In order to understand the true story of the Trump regime's invasion of LA, and broad resistance to the regime's white nationalist agenda by labor class Angelinos, you have to start with a story I briefly touched on last week about a change in ICE enforcement strategy mandated right from the top of the Trump administration. In response to direct pressure from DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to massively increase the number of migrants arrested per day, and instructions from unofficial director of nazi shit Stephen Miller to target commercial businesses and public locations, ICE officials ordered agents to engage in acts that all but ensured widespread racial profiling, a massive number of civil rights violations, and militarized abductions in American communities; including, crucially, no warrant arrests that aren't strictly illegal, but immigration officials know aren't allowed to be used the way they're instructing Gestapo goons to use them right now, either.

theguardian.com/us-news/2025/j…

US immigration officers ordered to arrest more people even without warrants

"If it involves handcuffs on wrists, it’s probably worth pursuing,” another message said.

The instructions not only mark a further harshening of attitude and language by the Trump administration in its efforts to fulfill election promises of “mass deportation” but also indicate another escalation in efforts, by being on the lookout for undocumented people whom officials may happen to encounter – here termed “collaterals” – while serving arrest warrants for others.

The emails, sent by two top Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officials this past Saturday, instructed officers around the country to increase arrest numbers over the weekend. This followed the Department of Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem, and the White House deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, pressing immigration officials last month to jack up immigration-related arrests to at least 3,000 people a day."

Okay so please keep in mind that this article was published on June 4th, which is two days before fascist ICE raids touched off what will then eventually become the Trumpenreich invasion of LA. A significant portion of this article is devoted to talking about ICE's hypothetical but still quite illegal sounding efforts to meet the regime's Nazi-esque migrant arrest quotas, and the circumstantial legality of collateral immigration arrests. It's an illuminating discussion for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that every legal observer quoted in the article warns that warrantless arrests can be abused in precisely the unlawful ways ICE would use them in LA later that week; it is however irrelevant to our larger discussion except in to note that ICE swarming businesses and arresting all the brown people because they might be "illegals" is not how this power is supposed to be used, and doing so is a clear violation of civil rights.

What's important here is that the article provides a comprehensive picture of an agency desperate to meet a fascist mass deportation quota, whose leadership then directly instructs its Gestapo agents to engage in activities they know will result in unlawful arrests and civil rights violations; because the agency was already sanctioned for doing these same things which surprise, resulted in unlawful arrests and civil rights violations. This, when combined with the increased migrant arrest quotas, and Miller's instructions to stop focusing on actual criminals and get directly into communities to snatch up foreign-looking people, inevitably resulted in the fascist outrages that touched off the battle for LA, with heavily armed and armored Gestapo goons storming businesses in the fashion district of Downtown LA and other high traffic urban areas to round up anyone brown enough to fit the description, in broad daylight. Indeed, the combination of instructions given to both ICE officials and Gestapo foot soldiers could not have resulted in any other outcome and the regime was prepared to capitalize on the outrage it would cause; that's why they were so quick to respond to completely justified popular pushback with cries of insurrection and orders to send in the national guard. Furthermore, given the national scope of DHS and ICE's authority what we just saw happen in LA is clearly an outcome they intend to replicate all across the country; seemingly targeting sanctuary cities in blue states in particular out of political reasoning and ideological spite.

The invasion of LA wasn't spontaneous, it was engineered; and that engineering started at the very top of the Trump regime. This shitshow wasn't ever about public safety; it's a reproduceable battleplan for a war the regime just chose to start at a time, and in a place of its choosing - and they chose LA.

#Fascism #DHS #ICE #Gestapo #Trump #MassDeporatations #CivilRights #Migrants #HumanRights #LA #WhiteNationalism #EthnoState #StephenMiller #KristiNoem #ArrestQuotas #Racism

US immigration officers ordered to arrest more people even without warrants

Exclusive: Ice officers told to get ‘creative’ with arrests, including of undocumented people encountered by chance

^{José Olivares (The Guardian)}

While we're still in the "before ICE starts snatching up brown people at work in perhaps the most diverse city in America" portion of our story, I'd like to take a look at a curious exchange between California Governor Gavin Newsom and the Trump regime, that occurred right before the fascist theater shitshow in LA touched off. While the federal government's invasion of LA is inherently a story about labor class and marginalized resistance against fascist oppression, I do think there is a clear political angle at work here that we're going to have to talk about sooner or later, so I'd like to lay the groundwork for that discussion now before this fascinating tidbit of information fades out of the discourse.

Did you know that literally hours before the Gestapo raids in LA that touched off what would become Trump's invasion, California was threatening to without federal tax payments and the Pork Reich responded by threatening to jail the Governor of California while making arguments that Trump or at least Trump policies should control the state, not Governor Gavin Newsom?

theguardian.com/us-news/2025/j…

Newsom is warned of ‘criminal tax evasion’ if he withholds federal taxes

"The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, has warned California governor Gavin Newsom that he would be guilty of “criminal tax evasion” if he withholds his state’s tax payments to the federal government amid threats of a funding cut by Donald Trump.

Newsom had threatened to cut tax payments to the federal government two days ago after reports that Trump was preparing huge federal funding cuts targeting Democrat-dominated California, including its state university system."

There's a lot going on here and the Guardian's reporting is a little bit of a flippant but juicy political story because, presumably, they did not know ICE and then the US military were about to invade LA. The two larger background stories here are that Gavin Newsome is the 2028 frontrunner for the Democratic Party nomination, and that Trump has been threatening California with drastic cuts to its federal funding unless Newsom adopts fascist political policies, particularly in relation to climate legislation and trans rights. The latter dispute, which has become quite heated, has been raging for months and was recently thrust into the spotlight because the Klepto Kaiser saw some moral panic anti-trans news stories about a girl's high school long jump meet and responded by threatening to defund the California University system; which is to some degree, the pride and joy of California (neo)liberalism.

