce those laws in accordance with his wishes. Such deployments could occur before, during or after voting begins."

The integrity of the midterms, they say, depends on the "fortitude" of state and local officials who administer the elections, and on how the American people react to them.

"A broad, highly visible public reaction could influence elected officials within Mr Trump’s party as they weigh the risks of complicity in any effort to subvert election results," they write.

"In the darkest scenarios, such as the deployment of troops to jurisdictions where Republicans lose, the degree of responsible civic resistance could determine whether the nation’s voting institutions hold firm," they add.

---

10/24/2025 RWW

by

Kyle Mantyla

“Are you fed up with crime, corruption, and wokeness in your big, blue city?” says RidgeRunner CEO Josh Abbotoy. “Move here”

Larry Bushart Jr. posted trolling memes on a Facebook thread about a vigil for Kirk. He’s been in a Tennessee jail ever since.

The liberal cancel culture of yesteryear is indeed regrettable. But let’s not succumb to bothsidesism.

President Trump teases his backup plan to use the military against Americans in blue cities on a near weekly basis.

Bannon divulged that there are “many different alternatives” for securing a third term for Trump.

---

---

MMA

Right-wing media celebrate Trump’s revenge tour

Written by Isabella Corrao & Helena Hind

Research contributions from Jane Lee

Published 10/24/25

Right-wing media are rejoicing over President Donald Trump’s execution of his promised revenge tour. In the first nine months of his second administration, the president has targeted political opponents and Democrat-led cities, states, and institutions. From indictments against Trump's former FBI director and national security advisor, to threats to revoke federal funding, to the deployment of the National Guard in cities, right-wing media figures have defended, justified, and commended Trump’s actions through it all.

Donald Trump has targeted political opponents and Democrat-led cities, states, and institutions

---

:{:{---}:

RWW

10/24/2025

by

Kyle Mantyla

“Are you fed up with crime, corruption, and wokeness in your big, blue city?” says RidgeRunner CEO Josh Abbotoy. “Move here”

Larry Bushart Jr. posted trolling memes on a Facebook thread about a vigil for Kirk. He’s been in a Tennessee jail ever since.

The liberal cancel culture of yesteryear is indeed regrettable. But let’s not succumb to bothsidesism.

President Trump teases his backup plan to use the military against Americans in blue cities on a near weekly basis.

Bannon divulged that there are “many different alternatives” for securing a third term for Trump.

---

---

10 21 25 2 TRUMP JUDGE DEM DOCK

Legal experts are sounding the alarm on a shocking federal appeals court ruling that all but permitted President Donald Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops into Portland, Oregon. They warn that, if upheld, the order would give Trump unbridled power to use the military domestically.

Two Trump appointed judges on a three-judge Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel voted Monday to stay a lower court ruling blocking Trump’s deployment in the City of Roses.

The full 9th Circuit is set to vote on whether to rehear the case.

The two circuit court judges claimed that U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, who was also appointed by Trump, incorrectly questioned the president’s decision to federalize 200 Oregon National Guard members and deploy them to the city late last month.

Trump’s deployment is still blocked by a second order from Immergut that remains in effect. However, shortly after the Ninth Circuit panel’s ruling, the Department of Justice (DOJ) asked Immergut to dissolve her second order, which would officially allow Trump to move soldiers into Portland.

Elizabeth Goitein, a senior director at the Brennan Center for Justice and an expert on presidential emergency powers, wrote on social media Tuesday it was “one of the most dangerous and legally flawed court decisions I’ve seen this year.”

Goitein noted that Judges Bridget Bade and Ryan Nelson — the Trump appointees on the panel — significantly expanded the president’s ability to federalize and deploy Guard troops domestically by arguing that he should be allowed to cite prior unrest in Portland, or even unrest in other parts of the country, to justifying a military intervention in a city.

“By this logic, Trump should be able to deploy the military today—in Portland and many other cities—to address conduct that occurred during the 2020 protests over the police killing of George Floyd,” Goitein wrote.

The ruling, Goitein wrote, was “clearly” an incorrect reading of 10 U.S.C. 12406 (Title 10), the archaic statute Trump used to federalize Oregon’s troops. It allows the president to federalize state Guard troops when the country faces foreign invasion, when the U.S. government faces rebellion or when the president is unable to execute laws with regular resources.

Goitein added that through their ruling, Bade and Nelson undermined First Amendment rights by upholding the Trump administration’s conclusion that the president was unable to execute the law in Portland without the Guard’s assistance.

Trump claimed in late September Guard troops were needed to protect Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from “domestic terrorists” who had an ICE facility in the “War ravaged” city “under siege.” The Trump administration further claimed that the recent anti-ICE demonstrations in the city amounted to a “rebellion” against the U.S. government.

State and local police officials pushed back on Trump’s interpretation of conditions in the city, saying in court filings that demonstrations near the facility were largely sedate gatherings of a few dozen people that could be managed by local and state resources.

“It is hard to overstate how misguided and dangerous this ruling is,” Goitein wrote. “Even where protests involve acts of violence, deploying the military is illegal unless that violence reaches a level where state and local law enforcement are completely overwhelmed.”

Writing in a minority opinion Monday, Susan Graber, appointed by former President Bill Clinton, also criticized Nelson and Bade’s ruling for threatening freedom of speech.

“It erodes core constitutional principles, including sovereign States’ control over their States’ militias and the people’s First Amendment rights to assemble and to object to the government’s policies and actions,” Graber wrote.

Athul Acharya, the executive director of the nonprofit civil-rights law firm Public Accountability, pointed out that Nelson, through a concurring opinion, took a more extreme position than Bade.

Nelson adopted the Trump administration’s argument that courts have no authority to question a president’s decision to federalize troops under Title 10. In taking that position, he was disagreeing with precedent set by a separate Ninth Circuit panel over Trump’s deployment in Los Angeles.

In that case, the other panel rejected the Trump administration’s arguments that courts can’t review Title 10 federalizations but also held that any judicial review must be “highly deferential” to the president.

That was the position Bade took as well, though she found that Immergut misapplied the “highly deferential” standard by disagreeing with Trump’s assessment of unrest in Portland.

“Love that ‘the president can use the National Guard to invade Portland’ is the moderate position here,” Acharya wrote on social media. “Ryan Nelson would’ve held that as long as Trump recites some magic words, he can do whatever he wants with the National Guard, whenever, wherever.”

Marty Lederman, a Georgetown Law professor and former DOJ attorney, highlighted that while Bade and Nelson at length argued why they were deferring Trump’s determination that he was unable to execute the law in Portland, they never recognized such a determination from the president.

Trump announced the Portland military deployment through a series of social media posts. In oral arguments, the DOJ argued that the posts were Trump’s formal determination that troops were needed. Bade and Nelson, however, ultimately rejected that argument, leaving no formal determination from the president.

In addition to being heavily criticized by legal experts, Bade and Nelson’s ruling may soon be scrutinized by their colleagues as well. Shortly after they issued their order, a Ninth Circuit judge requested that the court vote on whether a larger panel should rehear the Trump administration’s appeal of Immergut’s ruling.

This is known as an “en banc” — or “on the bench” — hearing and usually means that all judges in the appellate court, rather than a smaller panel, hear a case.

However, the Ninth Circuit’s en banc process is unique given its size. As the largest appellate circuit in the country, it has 29 active judgeships, which is far too many to participate in a rehearing.

Instead, the full court takes a vote on whether to rehear an appeal. If approved, a limited en banc court composed of 11 judges — the chief judge and 10 others drawn at random — convenes for a rehearing.

Steve Vladeck, a Georgetown Law professor, noted that due to this unique process, the full Ninth Circuit, which leans liberal, will likely vote to rehear the Trump administration’s appeal, but the limited en banc court could uphold Bade and Nelson’s ruling depending on which judges are drawn.

It’s unclear exactly which Ninth Circuit judge called for an en banc hearing, but in her dissent, Graber urged her colleagues to “swiftly” vacate Monday’s order “before the illegal deployment of troops under false pretenses can occur.”

A separate Ninth Circuit panel is set to hear oral arguments Wednesday over Trump’s LA deployment. It will consider whether U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer was correct in finding that Trump’s use of troops in the city earlier this year violated a law that largely bars the use of the military in law enforcement.

---

an badash 10 25

Following the launch of a massive federal interagency task force in partnership with state law enforcement, Tennessee Republican Governor Bill Lee pledged that the “Memphis Safe Task Force” would be a permanent fixture.

Last month, the White House published a presidential memorandum titled “Restoring Law and Order in Memphis,” which orders thirteen federal government agencies and offices to coordinate. It states the “objective shall be to end street and violent crime in Memphis to the greatest possible extent,” and lists actions including “hypervigilant policing, aggressive prosecution, complex investigations, financial enforcement, and large-scale saturation of besieged neighborhoods with law enforcement personnel.”

Memphis is among the most violent cities in the country.

“The Memphis Safe Task Force began operations on September 29, with the National Guard joining efforts this past Friday,” Action5 News reported on Monday.

Governor Lee told reporters on Tuesday, “we’ve just begun,” and said the program will last “for months,” before stating that in some form it will continue “forever.”

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

“We do know that this is gonna last for months, and we have just begun. In fact, I will tell you that it will last forever,” he said. “Because what we believe will happen is the numbers of law enforcement agents from different agencies will change, depending on the mission at the moment.”

He described a “collaboration that is happening right now between U.S. Marshal Service and the Memphis Police Department, and the FBI, and the DEA, and the Tennessee Highway Patrol.”

“That collaboration will be here from now on,” said Lee. “So this operation, in some ways, may never end.”

Critics blasted the governor.

“As I predicted,” noted authoritarianism expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat, the “aim is a ‘domestic forever war.'”

The Atlantic’s Dr. Norman Ornstein, a political scientist, wrote: “Fascist. Pure fascist.”

Columnist and “recovering attorney” Wajahat Ali added, “Forever occupation, eh?”

---

MMA

October 13, 2025, edition of MSNBC's *The Weeknight

ALICIA MENENDEZ (CO-HOST): So, Angelo, that is like how it played out here on Earth one. If you were watching the right-wing echo chamber, what were the last few weeks?

ANGELO CARUSONE (MEDIA MATTERS): Excitement. The vibes are great. They think that this is that, you know, there's this idea that Trump is doing comes to cracking down on these cities, that the backlash reinforces just how dangerous and lethal the Democrats are, liberals, the entire shadow network around them. The media is a big part of that according to them, and that this is Trump saying that he's gonna do what he's gonna do. It's a raw power grab. I think the one thing that is a takeaway, though, is there's this sort of new narrative that's percolating and being revised, something that's, to me, the most concerning piece about the story here.

It's not the excitement that I find disturbing. It's this thing that they've been introducing, this new concept called ordered liberty.

MENENDEZ: Ordered liberty?

CARUSONE: Ordered liberty is what they've been describing it as. That you can't have freedom unless you have intense structural order first or authoritarianism.

And it's this weird thing where they're actually trying to rebrand the notion of authoritarianism to their own people who are the ones that you would think would be the most reflexively opposed to it. That's been the weirdest part about it. That's been the one shift. They've been talking about this Insurrection Act for a long time. They've been fetishizing it since, you know, right after the 2020 election when Trump was still in office.

So five years now, this has been the thing they've been discussing. This is the first time they really meaningfully changed the story around it. And when you introduce a concept like that to an audience like this, that to me is a little bit of a concern because they're preparing them for something, to accept something that they ordinarily would not be willing to accept and giving them the tools to advocate and organize around it. Ordered liberty, it's a disturbing new trend in the right-wing media. So that's been what it's like for them.

...

