Transcript
Speaker: Hello and lowend welcome to Sips and Substance, where we distill politics down to its essence. I'm Justin and we have Jonathan over here. so And he's back from vacation. what was that? Epic road trip across the the entire almost the entire eastern half of the country. We went from Colorado to visiting relatives in Ohio and then all the way to New York to visit my kids and then back to Ohio to visit more relatives.
Speaker: um We saw... excuse me, a lot of the country. um And both sides of the, both parts of the country. We went through a lot of Trump country, a lot of blue state kind of stuff.
Speaker: Had some interesting interesting experiences just getting back out into parts of the country I'm not in very often anymore. And ate a lot of good food as well. And brought back a couple of beers, beers for you today.
Speaker: um What I've got today are a couple fruited sours from Urban Artifact, in Cincinnati that made their way home with me in the back of the Jeep. Anyway, this one is a mango fruited sour.
Speaker: And then this one is their flagship gadget, which is a berry fruited sour. um These are kettle sours, meaning they're not they theyre they're sort of brighter than like a barrel-aged sour.
Speaker: Barrel-aged stuff has a lot of interesting flavors, but the way they go approach with the fruit, the fruit is very forward. um When I first, when someone first told me about it, I didn't think I'd like it because they use ridiculous amounts of fruit, but it's really a lot of fruit, but it's not sweet because it's a sour. it's It's balanced perfectly. So you get a ton of fruit and you get the sour coming back at the back end so it doesn't overwhelm you.
Speaker: So if you like fruited sours, if you can find Urban Artifact, great stuff. Lots of other good ones out there. Good stuff for the summer because it it's not too sweet, but it's a little lighter than some of the heavy stouts and double IPAs that are better in the wintertime, I think.
Speaker: Well, while you were gone on vacation, a lot of stuff has happened. Oh, yes. We're here to cover it. This week, we're mainly going to focus on what's been going on in Los Angeles with the protests slash riots and how Trump has brought in the National Guard.
Speaker: And that's a very strange thing to say that Trump brought in the National Guard because it's usually the governor. Don't forget, he also brought in the actual Marines. Yes. Yeah. So that'll be for our main segment.
Speaker: But we want to do some quick hits because there's been a lot of stuff that's been going on. So, you know, the first one that we're going to cover is the Musk versus Trump spat, so to speak, the Boulder terrorism, the ah RFK firing ah the entire vaccine panel and Israel versus Iran.
Speaker: So let's start off with Musk versus Trump. Well, yeah, as both of us have said to each other a number of times, this is like the least surprising development in the history of developments, right?
Speaker: These two guys are... whatever you want to call them, the right likes to call them two alpha males. I'm like, really? you think either one of these guys has ever been in a fight? I'm going to doubt that, at least not on the winning end of a fight. You never know, but I'm skeptical. I don't know. Musk versus Scott Besant, based on the reports. yeah And somebody showed up with a black eye, and it wasn't Scott Besant.
Speaker: yeah So there you go. According to Musk, he was beaten up by his five-year-old. So... Neither one of those makes him look particularly tough. But in any case, these two guys that insist on having their own way and pitch a fit when they don't pitch the fit at each other when they didn't each get their own way.
Speaker: um I can't say I'm surprised. I'm enjoying watching the fallout. I guess we'll see where it goes. Yeah. And like you said, this was sort of inevitable from like an ego standpoint. you had the richest man in the world, the most powerful man in the world.
Speaker: But we... talked about the cracks in the coalition early on when they had the H-1B fight, where Steve Bannon and the diehard MAGA wing, they are much more, say, you know white nationalist.
Speaker: They don't like immigrants at all. They just want everything to be America, America, America. Whereas the tech bros, as we like to call them, they're much more pragmatic. right They look at the Trump administration and that they see Trump as a conduit for their own power.
Speaker: They want to go all out on crypto. They want to go all out on AI. And they love just making a shit ton of money. And to help them do that, they need a lot of H-1B visas because America doesn't have enough engineers.
