700 Marines to Los Angeles
The coup continues step by step.
The U.S. military will temporarily deploy about 700 Marines to Los Angeles until more National Guard troops can arrive, marking another escalation in President Donald Trump’s response to street protests over his aggressive immigration policies.
The U.S. Northern Command said a battalion would be sent to help protect federal property and personnel until more National Guard troops could reach the scene. For now, the Trump administration was not invoking the Insurrection Act, which would allow troops to directly participate in civilian law enforcement, according to a U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity.
For now. One step at a time.
Trump said on Monday he felt he had no choice but to order the deployment to prevent acts of violence from spiraling out of control.
He supported a suggestion by his border czar that California Governor Gavin Newsom be arrested, after the Democrat said California was suing to block deployment of the National Guard.
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U.S. Marines have been deployed domestically for major disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the September 11, 2001, attacks. They are known for being “first in, last out” in U.S. military interventions abroad, but it is extremely rare for U.S. military troops to be used for domestic policing matters.
So naturally Trump does it. He thinks he knows better than everyone.
Federal law allows the president to deploy the Guard if the nation is invaded, if there is “rebellion or danger of rebellion,” or the president is “unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.” California’s suit accuses Trump of exceeding his authority under the statute and asks a court to declare his actions as unlawful.
He does it because it’s unlawful. He’s determined to break every law he can, the way dogs are determined to piss on every tree and bush and rock they can. He wants to own us.
Trump wants to make sure the spiraling violence is under his control.
Did Newsom show up at a border somewhere, doing something illegal? If not, this isn’t a “suggestion” the “border czar” should be making. I’m guessing it’s within Newsom’s duties as Governor, to bring exactly the sort of suit against the federal Executive Branch as he’s planning. Coup indeed.
I think it’s too late to call it a coup; that moment passed long ago, when Congress and the Courts failed to rein in Trump and Musk.
There was an attempted coup on January 6 2021, when the Coup Leader, aka The Prez, issued orders to ensure the National Guard were not called out to deal with the rioters. The coup succeeded when, after 4 years in office, the lazy Dems failed to prosecute not just the low level footsoldiers, but the instigators and leaders. Their failure then has led to the USA today, a collapsing kleptocracy sliding into fascism.
I don’t think it was laziness that prevented prosecution. I don’t know what to call it though.
“… that moment passed long ago, when Congress and the Courts failed to rein in Trump and Musk.”
The moment passed when the people — totally aware of who Trump is, inundated with unprecedented amounts of information about him — engaged with their system and voted, unambiguously, for the felon-liar-fraud-rapist anyway. It’s a self-immolation.
An excess of caution?
Rev, Congress impeached him twice. I think it’s unfair to blame everything on the Democrats. Biden moved cautiously, because he didn’t want to do what Trump is threatening to do – arrest his political opponent. He wanted to make sure there was evidence =, reliable evidence, to support the arrest. Even with all that, a lot of people out there are convinced it was only politics, and that Biden was just getting revenge.
It isn’t the Democrats that messed up; it is the system. The system keeps things from moving. The system allows unqualified plutocrats to occupy the White House.
The fact is, half of the voters in this country hate the other half. A lot of people believe that the people they hate are taking over and are leading us into communism, or worse. They believe a country where those who are not white males get equal consideration with white males has moved away from god’s law (which only they know correctly). They believe that a former presidential candidate was running a pedophile sex ring in the basement of a pizza parlor. They believe there are Jewish lasers attacking us from space. They believe a lot of things without evidence, and want to hurt people.
Trump promises to break things. The electorate (half of it, anyway) wants things broken. They want to rebuild it in their own image, which, believe me, is not a pretty image.
The country is broken. There have been cracks for a long time, perhaps since the beginning. The Constitution relies on integrity and the good will of the president to work. There are no qualifications for being president except you must be over 35, and born in the US. All of these things taken together mean that the system is easily broken, and not so easily put back together.
Blame who you like, but blaming the Democrats for this is the lazy way out, in my opinion. They continue to run elections as though policy matters, as though people care about the constitution, and as though the average voter is going to vote for the candidate who will be the best for the country. Meanwhile, they are accused of not understanding the common man. Maybe they don’t…but the Republicans hate the common man, and he still votes for them.
Iknklast:
Ultimately, democracy depends on the sensibility of the general population and their ability to elect someone they like, which IMHO is the way it should be. No Platonic philosopher-kings.
The downside is that the system can yield a billionaire ignoramus. We, the people as a whole, get the politicians we deserve. (NB: Abe Lincoln was, in his formative years, completely self-educated.)
I am against formal qualifications for politicians, even though the cost can be having to put up with the occasional half-educated megalomaniac. Which is why I also think that politicians should be appointed as jurors are appointed. And as we know, the power of jurors is definitely non-trivial. Particularly in the US.
iknklast, points all taken, and I will defer to your opinions as being far closer to the coal face than I. I am observing as an outsider from a long way off.
Perhaps it is as simply as someone else put it recently – the Rethuglicans are single minded whereas the Dems are a broad church that must balance too many competing interests.
Whichever is true, the USA is certainly on a rapid road to nowhere, and as much as I’d like to see Trump hanging by his heels from a lampost, that isn’t the world any of us want.