So our backdrop here is that before a single federal boot hits the ground in LA and the surrounding area, Trump is already trying to broadly control policy in California, and become locked into a highly political battle of wills with Newsom, who the broader right seems to regard as the de facto leader of the Democratic Party given his status as the 2028 nomination frontrunner right now. That battle over the sovereignty of the California government had already escalated to a point just below the surface of open conflict in a way we haven't seen since the Civil Rights Act was passed; at the point the Governor of California is saying he's not gonna to pay the state's taxes unless Trump let's him govern his own state, and US government representatives are threatening to charge Newsom with criminal tax evasion, you are in fact already on the verge of something akin to a Civil War, or at least secession. Which in turn makes regime comments about Newsom's governance, delivered on Friday by White House spokesperson Kush Desai, extremely revealing.

"In a statement on Friday, the White House spokesperson Kush Desai criticized California’s energy, immigration and other positions as “lunatic anti-energy, soft-on-crime, pro-child mutilation, and pro-sanctuary policies”.

“No taxpayer should be forced to fund the demise of our country,” Desai said, but he added that “No final decisions, however, on any potential future action by the Administration have been made, and any discussion suggesting otherwise should be considered pure speculation.”

Now look, I'm not a conspiracy theorist but if you look past the blatantly obvious lies being uttered by the Trump regime, this all sort of looks like the opening stages of a 2028 election battle with the Kelpto Kaiser upping the anti by making that battle highly literal and kinetic. The media isn't picking up on it because A) they're interested in selling Newsom as the next president and B) they're not taking Trump's threats to run for an (unconstitutional) third term seriously, but all the hallmarks of Trump building Newsom and "decadent" California up to be his new Clinton dynasty, or Biden regime style foil are there. This isn't about public safety, it's about power; the power to punish your political opposition and rule like an emperor across every state in America.

That's why they picked LA.

#Fascism #LA #Trump #Newsom #USPol #Funding

Newsom is warned of ‘criminal tax evasion’ if he withholds federal taxes

California governor made threat amid reports Trump is weighing huge federal funding cuts targeting state

^{Edward Helmore (The Guardian)}

In an American discourse where the events of the past 3 days are already being re-imagined before our eyes for reasons that obviously have nothing to do with latent white supremacy and cop-worship in our society, I cannot stress the importance of holding on to two widely-reported in the moment facts about the Trump regime's invasion of LA. First, the invasion started on Friday, not Saturday, with militarized ICE raids resulting in widespread civil rights violations being committed by the Gestapo, and entirely predictable anger from Angelino communities being targeted by those raids. Second, and I cannot stress this enough, the feds attacked the protestors first on Friday. Period.

To demonstrate how known these facts were only three days ago, let's turn to some in the moment reporting from the New York Times, a rag that has repeatedly drawn ire for presenting Trump and his administration in a far too favorable light, in service of a broader capitalist, conservative agenda at the paper.

archive.ph/2ntr1

Agents Use Military-Style Force Against Protesters at L.A. Immigration Raid

"Armed agents in tactical gear threw flash-bang grenades to disperse a crowd in Los Angeles’s Fashion District. Later, agents fired less-than-lethal ammunition at protesters outside a detention center."

"Federal agents in tactical gear armed with military-style rifles threw flash-bang grenades to disperse an angry crowd near downtown Los Angeles on Friday as they conducted an immigration raid on a clothing wholesaler, the latest sign of tensions between protesters and law enforcement over raids carried out at stores, restaurants and court buildings."

"It was an extraordinary show of force. Dozens of federal agents wearing helmets and green camouflage arrived in two hulking armored trucks and other unmarked vehicles, and were soon approached by a crowd of immigrant activists and supporters. Some agents carried riot shields and others held rifles, as well as shotguns that appeared to be loaded with less-than-lethal ammunition.

Agents cleared a path for two white passenger vans that exited the area. A short time later, as officers boarded their vehicles to leave, a few agents lobbed flash-bang grenades at groups of people who chased alongside the slow-moving convoy."

"Hours after the raid, a second clash between protesters and federal agents broke out outside a federal detention center in downtown Los Angeles, where those who were detained were taken. At one of the entrances, protesters chanted and approached the building as officers fired less-than-lethal projectiles and squirted what appeared to be pepper spray."

“They started throwing flash-bangs and blew everybody up with it,” the man, David McDaniel, said as he held his bloody foot. “I got shrapnel all over my body,” he added.

Mr. McDaniel said he was not part of the protest and was just trying to get by."

I'm sorry for spam quoting the article, but I want to give readers a sense of what a news outlet with little sympathy for brown people or protestors, was reporting about the ICE raids on Friday that started the invasion of LA, and the language they were willing to use. The article also goes on to describe the tactics Gestapo agents used once they had "corralled" suspected migrants, which if reports from at least one US citizen targeted by those tactics are to be believed, are in fact clear civil rights violations.

"Omar Diaz, 26, was working inside when several agents entered the building and corralled the roughly 20 to 30 workers inside and lined them up against a wall.

“They interviewed us one by one,” Mr. Diaz said. “They would take us separately, ask us where we were born, and then they wanted our ID and our information.”

It may surprise the nazis running our immigration policy to learn this, but ICE needs grounds beyond "brown and working" to detain people; to say nothing of the fascist police state tactic of swarming businesses and "corralling" all the people who fit the description. So, the feds were all decked out for war in Los Angeles, California, a sanctuary city with a large nonwhite population, in a sanctuary state led by a Dem Governor Trump seems to regard as his chief political rival, terrorizing brown people, openly violating the civil rights of Angelinos, and dropping flash bang grenades and non-lethal rounds on the streets of LA to clear a path for migrant paddy-wagons; all before anyone in Trumpworld had even uttered the words "National Guard."

I want you to ask yourself how you would feel, how you would respond, if this was happening in your community. Do you think you might protest? Spray a little graffiti? Might you even consider throwing an egg at the Gestapo? Folks this entire story hinges on the idea that the greater crime here is obstructing fascist mass deportations, and not the mass deportations themselves. Don't let a cop-hugging white supremacist establishment convince you to take your eye off the ball.