Speaker: Yep. And, you know, also... They get their they their common god cause in the idea of, hey, we don't want regulation. Hey, you don't like regulation. This works. Right. um But when things start not falling in everybody's favor, like Musk gets all upset at the at the new big, beautiful bill, then they realize, you know, we have were sort of allies of convenience and maybe I'll start my own political party. And then things go wherever they go from here.
Speaker: But really, we probably should spend no more time than necessary talking about the the travails of poor Elon and Donald as they as they have their little lover's quarrel. The thing that really caught me by surprise on this trip was my first or second day of the trip.
Speaker: And you sent me a text is like, oh, there's terrorism. And you're where you're where you're from. Like, what? like There's terrorism in Boulder, Colorado. And it's just it it was ridiculous. And it was completely offensive. This ah illegal immigrant, of all things, drove up from Colorado Springs. And I'm sure people are are familiar with it, but torched people on the courthouse steps. this They have this ah weekly march where they're marching California.
Speaker: just to remind people that there's hostages in Israel. um And Boulder, for some reason, well, i kind of know why, been being as left as it is attracts nut jobs from all over who want to come kill people in Boulder.
Speaker: but We had this, we had the King Super shooting, um neither committed by people from Boulder. People want to come both to to Boulder because they don't like the idea of Boulder. um And it's it's horrifying and frightening and disgusting.
Speaker: um I'm sorry, we we weren't back in time, or I would have actually gone to the the the demonstration that they had on Sunday the sort of remind people that, you know what, you can't intimidate all of us just because you want to pick on a small group, right?
Speaker: um And just to let, it's just, it's very frustrating. um It's also very frustrating that Donald Trump is trying to use anti-Semitism to bolster whatever bullshit he's doing, right? When the real anti-Semitism is this kind of anti-Semitism that happens more often than not, at least in my experience, in liberal communities, right? We had this in Boulder, the Tree of Life synagogue shooting um in Pittsburgh, right? Where, oddly enough, I lived there as well in my life.
Speaker: um But it's just anti-Semitism is a real problem. And to pretend that it's this that it's just something that for him to have his political attacks on say Harvard for and Columbia and all these other schools, it just really diminishes the issue and really makes it you know less important than it ought to be.
Speaker: very Very well said. So your favorite cabinet secretary of all time, RFK Jr. i wish I could say, you know, I was wrong. He's turned out to be a fine cabinet secretary and I was just running around like chicken little, you know, saying the sky is falling, but yeah,
Speaker: Whatever he could possibly do to be a pain in the ass and a scourge on this country, he's figuring it out. He's now fired every single vaccine expert on the CDC committee and by now started to replace them. He's replaced them with a couple reasonable people and a couple of flat out vaccine skeptics.
Speaker: And then Senator Cassidy, though, he's on the job. He's gone full ah Susan Collins on it. He's concerned. and And he's he's going to talk to Kennedy because Kennedy promised him, one, he wouldn't do this. but it did.
Speaker: um And that it's going to make sure that the medical evidence is the medical professionals are still valued, which I don't know. um it's It's ridiculous to to let this lunatic destroy public health in this country is just unbelievable.
Speaker: But here we are. Hate to say it, but elections have consequences. And, you know, if the adults in the room, which is supposed to be the U.S. Senate, if they don't do their job,
Speaker: well, then the presidency and all the underlings beneath him are just going to have free reign. And unfortunately, it seems like when they don't do their job, but rather than if at this point, because they, they, they've shown absolutely zero willingness to stand up to Trump.
Speaker: I mean, we have RFK, they confirmed him. So it's right.
Speaker: And the last quick hit that we want to talk about is Israel versus Iran. And, You know, this is very early on in the current phase of the conflict. And I'm sure we'll have another episode in the future once more things have happened.
Speaker: But as of last night, Israel engaged in a preventative attack. And this is a very strange word to use because Israel has been saying preemptive, preemptive.
Speaker: Right. Because they're saying that because they want us to believe that Iran was going to do something to them if they didn't do this. And it gives them some legal cover. They're trying to compare it to their attack in 1967. Right.
Speaker: um Which I actually done research on that and presented a paper to our justice, our judge ah from the world court, um Justice Schwebel, way back in grad school. So I did a lot of research on the international law around these kind of things.
