Haven’t had a cup of coffee yet and heading to a business meeting. But I have to get this out.
Demonstrations broke out in the Los Angeles area on Friday and continued on yesterday. The rioting aims to interfere with ICE lawfully and necessarily removing illegal immigrants from the area. The law enforcement has intensified its raids seeking people who are in the U.S. illegally. There is no justification for rioting ever in response to lawful government acts, but this rioting is particularly noxious. Not only are the rioters protesting legitimate law enforcement and interfering with it, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department has said protesters have exhibited “violent behavior” and that “intervention became necessary.”
- President Trump is sending in the National Guard. Good. If California’s anti-American, super-woke incompetents won’t keep the peace, than he should, strongly and without hesitation. I’m sure the Axis will call this decision “autocratic.” The correct word is “responsible.”
- Classic: The New York Times headline is “Trump Is Calling Up National Guard Troops Under a Rarely Used Law.” Fascists pounce! The law is rarely used because American citizens do not often riot against legitimate law enforcement, and most state and local elected officials won’t sit back and let it happen. The news is the riots, not that the President has acted appropriately to stop them.
-
“President Trump bypassed the authority of Gov. Gavin Newsom to call up 2,000 National Guard troops to quell immigration protests” is the Times subhead. Deceit, lies and propaganda. Newsom wasn’t doing anything; his authority was ‘bypassed” because he isn’t doing his job. The National Guard is there to stop rioting, not to “quell protests.” The issue isn’t “immigration,” the issue is enforcing the law against illegal immigration.
- Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said the National Guard’s presence would “not be helpful.”Why would anyone pay attention to what Karen Bass says or thinks after her fiasco avoiding her duties and lying about it when the city started burning?
- Apparent, the Crazy Left is determined to die on the open borders hill. Wonderful. Last week, Boston’s progressive mayor called ICE the equivalent of the Gustapo. The people who lead the Democratic Party want these riots.
More later, after I wake up…
Ethics Alarms 
I read that if this doesn’t do it, the Marines from camp Pendleton might be next.
And again, GOOD.
Please don’t tip off the Democrats that immigration law enforcement was why they lost the election. They can keep losing elections for years if they don’t figure it out.
Good point. (Morons.)
Arresting rioters in LA would most likely be a fools errand as the left-wing administration plus courts will most likely release them soon. Deploying overwhelming physical violence against the rioters so they are in the hospital for months may be more effective….if Trump has the guts and stamina to do it.
I could comment all day long.
1. Many mayors and state governors treat the riots like something that might go wrong and damage their political career no matter what.
DO NOTHING–you look weak, indecisive, intolerant, the riot gets worse.
CALL UP THE NATIONAL GUARD–this can result in escalation, snipers and firefights, you end up looking bad because more people got injured and killed than if you hadn’t called up the National Guard. If there are no guardsmen out there, they can’t end up shooting, making you look bad, like a modern day Atilla the Hun.
Thomas Sowell even has a *bon mot* about this issue. Either two things happen, according to analysis by journalists after the riot is over. In every riot one of two things happen, predictably…
Either
1. the authorities over-reacted, and came down too hard,
or
2. The authorities “let things get out of control.”
After the fact, that’s the standard analysis. many authorities feel like they are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. This particular analysis predates the BLM / George Floyd riots of 2020–it’s an older perspective that I have just laid out.
NEW TOPIC
It seems that in this particular case Trump is initially asking the National Guard to provide logistical support and security for the ICE forces, not for “riot control” broadly speaking.
That is safer, because it’s not clear that most National Guard units have good training in crowd control. I don’t know much of anything about this, but ideally you have trained troops with helmets, shields, batons, tear gas, good leadership, and familiarity with non-lethal measures.
Speaking of lethal measures…
I would like to raise explicitly the issue of “fire control.” I’m just a civilian bookworm, but my sense is that many duly authorized forces put into an urban riot setting with firearms and live ammo do not have good “fire control.” To restate, under stress and provocation they sometimes start shooting when they shouldn’t. On an unlucky day, a few men who have been called up and posted to the riot zone begin shooting when provoked and others start shooting by contagion, using live ammo, sometimes emptying their entire magazines, sometimes with an imperfect knowledge of what they are shooting at.
Sometime in the last few years I was reading a history of the American Revolution and it was claimed that George Washington described the issue 250 years ago. Militia were good for many things, but their fire control was miserable. Regular army was demonstrably better in that regard.
So, it’s nothing new.
Regular army forces who have gone through basic training, and perhaps additional training, tend to have better fire control. They are less likely to fire impulsively and with poor control when under stress.