#LA #Fascism #ICE #Trump

In the thread above, I've made the argument that the entire Trump regime's invasion of LA, from the original Gestapo raids on Friday, all the way through to this very moment, is a carefully orchestrated authoritarian political project stapled to an engineered bit of fascist theater. To my eye, this conclusion seems pretty obvious, particularly given how quickly after protests broke out the entire Trump regime, including noted nazis Stephen Miller and Tom Homan, produced clearly-coordinated sound bites about a "violent insurrection" in LA that literally was not happening. Proving it beyond a shadow of a doubt however, is an evolving process that's going to take time and evidence; so I'm going to intersperse that evidence throughout this thread as we go along.

First up, did you know the regime brought noted anti-migrant, pro-Trump fascist propagandist Dr. Phil to LA for an exclusive "before and after" raid interview with border Czar Tom Homan?

theguardian.com/us-news/2025/j…

Talkshow host Dr Phil joined Ice agents for Los Angeles immigration raids

"Phil, whose full name is Phil McGraw, was with Ice before and after its agents conducted a series of raids on multiple locations across LA on Friday. Immigration advocates said at least 45 people were arrested, and the action was condemned by California’s governor and LA’s mayor.

It was the second time McGraw, a former practising psychologist who hosted a TV talkshow for two decades, has been embedded with Ice this year. In January, he joined the US border czar, Tom Homan, in a choreographed immigration raid in Chicago, in a stunt that was criticized at the time."

First of all The Guardian, I think describing Phil McGraw as a "talk show host" and "television personality" in this year of our discontent 2025, is a bold move; Dr. Phil is now a fascist propagandist trading on his personal relationships inside the Trump administration to push an aging conservative audience further into the Klepto Kaiser's cult of personality. He isn't on my TV anymore; he's on a fake TV network for fascists and bigot Boomers and he's actively working with the Trump regime to produce anti-migrant, pro-ICE propaganda because his career prospects at this point are virtually nonexistent otherwise.

Which is of course why I'm sharing this article at all. We already know that the regime brought in Dr. Phil to create highly-choreographed propaganda to support fascist ICE raids after he was embedded with Gestapo agents led by Tom Homan himself back in January; it's not like this is a hobby for McGraw or anything, it's his job now. What then does it say that Homan once against tapped McGraw to provide the theatrical component to fascist ICE raids, using new tactics officials knew would result in outrage and resistance, while clearly preparing to justify the deployment of US military forces to LA against then entirely peaceful protests?

It says the regime was putting on a show; and if there's one thing we know about Trump and putting on a show, it's that Downmarket Mussolini likes to go big, or go home.

#Fascism #Trump #USPol #LA #MartialLaw #Insurrection #Propaganda #Nazis #DrPhil #WhiteNationalism #ICE #Gestapo #InvasionOfLA #TomHoman #StephenMiller

Talkshow host Dr Phil joined Ice agents for Los Angeles immigration raids

Conservative channel MeritTV says psychologist and TV host was there to get ‘first-hand look at targeted operations’

^{Adam Gabbatt (The Guardian)}

If, as many local officials in California have suggested, Trump's goal was to create a powder keg that justifies even more authoritarian repression in LA, it's abundantly clear the regime and its Gestapo were working to create that power keg long before Trump illegally deployed what is now 4,000 National Guardsmen and 700 US Marines to the extremely diverse sanctuary city. Take for example the assault, arrest, and smearing of Service Employees International Union President David Huerta during the Friday ICE raids in densely populated portions of LA and the surrounding area.

Whether the Gestapo pigs who assaulted Huerta on camera while the extremely popular labor leader was merely observing the unlawful Gestapo raids targeting workers in his city knew it or not, their fascist piggery was almost certainly the inciting moment for widespread nonviolent protests that broke out across the greater LA area; a day and a half later, Trump would be illegally deploying National Guard troops on the streets of downtown Los Angeles.

commondreams.org/news/david-hu…

'This Is What Fascism Looks Like': Beloved Labor Leader David Huerta Arrested

"The union included remarks from Huertas, who said, "We all collectively have to object to this madness because this is not justice. This is injustice."

"This is about something much bigger" than his own arrest, said Huertas. "This is about how we as a community stand together and resist the injustice."

According to a statement released by the Department of Homeland Security, approximately 44 individuals were "administratively arrested" in a series of raids at retail stores in the Los Angeles area, while one individual, identified as Huertas, was arrested "for obstruction" of federal officers.

"This is what fascism looks like," said California State Senator Scott Wiener, a Democrat. "Secret police raids. Injuring protesters. Arresting labor leaders."

As the article notes, Huertas is the president of a 750,000 member strong union in California that represents an absolutely massive number of Latinex workers in the state; if the feds were looking to avoid protests, this was the last guy they wanted to assault. Which makes the fact that they did so on camera, and then tried to lie about it later all the more revealing. This is from a Guardian update posted after Huertas was released on bond:

theguardian.com/us-news/live/2…

"In an affidavit supporting the criminal complaint against Huerta, an officer alleged that the union leader was arrested after another officer tried to push him out of the way of a law enforcement vehicle being blocked by protesters on a sidewalk. The officer who witnessed the incident claimed that he saw Huerta “push back, and in response, the officer pushed HUERTA to the ground. The officer and I then handcuffed HUERTA and arrested him.”

However, video of the arrest shared on social media by US attorney Bill Essayli seems to show that the officer shoved Huerta to the ground without being pushed by the labor leader. Huerta’s head was knocked into a concrete curb by the officers and he was hospitalized on Friday."

If you watch the video the government's own attorney shared, it is utterly impossible for the regime to credibly argue that Heurta is a violent protestor or criminal element, and even the regime's argument about "obstruction" seems to revolve around not stepping out the way for a truck full of kidnapped Angelino workers to be driven through; yet they're trying anyway. I believe that's because the facts don't matter to Trump, this arrest in particular merely provided him with the excuse he needed to declare war on LA and by extension, Governor Gavin Newsom.