Speaker: And the two situations, Very, very, very different. Imminent threat versus ah potentially down the road could be an issue. um the one The one caveat we have to give our watchers to is that we're going to be very careful to keep this a quick hit because think both of us have a propensity to want to talk a lot about this in a way that we we could get mired into it very deeply as we were doing before we got started.
Speaker: So as you said, we're going to come back this because this is a big deal, especially for us and the impacts on us as we go forward. But as you said, we don't know yet. right right Right now, all we know is that Israel is attacked, Iran is countered, and Israel said, oh, you've crossed some red line because some of your bombs fell in civilian areas, which seems a little rich right now, um based on what Israel's been up to lately.
Speaker: um But in any case, right um we don't know how far how this is going to go. We do know that Israel has done a lot of damage to Iran's military infrastructure around Iran.
Speaker: bill processing nuclear material and possibly building a nuclear weapon. um They seem to have not been able to hit the deep underground bunkers, but they've also killed a number of high-ranking Iranian military officials.
Speaker: So they've done some damage to Iran. What this ultimately means is is up for debate. I'm of a mind that this, to me, is another example of Israel's strategy of tactics.
Speaker: When they think, well, we are stronger than them, we can do something to them, and that will be good because we've done something to them. Whether or not they you they've done something, on the other hand, that's, hey, we have delayed them from getting a nuclear weapon, and in the interim, we can do something productive to help stall that.
Speaker: I hope they've got something like that in mind. I'm doubtful they are. They do, though. um So I'm not very sanguine about the chances for this to have an important long-term impact for peace and stability in the Middle East.
Speaker: Yeah. And to circle back on the preventative action, you know allegedly there's been intelligence suggesting that Iran has enriched enough uranium to actually build the nuclear weapons. So they're in the bomb building phase now.
Speaker: The IAEA, which is the international nuclear watchdog, they've said that Iran is not in compliance. But again, This is very early on. you know we We would like to see additional independent verification if we are going to get involved in this war. But Iran is fundamentally in much weaker position, right? mean, we talked about this previously.
Speaker: Hezbollah is severely weakened. They lost Assad as an ally in Syria. And Trump has been pretty aggressive towards the i Iranians.
Speaker: So it remains to be seen what happens in the future, because so far the response, given the gravity of the attack by Israel, has been rather tepid. ah from the Iranian perspective.
Speaker: you know I don't want to jinx it. you know that that's we We don't want war to escalate and have tens of thousands of people die. We also don't want terrorist attacks around the world by Iranian proxies. And so let's hope we don't get there. But you know back a moment to the preemptive attack stuff.
Speaker: um Traditionally, in international law, that applies to imminent threat. Right. So if Iran was, say, powering up missiles, ready to getting in into launch and Israel strikes first and blows them up, that would fall under it.
Speaker: The idea that they're close to building a weapon that at some point in the future they could use against us. Right. Is at best a stretch of accepted international law. Right. Now, international law really only matters to the people that are enforcing it.
Speaker: Right. There's a reason we never get sanctioned by international law, because who's going to sanction us? Right. So. and And again, the only people that could sanction the Israelis would be, say, the UN Security Council.
Speaker: But as long as we have a veto, they're not going to get sanctioned. So the international law thing at this point is more or less just kind of cover. right um But just talk to let everybody in on what it usually means, it usually means you're heading off an imminent attack rather than a speculative attack down the road.
Speaker: Yeah. So in the show notes, if you really want to get into the details of that, we have a article by ah tom Nichols. He talks about this stuff all the time. He's over at the Atlantic. All right. So on to our main segment, we're going to talk about the Los Angeles protests slash riots, how ICE has been involved and sort of presidential authority as it pertains to deploying the National Guard and the military for domestic purposes.
Speaker: With that, I need to break open another beer.
Speaker: So i want everyone to just have this in the back of their mind, just what rationales are, not just from like a pretext point of view, but from what what does Trump want out of all of this, right?
Speaker: And what we believe is fundamentally that he wants to project strength and be on the side of law and order, right? Now you can... say, oh this is bullshit, whatever.