CARUSONE: I think that if — it's not just — and we shouldn't be academic at this point. It's earlier too we talked about President Obama. If the one thing that people can do now, especially business leaders, is to make sure they're calling Trump, lot of them talk to him, and people that are connected to him and say, by the way, martial law is bad for business. Just make sure that he knows that point because that is a real big — if nothing else, at least he should be aware that that it's bad for business.

---

---

MMA

10/10/25

NOTE CRM POD BROS MANTA INSURRECTION

10/10/25

Right-wing media say Portland is a war zone under siege. On-the-ground coverage paints a different picture.

Local coverage has highlighted the peaceful nature of protests and the violent response of federal agents

Written by Noah Dowe & Pete Tsipis

Research contributions from Casey Wexler & Media Matters Staff

Published10/10/25

Updated10/10/25

Right-wing media claim that Portland’s protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement show a city “under siege” or “conquered by antifa,” but on-the-ground coverage, by both national media outlets and local media outlets, has revealed the opposite.

Multiple local broadcast outlets report that protests are relatively small and peaceful, with many demonstrators “in pajamas, sharing pastries, throwing a frisbee, and playing board games."

The Wall Street Journal reported that “a sergeant from the Portland Police Bureau filed his daily observations of the demonstrations outside an ICE facility. 'Saw 8 people out front and couldn’t even get one of them to flip me the bird,' he wrote. 'Very low energy.'”

In direct contrast to coverage from right-wing media, Portland residents and officials have emphasized that it's actually federal agents who have been engaging in “violent tactics” against protesters, including “shoving peaceful veterans and elderly people to the ground” and employing point-blank attacks with pepper spray and mace.

IFrame Content

Protests in Portland were described as “low energy” until Trump and right-wing media started claiming otherwise

---

---

// CRM, FASCISM

Right-wing media have long called for Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, he's now considering it

Written by Gideon Taaffe & Sage Hodil

Research contributions from Reed McMaster, Jane Lee & Alex Kaplan

Published 10/09/25 MMA

President Donald Trump recently suggested he may be willing to invoke the Insurrection Act as protests continue in Chicago and Portland against Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity and deployment of National Guard troops.

Right-wing media figures have called on Trump to use the law — which allows the military to be used for domestic law enforcement activities — in response to various demonstrations since at least as far back as 2020.

Conservative media figures endorsed using the act to “put down” Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 and “restore order” to cities where demonstrations were occurring. Starting in June of this year, right-wing media renewed their support for the act's use over anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles, and as similar protests broke out in Chicago and Portland, calls to “invoke” the act in Democratic-run cities grew.

Trump once again says he might invoke the Insurrection Act in Democratic-run cities

//

  1. ### As Trump sends the National Guard into US cities, right-wing media celebrate and call protests “an insurrection”

10/08/25 1:26 PM EDT

  1. ### Right-wing streamer calls for arrested protesters to be used for “compelled slave labor”

10/08/25 5:11 PM EDT

  1. ### On Newsmax, Benny Johnson claims Portland “has been conquered by antifa”

10/08/25

---

AN 10 25

White House advisers are now seriously weighing whether President Donald Trump might invoke the Insurrection Act — an obscure law from the early 1800s that permits the use of active-duty military troops within U.S. borders for law enforcement duties, NBC News reported Wednesday.

These talks coincide with Trump’s push to send National Guard units to several major cities, including Los Angeles, Chicago and Portland; under the pretext of fighting crime and protecting federal immigration agents from protesters.

One senior administration, who was not named, told the outlet that no decision to invoke the law is imminent. But, should the president do so, it would mark a major escalation.

Currently, the National Guard is used only in limited support roles — because under current law, active-duty troops generally cannot carry out tasks like searches or arrests.

The Insurrection Act, however, would allow such operations.

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

Trump has already encountered legal pushback.

In Oregon, a federal judge blocked his efforts to send Guard units from other states to Portland. Facing that hurdle, Trump publicly indicated he would use the Insurrection Act “if it was necessary.” As he put it, “If people were being killed, and courts were holding us up, or governors or mayors were holding us up, sure, I’d do that.” He added that, at present, “it hasn’t been needed.”

Meanwhile, the report led to criticism of the Trump administration online.

John Padora, a Democratic candidate for Congress, wrote on the social platform X: "America is no longer a healthy democracy — it’s a semi-functional autocracy unraveling in real time. Trump is deploying red state National Guards into blue cities, calling them 'war zones,' threatening governors, and openly talking about invoking the Insurrection Act if they dare defy him. He’s manufacturing crisis to justify authoritarian power — and possibly suspend the 2026 elections. This isn’t leadership. It’s deliberate chaos."

Anthony Kreis, a Constitutional law professor, wrote on X: "In an ordinary time, this would be an impeachable offense."

Journalist Bastian Brauns reacted to the news and wrote: "That would have far-reaching consequences…"

Derek Martin, a nonprofit leader, wrote: "While American families worry their health insurance premiums are about to explode, the President is focused on putting troops in your neighborhood to try and look like a tough guy."

"5 alarm fire, folks," wrote journalist Wajahat Ali on Bluesky.

"Military officers are morally and legally obligated to disobey any order that would violate the Constitution," author Everett Parrott posted to Bluesky. "Every general will be held accountable for their actions when this nightmare is over."

---

an 10 25

Inside Trump's plan to have red attack blue states — using a 200-year-old law

---

---

an 10 25

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem appeared to take a step toward circumventing federal laws that bar the military from taking part in domestic law enforcement in a letter she sent to the Department of Defense Sunday as the National Guard was deployed to Los Angeles amid mass protests over immigration raids.

In a letter obtained by The San Francisco Chronicle, Noem wrote to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that the Pentagon should direct military forces "to either detain, just as they would at any federal facility guarded by military, lawbreakers under Title 18 until they can be arrested and processed by federal law enforcement, or arrest them."

The Posse Comitatus Act prohibits the military from taking part in domestic law enforcement without the authorization of Congress.

Noem called on the DOD to "support to our law enforcement officers and agents across Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and Federal Protective Services (FPS), as they defend against invasive, violent, insurrectionist mobs that seek to protect invaders and military aged males belonging to identified foreign terrorist organizations, and who seek to prevent the deportation of criminal aliens."

Noem did not specify the so-called "identified foreign terrorist organizations" that she claimed are involved in the protests that have erupted in Los Angeles in recent days in response to raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), in which 118 immigrants were arrested last week.

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

President Donald Trump has referred to the protests against his mass deportation operation as "riots," and has claimed those attending the demonstrations are "insurrectionists," but the protests were reported to be "largely peaceful" before Trump ordered more than 2,000 members of the California National Guard to Los Angeles on Saturday.

On Monday, 700 Marines were also deployed.

Syracuse University law professor William Banks told the Chronicle that Noem's request for members of the military to arrest protesters whom she labeled "lawbreakers" could be a step toward "the invocation of the Insurrection Act."

The Insurrection Act was last invoked in 1992 when Los Angeles residents erupted in fury over the acquittal of four Los Angeles Police Department officers who had been filmed savagely beating Rodney King, a black man who they had pulled over after a high-speed chase.

The 1792 law authorizes the president to deploy military forces domestically to suppress rebellions or unrest, when local or state law enforcement is unable to control the situation.

But Stephen Dycus, a professor emeritus at Vermont Law and Graduate School and an expert in national security law, emphasized that local authorities did not appear to lose control of the protests over the weekend.

Noem's requests for military arrests, along with Trump's federalization of the National Guard and deployment of the Marines, "can be seen as using the military, or at a minimum using that threat, to instill fear in the American people and discourage the kinds of protests that are going on in Los Angeles," Dycus told the Chronicle. "So this could be viewed as a preparation for invoking the Insurrection Act, or it could be viewed as part of a larger effort to frighten people who otherwise would exercise their First Amendment guarantee of free speech and protest."

Banks called Noem's push for military detentions of Los Angeles residents "a grave escalation."

The secretary indicated in her letter to Hegseth that she would send a formal request in the coming days. She also called for "the transportation of munitions" from Fort Benning and Wyoming, but did not say what the weapons would be used for.

California state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-11) said Trump's use of the military to suppress protests—which began when ICE agents searched the garment district of Los Angeles for undocumented workers—proves his mass deportation campaign "has nothing to do with deporting criminals and everything to do with creating a militarized terror police state."

"This isn't what happens in a democracy," Wiener told the Chronicle, "this is what happens in a dictatorship."

---}:

---

AN 10 25 BADASH

National security, military, legal, and political experts are warning that President Donald Trump crossed a dangerous line in his latest speech — a televised, rally-style address to more than ten thousand U.S. Navy service members in which the Commander in Chief urged the troops to “take care of this little gnat that’s on our shoulder called the Democrats,” a statement many view as an authoritarian abuse of the military’s apolitical role.

“But we have to take care of this little gnat that’s on our shoulder, called the Democrats,” Trump told the cheering Navy crowd in Norfolk, Virginia, that included sailors, SEALs, and Marines. “They want to give all of our money to illegal aliens that pour into the country.”

The late Sunday afternoon event was slated as a celebration of the Navy’s 250th anniversary.

Juliette Kayyem is a senior public policy lecturer and the faculty director of the Homeland Security Project and the Security and Global Health Project at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, as well as a CNN senior national security analyst and a contributor to The Atlantic, according to her bio.

She wrote: “‘Take care of’ is not subtle. This weekend the ground has shifted and no person can deny what the president, unpopular and unfit, intends. To remain silent is to welcome this. They can both sides or claim they didn’t hear, but there is no wiggle room about his plans now.”

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

Political and national security analyst, and well-known veterans advocate Paul Rieckhoff called the President’s “gnat” remark “wrong, outrageous, shameful and disgusting.”

“These are lines that should never been crossed,” he warned. “And have never been crossed. But he keeps crossing them.”

“Never let them normalize how wrong it is to attack political opponents when speaking to a military audience,” Rieckhoff added. “This is impeachable behavior. But not a single member of Congress has the courage to make the case. And it’s getting worse fast.”

Stanford Professor of International Studies in Political Science Michael McFaul, a former U.S. Ambassador to Russia, remarked: “In front of this audience, this statement is wrong… and scary. He is supposed to be the president of the United States of ALL Americans, not just his party. Polarization is destroying our country at home and making us weaker abroad.”

Political and communications consultant Jesse C. Lee, a former Biden and Obama official, observed: “Trump is on a tour of speeches to our active military, telling them that the new focus is going to be on wars against the ‘enemy within’ and that Dems are bugs that need to be exterminated, while sending the National Guard to occupy ‘Democrat run cities.’ Textbook fascism.”

U.S. Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ) wrote: “Donald Trump keeps blurring the line between law enforcement and the military to go after political opponents. It’s unacceptable, and it’s how authoritarians consolidate power. We must name and resist every attempt to use government power to silence dissent.”

Gregg Nunziata is the executive director, Society for the Rule of Law, a Federalist Society member, and a former attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.

He wrote: “‘We have to take care of this little gnat on our shoulder called the Democrats,’ says the American President to cheering servicemembers. This is so incredibly repugnant and un-American, on so many levels, I don’t even know where to begin.”

Dave Cavell, a former speechwriter for President and First Lady Obama and Vice President Harris, remarked: “I’m a former WH speechwriter who has written many speeches to those who serve. I can barely describe the rage and shock I feel seeing this lunatic spew vile, fascist style garbage at our troops, whose mission is to serve us all, not a party — or this bozo.”

---

---

ILLINOIS JUDGE OK?

