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Weather: Partly sunny. Showers and thunderstorms likely in the afternoon. Highs in the lower 90s. Southwest winds 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70 percent. Tuesday Night: Mostly cloudy with showers and thunderstorms likely in the evening, then partly cloudy with a chance of showers with a slight chance of thunderstorms after midnight. Lows in the lower 70s. South winds around 5 mph. Chance of rain 70 percent.
- Daily weather briefing from the National Weather Service in Jacksonville here.
- Drought conditions here. (What is the Keetch-Byram drought index?).
- Check today’s tides in Daytona Beach (a few minutes off from Flagler Beach) here.
- Tropical cyclone activity here, and even more details here.
Today at a Glance:
The Palm Coast City Council meets in workshop at 6 p.m. at City Hall. For agendas, minutes, and audio access to the meetings, go here. For meeting agendas, audio and video, go here.
The Community Traffic Safety Team led by Flagler County Commissioner Andy Dance meets at 9 a.m. in the third-floor Commissioner Conference Room at the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell. You may also join virtually by computer, mobile app or room device. Click here to join the meeting. Meeting ID: 276 236 998 121 Passcode: CyEKoW [Download Teams | Join on the web]
The St. Johns River Water Management District Governing Board holds its regular monthly meeting at its Palatka headquarters. The public is invited to attend and to offer in-person comment on Board agenda items. Note: meeting start times vary from month to month. Check here to verify the time. A livestream will also be available for members of the public to observe the meeting online. Governing Board Room, 4049 Reid St., Palatka. Click this link to access the streaming broadcast. The live video feed begins approximately five minutes before the scheduled meeting time. Meeting agendas are available online here.
Special School Board Meeting on Rule Development, 1 p.m. at the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell.
The Flagler County School Board meets at 3 p.m. in workshop to go over the items on its upcoming school board meeting two weeks hence. The board meets in the training room on the third floor of the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell. Board meeting documents are available here.
The Flagler County Planning Board meets at 5:30 p.m. at the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell. See board documents, including agendas and background materials, here. Watch the meeting or past meetings here.
The Flagler Beach Library Book Club meets at 5 p.m. at the library, 315 South Seventh Street, Flagler Beach.
Random Acts of Insanity Standup Comedy, 8 p.m. at Cinematique Theater, 242 South Beach Street, Daytona Beach. General admission is $8.50. Every Tuesday and on the first Saturday of every month the Random Acts of Insanity Comedy Improv Troupe specializes in performing fast-paced improvised comedy.
Notably: On November 7, 1956, over 1,000 Soviet tanks crammed into Hungary and crushed the two-week Hungarian revolution that had filled streets with students and others demanding emancipation from the Soviets. The Soviets and Hungarian collaborators murdered as many civilians as Osama’s goons killed on Sept. 11. The West objected but did nothing, could do nothing, though France and Britain could have refrained from acting identically to the Soviets, if not worse, when they joined Israel in attacking Egypt until Eisenhower told them all to desist–not because he was willing to stand up to Israel or the Brits and the French, but because he wa sincensed that they would undermine his anti-Soviet rhetoric with colonial hubris of their own. This is just a summary to get to this, what Albert Camus said in a speech on the first anniversary of the crushing of the uprising in Hungary, which can now be spoken, word for word, in response to our fascistic shah’s response to the uprising against “ICE” in California: “I am not one of those who think that there can be a compromise, even one made with resignation, even provisional, with a regime of terror which has as much right to call itself [democratic] as the executioners of the Inquisition had to call themselves Christians.” I have changed one word, putting in “democratic” for “socialist.” Like Camus, Jacques Brel, poet of hopeful despair, wrote a song for his album released in April 1957, called “Quand on a que l’amour” (“When we only have love”), a song as powerful as Camus that someone, somewhere in California, I have no doubt, is singing now. (I ran it here some years ago. Nothing says it shouldn’t be a canticle.) See below.
—P.T.
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The Live Calendar is a compendium of local and regional political, civic and cultural events. You can input your own calendar events directly onto the site as you wish them to appear (pending approval of course). To include your event in the Live Calendar, please fill out this form.
June 2025
Palm Coast City Council Meeting
Food Truck Tuesday
Flagler Beach Library Writers’ Club
Random Acts of Insanity Standup Comedy
Contractor Review Board Meeting
Flagler County’s Technical Review Committee Meeting
Separation Chat: Open Discussion
The Circle of Light A Course in Miracles Study Group
Weekly Chess Club for Teens, Ages 9-18, at the Flagler County Public Library
Palm Coast Planning and Land Development Board
For the full calendar, go here.