I believe it is in the book _Murder in America_ by Roger Lane, toward the end of the book, that the issue of fire control is discussed for riot control during the big “race riots” of the late 1960s (Watts, Detroit, Newark, Cleveland, etc). I think that’s where I read it. He claims that army units acquitted themselves well, national guard units not so much.
Post riot investigations concluded that most fatalities in the Cleveland riot were from Guardsman firing impulsively, if I recall correctly.
That’s all for this post–I will end abruptly.
charles w abbott
rochester NY
Either
1. the authorities over-reacted, and came down too hard,
or
2. The authorities “let things get out of control.”
After the fact, that’s the standard analysis. many authorities feel like they are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
The danger of this is that this situation leads to analysis/paralysis and dithering on the side of the authorities, and the rioters win. This happened with the BLM riots.
So in order to win the authorities need to pick a strategy and stick with that strategy by staying firm and determined, control the narrative, and retain support of the majority of public. This is why the J6 riots went so bad for the J6 rioters, and also explains why the Charlottesville protests was a major PR disaster for the alt-right, and for DJT.
So if DJT wants to play hard-ball by bringing in the National Guard, he better makes sure that he has important media such as Fox News on his side, and that no blunders are made such as killing of innocents by the National Guard. At this moment the majority of the electorate supports Trump on immigration, so he has room to go full throttle on the rioters. If that means that the inner cities of blue cities are filled with tear gas, with Antifa types being shunted off to jail, hospital, or even the morgue, I can live with that. I would rather be front row to that gladiator fight than see a repeat of BLM riots where the rioters controlled the city instead of law enforcement.
I do think DJT has anything to win with a timid approach. A timid approach means that the rioters win, and will send the message that Trump’s immigration policies can be defeated by resistance and activism. This will encourage the Democrats to continue with their current policies, and depress the Trump voters. So if the Trump wants good election results for the GOP in 2026 and 2028 he has no other choice than to deliver the goods to the electorate, and waltz over the resistance no matter how ugly the optics may be.
Despite the bloodthirsty and vulgar attitude of the blogger James LaFond, he provides insights into the problems of crowd control, specifically the vulnerability of light civilian automobiles. I provide the following link solely because of the tactical insights provided from his observations of the Baltimore riots some years ago.
tl, dr: don’t expect your car to protect you during an urban riot, even though you be a police officer.
https://www.jameslafond.com/your-blazing-chariot
National Review reports some of Trump’s tweets, including this:
>> “These Radical Left protests, by instigators and often paid troublemakers, will NOT BE >> TOLERATED,” he added. “Also, from now on, MASKS WILL NOT BE ALLOWED to be
>> worn at protests. What do these people have to hide, and why??? Again, thank you to >> the National Guard for a job well done!”
= – = – = – =
I am happy to hear that President Trump has explicitly mentioned the mask issue.
It is only from Steve Sailer that I learned that there are various “anti-masking statutes” on the books in the US, some of them dating back to the Reconstruction era, and some from anti-KKK legislation in the 1960s.
How did it happen that suddenly after COVID we were led to consider it normal to see crowds of masked protestors (or rioters)? I think it’s similar to the “everyone has to stay home and isolate…well, maybe we can make an exception for a Black Lives Matter protest because racism is a public health issue.”
I would like to see some consistent enforcement of laws against masking. Actually, I would like to see some consistent enforcement of most of our laws.
= – = – = – = – =
That reminds me of a nice essay by the prolific John McGinnis at Law and Liberty.
It’s hard to summarize, so here’s much of the first paragraph:
>>”Elections are not only about holding office-holders accountable but about holding >> the electorate accountable. Citizens will be held responsible for their votes by the >>consequences of the choices made by the representatives they elect. Voter >>responsibility will become most clear when these decisions are the worst.”
https://lawliberty.org/holding-voters-accountable/
FWIW, Lefties on X are claiming this video shows an ICE vehicle “running over” a protester:
FWIW, Lefties on X are claiming this video shows an ICE vehicle “running over” a protester:
^^^^ Accidentally hit enter; here’s the vid: https://x.com/i/status/1931123382076010983
Obviously it shows a protester continuing to position himself in front of, and push against, the slow-moving ICE vehicle, as it repeatedly tries to avoid him. The pedestrian slips and falls at one point, hitting his head on the pavement, and the driver backs up and goes around him.
Please delete all the extra posts…no idea how that occurred.
i just thought you really, really wanted us to see that Lefties on X are claiming that video shows an ICE vehicle “running over” a protester.
Who knows? Not me; we never lost control.
Looks like the referenced vid got disappeared, too. Here it is:
https://x.com/i/status/1931123382076010983