In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

The quote above is from Dana Williamson, Gavin Newsom's former chief of staff, referring to Trump in an article in Politico from Saturday . The piece refers to California: Between the deployment of federal agents to Los Angeles, the gutting of climate standards and the manhandling of the state’s senior U.S. senator, the state absorbed one show of force after another from the president. And in the balance of power between the Trump administration and the nation’s most populous state, California was on the losing end. But it looks like California is just one piece of the story : The United States is shifting military resources, including ships, in the Middle East in response to Israel’s strikes on Iran and a possible retaliatory attack by Tehran, two U.S. officials said Friday. . . . President Donald Trump is meeting with his National Security Council principals Friday to discuss the situation. The U.S. officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details not ye...

As far as I can tell, the only extended violence anywhere in the country in yesterday's No Kings Day demonstrations was in Los Angeles, where things had been simmering since last weekend. All I can think is that LAPD somehow talked sense into Mayor Bass and convinced her that the way to stop riots, as was finally done in the 1992 Rodney King episode, was to have the media show people being arrested, not just looting stores. Thus photos like the one above, showing people retreating from tear gas, have finally begun to appear, unlike last weekend's shots of rioters waving Mexican flags: But also, note that the people in the top photo, retreating from tear gas, are young, countercultural, and dressed to storm the barricades. The people at No Kings Day events anywhere else in the country apparenty weren't in this demographic: Not...really. From a basic scan of the pics, it's an insanely old, white, female, middle-middle class (not upper or lower or working), neurotic/ma...

This meme emerged in the wake of Sen Padilla's stunt at Secretary Noem's press conference Thursday. It's funny in and of itself, but it raises an intriguing point: where's the wave of new riots? Last weekend's Los Angeles riot got started Friday night, but all indications are that things were quiet here in advance of No Kings Day. But here's what legacy media anticipates : "'No Kings Day' [note the editorial lapse with single vs double quotes] is the largest single-day, peaceful protest in recent American history, made up of millions of normal, everyday Americans who are showing up in more than 2,000 communities around the country to say, 'we don't do kings in America,'" Ezra Levin, the co-executive director of progressive organizing group Indivisible, told ABC News on Thursday. Indivisible and other organizations involved with the coalition coordinating the protests have said that the protests are meant to protest what they...

Sen Alex Padilla's attempt to storm Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at a Los Angeles press conference yesterday goes to my instinct that the Democrats don't have an effective strategy for the Trump deportation policy. Over the week of fading Los Angeles riots, Trump's approval on the issue has risen from 54% as of Monday to 57% as of this morning . Exactly why Padilla suddenly left Washington Wednesday night -- he was at the annual congressional baseball game but apparently left early -- to turn up at Secretary Noem's press conference yesterday morning in Los Angeles isn't clear. Who paid for @AlexPadilla4CA ’s private air travel to CA today? How was he in California today if he was at the Congressional baseball game last night? It’s pretty obvious he took a Private Jet. Who paid for it? Whose plane? https://t.co/160Cb4Afus — Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) June 12, 2025 According to the New York Post , Padilla left Washington earlier in the week...

In yesterday's post, I referred to an interview with Kyle Shideler, who said he was expecting the Democrats opposed to Trump's deportations to game out an effective counter-strategy to his deployment of the National Guard to stop anti-ICE riots. The interview was published this past Monday. but it probably took place earlier -- the upshot is that whatever their strategy may have been when the riots started Friday, it doesn't seem to have changed, and that strategy hasn't been effective. Trump's strategy, on the other hand, has been to undertake what his cabinet prevented him from doing in 2020 with the George Floyd riots and on January 6, 2021, which was to deploy the National Guard. This in turn appears to have forced Mayor Bass and the LAPD to declare a curfew in downtown Los Angeles and make significant numbers of arrests. The result over the course of the week has been a gradual restoration of calm. As of last night, Roughly 45 minutes after the c...

Michael LeBron, who posts as Lionel on his YouTube channel, makes a key point in the clip above. At 4:10: This is not the same Donald Trump. . . . What Trump went through before in 2016 and elsewhere, what he went through was something he never, ever forgot, and he understands how things are done now. . . . He realized that he effed up when he did not do something, dare I say, a little more assiduously regarding the National Guard and others. January 6 was caused by Nancy Pelosi, who let this happen. Donald Trump told her flat out, "I want protection. . . . I want the National Guard." She's the one who said no. Why? Because that would destroy the plan. The was a LIHOP and a MIHOP, let it happen on purpose and make it happen on purpose, and Trump understands what's happening right now. An interview at The Tablet with Kyle Shideler , a senior analyst at the Center for Security Policy, expands on this insight: The key indicator that this was in...

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has weighed in on what is basically an internal US issue : Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum criticized the ICE raids that catalyzed days-long protests in Los Angeles, saying the city "wouldn't be what it is" without migrants. "They migrate out of need and send resources to their families from there," the president added. "Mexicans will always have our backing and demand that their human rights be respected. They must know that, should they wish to return to Mexico, we will welcome them with open arms." Another report quoted more of her remarks : Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum defended migrants living in Los Angeles, and claimed that at least 35 Mexicans had been detained in the recent raids carried out by immigration officers of the Trump administration. . . . "Mexicans living in the United States are good men and women, honest people who went to the United States to seek a...