I am not one of those who wish to see the people of Hungary take up arms again in a rising certain to be crushed, under the eyes of the nations of the world, who would spare them neither applause nor pious tears, but who would go back at one to their slippers by the fireside like a football crowd on a Sunday evening after a cup final. […] [O]n this anniversary of liberty, I hope with all my heart that the silent resistance of the people of Hungary will endure, will grow stronger, and, reinforced by all the voices which we can raise on their behalf, will induce unanimous international opinion to boycott their oppressors. And if world opinion is too feeble or egoistical to do justice to a martyred people, and if our voices also are too weak, I hope that Hungary’s resistance will endure until the counter-revolutionary State collapses everywhere in the East under the weight of its lies and contradictions. […] In Europe’s isolation today, we have only one way of being true to Hungary, and that is never to betray, among ourselves and everywhere, what the Hungarian heroes died for, never to condone, among ourselves and everywhere, even indirectly, those who killed them. It would indeed be difficult for us to be worthy of such sacrifices. But we can try to be so, in uniting Europe at last, in forgetting our quarrels, in correcting our own errors, in increasing our creativeness, and our solidarity. We have faith that there is on the march in the world, parallel with the forces of oppression and death which are darkening our history, a force of conviction and life, an immense movement of emancipation which is culture and which is born of freedom to create and of freedom to work.
–From Albert Camus’ “Le sang des hongrois” (“The Blood of the HUngarians), 1957.
Pogo says
@Meanwhile
https://www.google.com/search?q=viktor+orban
… the legacy of 1956’s martyrs:
https://hungarytoday.hu/
… Camus, Jacques Brel — where ever you are:
https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/marine-le-pen-news-france-rally-3z29tcpc6
More is more
martyr
https://www.google.com/search?q=martyr
Camus
https://www.google.com/search?q=Camus
Jacques Brel
https://www.google.com/search?q=Jacques+Brel
Laurel says
Chaos in the streets. Just as I predicted if y’all remember. The tyrant started this because this is what he wants. Us pitted against each other, and distracted from his meme schemes.
This chaos will get worse before he is done, you wait and see. An unsettled America. A dictator’s dream.
Pogo says
@To the good life
“See which U.S. cities report ‘forever chemicals’ in drinking water
Austin Fast
USA TODAY
Water pouring from the faucets of at least 42 million Americans is contaminated with unacceptable levels of “forever chemicals,” according to a USA TODAY analysis of records the Environmental Protection Agency released on June 2.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are a family of manmade chemicals engineered to be nearly indestructible. Studies have shown they can accumulate over time in human bodies, leading to certain cancers and other health complications.
Over the past two years, the EPA has collected complete sets of test results from about 6,900 drinking water systems, with thousands more expected as the PFAS testing initiative continues another year…”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/06/10/forever-chemicals-cities-drinking-water-epa-data/84027569007/
Dennis C Rathsam says
[Disallowed. Do not use this site to spread disinformation and hate. Thanks.–FL]
Jim says
I’m sure we’ll see comments lauding Trump for sending in troops to LA. They refuse to see that there was no reason to do this – the original protests were mainly peaceful and the LA police had it under control. No one asked for the National Guard. Further, Trump federalized the Guard without the consent of the governor which should not happen and shouldn’t be acceptable to any American, regardless of party affiliation.
Clearly Trump is trying to incite the citizens to riot, burn, etc. so he can continue to militarize the situation. He stated that he’d “send troops anywhere” if necessary. Clearly he wants to put the military into the streets of as many cities and states as he thinks he can justify. And now the Marines are getting involved. I wonder how much training those guys have in crowd control without a gun in their hands? And I hate it for the Marines and National Guard. I’ll bet most of them don’t want to be there, don’t know why they are there and don’t want to assault anyone.
Trump has weaponized the federal government and is very close to becoming a true dictator. The House is abdicated any oversite and the “leader”, Mike Johnson, is the most spineless congressman I’ve yet to see (even worse than Lindsey Graham and that’s hard to do).
I don’t see how any thinking American can see what is going on and think this is all okay. I guess it’s the same reason why Hitler was so beloved by the Germans prior to WWII. That didn’t end well for the Germans. I hope we don’t have to see the entire nation burned down to start recognizing what’s happening.
Did anyone read the constitution says
Why doesn’t the government abide by the law. Police in masks, identity yourself, due process? , warrants? Breaking the law isn’t a good way to enforce the law. Plus they are fighting Orange tyranny! Let’s go LA! Fighting Nazis is most patriotic thing I’ve seen all year! The gop cult members just get on their knees while everyones rights are stripped. The constitution outlines their punishment for treason.
Sherry says
Thank you and “right on” Jim and Laurel!
“NO KINGS”. . . We’ll be out there “peacefully” protesting in the streets!