Speaker: But I just want everyone to know that this is what Trump is thinking. And that's important for for these sort of exercises. Well, I think it's also important to note that, and I think when you say those are sort of his motivations, but I think the larger motivation is domestic political audience, right? He's playing through his his playing to his base and what he thinks is going to keep them riled up and activated so he can continue to do what he wants to do um in the other spheres, right? I think in some ways, right, he's I think he firmly believes in what he's doing,
Speaker: But also in some ways, he knows that this keeps people interested and behind him. And so he's going to keep it up because it just riles up the MAGA base.
Speaker: Yeah. And I do think that there's also a political retribution thing going on here because these are happening in states like Illinois, New York.
Speaker: california So while these raids are happening all over the country, it's primarily the blue states that are feeling the real brunt of these tactics. And yeah I think we should have our usual disclaimer here.
Speaker: We support peaceful protests. It's a very American thing to do to protest. you know We might not agree with and whatever the message is, but it's our right to do that. It's in the First Amendment. Having said that, we don't support writing.
Speaker: That's stupid. Don't be violent. That's also stupid. It hurts your cause. And yeah I understand there's always going to be agitators and assholes who you know take advantage of these situations and they loot.
Speaker: um But you as an individual... You can control yourself and people in your close process proximity. And just keep that in mind if you're going to engage in these sort of things. Because at the end of the day, the media is going to focus on vandalism.
Speaker: And people really don't like that. And you just have to be responsible. And again, it's not going to be perfect, but that's just the reality that we live in, that A select few can ruin it for everyone.
Speaker: So just keep that in mind. Well, I think it's worth noting, and and as old-fashioned as it sounds, like beyond that people don't like it and it's bad and bad you know press and it's bad for public opinion, it's just, you know, it's worth reminding people, hey, you know what?
Speaker: You can do the right thing once in a while. If you want to protest, you should protest and you should just do the right thing. Don't become a looter, right? not because of it's going to be bad for your cause, just it's the wrong thing to do.
Speaker: And let's hope we can encourage people to think about that in the broader scope. If if it's the wrong thing to do, don't do it. I think that would get us a lot of mileage towards improving our position as a country.
Speaker: I want to talk about the levers of power that Trump actually has. So there are three things to consider. One is the Insurrection Act. That's a very old act and we've We've mentioned this before. Trump considered using it all throughout his presidency when the Black Lives Matter protests were happening.
Speaker: But there's also a restriction, right? There's the Posse Comitatus Act, and that basically bars federal troops from participating in civilian law enforcement unless it's expressly allowed. So a good example of that is using the National Guard.
Speaker: ah The Coast Guard is also another good example. Basically, in in English, right rather than the Latin, um the idea is you can't use the military, you can't use the Army, then the Navy, um the Marines, or the Air Force to arrest people.
Speaker: right right um it's just that we We shouldn't act on our own turf. That's for law enforcement and the National Guard, which is sort of by extension closer to the people because they are at least at start state groups and they're kind of, you know, the the traditional week weekend warrior kind of thing where it's people who aren't full time in the military.
Speaker: They're citizens called up for specific functions. So I think the idea is they're a little bit closer to the civilians. Yeah. It's basically the militia, right? Yeah. Yeah. And you know while the origins of this act aren't good, you know it came about ah during the reconstruction phase because the South didn't like having federal troops in their states.
Speaker: But I think it's a good thing. You don't want the military arresting people in your country. So even though the origins might not have the best intentions, overall, it's a good thing. And then there's Title 10, specifically so section 12406. Will we a quiz later? Yeah.
Speaker: I'm just going to read it because it's you know a very small ah section. It says, the president may call into federal service members and units of the National Guard of any state in such numbers as he considers necessary to repel, okay, one, the invasion, two, suppress the rebellion, or three, execute those laws. Okay.
Speaker: In the event that the United States or any of the commonwealths or possessions is invaded or is in any danger of invasion by a foreign nation, there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States or the president is unable with regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.
Speaker: So there are three things there. There's the foreign invasion, there's the rebellion, and then there's the inability to execute laws. Well, for their part, the Trump administration is saying that all of those apply. right Because they're wave people are waving Mexican and and flags from other ah Central American nations, Trump administration is saying it's a foreign invasion. right um And they're also saying it's a rebellion.