A Trump-appointed judge just demolished right-wing fearmongering about Portland

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 10/06/25 MMA

Fox News propagandists cheered last month when President Donald Trump directed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to send 200 National Guard troops to Portland, Oregon, claiming the move was necessary because, in host Jesse Watters’ words, the entire city “has been under siege by antifa for four months.” But a Trump-nominated federal judge blocked the deployment on Saturday, noting that protests in the city have been “small and uneventful” for months and writing that the president’s order “was simply untethered to the facts.”

After Trump deployed the National Guard to Washington, D.C., in August and suggested he would do the same in other U.S. cities, right-wing media spent September trying to turn Portland into the president’s next target. They created and fed the narrative that Portland is a “chaotic city” consumed by “civil insurrection” in which “every weekend is war.” While news reports from the city portrayed the protests as minor, MAGA pundit Steve Bannon told his audience, “Antifa's burning down Portland every night. … They've taken control of Portland.”

The president responded to the overheated commentary of his most zealous supporters. In a September 27 post to Truth Social, Trump ordered Hegseth to send troops to protect “War ravaged Portland” from “Antifa, and other domestic terrorists,” and claimed he was “authorizing Full Force, if necessary.”

But after Hegseth directed 200 members of the Oregon National Guard to the city over the objection of Gov. Tina Kotek, the state of Oregon and the city of Portland sued in federal court, arguing that the president had exceeded his legal and constitutional authority.

District Court Judge Karin Immergut — a stalwart of the GOP legal community who worked on Kenneth Starr’s investigation of President Bill Clinton, served as a U.S. attorney under President George W. Bush, and was nominated to the bench by Trump himself — agreed. On October 4, she issued a temporary restraining order which blocked the deployment.

Trump-appointed judge: Portland protests “were small and uneventful”

Immergut wrote in her ruling that Trump had not met the standard under the statutory authority he invoked, which only allows the president to federalize National Guard units in cases of invasion, rebellion, or when the federal government has been rendered otherwise unable to execute the law.

She explained that contrary to Trump’s depiction of the situation in Portland, her review determined: “As of September 27, 2025, it had been months since there was any sustained level of violent or disruptive protest activity in Portland. During this time frame, there were sporadic events requiring either PPB monitoring or federal law enforcement intervention, but overall, the protests were small and uneventful.”

The judge added that the federal government produced “only four incidents of protesters clashing with federal officers in the month of September preceding the federalization order,” calling these “inexcusable, but they are nowhere near the type of incidents that cannot be handled by regular law enforcement forces.”

She further wrote that the standard the federal government tried to set “would allow the President to call in the National Guard whenever one law enforcement office receives support from another office, which is a routine aspect of law enforcement activity. If the President could equate diversion of federal resources with his inability to execute federal law, then the President could send military troops virtually anywhere at any time.”

Immergut concluded that Trump lacked the statutory authority to federalize the guard in this case “because the situation on the ground belied an inability of federal law enforcement officers to execute federal law,” adding: “The President’s determination was simply untethered to the facts.”

That’s not how Fox presented Portland to its viewers

Fox hosts pulled out the stops to present the city as a violent hellhole crying out for the federal intervention the president had ordered.

“Left-wing terror is at record highs,” Watters declared on his September 29 broadcast. “They're shooting at Teslas, Trump, Charlie, and ICE. After sending in the Guard into L.A. and D.C., Trump is going for round three — Portland.”

“This weekend, he directed the secretary of war to send 200 National Guardsmen to protect war-ravaged Portland, and he is authorizing them to use full force if necessary, because federal facilities in Portland have been under siege since the start of the summer,” Watters continued, adding, “Every weekend, antifa has been on the warpath.”

Watters claimed two nights later: “Portland has been under siege by antifa for four months. The Guard is there to get things under control, but Portland Democrats say they want to deport the Guard because the protests are mostly peaceful.”

On September 29, host Laura Ingraham similarly claimed that Portland was “getting a dose of Trump-style safety” because an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility and “the areas around it have been under siege regularly in Oregon, and it continued this past weekend.” She added that Oregon was “rushing to court siding with criminals and against public safety.”

The same night, host Sean Hannity accused Oregon and Portland of “typical radical, predictable left-wing sanctuary state and city lies” because officials there supposedly won’t acknowledge that the “city’s on fire” and consumed by “a whole lot … of violence, lawlessness if you ask me.”

Their arguments are wildly overstated on the facts. But there’s so much more at stake, as Immergut pointed out in her ruling.

“This country has a longstanding and foundational tradition of resistance to government overreach, especially in the form of military intrusion into civil affairs,” she wrote. “This historical tradition boils down to a simple proposition: this is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law. Defendants have made a range of arguments that, if accepted, risk blurring the line between civil and military federal power—to the detriment of this nation.”

Fox’s star hosts apparently disagree, and are standing with Trump as he tries to send the nation hurtling toward martial law.

//

  1. ### Right-wing media cheer for Trump to deploy National Guard to other American cities after DC

08/14/25 10:52 AM EDT

  1. ### Right-wing media’s dystopian Portland coverage feeds into Trump’s threats to deploy National Guard

09/29/25 5:48 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox News' Kayleigh McEnany attempts to justify deployment of National Guard by declaring “a pretty clear rebellion” against the government

10/06/2

---

MMA

October 6, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Five

KAYLEIGH MCENANY (CO-HOST): When you look at the DOJ filing -- I bring my primary sources when I'm on with Jessica always -- the 169-page DOJ filing requesting an emergency filing to reverse that judge. What you find in it is this: their legal authority is 10 U.S.C 12406. They say in two cases Donald Trump can federalize the National Guard. One case: you're unable to implement the laws of the United States. You cited the laws of the United States. It's immigration law as passed by Congress. Unable to enforce that because ICE agents are being targeted.

Number two: you can federalize the Guard if there's a rebellion against the authority of the government. Well, ICE is government. There's a pretty clear rebellion against this authority. Go ask the Dallas ICE agents who were targeted with anti-ICE bullets. This is a rebellion against US government sources.

And also, what's interesting, you only have to get ten pages into this lawsuit, here's what you find, just to add to Jesse's list here. There's someone who wielded a firearm at ICE in Portland. There's an individual -- you mentioned the rocks, the sticks. Listen to this, officers have been bitten, kicked, shot with paintballs, threatened with a machete and a knife, and assaulted with potentially blinding lasers. The protesters literally lit a material on fire up against the courthouse and other protesters threw accelerants on the fire. That's just one fire, there was another fire too. That one was done with motor oil over the building in Portland ICE.

Donald Trump is on strong legal footing. I can't speak to the one federal judge. I think they're going to get reversed. The ninth circuit sided with Trump once, I think they'll do it again. You can't be biting ICE officers and lighting their building on fire.

---}:

---

an 9 25 random Eg

US President Donald Trump is on a losing streak this week. Just look at the latest judicial decisions challenging his policies, from mass deportations to tariffs to his troop deployments to US cities.

The courts are proving to be a significant check on Trump’s thirst for absolute power.

These cases illustrate the point:

Immigration

Over Labor Day weekend, Immigration and Customs Enforcement attempted to begin deporting up to 700 unaccompanied Guatemalan children. In the dead of night, the first children were loaded onto planes in south Texas. “These are unaccompanied children who do not have a parent or a guardian with them,” Efrén Olivares, an attorney representing the minors, said on the *Democracy Now!*news hour.

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

At 1:00 am on Sunday morning, Olivares and his colleagues filed an emergency complaint with the federal court in Washington, DC. Judge Sparkle Sooknanam was woken after 2:00 am, and by 4:00 am she issued a temporary restraining order blocking the deportations until the children had the immigration hearings to which they have a legal right.

Meanwhile in Texas, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, considered the nation’s most conservative, ruled that Trump’s use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport people was illegal.

Tariffs

The Appeals Court in Washington DC ruled that Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day” tariffs were illegal and unconstitutional, noting that only Congress has the power to impose tariffs. The ruling was “a sweeping decision that unequivocally rebukes President Trump’s idea that he can impose tariffs on American consumers on his own,” Neal Katyal, the attorney who argued the case, said on *Democracy Now!*

Domestic Deployment of the Military

Trump says, “We’re going in,” threatening to invade Chicago using, among other forces, the Texas National Guard.

But in California, a federal judge, invoking the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act that bars the use of military in domestic law enforcement, ruled in favor of Gov. Gavin Newsom, finding Trump’s deployment of the California National Guard to the streets of Los Angeles, along with several hundred US Marines, was illegal. Judge Charles Breyer, the brother of retired US Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, issued an injunction barring the Trump administration from “deploying, ordering, instructing, training, or using the National Guard currently deployed in California, and any military troops [from] engaging in arrests, apprehensions, searches, seizures, security patrols, traffic control, crowd control, riot control, evidence collection, interrogation, or acting as informants.”

These are just a few of the recent court cases that have rebuked Trump as he attempts to subvert the US Constitution.

We recently got a personal glimpse into what judicial wins over Trump look like. In the high mountain air of Telluride, Colorado, we had a chance to spend time with E. Jean Carroll, the renowned advice columnist and journalist. She was at the Telluride Film Festival for the premier of the new documentary, Ask E. Jean.

Carroll had a long and storied career as the advice columnist forElle Magazine, and has published several books. In recent years she became known as one of the most prominent women to accuse Donald Trump of sexual abuse, saying he raped her in the dressing room of the Bergdorf Goodman department store in the mid-1990s, in Manhattan.

The courts are playing a central role in opposing the lawless Trump administration, but the core of the resistance are people.

Carroll sued Trump in civil court, and a jury found him guilty of sexually abusing her. Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote, “Trump did in fact ‘rape’ Ms. Carroll as that term commonly is used and understood.” She was awarded a $5 million settlement from Trump. After the verdict, he called her a liar. She then sued for defamation, and won an additional jury award of $83.3 million.

Carroll cut an elegant figure, walking along Telluride’s main avenue with the sweeping Continental Divide as a backdrop. Her film premiered to rave reviews, and, should there remain a film distributor in this country not cowed by threats of lawsuits from Trump, it should be available for viewing by a wide audience. The film highlights the story of one courageous woman refusing to be defined as a victim of Donald Trump, providing inspiration, no doubt, to the hundreds of survivors of Trump’s old friend, the now-dead sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein. Many of them spoke this week outside the US Capitol, demanding the full release of the Epstein files. The Trump administration, which controls the files, is resisting.

Behind each lawsuit are impacted people, whether immigrant children pulled from their beds in the middle of the night and thrown on planes, or people standing up in the streets of LA confronting illegally deployed troops, whether sexual abuse survivors banding together, or federal workers fired en masse.

The courts are playing a central role in opposing the lawless Trump administration, but the core of the resistance are people–people at every level organized in opposition, defending democracy.

NOW READ:Trump's horrific cult contains the seeds of its own destruction

---

---

AN 9 25

'Why we mounted a revolution': Backlash as Johnson tells Dems to 'yield' to Trump

---

---

MMA

The Gateway Pundit's Joe Hoft calls for the National Guard to remove judges and “throw them behind bars”

Hoft: “You cannot have the rulings that these judges have and and be of a sound mind. And you're a criminal. And same with Jerome Powell.”

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published 09/05/25

Jim Hoft's website, The Gateway Pundit,“is one of the worst purveyors of false information on the internet.” The website — to which Hoft's brother, Joe, is a contributor — reportedly became “a favorite news source” of President Donald Trump after it “pushed false claims of a stolen election“ for years following the presidential election of 2020.

During Trump's second term, the website has enjoyed access to the administration. In August, Jim Hoft interviewed Vice President JD Vance, during which Vance said the far-right website was “so important,” and a Media Matters review found that White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called on The Gateway Pundit 5 times at press briefings during the first three months of Trump's second term, more than The Washington Post (4) or The Associated Press (3).