If it seems like I'm laser focused on the Gestapo raids broadly targeting brown workers in LA on Friday, it's because this is unquestionably the inciting incident that lead to the Trump regime's ongoing fascist invasion of LA and contrary to Downmarket Mussolini and his minion's lies, the Trump administration was completely responsible for these inciting incidents. It was Kristi Noem who demanded vastly more migrant arrests, it was Stephen Miller who gave the order to target retail businesses and public districts, it was ICE officials who told the Gestapo to violate civil rights and start snatching people up for being brown, it was the Trump regime who targeted a sanctuary city in a sanctuary state run by the current 2028 Democrat nomination frontrunner for this spectacle, and it was Trumpenreich officials who responded to nonviolent protests by declaring a violent insurrection was occurring in LA to pave the way for Trump's deployment of US military forces to the city. They had the means, they created the opportunity, and the motives are transparently fascist; Trump snatched it up as an excuse to declare war on his perceived opposition immediately, as if it was planned that way, because it was.

#Fascism #LA #ICE #Trump #KristiNoem #StephenMiller #DHS #Invasion #USPol #Gestapo #Newsom #PoliceState #Nazis

Mayor says Los Angeles being used as ‘test case’ by federal government – as it happened

Mayor says ‘nothing warranted’ the intervention and that cannot ‘emphasize enough the level of fear and terror that is in Angelenos right now’ due to Ice raids

^{Kate Lamb (The Guardian)}

Finally, I'd like to take a look at one more story, widely-publicized in LA, that demonstrates how it was fascist ICE repression in the heart of a diverse sanctuary city that incited a response from Angelinos, not the other way around. In the week leading up to Friday's nazi ICE raids, word leaked out that immigration officials were arresting migrant families who reported for their check-in appointments, and detaining them in inhumane conditions in the basement of the very same Edward R. Roybal Federal Building in downtown L.A. which would become a focal point of protest by Angelinos, in part because of these incidents.

cbsnews.com/news/immigrants-at…

Immigrants at ICE check-ins detained, held in basement of federal building in Los Angeles, some overnight

"Immigration lawyers said it was also unclear why people were being held in that basement.

"They're having to literally house these immigrants in a makeshift detention center, which on its face is illegal," said Juan Proaño, chief executive officer of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC). "It is beyond inhumane treatment for any immigrant and in this particular case, you're talking about families."

In human terms, the cause for entirely understandable outrage among the citizens of LA in response to these events are threefold. First, the Gestap is arresting and detaining hard-working families who represent no danger to the community and are at worst civil violators; they are not violent or criminal. Secondly, ICE is detaining law-abiding families who are following the rules by reporting for their immigration check ins, in a nonwhite majority sanctuary city where that is not supposed to happen. Thirdly, the Gestapo is so desperate to throw brown people in cages that they're locking women and children up, sometimes overnight, in a makeshift basement jail without adequate access to beds, food, or water; actions which highlight the racialized dehumanization aspect of this entire nazis shitshow.

Alright, so now our stage is set and once again I'm going to ask you, how would you feel if it was your home, your family, and your community being targeted for racialized fascist kidnappings and violent security state repression? Put yourself in the shoes of an Angelino who almost certainly didn't vote for this fascist bullshit, and has been assured by their local government that LA is a safe haven for law-abiding, hardworking migrants in a country hell bent on criminalizing brown people just trying to earn an honest living. ICE is locking up families in basements, they're swarming commercial businesses and slapping cuffs on any brown people they can catch, they assaulted, arrested, and lied about one of the most respected labor leaders in the entire state, armed Gestapo goons are in the street tossing flashbang grenades and firing "nonlethal" ammunition at people who're peacefully blocking traffic that happens to be part of a fascist mass deportation project; and your leaders, the mayor and the governor are complaining, but otherwise letting them do it all. What would your response be? For a whole bunch of people in Los Angeles, their response was to surround the federal building and demand the release of their friends and loved ones; and for that crime the fascist Trump regime thinks military occupation and police state violence are the warranted response.

Don't save all your smoke for the fascists running the US government either, because a mainstream corporate media actively "both sides"-ing violence started by state security forces at every turn, and a California Democratic Party establishment promising to unleash the police and possibly even institute a curfew just to prove Trump and the military are not required to quell protests in LA, are also guilty of flipping perpetrator for victim in this odious tale. The fact of the matter is that despite the echoing chorus of mewling about "not giving Trump what he wants" and the importance of "lawfully protesting," Angelinos would be in the moral right even if they had chased ICE officers out of town in broad daylight with bricks. This is a diverse community, acting to protect their friends and loved ones from militarized fascist abductions, unlawful state repression, and slow-motion white supremacist ethnic cleansing; the fact that the people of Los Angeles responded only with nonviolent protest and traffic disruptions until the Kletpo Kaiser literally called in the fucking troops is a testament to the character of the city's people, and stands in stark contrast to cowardly masked Gestapo goons locking small children in a basement to keep us all safe from seeing brown people in our communities.

The fascist American right is telling you the brown people started it, and "enlightened centrist media" says there was violence on both sides, but from where I'm standing, Angelinos resisting fascism are the only heroes in this story. Don't let propagandist swine make you forget that.

#LA #ICE #Fascism

Immigrants at ICE check-ins detained, held in basement of federal building in Los Angeles, some overnight

Many undocumented immigrants who went to ICE check-in appointments at a federal building in L.A. this week were taken into custody, brought to the basement and held there, lawyers and family members say.

^{Nidia Cavazos (CBS News)}

The Trumpenreich invasion of LA has objectively brought out the worst in fascist regime officials, but it's also loosened their tongues as many of them can apparently taste the authoritarian cracker cultural dictatorship they openly crave peeking out from the smoke of burning Waymo taxis. I've pointed out repeatedly that failure to pay attention to what fascist leaders openly admit they're trying to do, or take those threats seriously, is a huge part of why we're in this terrifying political and cultural moment; right now, with their lips unguarded and all the unearned confidence of white supremacists who think they're on the right side of a fascist takeover, the regime is letting slip valuable intelligence on what their plans are, and how they intend to implement them.