Skibum says
There is a proper way to have national guard troops supplement and assist local and state law enforcement when the extra manpower from the national guard is needed. First and foremost, a state’s governor is the authority who activates national guard troops in the event that local law enforcement does not have the resources or manpower to do the job. Secondly, once activated and given a specific, LIMITED mission, national guard troops are moved into the area and are under the ultimate command of local law enforcement, working alongside and in conjunction with those officers and given assignments from the local command center so that everything is coordinated and everyone, whether it be local police officers, sheriff’s deputies, state highway patrol or national guard members work in unison toward specific goals to establish order as quickly as possible to allow those national guard members to be deactivated as soon as practical.
Having started my law enforcement career in Los Angeles after graduating from the L.A. Sheriff’s Academy, I know how this cooperation works, and it is very rare that national guard members would ever need to be activated in the first place because of the vast mutual aid resources that could easily and quickly be requested from surrounding law enforcement agencies in adjacent cities, surrounding or even far flung counties in other parts of the state, as well as from the state highway patrol and other state law enforcement agencies that are already in every part of the state. In the situation going on in L.A. over the weekend, there was NO need to request national guard assistance due to plenty of additional law enforcement resources coming into downtown L.A. from other local agencies, and importantly, there was one, unified command with one ultimate incident commander to direct the response.
NO request had been made to the governor for any additional law enforcement resources, yet when the buffoon in the WH saw the increase in protests as I’m sure he was hoping for after escalating tensions and inciting more disorder from the mass ICE raids, he took it upon himself to completely bypass the governor and unilaterally and without justification, ordered the CA national guard activated and HE sent them into downtown, not to coordinate or work with local law enforcement under the unified command system that had already been set up, but they were on their own orders to provide assistance to ICE and the federal buildings and areas adjacent to those facilities, completely separate from the command structure and communications and control that the incident commander was working with. That is a recipe for DISASTER! But the idiot in the WH wanted chaos, just like he fomented the out of control behavior that turned into complete chaos on Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol that injured more than a hundred federal and local law enforcement officers.
The courts need to overturn the buffoon’s ridiculous and unnecessary escalations of force and violence on the citizens of this country. When and if additional resources are needed in ANY state in the U.S., the governors of our states are much more in tune with what is needed and how to get the resources they need without political interference and incitement of violence from the idiot in the WH who wants to bypass EVERYONE in both federal and state government… because he thinks, wrongly, that HE is a dictator and can do whatever the hell he wants for his own spurious and irrational purpose. That MUST be stopped, whatever the cost. And if the courts won’t do it, we can already see that the PEOPLE of this nation will rise to the occasion and not stand for our democracy taken over by an unhinged, un-democratic, convicted felon buffoon and his gestapo tactics.
Ray W, says
This from Victor Davis Hanson’s 2003 book: Ripples of Battle:
“In 1986 a panel of the United Nations declared that war was an aberration and not in any way natural or innate to humans. Yet the Greek philosopher Heraclitus twenty-five centuries earlier had dubbed it ‘the father, the king of us all.’ After the fall of the twin towers, Americans were more likely to believe a dead Greek that the most sophisticated lawyers and social scientists of the modern Western world.
“In a single morning Americans also rediscovered the Hellenic idea that it is not wars per se that are always terrible, but the people — Hitler, Tojo, Stalin, Saddam Hussein, and bin Laden — and their repugnant ideas who start them. In this present conflict, the -isms and -ologies of radical Islamist fundamentalism that have infected millions can be shown to be bankrupt only by their complete repudiation, which tragically must come out of military defeat, subsequent humiliation, and real personal costs for all who embrace them. Only that way can both adherents and the innocent alike learn the wages of allowing their country to be hijacked by agents of intolerance. Ask the Japanese about the terrible sequelae to Okinawa.
“The enemy in battle is never a person per se, but the fanaticism that has taken hold of him. Battle likewise is sometimes the only exorcist strong enough to rid the zombie host of such deadly demons. The brilliant memoir of E. B. Sledge about his ghastly experiences in the inferno of Okinawa is often slighted as an antiwar tract. It is. But we remember that his recollection is also more than that — as the last lines of the book reveal: ‘As the troops used to say, ‘If the country is good enough to live in, it’s good enough to fight for.’ With privilege goes responsibility.’
“Even we in the supposedly enlightened West may also relearn from fighting rich and educated terrorists that conflicts can often arise not out of real, but rather perceived grievances — or, as the Greeks taught us, from old-fashioned but now passe’ ideas like hatred envy, fear, and self-interest. The agitators for secession were not the millions of poor and nonslaveowning Southern whites who lived hand-to-mouth, but the few plantationists whose antebellum cotton sales had made them among the wealthiest men in the history of civilization. Japan had as many people and as little land in 1941 as it does now, but a very different perception then of its own grievance, national right, and imperial destiny. People and their leaders can go to war not because their bellies ache with hunger, but out of a belief that they may otherwise lose — or even not augment — the sizeable fortune, influence, or real power they hold.
