Bishop Strickland On Israel And Just War Doctrine

In the YouTube embedded above, Bp Joseph Strickland uses just war doctrine, as partly outlined in CCC 2309, to, question the moralty of Israel's attacks on Iran. He cites it at 2:10:

"The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration." That's from the Catechsm of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2309.

But then he departs from the Catechism and never quite comes back to it:

A preemptive war, a war launched not in defense but in anticipation, is not a just war. As Pope St John Paul II said before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, "War is not always inevitable. It is always a defeat for humanity," from his address to the dioplomatic corps, January 13, 2003. And Pope Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Ratzinger, with clarity warned that the concept of a preemptive war does not appear in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. . . . A nation does not have the moral right to wage war simply because it suspercts it might be attacked.

I've been looking carefully at the arguments pro and con for both Israel's right to attack Iran starting on June 13 and the justification for any US direct military assistance in that and potential succeeding attacks, although we must acknowledge that the overall strategy behind the attacks, which were timed to begin immediately after the expiration of Trump's 60-day deadline for negotiations to conclude, was clearly worked out in collaboration with Trump from the start.

For now, Bp Strickland's attempt to use just war doctrine against Israel leaves me unconvinced. His unstated assumption is that the Israel-Iran conflict began on June 13 with Israeli aerial attacks on Iranian air defenses and nuclear facilities. However, the conflict between Israel and Iran has been an ongoing proxy war for decades, something Wikipedia acknowledges with an entry on Iran-Israel Proxy Conflict.

While this conflict has existed since the Iranian mullahs seized power, its current phase dates to October 7, 2023:

In the weeks since the Hamas massacre on October 7, pundits have debated whether or not Iran helped Hamas develop the plan for the terrorist assault and if Iran had foreknowledge of the attack. Citing a Hamas source, the Wall Street Journal reported that Iran helped plot the attack and that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp gave it the go-ahead at a meeting in Beirut. Another Journal report claims that in the weeks leading up to the assault, hundreds of Hamas and other Islamist militants received specialized training in Iran. . . . Ultimately, the details of Iran’s role in the plot itself will emerge. But this much is already clear: Iran has funded, armed, trained, and provided intelligence to Hamas for decades. Though Hamas has multiple income streams, funding from Iran has been especially important for the group’s military and terrorist structures.

In other words, the June 13 attack isn't something that emerged de novo between parties that had previously been at peace like, say, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. As of May 2024,

Senior Iranian military officials are developing concepts for destroying Israel without having to defeat the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Iran recognizes the technological superiority of the IDF and the risk that an overt war could draw in the United States, which Iranian leaders desire to avoid. . . . Their thinking proceeds from the theory that destabilizing Israel would cause Jewish citizens to flee Israel and end the long-term viability of a Jewish state in Israel.

So I'm not entirely on board with the idea that the June 13 attacks created an entirely new, preemptive state of war. Instead, Israel since its founding millennia ago has been in a defensive posture vis-a-vis its surrounding states, something current Israeli leadership continually cites.

But there's another problem with the Biblical context of the Almighty's purpose for Israel. In Numbers 13, God tells Moses to send spies into the Promised Land to evaluate its suitability. They return and report that it certainly is suitable, but they'll have to fight the current inhabitants, and they're not sure if they want to do that. The upshot is that Moses hesitates. In Numbers 14, God condemns Israel to wander in the wilderness for 40 years, one year for each day the spies spent in Canaan, for its unwillingness to follow God's plan.

So then we eventually come to the Siege of Jericho, which is definitely not part of a defensive war on Israel's side -- Israel instead is belatedly trusting God's instructions. Jericho amounts to a major conundrum for supporters of just war doctrine, especially for those who argue that the atomic bombs used against Japan weren't justifiable -- except that the destruction of Jericho was an event comparable to a nuclear blast:

Following God's law, the Israelites killed every man and woman, the young and the old, as well as the oxen, sheep, and donkeys. Only Rahab [a Canaanite prostitute who hid two Israeli spies], her parents, brothers and all "those who belonged to her" were spared. They were incorporated into Israel. Joshua then cursed anybody who rebuilt the foundations and gates, with the deaths of their firstborn and youngest child respectively. This was eventually fulfilled by Hiel the Bethelite under King Ahab's reign.