Speaker: um They've said that people are insurrectionists. right And so I'm wondering if you were actually insurrecting or being insurrected. I couldn't figure out which because I was on vacation. So... so A little clarification there.
Speaker: um But again, he's also saying that LA is a mess and can't, and can't isn't isn't functioning. And I'm guessing that you can witness that it's not really the case. Yeah. I mean, is a very large, spread out city.
Speaker: It goes all the way to, you know, say Malibu, that's considered the LA area, all the way down to Orange County. For people not familiar with those subdivisions, how far is that distance wise? Oh, at least 60 miles, I think.
Speaker: Okay. Yeah. l LA is, LA is huge. And, and it kind of like sprawls from l a and then all of a sudden you're in Riverside. Right. And it's not much, at least in my experience, not much of a difference to know when you've gone from one to another, because there's just a massive amount of people.
Speaker: yeah so It's not a very dense place. It's just, sprawling. you know if you If you're coming ah from the East Coast and you fly over LA at nighttime, it's just lights everywhere for miles and miles and miles, but no skyscrapers until you go to downtown basically. So but that's just the the way it is. And the reason we bring that up is the situation was always under control.
Speaker: Yes, there are some people who vandalize, you know they attack cops and stuff like that, but that doesn't mean that the city is out of control. LAPD isn't really known for being woke police agency.
Speaker: So so much it's a little rich to say, oh, the city's out of control um when it was really just, you know, couple city blocks here and there and that everything's on fire and that the socialists have you know taken over and they can't control everything, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, you can find every piece of incendiary rhetoric used against blue states. And it was probably said at one point or another.
Speaker: Yeah. And so it it just, it seems fairly clear that it's kind of a stretch to invoke these kinds of things and for Trump to take over the National Guard immediately without waiting for Newsom to see if he wants to use the National Guard or needed to, which doesn't seem like they did.
Speaker: um And the courts have gotten involved. We'll get back to that in a minute. um Because I think want to talk a little bit first about, so given that there are authorities and that there are limits, what are they really doing?
Speaker: Right. And I think the first thing that's that's useful to note is that it's not really business as usual with ICE, right? um All of a sudden, it's like souped up ICE because Trump and notably Stephen Miller um have decided that we're not deporting enough people, right? um So they're not doing the just, hey, let's get rid of some criminals. They want to say, they want to ah up the figures.
Speaker: And so they're doing sweeps, right? They're doing the classic immigration raids, which hadn't happened in a long time, right? And Miller has gone so far as to tell people to go to Home Depot and 7-Eleven because he thinks that's where they'll find lots of illegal immigrants and he'll be able to ship them out. I read that they want to do, they want to aim for or at least Miller wants them to aim for something like 3000 people a day ah being deported. So you're not gonna get that through targeted enforcement. You're just going to have to start rounding people up and that's what they seem like they're up to.
Speaker: And to be clear, He's right in that regard. If you go to Home Depots and 7-Elevens, you are going to find a lot of undocumented people. That's not really the the debate here.
Speaker: The issue is the tactics, right? So as you mentioned before, this isn't business as usual. Even during the first Trump administration, we had specific people we were looking for.
Speaker: And now, because we want to not only have high numbers, but we want to create a environment an environment that is hostile towards illegal immigrants.
Speaker: So they're hoping that through these tactics, that one, it's going to discourage people from coming in the first place. And two, it's going to encourage people to self-deport. so So what are some of these tactics?
Speaker: We have warrantless arrests. We have agents wearing masks so that they can't be identified. They're wearing planes, plain clothes. They're waiting outside courthouses.
Speaker: They're going to schools. They're not really identifying themselves. And as you said before, you know, they're going to places where you would expect to find a lot of undocumented workers. So Home Depot, for instance, meat packing plants. I think there was a recent raid in Nebraska at, um,
Speaker: a facility, line cooks, you know, what have you, right? To me, and I think a lot of this is they were looking for this response, right, to one, distract from what they're doing.