On September 3, Joe Hoft appeared on For the Love of Freedom with Danielle Walker and said that judges, who he alleges are “sabotaging our legal system,” and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell are “criminal” and need to be held accountable.

Video

Share

Citation

From the September 3, 2025, edition of For the Love of Freedom with Danielle Walker, streamed on Rumble

JOE HOFT (THE GATEWAY PUNDIT): We have to deal with our judges. We have to get rid of these corrupt judges. We have to remove them from office. If it means, in my opinion, and I don't care what people say, if it means we need to send the National Guard in to remove these people from their office and throw them behind bars, then we have to. These people are not working for the country. They are sabotaging our legal system, destroying it by making these judgments that are grabbed out of nowhere because the judge just is a radical, radical, nonethical, disgusting human being. I think the same thing with Jerome Powell.

...

The judges need to be removed from office, and I think it charged. They need to be, we need to hold them accountable. You cannot have the rulings that these judges have and and be of a sound mind. And you're a criminal. And same with Jerome Powell. He's costing this country a trillion dollars a year by not lowering these rates.

Trillion dollars to every, you know, split amongst all Americans. Trillion dollars because he won't lower those rates, which should be lowered significantly to the point that we'd save a trillion. And that would really help the economy. It helped the housing industry and all this. I don't know why real estate agents aren't screaming for this guy to lower the rates.

And he won't because he's a vile, disgusting human being. He did the same thing with Trump his first term, raised the rates, kept raising them, and just crashed the, almost crashed the economy himself. And so these kind of people, we just cannot allow them to continue. They're too damaging and the damage is too severe.

20-Plus Times Jim Hoft And The Gateway Pundit Were Absurdly Wrong

01/25/17

  1. ### Former Trump aide: “Gateway Pundit was one reliable place he knew he could go for validation, and maybe even some new ideas”

01/03/24 12:58 PM EST

  1. ### By the numbers: As Trump snubs legacy media, data shows his press briefings elevate right-wing outlets

04/25/25

---

---

an 8 25

Veterans and legal analysts say the Trump administration’s arrest of a former army sergeant and roadside bomb victim marks an escalation in the administration’s attacks on first amendment rights, reports the Guardian.

Officials arrested Afghanistan war veteran Bajun Mavalwalla II for “conspiracy to impede or injure officers” after joining a demonstration against federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Spokane, Washington.

“Here’s a guy who held a top-secret clearance and was privy to some of the most sensitive information we have, who served in a combat zone,” said Kenneth Koop, a retired colonel who trained the Afghan military and police during Mavalwalla’s deployment. “To see him treated like this really sticks in my craw.”

READ MORE: Emotionally damaged Trump is a born loser

The Guardian reports Mavalwalla was not among the more than two dozen people arrested at the scene of a June protest that left a government van with a broken windshield. Nevertheless, FBI officials arrived at the door of Mavalwalla and his Afghanistan war veteran wife one month later.

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

According to the indictment, Mavalwalla and his co-defendants “physically blocked the drive-way of the federal facility and/or physically pushed against officers despite orders to disburse and efforts to remove them from the property”.

Video shows Mavalwalla, who has no criminal record, locked arms with other demonstrators to block a gate.

Mavalwalla has pleaded not guilty, and the Guardian reports Richard Barker, the former acting US attorney for eastern Washington state, resigned before signing the arrest warrant.

READ MORE: The last straw for the Supreme Court could spell trouble for Trump

“I am grateful that I never had to sign an indictment or file a brief that I didn’t believe in,” Barker wrote on Linkedin.

However, replacing Barker is Trump-appointed acting US attorney Pete Serrano, which the Guardian reports as having filed an amicus briefat odds with the 14th amendment. Serrano also has no prosecutorial experience and has described Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol rioters as “political prisoners.”

Luis Miranda, former chief spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, told the Guardian Serrano appears willing to test the waters for Trump’s use of political detainment.

“He’s a test case to see how far they can go,” said Miranda.

Read the full Guardian report at this link.

---

---

MMA

Right-wing media insist DC residents “are very happy” with the National Guard deployment

A Washington Post poll found 8 in 10 DC residents oppose the National Guard policing the city

Written by Gideon Taaffe

Published 08/22/25

Right-wing media, especially Fox News, are pushing the narrative that Washington, D.C., residents “are feeling safe” and “are very happy” with the National Guard’s deployment to the capital while suggesting that “white liberals” and the national media are the only ones opposed. But recent polling shows that 8 in 10 residents oppose the Trump administration’s actions.

//

  1. ### Right-wing media cheer for Trump to deploy National Guard to other American cities after DC

08/14/25 10:52 AM EDT

  1. ### Laura Loomer wants ICE to livestream arrests for entertainment: “Make it exciting and show ICE agents tackling Juan and Jesus”

:{:{08/22/25}:

  1. ### Jesse Watters: “What Trump's doing in DC is a blueprint for every other city in the country”

08/21/25

---}:

last wd lawrence no dep cos ever spoke longer than vp 8 25

an 8 25

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller lashed out at Washington, D.C. residents protesting President Donald Trump’s takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department and his deployment of more than a thousand federal agents — including FBI, DEA, DHS, ATF, and ICE — to patrol the Capital’s streets. In striking remarks, Miller cast the demonstrators as white and the victims of crime as Black. His charges conflict with a new survey just released that shows the vast majority of D.C. residents oppose the Trump administration’s takeover and feel safe in their neighborhoods.

Miller told reporters that the people protesting the Trump administration’s federal takeover of the city’s streets are “elderly white hippies,” “stupid white hippies that all need to go home and take a nap because they’re all over 90 years old,” and, “crazy communists” who “have no roots, they have no connections to the city, they have no families they are raising in this city, they have no one that they are sending to school in this city, they have no jobs in this city, they have no connections to this community at all.”

Those people, Miller alleged, are “the ones who’ve been advocating for the one percent: the criminals, the killers, the rapists, the drug dealers.”

READ MORE: Trump’s Border Wall to Get $500M+ ‘Hot’ Makeover Experts Say Won’t Work

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

Whereas, Miller claimed, “residents who lived in Washington, D.C. their entire lives, their parents lived here, their grandparents lived here, and they have lived for generations in intolerable conditions of crime and decay.”

“There are hundreds of residents of this city who are shot in street violence every single year, making [it] one the most violent cities on planet Earth,” he claimed, which is not supported by evidence.

“And by the way, most of the citizens who live in Washington, D.C are Black,” Miller alleged, inaccurately. About 43 percent of D.C.’s residents are Black.

“This is not a city that has had any safety for its Black citizens, for generations,” he claimed. “And President Trump is the one who is fixing that with the support of the Metropolitan Police Department to support the National Guard and our federal law enforcement officers.”

“So we’re going to ignore these stupid white hippies that all need to go home and take a nap because they’re all over 90 years old, and we’re going to get back to the business of protecting the American people and the citizens of Washington, D.C.,” Miller said.

READ MORE: ‘They Want Control’: Pirro Slammed for Ending D.C. Rifle Law Enforcement

A damning Washington Post poll released Wednesday, however, found 79 percent of D.C. residents oppose Trump’s decision to take over the Metropolitan Police, and to deploy National Guard troops and federal law enforcement agents onto D.C. city streets.

“On Monday, Trump said Washington had been ‘the most unsafe place anywhere,’ but 78 percent of residents say they feel very or somewhat safe in their neighborhoods,” the Post reported.

Watch the video below or at this link.

---

---

an 8 25

Duty to disobey': A stunning number of US troops know they can defy Trump's orders

---

---

an 8 25

Salon Senior Writer Chauncey DeVega says President Donald Trump’s DC takeover is just Trump doing exactly what he’d planned to do all along.

“During the 2024 election, Donald Trump promised to be a dictator on ‘day one.’ Seven months after his return to power, he is earnestly expanding that promise,” writes DeVega.

Trump’s concerns about “law and order” in DC are “self-interested and wholly circumstantial,” said DeVega. He noted that Trump did not deploy the DC National Guard when an armed mob was laying siege to the U.S. Capitol in 2021 to try to help him hold on to power.

READ MORE: Trump's worst crimes and destructions haven't even happened yet

DeVega went on to write that, similar to other authoritarians, Trump is willing to manufacture statistics and public emergencies that do not exist. There is no crime emergency in the District of Columbia, he writes. Violent crime in DC is at a 30-year low, and is down another 26 percent so far this year.

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

But autocrats and demagogues use false claims of crime and disorder as pretexts to “declare a permanent state of emergency and to suspend the rule of law, along with civil rights and liberties," writes DeVega. Salon democracy expert Katherine Stewart called the tactic “one of the most frequently telegraphed stunts in the authoritarian canon.”

Trump’s war on the homeless and the poor is yet another example of an authoritarian at work, says DeVega, explaining that they are “human proof of how a government and its leaders have failed the people,” and they are “a form of narcissistic injury to an authoritarian who presents himself as being all-powerful and perfect.” He referenced Trump’s social media announcement of the DC takeover, in which he promised “Crime, Savagery, Filth, and Scum will DISAPPEAR. I will, MAKE OUR CAPITAL GREAT AGAIN!”

“Inconvenient” and “disposable” people must be removed or erased because “they are an affront to the Great Leader, the Party and the myth of national greatness,” says DeVega, adding it’s a category that “inevitably expands to include political ‘enemies.’”

READ MORE: 'Not plausible': Trump-appointed judge hands him major loss in court

DeVega added that simply “being American” may not be the antidote that political observers hope it will be.

Read DeVega's full Salon essay at this link.

---

---

an 8 25

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, presiding over a case in San Fransisco regarding President Donald Trump’s deployment of military forces to Los Angeles in June, pressed the Department of Justice (DOJ) for answers during the hearing Tuesday.

“Where are the limits? Where are the limits?” the judge repeatedly asked the DOJ, according to reporting by journalist Adam Klasfeld.

Breyer is hearing arguments to determine whether the Trump administration broke federal law by deploying National Guard troops and U.S. Marines to Los Angelesin response to June protests over immigration raids. The operation, which aimed to disperse demonstrators in Los Angeles against immigration raids, was criticized by legal experts.

READ MORE: Trump's worst crimes and destructions haven't even happened yet

During Tuesday's hearing, the judge emphasized the inherent danger of law enforcement, asking if that justified a carte blanche use of military force inside American cities. The DOJ lawyer, in seeking to defend the deployment, offered no clear boundaries, prompting concern about unchecked executive authority.

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

On the opposing side, California's legal team offered vehement objections. “There has been a standing army in Los Angeles for two months,” the state’s lawyer declared.

The attorney further argued forcefully for judicial intervention.

“Plaintiffs ask that the court issue a permanent injunction and bring a halt to the defendants’ military crusade across this state," she said.

READ MORE: 'Not plausible': Trump-appointed judge hands him major loss in court

California’s counsel also unpacked the layered symbolism behind the operation’s code name: Excalibur — “inspired by the sword of King Arthur,” she explained — symbolizing “kingship and divine right of rule.”

It was, she argued, a troubling emblem of the Trump administration’s mindset.

Roughly 250 National Guard personnel continue to be stationed in the Los Angeles region. The San Francisco trial has the potential to define boundaries on Trump’s power to activate the National Guard in the future — both within California and beyond.

---

08/12/2025

by

Kyle Mantyla

Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, said on Monday night that President Donald Trump is just getting warmed up when using federal agents and troops in Washington, D.C.

The far-right influencer, who has the ear of President Trump, called the Georgia lawmaker a “lying fake Christian whore.”

Being an antifeminist, it turns out, is no shield against abusive male power.