“The terrorists of al-Qaeda, like the Japanese militarists, attacked America not simply because they were poor, exploited, abused, or maladjusted, but perhaps as much out of loathing, trepidation, and resentment of the West. That fact in and of itself seemed somewhat a refutation of perhaps the entire twentieth-century confidence in the assertions of social science that man’s nature is not absolute, unchanging, and timeless, but simply a construct of his contemporary environment and (often pathological) upbringing. After September 11 we were reminded that our own prosperous and peaceful era, not history’s long centuries, was the true aberration in its denial of an unchanging human character driven by timeless passions and appetites.”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
From the beginning of my commenting, I have opposed the politically vengeful among us. In large part, I started commenting to FlaglerLive after learning that a local Republican elected politician had taken to the radio air to ask just when would it be time to begin beheading Democrats. The issue, as Hanson puts it, is not that the politically vengeful walk among us, as in fact they do, so much as the societal importance that the politically vengeful among us never be permitted to seize absolute political power for an indeterminate period of time.
I intend to follow this submission with comments about how two completely different yet competing political perspectives can lead to terrible international consequences.
Sherry says
This from Adam Kinzinger:
A Well-Regulated Illusion
Trump, Newsom, and the Federalized Guard: Who Really Commands the “Militia”?
Jun 10
When the Founders enshrined the Second Amendment into the Constitution, they paired the right to bear arms with a reference to “a well-regulated militia” being “necessary to the security of a free state.” For centuries, Americans have debated what that actually means. But here’s what often gets overlooked: If the National Guard is that militia, then it sure doesn’t belong to the states when it really counts.
As a former member of the Air National Guard, I’ve experienced firsthand what it means to train, deploy, and serve in a dual-status force—part federal, part state. I served in war as a US Air Force officer, fighting terrorism, and stateside as a counter-drug asset going after cartels and other drug related criminals with the consent of the state’s governor and the President. In fact, to operate in another state we needed their governor’s permission, often in the form of a memorandum between states.
In theory, the Guard answers to the governor until it’s federalized. In practice, the president can override a state’s authority with a signature. This makes sense in time of war, but not when that Guard is turned against its own state. That tension is more than hypothetical. It just played out again under Donald Trump.
A few days ago, Trump federalized the California National Guard over Governor Gavin Newsom’s explicit objections to respond to unrest in Los Angeles. This was the first time a president had done so against a governor’s will since 1965—when Lyndon Johnson federalized the Alabama Guard to confront segregationists defying civil rights law.
The irony should hit everyone across the political spectrum. Conservatives often argue that the Guard is a modern embodiment of the constitutional “militia”—a counterbalance to federal power. But what kind of militia can be seized by the very federal power it’s supposed to balance?
Let’s be clear: the Guard does incredible work., and is extremely important. I’ve deployed with men and women who juggle civilian careers with military readiness, who train to serve their neighbors and, if needed, their nation. They are citizen-soldiers in the truest sense. Responding to civil unrest at a Governor’s request, natural disasters, etc. But when a president uses the Guard as a political tool—especially against a state’s wishes—we cross a constitutional line.
(As an aside, when the guard is activated federally, without a governors consent, they are no different than federal army troops and have no law enforcement authority unless the insurrection act is invoked.)
In Los Angeles, we see the Guard used not to assist local leadership, but to impose federal will. And worse, as a flex. That’s not defending freedom—it’s undermining state sovereignty. And it reveals something troubling: the so-called “well-regulated militia” is only state-controlled until the federal government says otherwise. Then, it’s not a local force—it’s just another arm of presidential power.
You don’t have to be a liberal governor to worry about that. Imagine the precedent this sets. If a president can activate a state’s Guard to intervene in civil unrest, what’s to stop them from doing so for a political rally, or to suppress protest, or to enforce executive orders the state opposes?
For all the rhetoric about resisting tyranny, this is where the rubber meets the road. The Founders feared standing armies under the thumb of a central authority, but the world changed and a standing army is now necessary. However, that concern is why they wrote the militia into the Constitution. But the National Guard, as it operates today, is structurally no different from a federal force when push comes to shove. And if we’re honest, that should make anyone concerned about executive overreach sit up and take notice.
This isn’t an academic argument. It’s a live constitutional contradiction that affects real people, real freedoms, and the balance of power between Washington and the states.
If we believe in the Second Amendment’s invocation of a state-based militia, we need to reconcile it with the uncomfortable truth that the National Guard, as currently structured, doesn’t really fit that mold. Either we redefine what we mean by “militia,” or we face the fact that state-controlled military forces don’t exist in a meaningful way when they can be federalized at will.
