Alternet: Trump’s worst crimes and destructions haven’t even happened yet | Opinion

The worst crimes of Donald Trump and dangers to America from the unstable, monomaniacal, lying outlaw in the White House have yet to come. He is not satisfied with tearing apart our country’s social safety net for tens of millions of Americans (e.g., Medicaid and food program cuts); wrecking our scientific/medical systems, including warning people about pandemics. He is, by wrecking FEMA et al, failing to address the impact of mega-storms, wildfires, and droughts; and allowing cybersecurity threats to increase while giving harm-producing big corporations immunities from the law, more subsidies, and more tax escapes. Recall how he always adds to his attacks on powerless people that “This is just the beginning.”

He just took the next step in his march to madness and mayhem by announcing more concentration camps holding immigrants, arrested without due process, for deportation to foreign countries that want U.S. taxpayer cash for each deportee.

Recent immigrants are crucial to millions of small and large businesses. Consider who harvests our crops, cares for our children and the elderly, cleans up after us, and works the food processing plants and construction sites. Already, businesses are reducing or closing their enterprises – a political peril for Dangerous Donald.

If all immigrants to the U.S. from the last ten years, documented and undocumented, went on strike, our country would almost shut down. Yet Trump, who hired 500 undocumented workers for just one of his construction sites in New York, and had similar laborers at his New Jersey golf course, promises deportations of millions more.

Always bear in mind the self-defined characteristics of corporatist Trump’s feverish, hateful, outlaw mind: (1) He has declared he “can do whatever he wants as President,” proving his serial violations of law and illegal dictates every day; (2) He always doubles down when indicted, convicted, caught, or exposed, falsely accusing his accusers of the exact transgressions they are reliably charging him with; (3) He brags about lashing out at criticism with foul defamatory invectives; (4) He never admits his disastrous mistake; (5) He boasts that he knows more than leading experts in a dozen major areas of knowledge (see, “Wrecking America: How Trump’s Lawbreaking and Lies Betray All”); and (6) He asserts that every action, policy, or program he launches is a spectacular success – the facts to the contrary are dismissed.He is gravely delusional, replaces realities with fantasies, breaks promises that are made to defer any reckoning or accountability, and, like an imaginary King, finds no problem with saying “I rule America and the world.”

His ego defines his reactions, which is why every foreign leader is advised to flatter him. Nobody flatters better than the cunning genocidal Benjamin Netanyahu, who at his last regal White House dinner, held up his nomination of convicted felon, woman abuser, Trump for the Nobel Prize. Netanyahu’s preening comes from a politician whose regime has dossiers on Trump regarding his past personal and business behavior. This helps explain why Trump is letting the Israeli government do whatever it wants in its Gaza Holocaust, the West Bank, and beyond with our tax dollars, family-killing weaponry, and political/diplomatic cover.

The approaching greater dangers from Trump will come when he pushes his lawless, dictatorial envelope so far, so furiously, so outrageously, that it turns his GOP valets in Congress and the GOP-dominated U.S. Supreme Court against him. Add plunging polls, a stagflation economy, and impeachment, and removal from office would become a political necessity for the GOP in 2026 and beyond. In 1974, the far lesser Watergate transgressions by President Richard Nixon resulted in Republican Senators’ demanding Tricky Dick’s resignation from office.

Further provocations are not far-fetched. Firing Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell, sinking the dollar, and angering the fearful, but very powerful bankers are all on the horizon. Will the sex-trafficking charges involving Jeffrey Epstein and vile abuses of young girls finally be too much for his evangelical base, as well as for many MAGA voters? This issue is already starting to fissure his MAGA base and the GOP iron curtain in Congress. Subpoenas have just been issued to the Justice Department by the GOP Chair of the House Oversight Committee, Rep. James Comer of Kentucky – a close friend of Senator Mitch McConnell.

There is always SERENDIPITY. Trump, the mercurial egomaniac, offers old and new transgressions to stoke the calls for his impeachment. Does anyone believe that Trump would not start a military conflict, subjecting U.S. soldiers to harm, to distract attention from heavy media coverage of unravelling corruption investigations? Draft-dodging Donald has Pete Hegseth, his knee-jerk Secretary of Defense, waiting to do his lethal bidding, despite possible opposition from career military.

If Trump were to be impeached and removed from office, would he try to stay in office? Here is where a real constitutional explosion can occur. He would have to be escorted from the White House by U.S. Marshals who are under the direction of toady Attorney General Pam Bondi. The Supreme Court has held that the Constitution grants “the sole Power” to try impeachments in the Senate and nowhere else. Thus, the courts would provide no remedy to a lawless president wanting to stay in power.