Donald Trump has faced an onslaught of criticism from opponents and Maga diehards alike, on issues such as Jeffrey Epstein, the war with Iran, and his steadfast alliance with Israel in the face of genocide. But among the ever dangerous far right, which has generally applauded Trump’s efforts to deport thousands of people a day, his actions of late have stirred rage among a group experts say has benefited greatly from his administration’s law-enforcement pivots.

Memes shared by the White House, DHS, and ICE have used catchy TikTok tunes to normalize mass deportation and Christian nationalist narratives. Experts say that’s the point.

What happens in politics is downstream of what happens in the church.

---

an 8 25

During a White House press conference on Monday, August 11, President Donald Trump promoted his plans to federalize law enforcement in Washington, D.C. Trump, in addition to employing federalized National Guard troops in the U.S. capital, is putting the D.C. Metropolitan Police under federal control.

Trump's critics fear that he will do the same thing in other U.S. cities with Democratic mayors, from Chicago to Philadelphia and Baltimore. Another possibility is New York City, which presently has a centrist Democratic mayor, Eric Adams, but could have a decidedly left-of-center mayor next year if Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani wins the city's mayoral race in November.

Trump is calling Mamdani a "communist," which is inaccurate: Mamdani, a New York State lawmaker, identifies as a "democratic socialist" along the lines of his allies, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), but is not an full-fledged communist like Cuba's Fidel Castro or the Soviet Union's Nikita Khruschev.

READ MORE: 'Not plausible': Trump-appointed judge hands him major loss in court

In an article published on August 12, Gothamist reporter Ben Feuerherd examines the possibility of Trump federalizing law enforcement in New York City. And according to legal experts interviewed by Gothamist, putting the New York Police Department (NYPD) under federal control would be more difficulty and complicated than what Trump is doing in Washington, D.C.

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

"The legal experts said Trump could deploy the National Guard under specific circumstances, as he did during immigration protests in Los Angeles earlier this year," Feuerherd explains. "During his first term, Trump also deployed federal agents to guard federal property and buildings during protests in cities like Portland, Oregon. But there is no clear legal path for him to take over a police department like New York's, which is not subject to the same federal control as Washington."

Former federal prosecutor John Fishwick told Gothamist that for Trump, "there is not a clear legal pathway to take over the New York City government."

But Lenni Benson, a New York Law School professor, fears that Trump cannot be trusted to play by the rules.

READ MORE: Trump's worst crimes and destructions haven't even happened yet

Benson told Gothamist. "Mr. Trump’s administration seems to do first and ask questions later. So, yes, I think we can be alarmed."

Benson noted that New York State has some federal lands that Trump could send federal agents to.

The law professor told Gothamist, "It could be a national park. It could be a waterway that is navigable and covered by the Army Corp of Engineers for safety. It could be our harbors."

READ MORE: 'Doddering old man': Trump’s Russia-Alaska blunder fuels concerns

*Read the full Gothamist article at this link.

---

---

an ah 8 25

As the Trump administration continues to push the boundaries of centuries-old constraints on domestic power, the Pentagon is reportedly developing a multi-million-dollar plan to create a “Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force”—armed with weapons and riot gear, ready to be deployed instantaneously to quell civil unrest anywhere in the nation.

An exclusive Washington Post report reveals that two National Guard teams of hundreds of troops, designed to be ready around the clock, would be stationed on opposite sides of the country, able to cross state lines on command.

“The plan calls for 600 troops to be on standby at all times so they can deploy in as little as one hour, the documents say. They would be split into two groups of 300 and stationed at military bases in Alabama and Arizona, with purview of regions east and west of the Mississippi River, respectively,” the Post reported on Tuesday.

READ MORE: Trump Melts Down Over Elizabeth Warren’s Accusations

The price tag? Potentially hundreds of millions of dollars.

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

The Post calls it “another potential expansion of President Donald Trump’s willingness to employ the armed forces on American soil,” and notes that once again, the Trump administration is on “shaky” legal ground.

Legal experts are warning against the plan.

“You don’t want to normalize routine military participation in law enforcement,” Joseph Nunn, an attorney at the Brennan Center for Justice, told the Post. “You don’t want to normalize routine domestic deployment.”

“When you have this tool waiting at your fingertips, you’re going to want to use it,” Nunn added. “It actually makes it more likely that you’re going to see domestic deployments — because why else have a task force?”

READ MORE: ‘All of Christ for All of Life’: Hegseth Under Fire for Endorsing Christian Nationalist

The news follows President Trump’s unprecedented decision on Monday to federalize the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police force to combat what he claims is out-of-control violence, despite the nation’s capital city having decreased violent crime by double digits in 2024 and again in the first half of 2025.

In response to the Post’s report on Tuesday, The Bulwark’s Bill Kristol noted, “So of course it’s not just D.C.”

Former constitutional law professor David Wemhoff, now the editor of The American Proposition, wrote that President Trump’s “purpose is to crush, fight Americans. He has no interest in fighting much less opposing China and Russia.”

“Ah, yes,” remarked former Trump national security official Miles Taylor, “nothing says ‘land of the free’ like a standing army ready to put down the people who disagree with you.”

Progressive researcher Derek Martin, formerly of the National Security Agency (NSA), commented: “President Trump is so afraid of protests he’s preparing to use the military to suppress them. Only tyrants think this way.”

---

---

NOEM SAYS REASON IS SOCIALIST LIBERATION

AN 6 25

Before her protective squad forcibly removed, detained, and handcuffed a sitting U.S. Senator asking a question at her Los Angeles press conference, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem delivered remarks that legal and political experts warn are explosive.

“We are not going away,” Secretary Noem vowed, regarding herself and her Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, other DHS operatives, and the U.S. Military, all of whom she promised would “continue to sustain and increase our operations in this city.”

“We are staying here to liberate this city from the socialist and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country here,” she declared, referring to Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom and Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.

Experts are once again sounding the alarm.

READ MORE: In Reversal, Trump Uses Term Tied to Ethnic Cleansing Amid Renewed Mass Deportation Demand

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

“I think the governor and mayor of Los Angeles are right,” declared U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA) on MSNBC on Thursday night. “I think they’re testing out their ability to essentially commandeer National Guards throughout the country, and use them for their own purposes.”

“One thing that got lost in the horrendous treatment of Alex Padilla today,” Schiff continued, “was what Kristi Noem said at that press conference in saying that it was necessary to have these troops there to ‘liberate’ the city from the socialists. That’s the kind of rhetoric the administration is using.”

He went on to say that “the fact that they would abuse the military that way and justify it that way is unconscionable.”

Other critics weighed in as well.

Quoting Secretary Noem’s remarks, Harvard University Professor Emeritus Laurence Tribe, a top constitutional law scholar, wrote: “Using military force to displace a democratically elected state government is called a coup.”

Former prosecutor and former Hill staffer Stephen Rodio remarked, “Trump’s regime is going to liberate us from the people that we elected to represent us.”

“Be clear on what she’s saying here,” wrote podcaster Joe Walsh, a former GOP Tea Party Congressman and now a Democrat and political commentator. “She’s saying that Trump is going to use the U.S. military to overthrow both the duly elected Mayor of Los Angeles & the Governor of California. I understand she’s not very bright, but, in essence, she’s saying the federal government has declared war on California.”

READ MORE: Democrats Demand Noem Testify After Handcuffing of US Senator Padilla

“Quiet Part Out Loud?” asked U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI). “Sounds a lot like she’s saying they’re there to liberate the city from its elected government."

Lincoln Project senior advisor Stuart Stevens also quoted Noem’s remarks, then wrote: “That’s a statement of intent of a coup, to ‘liberate’ a state from legally elected officials. Then armed men tackle and shackle one of those leaders. Nothing about we are here to arrest violent offenders and support law enforcement.”

“The declared purpose is to undo the choice of voters. Nothing like this has ever happened in modern America except the insurrection of Jan. 6th, which Noem supported, including her support for pardoning those who assaulted law enforcement.”

“Greeted as liberators, you say?” wrote Wall Street Journal reporter Alex Ward, appearing to echo former Bush 43 Vice President Dick Cheney’s fated 2003 Iraq War claim.

“Do the decent thing and resign, Noem,” urged former U.S, Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH). “The world is watching.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

---

---

MMA

August 11, 2025, edition of The Charlie Kirk Show, streamed on Rumble

CHARLIE KIRK (HOST): This is President Donald Trump saying once we liberate DC — and by the way, I guarantee the crime's gonna go whoop. It's gonna go way down.

And then the media will say, oh, it's only going down because he brought in the military. Exactly. We need full military occupation of these cities until the crime desists. Period.

We need a desisting of crime in our cities. We're not gooing to put up with it. I want to be able to walk Magnificent Mile in Chicago without having to look over my shoulder. Do you know crime is so bad in Chicago that if you get a fender bender — there's a new thing that the youths are doing. Remember, we have a big teenage problem of crime in our country, that teenagers will bang the back of your car as a fender bender. You come out to go trade insurance, and then they steal your car. In Chicago, the new guidance is that if you get a fender bender, drive to the nearest police station to trade insurance just in case they're there to steal your car. It's a real thing. It's happening all the time. By the way, get a burner. We advertise it all the time here on our program.

I don't want to live in that country. You shouldn't either. Simple fix. You steal a car, 25 years in prison. I don't care if you're a teenager. I don't care if — well, I was raised without a dad. Well, you're going to go meet a new dad in jail. We're done. We're not putting up with it. We need more prisons, and we need more prisoners.

:{:{Enough of this — and I honestly you know, I was once part of this whole prison reform thing. I look back at it, and I just cringe at myself. It's a totally wrong premise. We are soft on crime in this country. We need discipline. We need — honestly, we need the humiliation of criminals. We need order. You don't live in a nation if you can't walk the streets of San Francisco at night. You don't live in a country when young teenage girls can't walk the streets of LA. How is that a free society? You are appeasing the criminals.}:

Stop coddling criminals because they happen to be a protected class. We don't believe in protected classes anymore, by the way. We're done with that. Game over. No more protected classes. We are all citizens made in the image of God. Oh, you're protected class because, you know, different skin color. Wrong. That regime was defeated back in November. That whole worldview was gone. Over. Done. Kaput. Sayonara. Instead, a new worldview has ascended, which is we're not going to make accommodations for criminals. We're going through mass deportations. If you're Black and commit a crime, you go to jail. If you're white and you commit a crime, you go to jail. Human equality, doesn't matter. Doesn't matter your background. We are all treated equal under the law, and that is a biblical principle.}:

So once we liberate Washington DC, and we will liberate it. Now, again, I want to say, President Donald Trump, he's gotta go play to win here. The one piece of caution we'd have to say is that if we just kind of do this symbolically, we will lose. The criminals will win. We got to go hard. We gotta go big league. We're talking national guard, tanks — every street, you need military.

And if people are afraid, oh, well, Donald Trump is a fascist because he's bringing the military. Well, you're an anarchist. We're not fascist. We're order. Call them a name right back. You're an anarchist. You want the criminals, the thugs, the gang members, and the worst of society to run the streets of DC. We're not going to put up with it.

By the way, spare me the lecture. You guys militarized Washington DC after January 6, but you wouldn't move them a couple blocks north to the criminals because you acted as if, oh, all the people in on January 6 are the greatest threat ever because they went in with a pocket Constitution to go say a prayer in the US Capitol. Once we liberate DC, you better believe it — Chicago, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco. We got a big military. We should be willing to use it.

---

---

AN 6 25

NO LNX

Home | Trump just got a wake up call as he tries to escalate his war on defiance

Sabrina Haake, Raw Story June 15, 2025

Ever since he was ignominiously blocked from shooting George Floyd protesters, Donald Trump has been itching to sic the military on U.S. citizens. Seizing California’s National Guard and sending U.S. Marines into Los Angeles to deliberately escalate violence brings his long-festering fever dream closer to life.