I asked the web, "How does the Siege of Jericho conform with just war doctrine?" and couldn't find a single specific link that gave me a satisfactory answer. However, "AI" replied,

The question of how the siege of Jericho conforms with Just War Doctrine is complex and often debated. Just War Theory is a framework that outlines ethical and moral principles for judging the justification of going to war (jus ad bellum) and the methods used in war (jus in bello).

. . . The conquest of Jericho is often described as a "holy war". This suggests a divine mandate rather than a war fought for typical "just" causes like self-defense or correcting a grave injustice.

. . . God's plan for conquering Jericho involved unconventional actions, such as marching around the city and the collapse of the walls through divine intervention, rather than conventional military tactics.

. . . Some interpretations might argue that the divine command to conquer Jericho establishes a unique context where standard Just War principles may not apply in the same way.

. . . The destruction of Jericho was also seen as a way to prevent the Israelites from being corrupted by the "outsiders" and their practices. This could be seen as a form of preventative action, which is a consideration in Just War Theory.

Not too bad for AI, is it? But didn't Bp Strickland just say that no preemptive war is just? I went back to searching the web and found an essay that discusses the problem in relation to Aquinas (who, however, never directly addressed just war in relation to Jericho):

Ruling out anticipatory defense in various modes confounds morality and practicality, entailing a cure worse than the disease. Instead, prudence as St. Thomas Aquinas envisaged it—the cardinal virtue of right reason about right things to be done—ought to determine whether or not to use force sooner rather than later in accordance with the other criteria for jus ad bellum Aquinas stipulates: rightful authority, just cause, and right intention. Aquinas maintains a wise silence on the question of precisely whether or when force should be used sooner rather than later. So should we.

. . . Aquinas’s formulation of just war theory grounded in the cardinal virtue of prudence should loom large in any calculation of when, how, for what purposes, and to what effect the United States should wage war.

Whether the United States resorts to force sooner rather than later should be a prudential judgment, not a categorical one.

And this brings us back to CCC 2309, a part that Bp Strickland doesn't cite:

The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.

I read the whole meaning of CCC 2309 to say that although all four conditions for legitimate defense must be met, there is nevertheless room for evaluation on the part of civil and military authority.

So far, I'm leaning toward a position that it's by no means clear that the current phase of the Iran-Israel conflict is any sort of discrete, anticipatory attack on Israel's part. The justification and the proper tactics lie within the prudential judgment of US and Israeli leadership. Every current indication is that these issues are under thorough debate within US leadership in particular, and President Trump appears to be carefully weighing arguments from all sides.

Fewer Illegals, Lower Murder Rate, Higher Wages?

I was intrigued by a recent observation that this year, the US may have its lowest murder rate ever.

Answering this question starts with identifying the previous record low rate. The current record low occurred in 2014 when the FBI reported a murder rate of 4.45 per 100,000. That’s slightly lower than the murder rates reported in 2013 (4.53), 1963 (4.58) and 1962 (4.59). Prior to that the FBI didn’t really release national murder estimates with sufficient participation to rely on.

. . . It’s still early in 2025, but murder is down an enormous amount so far. The [Real-Time Crime Index] has it down more than 20 percent through February, fatal shootings are down 14 percent in the Gun Violence Archive, the Major Cities Chiefs Association has homicide down more than 20 percent in the first quarter, and I recently found a greater than 20 percent decline in the 30 cities with the most murders in 2023.

. . . If this decline continues through the Fall then we should seriously start having a discussion about the probability of a record breaking year. Until then, it’s sufficient to be aware of and measuring the possibility of a new record low.

The piece doean't speculate over any cause, it just reports the decline. But this took me back to a question that had been on my mind since I saw an episode of the true crime series See No Evil that aired this past June 3. In the episode, Gabriel Perez, 20, is shot to death at 5:30 AM while sitting on a curb with his skateboard outside a McDonald's in Fargo, ND. The shots were fired from a vehicle that sped away.