The media is dutifully reporting these comments and confessions, but because nobody in the establishment takes Trump's chucklefuck brand of fascism seriously, those comments are not being analyzed; nor will they be remembered in the fullness of time despite how crucial they are to unlocking what Trumpism is, where its going next, and how it intends to get there.

Unfortunately, I am a one woman news and propaganda analysis operation here, and even I'm overwhelmed by the sheer amount of fascist fuckery bursting forth out of the regime's invasion of LA; with no sign of an end or abatement in site, quite frankly. I can't talk about everything; in fact five days into this shitshow I'm not even sure I can remember everything anymore.

Because my method of analyzing American fascism involves closely watching (and remembering) what powerful American fascists say and do, and because I think this information is useful even outside of whatever analysis I write, I've decided I'm going to include a new "They Said It" segment here on the blog. These are just going to be short quotes, with a listed source, from regime officials and affiliated propagandists that I think illuminate something about the larger fascist project. I need to keep them handy for future analysis, and I think Americans at large might like to know more about what their nazi leaders are saying to justify or amplify all this nazi authoritarian bullshit. I'll try not to clutter the blog, but there's already at least 20 things these assclown nazis have said that someone *needs* to keep track of and talk about; right now I'm literally drowning here.

Let's do the first one here and now:

US attorney for the central district of California, Bill Essayli - promoting a fascist right wing conspiracy theory that protesting Angelinos were paid insurrectionists and agitators; a conspiracy Trump is also simultaneously spreading but denying he is doing so.

"At the press conference earlier, US attorney for the central district of California, Bill Essayli, had also fed into Trump’s claim that the protestors are “paid insurrectionists”, saying that anti-Ice protests in Los Angeles appear to be “organized and orchestrated”.

“Well-funded agitators are coming into town and they are resisting federal law enforcement operations,” he said."

Bill also had some choice observations that should tell you a lot about what kind of person he is (hint: he's a Trump-humping cracker supremacist nazi.)

“Some people really seem to have the notion that California is a sanctuary from federal immigration laws,” says Essayli. “Let me assure you: there is no sanctuary. Federal laws are applicable here and they will be enforced.”

"Essayli claims Trump “had no choice” but to call in the national guard to assist “overwhelmed” law enforcement officers."

Source - Guardian live thread (we'll be using this a lot for these kind of posts going foward):

theguardian.com/us-news/live/2…

In previous analysis, I wrote about my belief that the Trumpenreich's invasion of LA had established a repeatable legal, logistical, and political framework for transforming the National Guard and indeed the US military into the enforcement arm of a permanent fascist police state under at least the constant threat of martial law. Well, it turns out that I could have just waited a couple of days for the regime to say the quiet part out loud, because Pete Hegseth all but admitted that's precisely how this is going down in real time, during a Congressional oversight hearing on Capitol Hill.

commondreams.org/news/hegseth-…

Hegseth Lays Out a Case for Troop Deployments in 'Any Jurisdiction in the Country'

"U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told members of Congress on Tuesday that he believes Immigration and Customs Enforcement "has the right to safely conduct operations in any state and any jurisdiction in the country."

Given that Hegseth and President Donald Trump have cast the National Guard and U.S. Marine deployments to Los Angeles as an effort to protect ICE personnel as they carry out the administration's mass deportation campaign, the Pentagon chief's testimony to lawmakers represented a justification for troop mobilizations to any part of the nation where protests against ICE are deemed a potential threat."

To completely understand what Trump's crusader Secretary of Defense is getting at here, you have to place it in the larger context of the regime's fascist mass deportation project, and the conditions which administration officials, including President Trump himself have outlined to "justify" escalation and additional military involvement. The rough process by which the regime is now actively conducting a fascist takeover of the broader American state at every level of government, looks a bit like this:

A) Send ICE Gestapo squads along with other federal agents to any city Trump regards as ideologically opposed to his fascist agenda, and begin kidnapping people and very publicly and aggressively violating civil rights.

B) Declare any protests or opposition to those nazi ICE raids and tactics, no matter how peaceful or lawful they may be, to be an insurrection and an attack on federal law enforcement. Use that attack, even if you have to make it up whole cloth, to justify commandeering a state's own National Guard to enforce Trump's rule militarily, while actively tasking them with protecting ICE Gestapo agents conducting raids; which conveniently gets around the legal restrictions that have previously prevented Trump from using the army to conduct ethno-nationalist immigration enforcement policies and mass deportations.

C) As Trump himself has proposed, respond to any "attack" (which again, we know they can just make up) on National Guard forces, by sending in the US Military and presumably invoking the Insurrection Act to place the targeted city under martial law and Trump's de facto command.

Please note that the only part of this outline that's still hypothetical is C; and while Trump hasn't actually done it yet, numerous powerful nazis in his administration have hinted that is the direction they're heading, including Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem, Hegseth himself, Tom Homan, Pam Bondi, and Trump's press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who at least in theory speaks for the president. How many times do I have to share the Maya Angelou quote "when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time" in regards to Trump's fascist movement before the reality sinks in that these guys might not be capable of grasping as much power as they desire, but they abso-fucking-lutely mean to try regardless?

What we are looking at here is an arbitrarily deployable framework for a fascist police state enforced by a US military that answers only to Trump, which can be conjured up out of thin air and portably deployed around the country at will. The Swine Emperor is effectively announcing his immanent takeover of the entire country, by demonstrating on the streets of LA that he can instantly take over any given part of that country and unless local officials are prepared to fight the fucking National Guard and or US Army, there's sweet fuck all they can do about it; or at least, so the regime openly says.

Folks, I must confess that I am just as overwhelmed as you are trying to keep track of all the horrifying stories spewing out of the fascist Trumprenreich invasion of LA. But listening to the regime talk, watching Trump activate the California National guard to stop an insurrection we could all watch not happening on livestream, and seeing the LAPD gleefully join in with the nazis to argue stopping fascist ICE raids is a justification to revoke civil rights and engage in unconscionable security state violence, this doesn't sound like we're talking about a *hypothetical* fascist dictatorship anymore.