Trump’s former Defense Secretary Mark Esper has recounted how, during a White House meeting in 2020, Trump looked at Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley and asked why he couldn’t just shoot protesters, adding, “It was (both) a suggestion and a formal question. And we were just all taken aback at that moment as this issue hung very heavily in the air.”

Milley pushed back on that suggestion and other illegal Trump impulses, eventually leading Trump to call for Milley’s execution and revoke his security detail. During Trump 1.0, Trump apparently suggested shooting protesters enough times that Esper issued a public statement opposing the use of the Insurrection Act against protesters, enraging Trump.

Trump made sure that would not happen again in his second administration by appointing a dangerously unqualified defense secretary with few moral qualms. As a Fox News host, Pete Hegseth echoed Trump’s desire to deploy the military against protesters. He defended war criminals who ‘killed the right people in the wrong ways,’ advocating “total war against our enemies… All of ’em, you stack bodies, and when it’s over, then you let the dust settle and you figure out who’s ahead.”

A trillion-dollar defense budget to kill whom, exactly?

Even though the U.S. is not at war, and Trump has shamefully abandoned our NATO military alliances, Hegseth waxes hard on “lethality,” and rails against “woke” laws that punish soldiers for indiscriminate killings. Trump/Hegseth seek a trillion-dollar defense budget, not to defend America from foreign enemies who are now Trump’s mentors, but to attack “enemies within,” i.e., Americans who oppose Trump’s agenda.

None of this, including Trump’s deliberate escalation of violence in LA, was unforeseen. Who can forget how Kamala Harris was panned as histrionic when she said Trump would sic the military on U.S. citizens, following his promise to do just that? In October, 2024, Trump said he’d use the military against the biggest threat to America — Americans who don’t support him.

“I think the (main problem we face) is the enemy from within,” Trump said, adding: “We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the big — and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen.”

Both he and Hegseth have already weeded out military officers who would honor their oaths to the Constitution over illegal orders from Trump. This week, Hegseth inadvertently confirmed that the military, under Trump, will become a domestic force when he testified before Congress, saying, “We’re entering another phase, especially under President Trump with his focus on the homeland, where the National Guard and Reserves become a critical component of how we secure that homeland.”

It’s galling that no congressman has connected the dots and asked about explosive military spending that Trump/Hegseth have signaled will be used against Americans.

Dubious legal grounds

As of this writing, Trump has not declared martial law, but recent Trump history, paired with his glaring mental illness, suggests it’s “when,” not “if.”

Trump’s plan to use troops to impose his domestic agenda is decidedly un-American. Today it includes deportations and manufacturing civil unrest; tomorrow, Trump’s goons will round up journalists who criticize him, judges, Democrats, and political opponents, as just happened Thursday when Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) was tackled to the ground for trying to ask Kristi Noem questions.

If you have any doubt, watch Trump’s illegal and partisan address at Ft. Bragg, where he led troops in uniform to wildly “boo” journalists, California’s governor, and LA’s mayor. If you have any lingering naivety, still hoping soldiers will honor their oaths and not follow America’s Hitler, that speech will erase it.

For now, Trump is acting in LA pursuant to a presidential memorandum deploying the National Guard under a rarely used federal law, 10U.S.C.§12406. Under that code, a president possesses the power to federalize the National Guard only when there is “a rebellion or danger of rebellion” against federal authority, or when the president cannot execute federal laws. As Trump sees it, this assessment depends on his own untrained and undisciplined opinion. Under that statute, however, the National Guard can only support other law enforcement officers and defend federal property.

The Posse Comitatus Act also remains in effect, prohibiting the use of the military as a domestic law enforcement agency, except in extraordinary circumstances not yet present in LA despite Trump’s best efforts. The Insurrection Act of 1807, the authority under which Hegseth sent active Marines to LA, is a broader set of statutes granting Trump the power to use military force in specific circumstances, including suppressing armed rebellion, civil disorder, or other extreme circumstances where the states are unable to maintain public order.

Gov. Gavin Newsom formally objected to Trump sending troops, because California in general, and LAPD in particular, have sufficient resources to maintain order. Newsom knows that when US Marines start shooting civilians, whether in LA, Chicago, or New York, violence will ratchet up to the necessary threshold to circumvent Posse Comitatus and allow Trump to declare martial law.

Sabrina Haake is a 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her columns are found @ Alternet, Chicago Tribune, Howey Political Report, Indiana Democrats’ Kernel of Truth, Inside Indiana Business, MSN, Out South Florida, Raw Story,Salon,Smart News, South Florida Gay News, State Affairs, and Windy City Times. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

---

AN 6 25

In his 2022 book "The Next Civil War: Dispatches from the American Future," Canadian journalist/author Stephen Marche argued that the U.S. was on its way to becoming a far-right dictatorship. And his view of the United States' political environment hasn't grown any more optimistic since then.

Marche, in an op-ed published by The Guardian on June 16, points to the weekend of June 14-15 as a troubling demonstration of the "political violence" that is accelerating in the U.S. And he views President Donald Trump's military/birthday parade as an example of threatening imagery.

"Do not confuse Trump's debased parade with a joke or an innocent piece of entertainment," Marche warns. "The Trump parade took place in the immediate aftermath of the assassination of Melissa Hortman, a Minnesota state representative. While it was underway, security forces were firing teargas on protesters in Los Angeles. Violence is coming to define American political life — spectacular violence, including the parade and real violence like the assassination of Hortman."

READ MORE:'We held our ground: CA health clinic describes close encounter with Trump's agents

Marche continues, "Political destabilization is arriving far too quickly to be perceived in its entirety. So much is happening so fast that it’s impossible to keep track of the decline. Increasingly, the question is becoming: when are we going to start calling this what it is?"

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

According to Marche, "American political life" is "moving away from discourse altogether."

"Don't like what the senators of the other party are saying? Handcuff them," Marche laments. "Don't like protestors? Send in the Marines. Don't like the makeup of the House of Representatives in Minnesota? Kill the top Democrat."

The Canadian journalist/author adds, "The political purpose of the parade, from Trump's point of view, was to demonstrate his mastery of the means of violence. He needed to show, to the military and to the American people both, that he can make the army do what he tells it, and established traditions and the rule of law will not alter his will. But the primary effect of the parade was to demonstrate an immense weakness, in Trump and in the American people."

READ MORE:Trump and the 2020 election: We’re witnessing the rewriting of history in the making

*Stephen Marche's full op-ed for The Guardian is available at this link.

---

---

AN 6 25

In a high-stakes emergency hearing Thursday in the case of Newsom v. Trump, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer raised sharp constitutional questions about President Donald Trump’s deployment of the National Guard and potential activation of U.S. Marines in response to unrest in California.

The hearing, held under expedited circumstances, addressed California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) challenge to Trump’s recent order deploying military forces without what the state argues was the legally required coordination with the governor.

Breyer opened the session with pointed observations about the constitutional stakes of the dispute, according to Politico reporter Kyle Cheney, who detailed the proceedings in a thread on the social platform X.

READ MORE: ‘Changes Are Coming!’: Trump Appears Stunned to Learn Farms Rely on Undocumented Workers

"How is that different than what a monarchist does?" he asked.

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

"He says certain things, he finds certain things, he does certain things. That’s not where we live. We live in response to a monarchy … the Constitution is a document of limitations."

Breyer expressed appreciation for the expedited briefings from both parties, calling the matter “very serious” and “weighty,” and said he intends to act quickly given the urgency.

Central to the hearing was the Department of Justice’s argument that the president’s determination of a “rebellion” or “danger of rebellion” is not subject to judicial review. Breyer appeared skeptical of that claim."That’s the difference between a Constitutional government and King George,” the judge said.

READ MORE: ‘Mouthpiece for the Kremlin’: Rubio Scorched for ‘Russia Day’ Congratulations

“It’s not that a leader can simply say something and it becomes it."He also focused on the statutory requirement that any order federalizing the National Guard “shall” be issued “through” the governor of the affected state.

Breyer questioned whether Trump met that requirement."I'm trying to figure out how something is ‘through’ somebody if in fact you didn’t give it to him," he said, signaling doubts that the administration followed proper legal channels in bypassing Newsom.

However, Breyer also raised questions for the state. While California attorneys warned that U.S. Marines are expected to arrive in Los Angeles within 24 hours, Breyer noted that, at present, no such deployment had occurred."I just sort of don’t think that’s my business," he said, referring to the Marines’ involvement, but added that it might become relevant if and when troops are deployed.

---

MMA

Right-wing media call for “overwhelming force” and arrests in LA protests

Written by Chloe Simon & Reed McMaster

Published 06/12/25

Protests in Los Angeles have been ongoing as Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids continue to target migrant communities. In response, right-wing media have urged the Trump administration and law enforcement to crack down harder on protesters, called for Democratic officials to be arrested, and suggested the protesters were funded by outside groups.

Fox News host Laura Ingraham and others encouraged President Donald Trump to employ the Insurrection Act against protesters while Daily Wire host Matt Walsh said Trump should use “overwhelming force.” Fox host Sean Hannity and War Room host Steve Bannon have called for arrests of Democratic officials, and The Daily Caller blamed a “Pro-Chinese Communist Millionaire” for funding the protests.

Protests erupted after the Trump administration conducted ICE raids in LA and sent in troops

---

---

AN 6 25

Military and political experts, veterans, and journalists are condemning President Donald Trump’s political rally at Fort Bragg on Tuesday, warning he crossed a critical line by delivering overtly political and authoritarian-themed remarks before U.S. Army troops. They also expressed alarm that uniformed soldiers appeared at ease booing his political opponents—another troubling breach of military norms. Some now say the time has come for generals to publicly speak out.}:

The commander in chief entered the event to "Hail to the Chief," and as he took to the stage, his "MAGA anthem," "Proud to Be an American," played. For nearly one hour, in about 9,000 words, Trump delivered a political stump speech. He attacked his political opposition, Democrats, including President Joe Biden and his administration, California Governor Gavin Newsom ("Newscum") and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass. He attacked transgender Americans. He attacked the Democratic U.S. Senators who opposed the nomination of Pete Hegseth for Defense Secretary, calling them "a very hostile group of people that I think really don't want to see America be great again."

He got the soldiers to boo "the fake news" media, and President Joe Biden. He told them the 2020 election was "rigged and stolen."

READ MORE: ‘Show. Us. The. Plan.’: Pentagon Chief Ripped for Dodging Budget Details in Heated Hearing

He attacked the people in Los Angeles protesting his deportation policies, describing it as "anarchy," while telling the soldiers that defending their civil rights was not the reason Americans fought overseas:

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

"Generations of army heroes did not shed their blood on distant shores only to watch our country be destroyed by invasion and third world lawlessness here at home like is happening in California. As Commander in chief, I will not let that happen. It's never going to happen. What you're witnessing in California is a full-blown assault on peace, on public order and on national sovereignty carried out by rioters bearing foreign flags with the aim of continuing a foreign invasion of our country."

He thanked the generals, and mentioned some by name. He talked about "the real generals," as opposed to the ones Americans see on television.

Critics are warning of grave consequences.

"This is the most unacceptable and egregious politicization of our troops we’ve ever seen," wrote veterans' activist Paul Rieckhoff, an Army combat veteran, responding to video of Trump getting the soldiers to boo the press, President Joe Biden, and the mayor of Los Angeles.