The driver was later identified as Miguel J Cooley, who suspected Perez was having an affair with his wife. Perez had been cruising around Fargo all night on his skateboard, which apparently was his sole mode of transportation, and had in fact hooked up with Cooley's wife via phone text not long before. She had agreed to meet Perez outside the McDonald's, which is why Perez was there, but Cooley had discovered the texts on his wife's phone and met Perez outside the McDonald's instead and shot him.

While the show portrayed the detectives solving the crime, it left many questions unanswered, not least of which was how Mexicans wound up in Fargo, ND, about 100 miles from the Canadian border. Perez's family described him as a "goofy" sort of guy with a sense of humor, but gave little explanation of why he spent his nights roving around Fargo on his skateboard and how he might have earned a living.

The episode was equally silent about Cooley, who lived with his wife in Moorhead, MN. They had a car, which was more than Perez had, but again, we're told nothing of their nationality, occupation, or how they all managed to be up to all sorts of mischief so early in the morning.

Because the first link above is seemingly so reluctant to speculate on why the US murder rate has been plunging so drastically, I'm forced to make my own associations: I suspect that people who otherwise might be in places like Fargo, ND, spending the early hours of the morning on skateboards arranging trysts outside McDonald's and getting blown away by jealous husbands are instead leaving the country in significant numbers.

A atatement from the White House yesterday reported another positive trend:

In President Donald J. Trump’s first five months in office, real wages for hourly workers have seen their largest increase under any administration in nearly 60 years — and we’re just getting started with pro-growth, pro-prosperity policies that finally put America First.

Blue-collar workers have seen real wages grow almost two percent in the first five months of President Trump’s second term — a stark contrast from the negative wage growth seen during the first five months of the Biden Administration.

“The only other time it has been this high … was during President Trump’s first term,” Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said in an interview with the New York Post.

From Stephen Kruiser at PJ Media:

The only semblance of an argument that the Democrats have ever had about illegal immigration is that the illegals are here doing the jobs that Americans won't do. Because of the historical lack of will to undertake the task of mass deportations, it was an argument that was difficult to disprove.

. . . The notion that illegal immigrants became a significant part of the labor pool in the United States because Americans just decided to stop working is absurd. American workers were replaced with cheaper options, plain and simple. Employers got addicted to their off-the-books, substandard-pay laborers. It never had anything to do with concern for illegal immigrants or the lack of available American workers.

. . . A restaurant just up the street from me was hit with a big ICE raid a couple of months ago and lost so many workers that it had to shut down for several days. It's been up and running just fine since then, though. It even got a new paint job. Given the fact that the place was under ICE scrutiny, I can't imagine that the owners went out and hired a bunch of illegals in order to reopen.

Via the Washington Examiner:

Another 2024 top pollster has recorded an approval rating high for President Donald Trump, the latest in a trend showing that liberal attacks are bouncing off a political Golden Dome surrounding him.

InsiderAdvantage, rated the second-best national pollster in 2024, put its mid-June approval rating at a sky-high 54% and its disapproval down to 44%.

This is consistent with Rasmussen.

UPDATE:

The far-left Wall Street Journal estimates that America’s immigrant population has declined by 773,000 since President Trump assumed office in January 2025. The far-left Washington Post puts the estimate of foreign-born workers leaving the workforce at around an even million.

Trump vs Chatsworth Osborne, Jr

From one of the last Rush Limbaugh shows:

RUSH: Do you know who Chatsworth Osborne, Jr. was?

CALLER: No, I don’t.

RUSH: Do you ever remember watching a television show — how old are you?

CALLER: Sixty. I didn’t watch much TV, though.

RUSH: Okay. Well, there was a very, very popular TV show in the 1960s called Dobie Gillis.

CALLER: Okay. I never saw that. That’s why.

RUSH: It was a college kids’ program. Dobie Gillis was a college student, and his buddies were college kids. It was kind of like a college kid version of Leave It To Beaver. And one of the characters was this uppity, elitist, snobbish, know-nothing character named Chatsworth Osborne, Jr. You know, who would name a kid Chatsworth? It’s obviously somebody’s last name. Chatsworth Osborne, Jr. So the kid was a preppie. And it’s a very affectionate nickname that I have developed for Tucker Carlson. I haven’t used it in a long time. But that is the source of it. You should YouTube Dobie Gillis and you’ll see the character.

Wikipedia has an extensive biography that definitely reinforces the idea that Tucker is a preppie.