Then what? The country falls into extreme turmoil. The Defense Department, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security are in the Trump Dump. Tyrant Trump can declare a major national emergency, invoke the Insurrection Act, and hurl these armed forces and police state muscle against a defenseless Congress and populace. (Recall the January 6, 2021, assault on Congress.) The abyss would have been breached.

With our society in a catastrophic convulsion, the economy collapsing, what would be the next steps? Like the Pentagon that anticipates worst-case domestic scenarios on possible violent “blowbacks” against U.S. military actions abroad, Americans should start thinking about the unthinkable. Such foreshadowings may make us far more determined NOW to thwart, stop, and repeal the fascist dictatorship which Der Führer Donald Trump is rooting ever more deeply every day. Little restraint on lawless Trump from the Congress and the Supreme Court, and only feeble, cowardly responses by the flailing Democratic Party (and the Bar Associations for that matter) thus far, make for the specter of violent anarchy and terror.

Trump has fatalistic traits. Armageddon shapes his ultimate worldview. Ponder that for a dictator with his finger on more than the nuclear trigger.

Again, Aristotle got it right over 2300 years ago, “Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.”

https://www.alternet.org/trump-s-worst-crimes-and-destructions-haven-t-even-happened-yet

Tampa Free Press: California vs. Washington Lawsuit On Federal Power And Protests Heads To Bench Trial

Governor Newsom’s Lawsuit Against President Trump Over National Guard Deployment Heads to Bench Trial

A constitutional battle is set to begin Monday, as a bench trial opens in a federal court case pitting California Governor Gavin Newsom against President Donald Trump. At issue is a question about the balance of power between the states and the federal government: When can a president deploy military forces to a state without the governor’s consent?

The lawsuit stems from a contentious summer in which President Trump ordered the deployment of federalized National Guard troops to Los Angeles to quell protests sparked by Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. The demonstrations, which the President characterized as a “breakdown of order,” were deemed by Governor Newsom to be under the control of state forces.

The trial, presided over by Judge Charles R. Breyer, will examine the legality of President Trump’s actions. The administration justified the deployment under Title 10 of the U.S. Code, which allows the President to federalize the National Guard in cases of “rebellion” or “invasion.” However, California’s lawsuit argues that no such conditions existed and that the President’s actions constituted an illegal overreach of authority.

This is the first time since the Civil Rights Movement that a president has deployed federal troops without a governor’s request, a point that is central to California’s legal challenge. The state’s case, which previously saw Judge Breyer order the return of the troops to state control, hinges on the argument that President Trump violated both federal code and the Tenth Amendment, which reserves powers not delegated to the federal government to the states.

The outcome of this trial is expected to have far-reaching implications, setting a precedent for the extent of presidential authority to intervene in state-level unrest. As the nation watches, the court will weigh the Insurrection Act, which the Trump administration cites as justification, against the Posse Comitatus Act and the principle of state sovereignty.

https://www.tampafp.com/california-vs-washington-lawsuit-on-federal-power-and-protests-heads-to-bench-trial

Popular Information: Trump manufactures a crisis in LA

For years, President Trump has dreamed of mobilizing the military against protesters in the United States. On Saturday night, Trump made it a reality, ordering the deployment of 2,000 members of the California National Guard — against the wishes of state and local officials — in response to protests against federal immigration raids on workplaces in and around Los Angeles. By the time Trump issued the order, the protests consisted of a few dozen people at a Home Depot.

The move violated longstanding democratic norms that prohibit military deployment on American soil absent extraordinary circumstances. The last time the National Guard was mobilized absent a request from local officials was in 1965 — to protect civil rights protesters in Alabama marching from Selma to Montgomery.

Trump strongly advocated for using the military to quell racial justice protests in the summer of 2020. He encouraged governors to deploy the National Guard to “dominate” the streets. “If a city or state refuses to take the actions necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them,” Trump said.

Behind the scenes, Trump was even more ruthless. According to a 2022 memoir by former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Trump asked Esper if the military could shoot at people protesting George Floyd’s murder. “Can’t you just shoot them?” Trump allegedly asked. “Just shoot them in the legs or something?”

On another occasion that summer, according to a book by journalist Michael Bender, Trump announced that he was putting Army General Mark Milley, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in charge of quelling the protests. This reportedly led to a shouting match:

“I said you’re in f—ing charge!” Trump shouted at him.

“Well, I’m not in charge!” Milley yelled back.

“You can’t f—ing talk to me like that!” Trump said. …

“Goddamnit,” Milley said to others. “There’s a room full of lawyers here. Will someone inform him of my legal responsibilities?”

The lawyers, including Attorney General Bill Barr, sided with Milley, and Trump’s demand was tabled. (Trump called Bender’s book “fake news.”)