Trump goaded active duty troops at his Fort Bragg speech to boo:

The Media, Gov. Gavin Newsom, Mayor Karen Bass, and Joe Biden pic.twitter.com/1v9amsi7rv

— The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) June 10, 2025

"And it’s not a one off. It’s a strategy," added Rieckhoff, who is also the founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA). "And one we’ll see in full and dangerous display this weekend at his military birthday parade for himself. Trump wants the world to think our great military is HIS military. And wants to coerce and manipulate troops into making them think it is too. And driving down their public trust and approval by the minute. Trump has created America’s greatest civil-military relations crisis since the Civil War. And it’s just getting started."

Retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel Alexander Vindman, a former Director of European Affairs for the National Security Council (NSC), warned: "America’s Generals and Admirals are terrified. They are cowed. They seem unlikely to hold the line and live up to their oaths to serve the U.S. Constitution."

Lamenting that "the Generals stay silent," he added: "Our democracy is in great danger. This morning I wonder if we crossed a line and there’s no going back."

Army combat veteran Fred Wellman, a graduate of West Point and the Harvard Kennedy School who is now the host of the podcast “On Democracy.” responded to Vindman by saying, "The silence is deafening."

READ MORE: Trump Mixes Up World Wars, Days, Civil Rights in Latest Remarks

Retired U.S Army lieutenant general Russel L. Honoré, who served as the commander of Joint Task Force Katrina, blasted Trump's speech: "Damn @POTUS Speech At #FortBraggwas inappropriate, criticizing previous administration, and Generals while speaking to troops , I never witnessed that S..t like this in 37 years in Uniform."

Author and former Under Secretary of State Richard Stengel observed, "Unlike other militaries, American soldiers do not swear an oath to the state, or a person, or a monarch, but to the Constitution. Trump calls them 'his' military—but they are ours, and they swear to 'support and defend the Constitution,' not one man."

Tom Nichols, a retired U.S. Naval War College professor and Russia expert, at The Atlantic targeted the generals for staying silent.

He wrote, "senior officers of the United States military have an obligation to speak up and be leaders. Where is the Army chief of staff, General Randy George? Will he speak truth to the commander in chief and put a stop to the assault on the integrity of his troops? Where is the commander of the airborne troops, Lieutenant General Gregory Anderson, or even Colonel Chad Mixon, the base commander?"

"Where is the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Dan Caine? He was personally selected by Trump to be America’s most senior military officer. Will he tell the man who promoted him that what he did today was obscene?"

Retired U.S. Army General Barry McCaffrey, often seen on cable news, called Trump's speech "a disgraceful politicization of the active Armed Forces. He is the Commander in Chief. The only loyalty of the Armed Forces is to the Constitution. Their focus is on protecting America from foreign enemies. Grave danger."

Watch the video above or at this link.

RELATED: ‘Doesn’t Even Know Who He’s Talking to’: Newsom Scorches Trump Over Military Deployment

---}:

---

an 6 25

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem reportedly requested that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth grant law enforcement powers—including the authority to detain and arrest—to the thousands of military troops President Donald Trump deployed to Los Angeles to suppress anti-deportation protests. Such powers are typically barred under federal law, and experts warn the move marks another step toward the administration invoking the Insurrection Act.

In a memo, Secretary Noem alleged protestors included "invasive, violent, insurrectionist mobs that seek to protect invaders and military aged males belonging to identified foreign terrorist organizations, and who seek to prevent the deportation of criminal aliens,” as the San Francisco Chronicle first reported.

"The military is generally barred under federal laws from taking part in domestic law enforcement. Noem’s request may be a step toward the administration sidestepping those laws by invoking the Insurrection Act, two legal experts said in interviews," the Chronicle added.

RELATED: ‘Looking for an Excuse’: Trump Under Fire for Violent Slogan as He Sends Marines to LA

Syracuse University Professor of Law Emeritus William Banks told the Chronicle that Noem's move is "a grave escalation" that "may presage the invocation of the Insurrection Act.” Professor Banks is an internationally recognized scholar on constitutional law, national security and counterterrorism law, as well as emergency powers and government surveillance and privacy, according to his biography.

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

Secretary Noem also requested “drone surveillance support” and weapons and logistics assistance. President Donald Trump has ordered 700 U.S. Marines and federalized up to 4,000 National Guard troops to go to Los Angeles to help tamp down the protests.

The Associated Press on Monday suggested the protest area itself was small: “Protests over the president’s immigration crackdown spared much of Los Angeles from violence. Weekend clashes swept through several downtown blocks and a handful of other places.”

Other experts weighed in as well.

READ MORE: House Republicans Quietly Slip Anti-LGBTQ ‘Religious Freedom’ Clause Into Funding Bill

Vermont Law and Graduate School professor emeritus Stephen Dycus, an expert in national security law and the Insurrection Act, told the Chronicle that "this could be viewed as a preparation for invoking the Insurrection Act, or it could be viewed as part of a larger effort to frighten people who otherwise would exercise their first amendment guarantee of free speech and protest.”

California Democratic state Senator Tom Umberg, a retired Army colonel and JAG officer, "said he found the letter’s requests alarming."

“It looks like a preparation for a military assault,” Umberg said. “This looks like a subterfuge to create some sort of rationale for some sort of invocation of the Insurrection Act.”

Attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, an immigration expert and senior fellow at the American Immigration Council explained that the "reason that there is civil unrest in multiple cities throughout the country is because the Trump administration ordered ICE to engage in near-indiscriminate arrests, rounding up otherwise law-abiding people with no criminal records."

Political scientist Dr. Norman Ornstein, a contributing editor for the Atlantic, wrote, "this is a prelude to invoking the insurrection act and declaring martial law."

READ MORE: ‘Completely Obliterated’: Trump Claims LA Saved From Ruin by His National Guard Action

---

---

rww

06/09/2025

by

Kyle Mantyla

President Donald Trump weighed in Monday on the war of words between his Border Czar Tom Homan and California Governor Gavin Newsom (D).

The president wants protesters in masks to be taken into custody, but immigration enforcement agents in masks are apparently fine.

It’s all war all the time inside Steve Bannon’s War Room in Capitol Hill. “We’re in the Third World War,” he tells me. “And it’s a battlefield that’s everywhere, including in downtown Los Angeles.” The weekend’s riots in LA, he insists, are part of an orchestrated push by nefarious forces in America to stoke civil unrest in America.

During his June 9 broadcast, Charlie Kirk used a chart sourced to the white nationalist organization American Renaissance.

When the events of January 6th roared into US history, many in the crowds that stormed the Capitol that day hoisted an unusual flag like it was the Jolly Roger. While the Appeal to Heaven flag, a green pine tree on a field of white, was originally used during the American Revolution, in recent years it’s been repurposed as the de facto battle flag of the neo-Charismatic movement known as the New Apostolic Reformation. And the man primarily responsible for this transformation is a leader of this dynamic movement, Apostle Dutch Sheets of South Carolina.

The tech billionaire is backing Trump’s response to the clashes between protesters and immigration officials in Los Angeles.

---

---

AHA STRICT FR MACHO BS FASCISM

ice PROTESTS LA

mma

  1. ### Sean Hannity says Gavin Newsom “should be arrested”

:{:{06/09/25 }:

  1. ### OutKick's Dan Dakich says Simone Biles “showed her stupidity” by defending trans inclusion in sports

:{:{06/09/25}:

  1. ### While calling for the military to be deployed to Los Angeles, Charlie Kirk uses a chart sourced to a white nationalist website

:{:{06/09/25}:

  1. ### Theo Von calls AI provision in GOP's One Big Beautiful Bill “really sketchy”

:{:{06/09/25}:

  1. ### Laura Loomer praises Chinese government for recognizing “the threat of Islam”

:{:{06/09/25}:

  1. ### Charlie Kirk responding to protests in Los Angeles: “We must be unafraid to declare the Insurrection Act of 1807”

:{:{06/09/25}:

  1. ### Steve Bannon calls for the arrest of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass

:{:{06/09/25}:

  1. ### Sean Hannity calls for mandatory military service for every American

:{:{06/04/25}:

---

an 6 25

During the June 7-8 weekend, major media outlets in the United States shifted their focus from what had been their biggest story a few days earlier — President Donald Trump's bitter feud with Tesla/SpaceX leader Elon Musk — to the tensions in Downtown Los Angeles, which has been rocked by large protests in response to immigration raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.

Trump, according to California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, crossed a dangerous line when he ordered 2000 California National Guardian troops to the area. And Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is threatening to deploy 500 active-duty U.S. Marines.

California National Guard troops, Trump's critics say, shouldn't be ordered in response to the protests by anyone but Newsom — and only if the California government decides it is necessary.

READ MORE: Trump's latest move is a danger to all of us

One of Trump's critics on the right is conservative New York Times columnist David French.

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

In his June 8 column, French points to the unrest in L.A. as an example of how dangerously unstable the United States has become.

"It's hard to avoid the conclusion that the Trump Administration is spoiling for a fight on America's streets," the Never Trump conservative warns. "On Saturday, (June 7),after a protest against Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests degenerated into violence, the administration reacted as if the country were on the brink of war. The violence was unacceptable. Civil disobedience is honorable; violence is beyond the pale. But so far, thankfully, the violence has been localized and, crucially, well within the capacity of state and city officials to manage."

French notes that Newsom described Trump's actions as a "serious breach of state sovereignty" and that California "possesses immense resources to deal with urban unrest."

READ MORE:'Can't you just shoot them?' Inside Trump's threat to deal with 'radical left thugs' in America

"If the (Trump) Administration, in its sole discretion, believes that this first, limited deployment is insufficient, then it will escalate," French warns. "It will shout 'Insurrection!' and 'Migrant invasion!' to justify more military control and perhaps the invocation of the Insurrection Act. As I wrote before, the Insurrection Act’s dangerously broad language gives the president all the legal authority he needs to put tens of thousands of troops in the nation’s streets…. It’s too early to declare a constitutional crisis, and in any case, debating the label we attach to any new event can distract us from focusing fully on the event itself."

French continues, "But each new day brings us fresh evidence of a deeply troubling trend: America is no longer a stable country, and it is growing less stable by the day."

READ MORE:'Not heading anywhere good': NYT reporter sounds alarm on Trump's military move in LA

*David French's full New York Times column is available at this link (subscription required).

---

---

In February, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth fired the Air Force’s and Army’s top judge advocates general (JAGs). Last month, he commissioned his personal lawyer as a Navy JAG. He is nowreportedly paving the way to make major changes within the JAG Corps—including how military lawyers advise on the law of war and prosecute those who violate it. These moves raise concerns that the JAG Corps could be compromised by partisan appointments and bad faith interpretations of the law, with wide-ranging consequences for how the U.S. military conducts operations and disciplines personnel.

Secretary Hegseth and the JAGs

On the evening of Feb. 21, President Trump fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, C.Q. Brown, the chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Lisa Franchetti, and the vice chief of staff of the Air Force, Gen. Jim Slife. On the same night, without any notification, Secretary Hegseth cut the top two uniformed lawyers of the Air Force and Army (referred to as “TJAGs”), Lt. Gen. Charles L. Plummer and LTG Gen. Joseph B. Berger III, respectively—the Navy position, previously filled by Vice Admiral Christopher French (retired as Rear Admiral), is currently filled by Acting Judge Advocate General Rear Admiral Reynolds. In what was described as the Defense Department’s “Friday night massacre,” many_ commentators_ were more alarmed by Hegseth’s removal of the TJAGs than the president’s firing of the chairman. The actions taken were also unprecedented—no secretary of defense in recent memory has targeted JAGs in this way.

As described by experts, judge advocates, like other servicemembers, fill non-partisan roles. The thousands of lawyers serving in the JAG Corps are tasked with providing independent, neutral, and fact-based legal advice on domestic and international law across the rank and file, up to the highest-level commanders. Under 10 U.S.C, no officer or Department of Defense employee—political or career—may interfere with the ability of JAGs to give independent legal advice.