When Carlson was in first grade, his father moved Tucker and his brother to the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, and raised them there. Carlson attended La Jolla Country Day School and grew up in a home overlooking the La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club. His father owned property in Nevada and Vermont, and islands in Maine and Nova Scotia.

. . . In 1979, Carlson's father married Patricia Caroline Swanson, an heiress to Swanson Enterprises, daughter of Gilbert Carl Swanson and niece of Senator J. William Fulbright. Though Patricia remained a beneficiary of the family fortune, the Swansons had sold the brand to the Campbell Soup Company in 1955 and did not own it by the time of Carlson's father's marriage. This was the third marriage for Swanson, who legally adopted Tucker Carlson and his brother.

. . . Carlson was briefly enrolled at Collège du Léman, a boarding school in the Canton of Geneva in French-speaking Switzerland, but said he was "kicked out". He attained his secondary education at St. George's School, a boarding school in Middletown, Rhode Island, where he started dating his future wife, Susan Andrews, the headmaster's daughter. He then spent four years attending Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut and graduated in 1991 with a B.A. in history.

Trinity is upper-upper Episcopalian, but it isn't an Ivy. It's a little puzzling to me that Tucker didn't get into an Ivy; with a wealthy family background and a prep school graduate, his chances of getting into an Ivy -- maybe not Harvard, but certainly Brown or Penn -- should have been quite good. (Trinity was one of my safety schools.) But there's another problem:

After college, Carlson tried to join the Central Intelligence Agency, but his application was denied, after which he decided to pursue a career in journalism with the encouragement of his father, who advised him that "they'll take anybody".

Again, with high social standing, a prep achool background, and at least a Trinity degree, he should have been a prime candidate for the CIA, but something was off. Look at his dad's resume, which included director of Voice of America, president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the U.S. ambassador to the Seychelles. Dad Carlson hired and fired journalists. Instead, Tucker has worked for a whole series of networks, all of which fired him, most recently Fox. Somehow I suspect his dad knew something when he said, "they'll take anybody".

So yesterday,

Tucker Carlson sounded the alarm about the looming danger of a U.S. war with Iran under President Donald Trump’s leadership, warning that such a move would not only devastate America’s global standing but end Trump’s presidency outright.

During an interview with Steve Bannon, Carlson laid bare the stakes, accusing globalist elites and war-hungry neocons of pushing America toward a disastrous conflict that could “scuttle” the nation on the “shores of Iran.”

“I actually really love Trump. I think he’s a deeply humane, kind person,” Carlson said.

“I’m saying this because I’m really afraid that my country is going to be further weakened by this. I think we’re going to see the end of the American Empire, obviously. Other nations would like to see that, and this is a perfect way to scuttle the U.S. on the shores of Iran. But it’s also going to end, I believe, Trump’s presidency—effectively end it. And so that’s why I’m saying this.”

Trump replied later in the day,

“I don’t know what Tucker Carlson is saying. Let him go get a television network and say it so that people listen,” Trump told reporters when asked about Carlson’s comments during a meeting with the British prime minister at the Group of Seven summit.

. . . The former Fox News host’s opposition to U.S. involvement in any conflict in the Middle East underscores a looming divide among parts of Trump’s base over how to proceed toward Iran.

Limbaugh has had other pertinent things to say that apply to the current situation:

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh on Sunday criticized the media, saying members of the press will fail to destroy President Trump.

“The media did not make Donald Trump and they can’t destroy him,” Limbaugh said on “Fox News Sunday.”

. . . ”It’s not going to work on Trump. He doesn’t fit that mold. They’re trying to every day. It’s kind of comical to watch.

. . . “Trump has a connection with his voters that most politicians don’t have…and that connection that he has is not anything that anybody else can break. Only he can break it.”

Tucker's problem is that he isn't even that good at media.

"He’s Pulling The Trigger On Everything All At Once"

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 yet made public.

. . . The Navy has additional assets that it could surge to the Middle East if needed, particularly its aircraft carriers and the warships that sail with them. The aircraft carrier Carl Vinson is in the Arabian Sea — the only aircraft carrier in the region.