#Fascism #Trump #InvasionOfLA #LA #NationalGuard #InsurrectionAct #Dictatorship #PoliceState #ICE #LAPD

Hegseth Lays Out a Case for Troop Deployments in 'Any Jurisdiction in the Country'

"The standoff on the streets of Los Angeles," warned critics, "shows how truly eager Trump and his administration are to turn America's vast warmaking powers inward on the president's domestic foes."

^{jake-johnson (Common Dreams)}

They Said It (June 8th, 2025)

"Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem has said the protests in Los Angeles are “absolutely” organized by people being paid to instigate violence, without providing any evidence.

Asked by Sean Hannity on Fox News about pallets of bricks that he claimed had mysteriously appeared at the protests and whether she had found evidence of organisation and funding, Noem said:

"Absolutely. These are organized. These are people that are being paid to do this. You can follow how they behave, the signals they give to each other in these crowds and these protests to instigate violence. This is an operation, and it’s professionally done. They’ve done it before, and we’re going to stop it and make sure that we prosecute every single one of them."

She also called Karen Bass a “trainwreck of a mayor” and said Los Angeles was not “a city of immigrants they’re a city of criminals.”

Source - Guardian live feed, June 8th:

theguardian.com/us-news/live/2…

#Fascism #InvasionOfLA #KristiNoem #Trump #USPol

Mayor says Los Angeles being used as ‘test case’ by federal government – as it happened

Mayor says ‘nothing warranted’ the intervention and that cannot ‘emphasize enough the level of fear and terror that is in Angelenos right now’ due to Ice raids

^{Kate Lamb (The Guardian)}

Today in deeply not at all fun Trump facts; did you know the Swine Emperor has currently deployed more troops to LA than the US military officially maintains in Syria and Iraq, combined? No, seriously:

truthout.org/articles/trump-ha…

Trump Has Deployed More Troops in LA Than Syria and Iraq, Per US Counts

"President Donald Trump’s latest deployment of thousands of National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles means that there are now more troops carrying out Trump’s anti-protest crackdown in southern California than in both Iraq and Syria, regions where the U.S. has executed some of its most intense and inhumane military campaigns in recent decades, according to official counts.

Trump has dispatched roughly 4,000 National Guard members and 700 Marines to respond to L.A.’s protests of his immigration raids, for a total of roughly 4,700 troops. Meanwhile, according to publicly reported Pentagon figures, the U.S. has roughly 2,000 troops deployed in Syria and 2,500 troops in Iraq, for a total of 4,500."

As the article goes on to note, a Pentagon still operating under War on Terror logic while occupying Iraq and purportedly fighting terrorism in Syria, may well be undercounting the troop levels in those two countries; they've certainly done so in the past.

Regardless, if we consider the *official* deployment of military personnel to be a de facto statement of the regime's policing priorities, that still means the Trumpenreich is arguing that unarmed domestic protesters inside very small pockets of the Los Angeles area are a greater threat than militarized terrorist militias in two countries US intervention has helped transform into semi-perpetual warzones. Please keep in mind that the LA protests are happening on livestream, and there are hundreds of eye witness accounts in the public discourse from Angelinos saying there is no widespread disorder for the troops to quell. There is not a man, woman, nor child in America who can't verify for themselves that Trump is lying about a “rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States” going on in Los Angeles, if they want to.

All of which of course leads us directly back to our ongoing discussion about what the Trumpenreich is trying to use its militarized invasion of LA to sanctify in practice, if not in US Law. Trump wants the power to permanently occupy US cities, while engaging the military in both domestic policing and assisting the Gestapo in the regime's ethnonationalist mass deportation project; including apparently providing detention facilities for caged migrants. Furthermore, as Zhang ominously notes, there are clear signs the regime is exploring how to scale up what they're doing in LA, to a much more national project.

"According to a report by ABC News, the Pentagon is considering a plan crafted by the Department of Homeland Security to deploy more than 20,000 additional National Guard troops to aid with Trump’s immigration raids.

This would cost $3.6 billion over the course of a year, and would represent roughly half of the number of troops deployed across the entirety of the Middle East. It would also be an escalation of the Trump administration’s use of the U.S.’s colossal military capacity to attack and subdue the American public."

Folks, I'm just going to be real with you; you don't martial up 20,000+ troops from all across the country in advance because ICE is going to raid a bunch of cities one by one to hunt down brown people Stephen Miller's shriveled conscience cannot abide existing in his county. We're definitely going to talk more about the ABC report the author mentions at a later point in time, but what you're looking at here is the opening steps the regime would need to take if they intended to militarily occupy the parts of the United States that didn't vote for Trump without meeting organized, violent resistance.

Like a lot of the fascist bullshit the Klepto Kaiser is doing right now, it's hard to tell if he's going to go "all the way." At some point however, the idea that Donald Trump is just accidentally stumbling in to all the steps he would need to enshrine a militarized fascist dictatorship under a perpetual state of quasi-martial law, strains credulity. If Trump gets away with transforming protests into an insurrection and soldiers into policemen in LA, you should bet on the idea that the nazis will soon be coming for a town near you in that very same way.

#Fascism #Trump #InvasionOfLA #Imperialism #WarOnTerror #USPol #LosAngeles #Protests #MENA #Syria #Iraq #PoliceState

Trump Has Deployed More Troops in LA Than Syria and Iraq, Per US Counts

The figures are a show of the administration’s willingness to use extreme military force on its own population.

^{Sharon Zhang (Truthout)}

In this thread I've written a lot about the importance of keeping track of what the regime says surrounding the fascist shitshow that is the Trumpenreich invasion of LA. Speaking frankly, I think everyone living in a capitalist police state should keep close track of what their "leaders" say at all times, but in this case it's important because the Trump regime uses propaganda to create space for action. In talking about and justifying their fascist activities, including the invasion of LA, regime officials frequently reveal a great deal about their methods of operation and future intentions.