In firing the TJAGs, Hegseth did not point to any misconduct to justify his decision. His only stated reasons were that he considered the TJAGs not “well-suited” for the job, and he wanted to avoid “roadblocks to orders that are given by a commander in chief.” While troubling for him to imply that only loyalists to the president should be in these positions, the secretary’s public statements prior to assuming his post made plain that he views military lawyers as obstructionists and the laws they advise on, including the Geneva Conventions, as outdated and too restrictive. To illustrate his opinion of military lawyers, in his book he recalled a time during his military service when he used a degrading te_rm_—“jagoffs”—to describe them.

Further changes are also reportedly afoot. On March 7, the secretary commissioned his personal lawyer of the last eight years, Timothy Parlatore, to be a Navy commander in the JAG Corps as a reservist. The New York Times reports that Parlatore is assigned to a unit serving the secretary of defense and will “focus on improving how the military’s uniformed lawyers are trained.” After the commissioning, the Guardian reported that once Hegseth replaces the TJAGs, he is planning a “sweeping overhaul” of the entire JAG Corps. Parlatore is picked to oversee this effort, reportedly aimed at ensuring more expansive legal interpretations to ensure greater latitude for battlefield tactics and more leniency toward service members who commit war crimes.

JAGs as Advisers and Prosecutors

Based on his statements, Hegseth appears to consider JAGs as problematic in two ways: (a) in their role as legal advisers to servicemembers in the field and secretaries of the military departments and (b) as prosecutors of servicemembers accused of violating the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), a body of laws that govern the military justice system, particularly when it comes to law of war violations. His objection does not appear to be with any single individual, but rather, with the entire profession; in fulfilling these roles as advisers and prosecutors, he views JAGs as interfering with efficient war-fighting, or, as he describes it, a “warrior’s ethos.”

*JAGs as Advisers

Hegseth has questioned the JAG’s role in providing advice in the context of the battlefield. He has argued that applying “restrictive” rules of engagement makes it difficult to “defeat our enemies.” His ad hominem attack in his book occurred in the context of a presentation from a JAG on the rules of engagement when launching a rocket-propelled grenade. Hegseth claimed the protocols described were “going to get people killed.” With the February firings, the secretary also questioned the TJAGs’ role in advising the secretaries of the military departments, describing them as potential “roadblocks” to orders from the president.

There are a few separate issues to parse here.

First, it is important to clarify that JAGs generally do not play a decision-making role. JAGs act as advisers to commanders and civilian officials who make critical decisions for the U.S. military, such as the development of battlefield strategy and the military’s rules of engagement (which include layers of policy in addition to bare minimum legal requirements). Even though JAGs advise on questions about how the Geneva Conventions are interpreted, those questions are ultimately answered by civilian lawyers and policymakers.

Second, JAGs are only roadblocks insofar as their professional role is to stop illegality. For example, on the battlefield, JAGs fill an important role in advising on the laws that constrain militaries and combatants, such as mitigating harm to civilians, refraining from inflicting unnecessary suffering, and providing protections to prisoners of war. In the Pentagon, JAGs fill the critical role of providing legal advice on the domestic and legal implications of the actions of the Department. U.S. officials have long understood that compliance with the law, including the law of war, protects in many ways, e.g., from criminal prosecution and in maintaining legitimacy. The institutionalized legal advice across the Defense Department only acts as an obstacle to unlawful acts.

Third, the record shows that the U.S. military is perfectly capable of fighting wars with JAGs in place to support the military’s compliance with U.S. law and related policies. In the conflicts that followed the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. military has fought wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Libya, Yemen, and Pakistan; conducted annual security cooperation exercises and trainings with dozens of foreign forces around the globe; carried out secret missions with U.S. special forces; supported law enforcement on the southern border; and much more.

*JAGs as Prosecutors

Secretary Hegseth has also expressed disdain for JAGs who prosecute service members returning from tours in war zones. As a Fox News host, he publicly and privately lobbied President Trump during his first term to clear three service members accused of or prosecuted for war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Trump pardoned_ _two of them and reversed a third’s demotion. One of those service members was Eddie Gallagher, a Navy Seal (represented by Hegseth’s current attorney, Timothy Parlatore) accused of executing civilians, including stabbing to death a teenaged ISIS prisoner (“Good story behind this. Got him with my hunting knife.” he texted a friend. He later claimed that the teenager was going to die and that his unit had planned to “do medical treatments on him until he’s gone”.) After an about-face on the stand from one of the key witnesses in his unit, Gallagher was acquitted of most charges, but found guilty of taking a photo with a corpse in violation of the UCMJ.

Based on statements from Hegseth, he considers these kinds of war crimes prosecutions to be “second guessing” servicemembers, an action equivalent to “throwing them under the bus” after they come home from war. He believes that “the benefit of the doubt should go to the guys pulling the trigger” and said that the Navy was “on a witch hunt against Eddie Gallagher” for not killing “ISIS in the way they want him to.”

This perspective, if extended across the board, would be a recipe for rampant impunity for U.S. troops who commit war crimes, encouraging further violations.

Potential Consequences of Hegseth’s Actions

The Friday night firing of the TJAGs and the reported preparation to overhaul the JAG Corps and review the Defense Department’s law of war interpretations could curtail legal review of military actions, with serious consequences.

First, if the secretary of defense is willing to fire the highest ranking JAGs to ensure Defense Department leadership receives legal advice that doesn’t interfere with his agenda, it could well have a chilling effect on the JAGs whose independent and principled legal advice might impede the administration’s policy preferences. If the firings, coupled with statements from the secretary about JAGs and the law, chill advice during military operations, it will almost surely lead to more law of war violations.

Second, Hegseth’s civilian general counsel is likely to channel the secretary’s impulses to loosen rules on civilian protection. JAGs have traditionally seen the law of war as protective of U.S. interests and therefore have resisted novel or watered-down interpretations. Losing the independent advice of JAGs means losing an important advocate for that perspective on the law of war.

Third, strong lawyers could be critically important during the coming period for precisely the reason that Hegseth has suggested they need to be removed: It could be a very precarious time in terms of the legality of the things the military is asked to do. These could include domestic actions that would seem to run afoul of the Posse Comitatus Act. Or they might involve international actions that the president has at various times entertained that the military would have to carry out—such as using force to take Greenland; taking military action against Iran; striking drug cartels in Mexico; or seizing control of the Panama Canal. Having credible JAGs in place may not have much impact on whether the military is ultimately used on these missions, but it at least can help ensure that commanders have sound legal advice when they make crucial decisions about missions.

Finally, and perhaps most troubling, if the secretary is firing JAGs now—before they offer legal advice on any issue of consequence—it sends a message that even the most principled TJAGs likely will not thwart this administration if it is determined to take illegal action.

A new administration has the right to effectuate its own lawful policies, which can include firing and hiring lawyers. But the manner in which this happened at the Department of Defense was unprecedented. And it raises concerns that what Secretary Hegseth wants is not good lawyering, but instead carte blanche. That would be detrimental for the soldiers who might have to carry out unlawful orders, the country they represent, and the innocent people who could, as a result, lose the few protections afforded them amid the brutality of war.

---

---

AN 4 25

On Monday, President Donald Trump issued a new executive order just shy of the 100th day of his second term that has some experts and academics sounding the alarm.

Trump's new order, which is entitled "Strengthening and Unleashing America's Law Enforcement to Pursue Criminals and Protect Innocent Citizens," makes various declarations about the administration's commitment to supporting law enforcement professionals in the opening paragraphs. However, one section further down specifically mentions the U.S. military and the administration's intent to have enlisted service members participate in civilian law enforcement actions.

"Within 90 days of the date of this order, the Attorney General and the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security and the heads of agencies as appropriate, shall increase the provision of excess military and national security assets in local jurisdictions to assist State and local law enforcement ... [and] shall determine how military and national security assets, training, non-lethal capabilities, and personnel can most effectively be utilized to prevent crime."

READ MORE:'Terrible idea': Republican senator slams Mike Johnson's 'dishonesty'

"The Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall utilize the Homeland Security Task Forces (HSTFs) formed in accordance with Executive Order 14159 of January 20, 2025 (Protecting the American People Against Invasion) to coordinate and advance the objectives of this order," the order continued.

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

IFrame Content

That section in particular prompted Lead Matthew Noe, who is the lead collection & knowledge management librarian at Harvard Medical School, to call the order "legitimately frightening." Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-based writer Susan Keiser posted to Bluesky: "Serious Question: Is this martial law[?]" Former criminal defense investigator Andrew H. Sowards responded to the order by simply declaring: "Not good."

"We're already a police state," Daily Beast columnist David Rothkopf skeeted (the accepted term for Bluesky posts). "But now, thanks to this EO, moreso."

Deploying the U.S. military within American borders to act as a police force would be a direct violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, which is a 143 year-old law prohibiting the president from ordering the military to double as law enforcement. As the Brennan Center for Justice explained in 2021, Congress passed the law during Reconstruction in order to prevent the military from being used to enforce Jim Crow laws in former Confederate states after the Civil War. Additionally, deploying the military to conduct law enforcement activity violates parts of the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution — which were ratified in direct response to the British military's abuse of colonists prior to the Revolutionary War.

READ MORE:'Destroyed for no reason': Trump fires would-be mom hour after she nabs foster parent slot

Click here to read the full executive order.

---

---

https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/liz-crokin-the-coronavirus-is-cover-for-the-military-to-make-mass-arrests/

right-wing “journalist” and Trump–worshiping conspiracy theorist Liz Crokin posteda video on YouTube last night in which she declared that the current coronavirus outbreak is really just a cover for the Trump administration to carry out the mass arrests long promised by conspiracy theorists.

Like her friend and fellow conspiracy theorist Mark Taylor, who suggested the same thing earlier this week, Crokin is an ardent believer in the QAnon conspiracy theory, which posits that President Donald Trump has been working diligently to arrest countless prominent political, media, and business leaders for allegedly being part of a global satanic pedophile ring.

In early 2019, Crokin publicly declared that if the mass arrests long promised by “Q” did not happen by the end of the year, she would “bow out” of the movement and “move on” with her life. The arrests never happened, but Crokin refused to give up, and she is now claiming that the coronavirus outbreak may really be cover for them to finally occur.

“I do believe that when these mass arrests happen that we will be in martial law for our own safety,”Crokin said. “I believe that the coronavirus, which the president of the United States and many doctors have said is no more serious than the flu, is the cover to put the country into lockdown—just like Italy is in lockdown—to possibly declare martial law, get people off the streets, keep them in their homes, so they’re safe so when the military and the National Guard sweeps in and conducts these mass arrests, it is done in a manner where people are kept safe.”

“Since 2017, Q has been talking about these mass arrests, and Q has also been talking about how when these mass arrests happen, there will probably be many days of darkness, social media might go down, the National Guard is going to come in, and the military will be used to arrest these people,” she added. “That is what I believe is happening right now.”

related no lnx

MARCH 18, 2019 12:51 PM

Liz Crokin: College Admissions Scandal Proves QAnon’s ‘Mass Arrests Are Happening’

FEBRUARY 4, 2019 2:04 PM

Liz Crokin Warns of ‘Vigilante Justice’ if QAnon’s Promised Mass Arrests Don’t Happen Soon

JANUARY 30, 2019 11:28 AM

Liz Crokin Says She’ll ‘Have to Bow Out’ of QAnon Movement if ‘Mass Arrests Don’t Happen This Year’

JULY 9, 2018 10:49 AM

Liz Crokin: Trump Has Confirmed That ‘Pizzgate Is Real

---

---