Via Real Clear Politics:

In a matter of days, Israel’s pre-emptive strikes have shattered Iran’s defensive shield. Iran’s air defence systems were swiftly eliminated, opening the skies to unimpeded Israeli air power. Simultaneously, precision strikes and covert operations decapitated key nodes of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) command, missile bases, nuclear facilities, and other military targets; too many to list here.

. . . One looming issue remains unresolved: the Fordow uranium enrichment complex. Fordow is Iran’s most challenging nuclear site, buried half a mile deep under a mountain, and it has survived the initial onslaught intact. As long as Fordow remains operational, Iran’s regime keeps a dangerous ace up its sleeve. The facility houses advanced centrifuges enriching uranium to near-weapons-grade levels and could potentially expedite a crash nuclear weapons effort if the leadership feels cornered. In Israeli eyes, allowing Fordow to remain unscathed would be a grave mistake.

As of yesterday afternoon:

A massive explosion can be seen in the distance along the Tehran-Qom road, coinciding with reports of an earthquake in Qom, near the Fordow nuclear facility. pic.twitter.com/RcGTQzKXKV

— Ariel Oseran أريئل أوسيران (@ariel_oseran) June 15, 2025

Reuters has confirmed that the US military redeployed a large number of aerial refueling tankers to Europe to provide “options” to President Trump amid the ongoing Israel-Iran conflict. https://t.co/FVJjQLzt7x

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) June 16, 2025

From Eli Lake at The Free Press:

As I reported earlier this year, even before Trump’s second presidency began, the restrainers inside the MAGA movement had hoped to create an America First foreign policy that pares down America’s global military footprint. On the other side, a mix of pro-Israel evangelicals, Jews, and the remnants of GOP hawks have sought to keep America engaged in the world.

. . . One reason for the public spats between various Trump allies is that the inner circle deliberating on Iran policy is very small and has been fairly tight-lipped, according to administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. The inner circle consists of Trump himself, along with his chief of staff, Susie Wiles; his chief negotiator, Steve Witkoff; Secretary of State Marco Rubio; Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth; CIA director John Ratcliffe; and Vice President J.D. Vance.

. . . the president said nothing in the first eight hours of the hostilities. The only official statement from the administration was a chilly one from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, emphasizing that Israel was acting unilaterally. But at 5:56 a.m. on Friday morning, Trump weighed in on Israel’s side. “I gave Iran chance after chance to make a deal,” he posted on Truth Social. “But no matter how hard they tried, no matter how close they got, they just couldn’t get it done.” That was not an accident, one administration official told me. “Trump was waiting to see if the Israeli mission was a success before he weighed in on it.”

. . . Ultimately, the fortunes of the Trump administration’s restrainers and hawks depend above all else on factors out of their control: the performance of the Israel Defense Forces and the decision of Iran’s supreme leader. Three days into the war, the anxious predictions of the restrainers have not come to pass.

But meanwhile, Trump is off to Canada for the G7:

[A]s the G7 kicks off it is very interesting to notice who shows up on President Trump’s G7 schedule in Canada – that has absolutely no bearing on the G7 meeting in Canada.

According to the schedule, President Trump has meetings with both Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.

Neither Mexico or Ukraine are in the G7 (Italy, Germany, France, USA, Canada, Japan, U.K).

. . . Obviously Zelenskyy is traveling to Canada at the behest of the global intelligence network because they are afraid President Trump may no longer keep Zelenskyy at the center of the foreign policy universe.

. . . President Trump’s rapid deportation program is making it very difficult for Mexicans in the USA to send money back to Mexico. This is quickly becoming an urgent matter for Mexican officials who will be forced to intervene in support of the local Mexican economy if President Trump keeps impeding the accumulation of illegal wages in the USA.

I'm not sure if we've seen anything like this level of activity from any administration, ever.

Not Enough Paid Instigators?

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/masked crowd.

The people at the Army's birthday parade....looked like America. https://t.co/uPglJp7po0

— Wilfred Reilly (@wil_da_beast630) June 15, 2025

A lot of commentators have noted that the No Kings Day organizers had weeks to prepare for the event, even before last weekend's LA riots and Sen Padilla's stunt:

"No Kings Day of Defiance," a nationwide series of protests scheduled for Saturday, was planned as a counter to the military parade taking place in Washington, D.C., on the same day. That parade is being held in honor of the U.S. Army's 250th anniversary, which coincides with Mr. Trump's 79th birthday.