I loved serving in the Guard. I believed in its mission. But I also believe in the rule of law, constitutional integrity, and checks on power. What’s happening in California isn’t that. It will be essential for the next president to consider changes to how the Guard can be mobilized, especially when the state and president find themselves at odds.
Ray W, says
In my first submission of three intended comments, Victor Davis Hanson posed the idea that one branch of thought posited that war was an unnatural expression of human potential. The other branch of thought in Hanson’s contrast, Heraclitan in origin, was that war was an innate expression of human destructiveness.
Hanson is not alone in expressing two contrasting human ideologies. Barbara W. Tuchman, in her internationally respected WWI work, titled “The Guns of August”, framed two competing yet widely held perspectives on war immediately prior to WWI.
Here is how Ms. Tuchman described the first of her two perspectives on human nature:
“… The last two years of the decades while Europe enjoyed a rich fat afternoon, were the quietest. Nineteen-ten was peaceful and prosperous, with the second round of Moroccan crises and Balkan wares still to come. A new book, The Great Illusion by Norman Angell, had just been published, which proved that war had become vain. By impressive examples and incontrovertible argument Angell showed that in the present financial and economic interdependence of nations, the victor would suffer equally with the vanquished; therefore war had become unprofitable; therefore no nation would be so foolish as to start one. Already translated into eleven languages, The Great Illusion had become a cult. At the universities, in Manchester, Glasgow, and other industrial cities, more that forty study groups of true believers had formed, devoted to propagating its dogma. Angell’s most earnest disciple was a man of great influence on military policy, the King’s friend and advisor, Viscount Esher, chairman of the War Committee assigned to remaking the British Army after the shock of its performance in the Boer War. Lord Esher delivered lectures on the lesson of The Great Illusion at Cambridge and the Sorbonne wherein he showed how ‘new economic factors clearly prove the inanity of aggressive wars.’ A twentieth century war would be on such a scale, he said, that its inevitable consequences of ‘commercial disaster, financial ruin and individual suffering’ would be ‘so pregnant with restraining influences’ as to make war unthinkable. He told an audience of officers at the United Service Club, with the Chief of the General Staff, Sir John French, in the chair, that because of the interlacing of nations war ‘becomes every day more difficult and improbable.’
“Germany, Lord Esher felt sure, ‘is as receptive as Great Britain to the doctrine of Norman Angell.’ How receptive were the Kaiser and the Crown Prince to whom he gave, or caused to be given, copies of The Great Illusion is not reported.”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
Next will be a comment devoted to the nature of war as written by a German military officer at roughly the same time as the publication of The Great Illusion.
Ray W, says
Here is Ms. Tuchman’s description of the counterargument to the idea that economic intertwining between nations had made war “more difficult and improbable.”
German General von Bernhardi “… was engaged in 1910 in writing a book called Germany and the Next War, published in the following year, which was to be as influential as Angell’s but from the opposite point of view. Three of its chapter titles, ‘The Right to Make War,’ ‘The Duty to Make War,’ and ‘World Power or Downfall’ sum up its thesis.
“As a twenty-one-year-old cavalry officer in 1870, Bernhardi had been the first German to ride through the Arc de Triomphe when the Germans entered Paris. Since then flags and glory interested him less than the theory, philosophy, and science of war as applied to ‘Germany’s Historic Mission,’ another of his chapter titles. He has served as chief of the Military History section of the General Staff, was one of the intellectual elite of that hard-thinking, hard-working body, and author of a classic on cavalry before he assembled a lifetime’s study of Clausewitz, Treitschke, and Darwin, and poured them into a book that was to make his name a synonym for Mars.
“War, he stated, ‘is a biological necessity’; it is the carrying out among humankind of ‘the natural law, upon which all the laws of Nature rest, the law for the struggle of existence.’ Nations, he said, must progress or decay; ‘there can be no standing still,’ and Germany must choose ‘world power or downfall.’ Among the nations Germany ‘is in social-political respects at the head of all progress in culture’ but is ‘compressed into narrow, unnatural limits.’ She cannot attain her ‘great moral ends’ without increased political power, an enlarged sphere of influence, and new territory. This increase in power, ‘befitting our importance,’ and ‘which we are entitled to claim,’ is a ‘political necessity’ and ‘the first and foremost duty of the State.’ In his own italics Bernhardi announced, ‘What we now wish to attain must be fought for,’ and from here he galloped home to the finish line: ‘Conquest thus becomes a law of necessity.’