Speaker: And again, to get back to the retribution and to really appeal to their base. Like if they go after everybody, all these people that are sort of embedded and members of these communities, they're And they're saying, all of you are going to right? No exceptions.
Speaker: You're all undocumented. We're going to get all of you. There's going to be a response. And bam, there they are with the hardcore over the top, sending in the National Guard, calling up the Marines, right?
Speaker: Being the tough guys, really taking it to the undocumented immigrants because that's what they think. And it seems to be that their their base wants to see.
Speaker: Yeah. And the base, they're going to say, well, they're here illegally, so they should be gone. What's wrong with deporting people who are here illegally? And you know what? They're not wrong using just that logic.
Speaker: If you're breaking the law, deportation is a reasonable consequence, right? But you could also use that logic for parking tickets, speeding. I don't think anyone wants to have traffic cameras all along the freeway,
Speaker: Well, someone does, but I think I'm in a minority. All right. Well, maybe I should just cut that part out. But you know what I mean, right? Like... No, I do. We have certain norms in our society.
Speaker: And I think... With the vast majority people, they're okay with a little bit of illegal immigration where if you're out in the fields picking strawberries, if you're out doing the labor that no one else wants to do, if you want to have your house cleaned for cheap, I mean, this is just sort of the implicit social contract that we have.
Speaker: Well, and I think, and I'd like to, I want to come back to this in like a full episode, at least later on, is like, there's a big disconnect and people are sort of managed to compartmentalize in their minds the idea of, yes, we need to get rid of illegal immigrants versus, hey, this is affecting people I know and that are affecting my life, right? Because I think people like the former, not so much the latter.
Speaker: And we we saw an incidence of this in, believe it was Missouri, where a woman who'd been in this community for 20 some odd years, but was ah not undocumented was arrested and all the Trumpists, they're like 75% Trump voters in this country, are like, hey, wait a minute, or in this county.
Speaker: they were They all protested and eventually they released her because the Trumpists didn't like it. um But the idea is that It's great for the base until they start thinking about how it affects them individually.
Speaker: And the more that they do this, I think the more they're going to run into that problem, because as you say, they're going after some places where they know they can find illegal immigrants. Well, the reason you can find them there is that Americans don't want to work in slaughterhouses.
Speaker: Americans don't want to pick strawberries. Right. Americans don't want to clean your house for nothing. Right. um And you get rid of all this. a lot of aspects of our economy will start to unravel a bit, right? If nobody picks the vegetables and fruits, that's going to be a problem.
Speaker: Now, Trump has said that he's going to protect the farmers and the hotel industry because, hey, what do you know? He's in the hotel industry. um But yeah, it seems kind of sketchy at best. You're going to round up the illegal immigrants and say, oh, well, you pick raspberries so you can leave and go pick raspberries.
Speaker: It's... Yeah, but but I think it's it's important to point that out, though, because, you know, one, there's like the hypocrisy aspect, right? His properties benefit from illegal immigration.
Speaker: Oh, yeah. But there's also the aspect of he's starting to feel pressure, not just from people, but from industry as well. Yep. And they did this before.
Speaker: Alabama, a few years back, really cracked down on illegal immigrants picking crops. Yeah. And oddly, the crops rotted in the fields because nobody would come pick the crops.
Speaker: So to to be surprised by this is just head in the sand thinking. um But it's going to be a thing that if you get rid of the undocumented workers, nobody's going to step in and take their place.
Speaker: We're not going want to be able, we're not going to want have to spend $15 for a carton strawberries because that's what it takes to get Americans to do the job. So moving on to the actual LA protests and protests,
Speaker: Trump invoking the National Guard. This, you know, as we mentioned before, is highly unusual. Typically what happens is law enforcement will stay local. So I'm talking, you know, LAPD, you know, the sheriff's department, what have you. and It'll stay local until things get out of hand.
Speaker: And then if they get out of hand, the governor will step in and call in the National Guard. And so a lot of states did this during the Black Lives Matter protests slash riots.
Speaker: I know this happened in Minnesota. It definitely happened in Los Angeles. This is standard operating procedure. And if things really get out of hand, then the governor will make a request to the president saying, hey, we need some federal troops.