"On June 14—Flag Day—President Trump wants tanks in the street and a made-for-TV display of dominance for his birthday," organizers said. "A spectacle meant to look like strength. But real power isn't staged in Washington. It rises up everywhere else."

But it sounds like pretty much all they could come up with was cat ladies and the sort of people who still wear masks in public, although there are plenty of those left. But I'm still scratching my head about basic questions of prudence:

LOS ANGELES: police are using tear gas and crowd control munitions to break up the crowd

Though I identified as press and had my badges / credentials displayed, an officer still shot me with a rubber bullet

Another shot a tear gas can at me. They are targeting press pic.twitter.com/Y2gWVX4WhK

— E (@ElijahSchaffer) June 15, 2025

Why on earth would anyone deliberately attend an event where there was even the slightest potential for violence? Or even if it was part of your job as a reporter, why would you put yourself into the part of the crowd that was being pushed back or kettled in? But it's also worth stressing that LA was the only place yesterday where anything like this occurred at all. In Philadelphia, the cat ladies calmly marched to the art museum and went home.

Byron York makes a related point in the Washington Examiner:

The RealClearPolitics average of polls keeps a running comparison between the polling of Trump and former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush at the same point in their second terms. Right now, Trump’s job approval stands at 46.6%. On this day in 2013, Obama’s job approval rating was…46.6%. And at this moment in 2005, Bush’s approval rating was a touch lower, at 45.6%.

The presidents and the events of their presidencies were entirely different. And yet, in mid-June of the first year of their second term, all were in almost precisely the same place in terms of job approval.

What does it mean? For one thing, it means the efforts to portray Trump as a uniquely dangerous threat to American democracy — to denormalize him — aren’t working.

. . . The premise of such a critique is that Trump is doing outrageous things that Americans should never accept. The problem is that many Americans, in some cases, majorities of Americans, don’t think Trump’s actions are outrageous. They support what he is doing on immigration. They support what he is doing for the economy. They support what he is doing to cut federal spending on wokeism and Left-wing causes. That’s what is keeping Trump’s job approval numbers in the same place as Obama’s and Bush’s.

The No Kings Day planners had weeks to plan things out, and they apparently had megabucks to finance it, but it fizzled. The only spot that remotely resembled the 2020 BLM riots was LA, but the outcome, after what must have been a week of intense behind-the-scenes pressure on Mayor Bass from law enforcment, was photos of dispirited wannabes running from tear gas and a reporter complaining he'd been hit by a rubber bullet even though he had a press pass. Poor baby.

They had all the Walmart fortune behind them and apparently couldn't hire enough paid instigators. On the other hand, I suspect law enforcement had very good intelligence as well.

Jorge Floyd!

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 say is overreach by the Trump administration on immigration enforcement and deportations, civil rights and cuts to the federal government.

They've also pointed to how the military parade is being held on Trump's birthday. Trump has denied any connection between the parade's timing and his birthday, pointing to how June 14 is Flag Day.

As I write this, it's late morning on the East Coast, but there isn't much in the news -- but back in 2020, the parties started on Friday night. As I check YouTube, yesterday's spike in interest over the Israel-Iran war seems to have passed, while speculation continues over Thursday's Air India crash. But legacy media headlines focus on No Kings Day: No Kings Day LIVE: Protesters Flood Streets in 50 States Against Trump’s Military Parade in DC; LIVE: No Kings Day protests across America | Trump military parade; No Kings Day: Anti-Trump protests taking place in cities across the US | LIVE.

I'm wondering if the Padilla stunt was part of a scripted plan to inflame public sentiment leading up to No Kings Day, which seems to have every indication of being an astro-turfed event concocted by the Old Media cabal.

"No Kings" day merch for sale on Amazon, Temu and other e-commerce siteshttps://t.co/mJ4GFS0PnO

— CBS News (@CBSNews) June 14, 2025

Commentary on a planned Philadelphia demonstration, said to be one of the biggest, says protestors are expected to gather at LOVE park and march to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Are they gonna attend a Thomas Eakins exhibit, or what? This has all the ingredients of being a real snoozer, but we'll have to see, I guess.