“Having proved the ‘necessity’ (the favorite word of German military thinkers), Bernhardi proceeded to method. Once the duty to make war is recognized, the secondary duty, to make it successfully, follows. To be successful a state must begin war at the ‘most favorable moment’ of its own choosing; it has ‘the acknowledged right . . . to secure the proud privilege of such initiative.’ Offensive war thus becomes another ‘necessity’ and a second conclusion inescapable: ‘It is incumbent on us . . . to act on the offensive and strike the first blow.’ Bernhardi did not share the Kaiser’s concern about the ‘odium’ that attached to an aggressor. Nor was he reluctant to tell where the blow would fall. It was ‘unthinkable,’ he wrote, that Germany and France could ever negotiate their problems. ‘France must be so completely crushed that she can never cross our path again’; she ‘must be annihilated once and for all as a great power.'”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
Two diametrically opposed ideas of military philosophy were published a year apart shortly before the outbreak of WWI.
I argue that von Bernhardi’s work came to epitomize what Churchill called “Prusssian nationalism”, a deadly military philosophy that Churchill was determined to crush at all costs. Twice in his political lifetime, German armies had struck outwards at a time of their choosing, intent on either world domination or national decline.
Can it be argued that contemporary Russian military thought follows Bernhardi’s “necessity’ of offensive war in the pursuit of either “world power or downfall”? If so, can it be argued that Trump’s focus on stopping the killing means nothing to Putin’s plan of eradicating Ukrainian identity in furtherance of the “natural law” of Russian nationalism?
Ed P says
Leaving the politics out of the debate for just a moment.
The visuals of the Los Angeles protests makes it difficult not to concede the moral high ground. The world is witnessing looting, burning of vehicles, and throwing concrete at law enforcement. Peaceful resistance looks different.
Leaders, Bass, Newsom, and Trump have to come together and end this 5 day spectacle.
Lawsuits, finger pointing or blaming will not bring it to an end.
Sherry says
As usual. . . Thank you so very much Skibum! You are “right on”!
Skibum says
The link below is from Los Angeles TV station KTLA news, which includes a video showing employees of a Salvadoran restaurant helping L.A. County sheriff deputies who were overcome by tear gas or pepper spray that got into their faces and eyes during the protests against ICE today. These sheriff deputies as well as local police do not want or need national guard troops in L.A., and in fact the presence of the national guard, and now even more heavily armed marines is making law enforcement’s jobs HARDER and will likely lengthen the time it takes to stop the daily protests from citizens who are rightly upset at the heavy handed response from federal immigration raids in communities all over the L.A area.
The migrant communities and those people who in many cases have been here in the United States for many years are NOT the problem. This country has a much more serious problem… a threat actually, from racist, rightwing maga extremists. And those extremists are emboldened by the head maga extremist convicted felon who sits in the WH and orders his jackbooted federal agents to seize law abiding, brown skinned residents, even 4-years olds with life threatening illnesses who are here in the U.S. specifically to undergo lifesaving cancer treatment, and lock them up to be deported without constitutionally protected immigration hearings because he says it would be “burdensome” for courts to do so!
This nation’s migrant communities support our local law enforcement agencies and local cops support and defend the migrant communities and residents… something that the criminal president doesn’t understand nor even has the capacity or willingness to comprehend because he is the worst kind of human and undeserving of being called an American president.
https://ktla.com/news/local-news/salvadoran-restaurant-workers-aid-deputies-injured-during-compton-ice-raids-protests/
Skibum says
Reposted from an opinion piece I read today that I thought was particularly cogent pertaining to the ongoing ICE protests that are occurring in L.A.
After LA, Trump hard launches new First Amendment: Only MAGA can protest | Opinion
Rex Huppke
USA TODAY
“President Donald Trump and his band of faux-macho nogoodniks keep poking the city of Los Angeles, hoping it will squeal and create the kind of violent theater that gives right-wing media its life force. First they sent in the National Guard to address predominantly peaceful anti-ICE protests, but the sprawling city failed to adequately burn. Now they’re sending in U.S. Marines to get the job done. It’s an intentional, dangerous and wholly unnecessary provocation. And based on how Trump and other Republicans have reacted to the ongoing protests, we should all be clear on the administration’s new rules for protesting in America.
Rule No. 1: No protesting unless it’s something Trump wants you to protest
For those who engage in liberal activities like reading and “seeing things with your own eyes and believing they’re real,” it might seem odd that the man who praised Jan. 6 insurrectionists as “great patriots” and then pardoned them all has the gall to call LA protesters “insurrectionists.” Technically, there’s nothing about the California protests that would make them an insurrection, while everything about the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, an effort to overturn a free-and-fair election, made it an actual insurrection. But that kind of fact-based thinking is now illegal, and protesters in Los Angeles and elsewhere need to understand that the First Amendment only applies to things Trump and Republicans want to hear.
As border czar Tom Homan said on June 9 about the LA protesters: “I said many times, you can protest. You get your First Amendment rights. But when you cross that line, you put hands on an ICE officer, or you destroy property or ICE says you impede law enforcement … that’s a crime. And the Trump administration is not going to tolerate it.” Correct. Unless you’re a pro-Trump protester. In which case, breaking into a federal building, beating the snot out of police officers and destroying property is patriotic and easily pardonable.