Speaker: And that's what happened during the Rodney King riots. So the governor of California called up George H.W. Bush and said, hey, you know a lot of people are dying. There's just lots and lots of destruction.
Speaker: We need help. And if you look back at your history, but that didn't go particularly well because – The way law enforcement operates versus the military, it's just fundamentally different.
Speaker: The military is there to annihilate. Law enforcement there is to reestablish the peace. And so if the military is not trained for these sort of situations,
Speaker: it can actually make the situation much, much worse. I think that's a good point to make. But to be fair, right, say the Marines that they called up this time, they were supposedly trained as sort of a crowd control unit. So that we do have elements of the military that are not specifically always there to kill people. And we have a lot of logistics stuff, for example. So there are there are sort of there are law enforcement aspects to the military. Sure, there's military police as well, yeah. As you say, that should be a real last resort.
Speaker: Certainly not until the local officials think, hey, we have a problem, right? Trump used this as an excuse to show to basically have a show of force.
Speaker: Right. And to punish Newsom. yeah yeah he He literally called him Newsom. And he's been calling out the mayor of L.A. And it's it's just politics.
Speaker: Mm-hmm. So where are we at from a legal perspective? Trump, he took control of the national California National Guard from Newsom without informing him.
Speaker: And so Newsom filed a lawsuit. Currently, there's a temporary restraining order against the Trump administration, and the National Guard had to be transferred back over Newsom.
Speaker: But there's an administrative stay. in the appeals court right now. And the preliminary injunction hearing is set for June 20th. And I'm guessing that what's going to happen after all of this is that all this is going to be moot because I think that eventually the protests are going to go away by the time that this case is actually adjudicated.
Speaker: And we know how the Supreme Court likes to just like say, ah, well, the issue doesn't matter anymore. So we're not going to make any sort of definitive rulings. that That's I think most judges would rather not make any ruling if they don't have to.
Speaker: Maybe. But here's here's another scenario that I don't think is too unlikely, right? That Trump and ah Miller mainly keep amping up the enforcement in L.A.
Speaker: to keep the protests going. So the court has to rule. is That wouldn't surprise me to see that either. And then that then i think all bets are off because I think the court would lean towards Trump in this case.
Speaker: Yeah, certainly possible. I'll talk about what the current ruling was. It was done by Judge Breyer, who is the brother of former Justice Breyer. And he went through the rebellion aspect of things.
Speaker: He says, well, first rebellion has to not only be violent, but they have to be armed. And I guess you could say that they were armed with scooters and fireworks and bricks, but that's typically not what an armed rebellion is.
Speaker: A rebellion has to be organized. Well, this is certainly not organized. ah third A third, rebellion has to be opened and avowed. And yeah, that's not happening here. And fourth, the rebellion has to be against the government as a whole.
Speaker: And well, that's just not the case here. So Judge Breyer basically said, okay, no, this is nonsense. the You can't say that there's a rebellion. And then he also said that the statute that he invoked, so Title 10, it doesn't allow for the federalizing of the National Guard when the president faces mere obstacles that cause him to underperform in executing the laws.
Speaker: Because the fact of the matter is they're still able to arrest people. ICE is able to go in, arrest the people that they want to, and go on their merry way.
Speaker: Now, the Trump administration is arguing in front of the court that, well, we could arrest more people. And the judge basically said, that's not good enough. And that's just conjecture. So that's where we are.
Speaker: And as I said before, ah this is going to be education adjudicated for quite some time. yeah The preliminary injunction phase starts in about a week. Yep.
Speaker: I think the other use interesting and important thing to talk about is sort of what's kind of happening on the ground with Kristi Noem. um she like we've We've had this discussion, is who is who is our least favorite cabinet member? And I've still got RFK in a walk, but I think you're leaning toward Kristi Noem lately.
Speaker: um And she had more or less had Alex Padilla, Senator Padilla from California, handcuffed and dragged out of a room because he had the audacity to interrupt her.
Speaker: And right it's just mind blowing that, that, that, that they would do this and get away with it. And then as you told me today, I didn't, hadn't heard that Johnson wants Padilla censured for getting, guess, hauled off.