Doing The Same Thing Over And Over

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 to be in LA during the riots. The senator was supposed to start at first base for the Democrats in the Congressional Baseball Game on Wednesday night.

It does sound like this was an abrupt change of plan. The semi-official story appears to be that Padilla was in the Westwood federal building in LA

waiting for a scheduled briefing with federal officials and the head of U.S Northern Command, General Gregory Guillot, when he went to listen to Noem's speech. He explained that he was trying to get information about DHS's immigration enforcement actions around the L.A. area and the state.

At that point, he apparently heard about a press conference being held in the building by Secretary Noem. At the link,

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was in Los Angeles Thursday morning providing an update on immigration operations and protests in the area, when she was interrupted by Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla, who was then forcibly removed from the room.

Noem was describing what she called the "burdensome leadership" of California's governor and the mayor of Los Angeles, when Padilla interrupted and attempted to ask a question before being pushed from the room. He could be heard yelling, "I'm Sen. Alex Padilla and I have questions for the secretary," as he was escorted out of the room.

The full sequence of the episode begins at 7:40 in the video below:

As Secretary Noem is speaking, there's a commotion to the rear and right of the camera, which belatedly swings to catch the scene. Padilla is making muffled shouts as agents -- variously referred to as FBI or Secret Service -- surround him saying, "Sir! Sir!". As he's being hustled out of the room, he identifies himself as Sen Alex Padilla, but only after the agents have responded. Every indication seems to be that Padilla rushed the podium before he identified himself:

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement, “Padilla stormed a press conference, without wearing his Senate pin or previously identifying himself to security, yelled, and lunged toward Secretary Noem.”

The video of the incident does not appear to show Padilla wearing the pin that identifies senators, but it also does not include images of him lunging at Noem. Moreover, he clearly does inform the agents who swarm him that he is a senator. The White House’s argument is that he did not do so early enough in the encounter.

Jackson added, “Padilla didn’t want answers; he wanted attention.”

The official X account of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) also contended that Padilla had “interrupted a live press conference without identifying himself” and had “lunged” at Noem.

The DHS also alleged that Padilla was “told repeatedly to back away and did not comply with officers’ repeated commands.”

This clip from CNN gives a law enforcement analysis of the episode:

Even CNN's legal expert shames @kasie with the facts about @SenAlexPadilla's unhinged actions during the press conference.

"At that point [Padilla] is going to now be escorted out. You can't interrupt something like that that's already in progress without those consequences." pic.twitter.com/bjDlXeC1Gu

— Steven Cheung (@StevenCheung47) June 12, 2025

There will likely be repercussions in the Senate. Although House Speaker Johnson made clear that he doesn't speak for the Senate, he did say,

I think there needs to be a message sent by the body as a whole that this is not what we are going to do. That's not how we're going to act. We're not going to have branches fighting physically and having senators charging Cabinet secretaries. We have got to do better. And I hope that we will.

On the Senate side,

Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune, of South Dakota, said he has spoken to Padilla and is working to "gather all the relevant information" after the Democrat was forcibly removed from Noem's press conference.

Thune said he has also spoken with Senate Sergeant at Arms Jennifer Hemingway, who is in charge of senators' security, and is trying to reach Noem but has not yet spoken with her.

"We want to get the full scope of what happened and do what we would do in any incident like this involving a senator and try to gather all the relevant information," Thune said.

It's hard to avoid thinking that this incident was planned and scripted following the original template of the May 9 confrontation between ICE and Democrat politicians in Newark, NJ. One questipn that I've seen raised is that Padilla had to have worn his Senate pin to be able to enter the Westwood federal building, but apparently removed it before rushing Noem's press conference. This strongly suggests planning, not a spontaneous reaction.

The overall problem I see is that the Newark paradigm hasn't been successful for the Democrats so far; the immigration issue has polled the best of any for Trump, and angry confrontations have so far been self-defeating; Rep Lamonica McIver has been indicted for her role in the Newark confrontation. The planning for the LA episode seems to have been last-minute and desperate.

But it's also likely that Israel's attack on Iran's nuclear facilities has taken this episode out of the headlines.