To go deeper into what I mean by this sort of tea leaf reading and how it pertains to the Trump regime's statements about Los Angeles, let's take a look at this June 10th Guardian article discussing a very similar issue with some help from NYU history professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat:

theguardian.com/us-news/2025/j…

‘The language of authoritarianism’: how Trump and allies cast LA as a lawless city needing military intervention

"As a pretext to this action, the Trump administration had characterized the protests as a broader threat to the nation. On X, White House deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, called LA “occupied territory”. “We’ve been saying for years this is a fight to save civilization. Anyone with eyes can see that now.”

Trump posted on Truth Social: “A once great American City, Los Angeles, has been invaded and occupied by Illegal Aliens and Criminals. Now violent, insurrectionist mobs are swarming and attacking our Federal Agents to try and stop our deportation operations – But these lawless riots only strengthen our resolve.”

FBI director, Kash Patel, wrote on X that LA was “under siege by marauding criminals”.

If I'm being honest, this entire article is basically one huge "They Said It" post, so you'll forgive me for centering Trumpenreich official's comments over Ben-Ghiat's analysis. If you read on however, she confirms that the regime's language is designed to create an 'existential sense of fear," paint LA as a warzone, and justify putting soldiers in the streets to enforce Trump's fascist rule. Ben-Ghiat also points to a statement made by Trump's crusader fascist Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, for a perfect encapsulation of how this narrative building then translates to implied justification for very specific authoritarian regime actions.

"The violent mob assaults on ICE and Federal Law Enforcement are designed to prevent the removal of Criminal Illegal Aliens from our soil,” Hegseth wrote. “A dangerous invasion facilitated by criminal cartels (aka Foreign Terrorist Organizations) and a huge NATIONAL SECURITY RISK.”

Ben-Ghiat said Hegseth employed “the classic authoritarian thing, of setting up an excuse, which is that the internal enemy, illegal criminal aliens, is working together with an external enemy, the cartels and foreign terrorists, and using that to go after a third party, of protesters, regular people, who came out to show solidarity”.

All of which brings us to the same, familiar, gnawing question that defines so much of the second Trump era; are these guys fucking serious? As I mentioned elsewhere, the fact is a fascist regime really only gets one shot at going for the full Third Reich dictatorship experience; if Trump and his minions go for it, but fail, everyone who doesn't have SCOTUS-granted immunity from prosecution is probably fucked. Is Downmarket Mussolini willing to risk the tremendous power and privilege he has now to make himself the true master of all he surveys? I'm not sure anyone, even Trump's unofficial minister of nazi shit Stephen Miller, actually knows the answer to that question.

What I can tell you however, is what I told you earlier on this blog today; at some point the idea that Trump is just accidentally falling into all the steps he'd need to take to install a permanent fascist dictatorship in America, ceases to hold water. This guy is either the world's luckiest accidental authoritarian, or the Trump regime is planning to go the full nine yards and what we're talking about now is a question of courage, not will. Take a look at what this article quotes Miller as saying, and then tell me you're sure I'm wrong.

“Simply put, the government of the State of California aided, abetted and conspired to facilitate the invasion of the United States,” Stephen Miller wrote on X."

Folks, it's hard to say that the Trump regime is "preparing for war," when they've clearly already started one. But almost everything the regime does and says, especially in regards to the Los Angeles protests, strongly implies we haven't remotely hit rock bottom here. Trump is running out of shiny things to distract the public with and it's increasingly becoming clear the Trumpenreich is building a dictatorship brick by brick; you don't do that because you want to admire the shine on your Gestapo's riot helmets.

#Fascism #Trump #USPol #LA #InvasionOfLA #Propaganda #Dictatorship #StephenMiller

‘The language of authoritarianism’: how Trump and allies cast LA as a lawless city needing military intervention

As a pretext to sending in the national guard, the White House marked the Ice protests as a broader threat to the US

^{Tess Owen (The Guardian)}

Keeping with collecting facts to remember about the ongoing invasion of LA in a discourse actively trying to reimagine these events in real time, I'd like to talk about this June 10th article on Huffpost because I think it highlights three important points I've been writing about on this blog. First, state security forces, particularly federal Trumpenreich immigration forces are the ones committing violence and sewing disorder, not protestors. Second, the "nonlethal" weapons being deployed on nonviolent protestors in LA are still extremely dangerous, and represent an unacceptable application of force against people exercising their constitutionally-protected rights. And third, the class sympathies of corporate media organizations are so powerfully encoded that they supersede even basic self-preservation.

huffpost.com/entry/journalists…

Dozens Of Journalists Targeted, Shot, Detained While Covering LA Protests, Press Org Says

"Shocking video and photos taken amid the ongoing immigration protests in Los Angeles show journalists and news crews being shot, detained and forced off public property by law enforcement, raising concerns of excessive force and First Amendment rights violations.

There have been more than 30 incidents of police violence against journalists as of Tuesday, including 20 injuries, at least five of which required emergency room or urgent care visits, said Adam Rose, the press rights chair with the Los Angeles Press Club, which released a statement Monday urging an end to the targeting of journalists whose work is constitutionally protected."

Keep in mind that this story was published on June 10th, and it is now June 13th; I've watched enough livestreams from LA to guarantee you the more than 30 incidents of police violence against journalists catalogued by the LA Press Club is now a drastic undercount as we roll through day 7 of the fascist Trumpenreich invasion of LA. Furthermore, while everyone has seen the clip of the Australian 9 News reporter being purposely shot in the back of the leg by a murderpig, incidents of deliberate calculated violence against journalists by various state security forces are by no means isolated, and have resulted in far more serious injuries than Tomasi got in that clip. These violent assaults on journalists by federal immigration officers and local police forces are *not* accidental; check out this quote from the LA Press Club's letter to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem:

“In some cases, federal officers appear to have deliberately targeted journalists who were doing nothing more than their job covering the news,” a letter addressed to Noem by the organizations states."

Do you have any idea how sure a mainstream press body has to be before they accuse cops of purposely targeting journalists? Security forces, particularly Trump's federal Gestapo, have been intentionally attacking journalists to prevent them from covering their widespread civil rights abuses and fascist piggery towards migrants and protestors; full stop. Is this violence? Is this disorder? Cause if it is, I think it's safe to say the pigs are the one bringing those elements to the streets of LA.