Rule No. 2: Protesters can only use American flags
Video of California protesters waving flags from Mexico and other countries really upset a number of Republicans who have apparently never been in Boston on St. Patrick’s Day. Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma said: “This is an American city, and to be able to have an American city where we have people literally flying Mexican flags and saying ‘you cannot arrest us’ cannot be allowed.” If those protesters were waving a good old-fashioned American flag, it would be an entirely different story. But in Trump’s America, flag choice matters. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called out “left-wing radicals carrying foreign flags.” Vice President JD Vance declared on social media: “Insurrectionists carrying foreign flags are attacking immigration enforcement officers.”
MIND THE FLAGS, PEOPLE! The rule seems pretty clear. Your First Amendment right only allows you to carry an American flag, unless you are a Trump supporter during an actual insurrection, in which case you can carry a Confederate flag, replace an American flag with a Trump flag or use an American flag on a pole to beat a police officer.
Rule No. 3: No spitting on or disrespecting law enforcement officers
In response to some LA protesters allegedly spitting on authorities, Trump declared on social media June 9: “ ‘If they spit, we will hit.’ This is a statement from the President of the United States concerning the catastrophic Gavin ‘Newscum’ inspired Riots going on in Los Angeles. The Insurrectionists have a tendency to spit in the face of the National Guardsmen/women, and others. These Patriots are told to accept this, it’s just the way life runs. But not in the Trump Administration. IF THEY SPIT, WE WILL HIT, and I promise you they will be hit harder than they have ever been hit before. Such disrespect will not be tolerated!”
Some might respond to this by saying, “But the Jan. 6 insurrectionists whom you pardoned en masse did a lot more than just spit. They brutally attacked police officers, physically injuring more than 140 of them.” To which Trump would probably say: “Shut up. Your First Amendment rights are hereby revoked!” Or he might say what he actually said when he pardoned hundreds of Jan. 6 rioters after he was inaugurated Jan. 20: “These are people who actually love our country, so we thought a pardon would be appropriate.”
To clarify, the people who Trump thinks love this country, demonstrated by them loving him, are allowed to express that love by defacing a federal building they broke into and viciously assaulting police officers. People who Trump thinks don’t love the country, demonstrated by them exercising their First Amendment right to protest things he doesn’t want them to protest, will be beaten up for spitting.
Follow Trump’s protesting rules, or he’ll call in the troops. It’s clear as mud, folks.”
Sherry says
134 MILLION in Your Tax Dollars Wasted on “Strongman BS”!
A YouGov poll out today shows that only 34% of American adults approve of Trump’s deployment of Marines to the Los Angeles area to respond to protests over the enforcement of immigration laws while 47% do not approve. Only 38% of American adults approve of Trump’s deployment of National Guard soldiers to L.A., while 45% disapprove. A strong majority—56%—of Americans think state and local officials should take the lead in responding to the L.A. protests, while only 25% think the federal government should.
Strikingly, 50% of adults disapprove of the administration’s handling of deportations, while only 39% approve.
Those numbers were gathered before Pentagon comptroller Bryn MacDonnell told the House Defense Appropriations Committee today that the Pentagon estimates the cost of federalizing the National Guard and deploying the Marines to Los Angeles at $134 million.
Sherry says
Has anyone noticed the tens of thousands “peacefully” protesting against trump and his fascist actions each and every day. Oh yeah, I forgot, Fox doesn’t broadcast the “daily” protests that are happening all over the country.
I actually think we can all agree that “ALL” criminals, undocumented or not, should be given their day(s) in court and removed from society if that’s what the judge/jury decides. The question is, just “who” made trump and his ICE gestapo terrorists “judge/jury”?
Arresting migrants who are kids in school/a very young girl receiving life supporting care/those who have been here for many years in the legalization process without committing any crime, etc., etc. are NOT who ICE should be sweeping up in “mass raids”! Those migrants are being treated like so much vermin by placing them in offshore prisons/detention centers with NO DUE PROCESS! The “due process” that is guaranteed by our constitution for every person in our country. . . whether they are currently an official citizen or not.
Those of you who incessantly regurgitate Fox talking points about how immigrants should come in “LEGALLY” have no damned idea that it often takes years and large sums of money for that legal immigration process to be completed. Because our immigration system is “BROKEN”! Why don’t you get that??? The republicans in congress have stopped each and every attempt to “fix” that process for many years. Meanwhile trump’s goons are arresting immigrants who are LEGALLY in that “immigration process”! ICE agents are waiting outside of “courthouses” for humans in the “legal immigration” process to appear as “legally” required and then arresting them. The courthouses across our country have now become “traps” for ICE! Great “police work”, huh?