Speaker: And it's just showing how little respect they have for the rule of law. Right. And frankly, I don't know if they did anything illegal in that particular circumstances.
Speaker: What I see here, i mean, yeah you know. You can't handcuff people and drag them out of a room just for yucks. a I don't know.
Speaker: But he wasn't detained. you know, he was just removed. But regardless, that shouldn't happen. This is a U.S. senator. To say that you don't recognize him is just complete bullshit.
Speaker: but Also, in the video, he's announcing who he is. so Right. And so I want to talk about that because we linked the video in the show notes. You can watch it yourself. But he was brought in there by staff because he was in another room and he found out that, you know, Kristi Noem was there. And so he walked in.
Speaker: And then she was talking and interrupted and you know tried to ask a question. And then he was dragged out of the room and and he said, I am Senator Alex Padilla. And then DHS sent out a statement and I quote, Senator Padilla chose disrespectful political theater and interrupted a live press conference without identifying himself or having a Senate security pin.
Speaker: As he lunged towards Secretary Noem, Mr. Pradea was told repeatedly to back away and did not comply with the officer's repeated commands. Secret Service thought he was an attacker and the officers acted appropriately.
Speaker: Imagine the gall of interrupting a press conference. Anyone who believes that is a fucking idiot. I'm sorry. like You can watch the video. Yep. mean It doesn't matter.
Speaker: ah That's how they're going to respond to anything. One of the things that bothers me most about this and and all these things they're doing is I expect this from the Trump administration. Can't we have one member of the military or the law enforcement or the FBI, somebody who says,
Speaker: I'm not going to do this. These are illegal orders. Can't somebody stand up and do this? Is that too much to ask that there's one person in these organizations that will just say no? Because so far, no. I mean, it's possible they've fired everybody that would, right? Because they've fired a lot of people.
Speaker: But i got I want to hope that somebody in our massive bureaucracy of military and law enforcement officials will just say, no, this is too far.
Speaker: i Maybe pie in the sky, but I'm hoping to see that at some point in time. I don't know what to say here. We could discuss these issues for the next you know several hours, and we're just not going to get anywhere.
Speaker: no It's hard to come up with the right reaction. You don't want to overreact because he was released. It's not like was starting a gulag. But at the same time, it's completely unacceptable to do this to a U.S. senator.
Speaker: And right now, the Democrats, you know, their messaging is if they can do this to a U.S. senator, think about what they could do to you. And they're not wrong to mention that because- Hello, El Salvador.
Speaker: Again, we have i' had U.S. citizens who are Hispanic who have been detained by ICE because they didn't have documentation. But this isn't the Soviet Union.
Speaker: This is America. We've had U.S. citizens deported with their mothers because they were children. So-
Speaker: It's it's it's they have no respect for people that aren't their base. And they think that if they could if anything that will improve their standing with the base, they're happy to do.
Speaker: And there's no I mean, we need it. We need a have you no sense of decency, sir, moment. But there is no sense of decency. It doesn't seem at this point in time. So it doesn't seem like they're going to change their ways unless they're required to by the courts.
Speaker: Again, we we always wrap up on you know such high notes. At least it was a two-beer night for me, so it was easier to get through. But yeah, I mean, it's things are not good right now. It's just stuff – mean – When people think, oh, you know what, I voted for Trump for the economics, I think he's going to be good with the economics. It's like, you got this.
Speaker: And if you weren't expecting this, you weren't paying attention. And unfortunately, a lot of people weren't paying attention. They thought, oh, there's too much too much inflation under Democrats. I'm losing money.
Speaker: We need Republicans in to take care of that. Well, they're doing a great job with that yet. And we got this. And people need to pay attention because... When you think it's always the other guy, well, that may be until it's your turn, right?
Speaker: There's nothing that's going to stop it from being your turn unless people stand up and say, there's enough.
Speaker: So with that said, make sure you like, subscribe. We are off next week. I will be in Sequoia visiting our national parks. Who knows what's going to happen in the next two weeks? Hopefully the next two weeks will be easier than the last two weeks because I i don't need any more terrorism here and I'm certain you don't need any more ah troops on the ground in L.A.