Which brings us to nonlethal rounds, and the intentional application of excessive force against journalists, by security forces. Take this story from a veteran reporter shot through the leg with a "nonlethal" round by a cop aiming an area effect weapon directly at his midsection.

"Graphic photos shared with HuffPost show a gaping wound in Nick Stern’s right thigh that he said has left him unable to walk or move without assistance.

“Why this device was shot at human, kind of, waist high level, I do not know. The people around me at that time was doing nothing more than waving Mexican flags,” he told HuffPost."

Stern's story is by no means an outlier, and the article provides evidence of more injured journalists like him. All of which might make you ask how media muppets can continue to blame violence on protestors and hump murderpigs on live TV while their compatriots are being wounded in the streets by deliberate pig assaults? The answer is cold hard cash, and the class sympathies of people who own and run media corporations. These folks are so committed to the police state that protects their material interests, that the media they control will jump through absurd hoops to conflate victim with victimizer; a few days ago I watched a CNN reporter claim protestors were throwing exploding foam objects at the press while holding up a nonlethal munition that I know came from the cops because they're the only ones who had those types of weapons at the protest.

My friends, you're damn right there is violence and disorder on (some of) the streets of LA; and if all the murderpigs and soldiers committing that violence and causing that disorder would like to fuck off now, I'm sure Angelinos can handle the rest from here.

#Fascism #Trump #InvasionOfLA #Police #PoliceViolence #Media #Journalists #CivilRights #USPol

Dozens Of Journalists Targeted, Shot, Detained While Covering LA Protests, Press Org Says

“I never thought for one moment that I’d actually have to be fearful of law enforcement during a public protest," said one photojournalist hospitalized after getting shot in the leg.

^{Nina Golgowski (HuffPost)}

Sticking with the Trumpenreich invasion of LA for just one more moment, I'd like to take a look at the intentional fascist intimidation tactics employed by Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, or at least her security team, against the US Senator from California, Alex Padilla. This event received extensive coverage in the mainstream media, but I believe it's important to take note of here for two reasons; one which was discussed in liberal media circles, and one that got far less coverage because our establishment is instinctively allergic to calling US cabinet officials "liars" even when everyone knows they're lying.

Let's get into the weeds:

truthout.org/articles/senator-…

Sen. Alex Padilla Tackled to the Ground, Handcuffed at Noem Press Conference

"Video of the incident that circulated on social media showed Padilla attempting to ask Noem a question when multiple men began grabbing and shoving him.

“I’m Senator Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary,” Padilla says, struggling to speak as he’s manhandled. He seemingly begins to make a comment about the “rotating” set of people supposedly convicted of crimes that the Trump administration is parading around in attempts to justify their brutal, sweeping anti-immigrant campaign.

As he’s speaking, the officers forcibly remove him from the room, with Padilla yelling “hands off.” Grabbing his arms, chest, and clothes, they shove the senator into a hallway, where they force him to the ground and handcuff him."

First of all, this is outrageous, intentional, fascist political intimidation and Senator Warren is absolutely right when she says the DHS Secretary should resign. Not that Noem will, because Trump purposely stacked his regime full of nazis who don't know the meaning of the word shame this time, and Kristi really fits that description; after all, this *is* a woman who bragged about murdering a puppy because she thought it would help her political career. The fact is however there are only 100 United States Senators, and while Capital Hill may be a city within a city, it's not a particularly large city. Every single person in that room, including Noem, her security detail, and the press corps, knew who Alex Padilla was the entire time. Furthermore, while Noam might have a TV star's face thanks to her surgeon, she's a very poor actor, and watching her during this widely-recorded moment makes it clear she's fully aware of what's going on the whole time. The assault, and it was an assault, by Noem's security detail on a Democrat sitting US Senator representing the community the Trumpenreich is currently invading, was completely intentional; Noem, and through her Trump, meant to send a message.

As the article goes on to detail, this fascist bullshit is firmly part of a larger Swine Emperor and GOP quest to criminalize their political opposition, specifically the Democratic Party. This is occurring not only in rhetoric, but in deed. The regime is investigating Act Blue, a Dem-aligned fundraising org, they've arrested both a Democrat Mayor, and a Democrat Congresswoman for attempting to conduct oversight on an ICE facility, federal agents burst into NY Democrat Jerry Nadler's office, cuffed an employee, and accused his staff of harboring "criminals." They're working hard to get Americans used to seeing Democrat officials aligned against Trump, in handcuffs on the six o'clock news, and I suspect that's not an accident.

All of which then brings us to Kristi Noem's bald-face lie, that Senator Padilla "burst into the room," "lunged at her,' and "did not identify himself." Let's roll the tape:

theguardian.com/us-news/live/2…

CBS video of Padilla interrupting Noem with a question appears to undermine her claim that he lunged at her

"Just three seconds into the incident, Padilla could be seen standing, with his left hand raised slightly in a rhetorical gesture, trying to continue with his question, as a security officer placed his hands on the senator’s chest and back and began pushing him away from the front of the room.

There is no visual evidence in the clip to suggest that Padilla was moving in Noem’s direction when he started speaking, or was ever within 10-15ft (3-3.5 metres) of her."

So, actually Padilla was already in the room, he never got within 12 feet of Noem and certainly didn't lunge, and he clearly identified himself in a room he didn't have to. I'm sorry for the Zapruder film treatment here, but I want to establish that Kristi Noem is unquestionably, and intentionally lying about something she knows is being recorded live, because that's the most important thing about this incident.

Noem knows she's lying, she knows you know she's lying, and she knows the camera knows she's lying, but in true fascist fashion she's claiming the power to force you to accept that lie as valid; and a media pretending she could just be stupid and mistaken, would make Orwell weep.

#Fascism #Trump #USPol #DHS #InvasionOfLA #KristiNoem #AlexPadilla #GOP

Sen. Alex Padilla Tackled to the Ground, Handcuffed at Noem Press Conference

“If this is how this administration responds to a senator … imagine what they’re doing” to everyday Americans, he said.

^{Sharon Zhang (Truthout)}