The trouble is that there are just not enough actual “criminal” immigrants to create the “chest pounding” numbers trump wants to brag about. This is now where we are. The baby man wannabe dictator needs to make up some ridiculous story about an emergency to be able to wield the “power” his demented “strong man” ego demands.
Elect a person with that “criminal” mindset and this ends up being the warped mentality we are all subjected to each and every day! Again, as I’ve said many, many times before. . . this is precisely why “CHARACTER MATTERS”!
“NO KINGS/DICTATORS”!
Ed P says
$134 million….
Estimated damage and lost business in Los Angeles is approaching $1 billion
It takes 1000 millions to equal a billion. Pretty costly peaceful demonstrations.
Neither estimate is probably accurate or pertinent.
Joe D says
Another TRUMP “photo op”…
I have to admit I was INITIALLY on the fence about National Guard deployment in LA…I was too busy at the time to do my usual “due diligence” by taking the face value NEWS COVERAGE of “LA RIOTS” and “LA ON FIRE”…silly me for not checking the FACTS.
It wasn’t until I saw the LA Mayor’s mapping of the protests. The violent protests broke out in a 5 SQUARE BLOCK AREA OF LA!! That’s it ( not that ANY VIOLENT PROTESTS should be allowed )…Trump and MAGA NEW MEDIA are portraying the story as if the entire city of LA is on fire and in PANIC!
The LA mayor also clarified that the National Guard (not really trained in crowd control or internal urban security) are ONLY deployed around 2 Federal buildings to prevent property damage and ensure Federal employees safety. That’s kind of their limits.
I thought it was HILARIOUS watching the news coverage of President Trump saying what a BRAVE JOB the National Guard was doing protecting LA streets from the criminals and incompetent local government officials. At the time of those statements, there was NOT ONE National Guard boot yet on the ground in LA!!! But, in TRUMP WORLD: Say it and THEY WILL BELIEVE (without question).
The imposition of a nightly localized (only 1 square mile) curfew by the LA mayor has done quite a bit to quell the VIOLENCE. In fact, the Mayor said that during most of the daytime, protests were GENERALLY Peaceful. It was different at night. She said those involved, weren’t REALLY the ICE protesters…it was just those that wanted to incite Chaos…and MANY WEREN’T even from the area.
The illegal deployment (halted today by a Federal Judge) of FEDERALIZED National Guard and Marines against the wishes of the California State Governor , was a POLITICAL MOVE by the TRUMP ADMINISTRATION (in my opinion) to discredit Governor Gavin Newsom, since Newsom is a SERIOUS CONTENDER for the Democratic nomination for President in 2028…let there be no doubt about it.
Don’t even get me started on the $137 million of taxpayer dollars WASTED on an UNNECESSARY LA troop deployment, and a $92 million military “VANITY “ parade in DC on 6/14, at a time when the MAGA crew is shouting from the rooftops about GOVERNMENT WASTE!
Skibum says
Thank you, Joe D, you did your due diligence and actually searched out the truth to inform your response about what was really happening on the ground in L.A. Your comment reflects exactly what I have been saying, which is that fauxinfotainment talking heads, their sheeple viewers and other maga mushbrains would love to have America believe that LA. is a den of heathens and in the process of burning the entire city down, which would be hilarious if not so seriously misinformed and intentionally lied about. Nobody from the governor on down had any desire or need for drumph to send in national guard troops, and the L.A. police chief who is the incident commander on scene has said multiple times over the last couple of days that he was still not in the loop as to what the national guard’s role or duties are because they are being tasked completely separately, making a very dangerous situation as far as response efforts go. Neither the police chief or sheriff, or the city’s mayor want or need national guard troops in the downtown area because they have enough law enforcement resources at hand to handle anything that might occur. It is all a political game to the idiot in the WH, hoping for more of a violent reaction from protesters if they see armed national guard members and combat marines, but it has all blown up in his face. But what do people expect from such a despicable man that just sat there and chuckled during the Jan. 6 riot when he was informed that his own maga insurrectionists had built a makeshift gallows on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol and had stormed the building in search of drumph’s own sitting Vice President while the crown outside stood by the hangman’s noose chanting HANG MIKE PENCE! The impeached, convicted felon should not be occupying our nation’s WH… he should be occupying a 6′ X 8′ prison cell with steel bars to keep him from doing any more damage to our country and it’s citizens, period, end of story.
Sherry says
Thank you Joe D for stating the actual facts of what is happening in LA. . . exactly what our local news here in the SF Bay area had. Betcha Fox did not focus on what the LA Mayor or CA Governor had to say. Why listen to the “local” government leaders who actually know what’s going on, right?
Thank you Skibum for your usual reasonable and logical assessment of the situation. . . right on!
NO KINGS! NO DICTATORS! NO TRAITORS!