During a March 2023 campaign rally in Iowa, Trump pledged to deploy the National Guard in states and cities run by Democrats, specifically mentioning Los Angeles:

You look at these great cities, Los Angeles, San Francisco, you look at what’s happening to our country, we cannot let it happen any longer… you’re supposed to not be involved in that, you just have to be asked by the governor or the mayor to come in, the next time, I’m not waiting. One of the things I did was let them run it, and we’re going to show how bad a job they do. Well, we did that. We don’t have to wait any longer.

In October 2023, the Washington Post reported that Trump allies were mapping out executive actions “to allow him to deploy the military against civil demonstrations.”

In an October 2024 interview on Fox News, Trump again pushed for the National Guard and military to be deployed against “the enemy within,” which he described as “radical left lunatics.”

“We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics,” Trump said. “And I think they’re the big — and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen.”

Were there “violent mobs”?

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump’s mobilization of the National Guard was necessary because “violent mobs have attacked ICE Officers and Federal Law Enforcement Agents carrying out basic deportation operations in Los Angeles, California.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the National Guard would “support federal law enforcement in Los Angeles” in response to “violent mob assaults on ICE and Federal Law Enforcement.”

These claims were directly contradicted by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), which described Saturday’s protests as “peaceful.”

The LAPD statement said it “appreciates the cooperation of organizers, participants, and community partners who helped ensure public safety throughout the day.”

There were some reports of violence and property damage in Paramount and Compton, two cities located about 20 miles south of Los Angeles. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said it “arrested one person over the protest in Paramount” and “two officers had been treated at a local hospital for injuries and released.” As for property damage, “one car had been burned and a fire at a local strip mall had been extinguished.”

Trump’s order, however, says the unrest in California is so severe it constitutes “a form of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States” that necessitates the mobilization of military personnel. Although any violence and property destruction is a serious matter, local law enforcement appears fully capable of responding to the situation.

Trump’s Unusual Legal Theory

The Posse Comitatus Act generally prohibits using the military for domestic law enforcement without specific statutory (or Constitutional) authority. The most famous exception to the Posse Comitatus Act is the Insurrection Act, which permits the President to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement under specific circumstances. But, historically, the Insurrection Act has “been reserved for extreme circumstances in which there are no other alternatives to maintain the peace.” It also requires the president to issue a proclamation ordering “the insurgents to disperse and retire peaceably to their abodes within a limited time.”

Trump, however, invoked a different federal law, 10 U.S.C. 12406. That provision lacks some of the legal and historical baggage of the Insurrection Act, but it also confers a more limited authority. That is why Trump’s proclamation authorizes the National Guard to “temporarily protect ICE and other United States Government personnel who are performing Federal functions, including the enforcement of Federal law, and to protect Federal property, at locations where protests against these functions are occurring or are likely to occur.” In other words, the National Guard is not authorized to engage in law enforcement activities, but to protect others doing that work. It remains to be seen whether the administration will respect these limitations in practice.

Trump is Confused

At 2:41 a.m. on Sunday morning, Trump posted: “Great job by the National Guard in Los Angeles after two days of violence, clashes and unrest.” At the time, the National Guard had not yet arrived in Los Angeles. Trump had spent the evening watching three hours of UFC fighting in New Jersey.

Trump also asserted, without evidence, that those protesting the immigration raids were “paid troublemakers.”

The National Guard arrived in Los Angeles much later on Sunday morning, when the streets were already quiet.

Trump told reporters on Sunday that he did not consider the protests an “insurrection” yet. About an hour later, Trump claimed on Truth Social that “violent, insurrectionist mobs are swarming and attacking our Federal Agents to try to stop our deportation operations.”

Trump’s order mobilizing the National Guard, however, likely inflamed tensions — and that may have been the point. Federal and state authorities clashed with protesters in downtown LA on Sunday afternoon. Law enforcement “used smoke and pepper spray to disperse protesters outside a federal detention center in downtown Los Angeles,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

https://popular.info/p/trump-manufactures-a-crisis-in-la

Law & Crime: ‘Different in kind’: 4-star generals, admirals serving from JFK to Obama say Los Angeles ICE protests don’t warrant deployment of National Guard to California

4-star admirals, generals serving from JFK to Obama warn Trump’s deployment of National Guard poses ‘potentially grave risk’

Ahead of a Zoom hearing scheduled for Tuesday at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a group of retired four-star generals and admirals who served under presidents ranging from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama filed court documents warning that President Donald Trump’s federalization of the California National Guard and deployment of U.S. Marines poses “potentially grave risk of irreparable harm.”

Seeking the appellate court’s leave to file a brief and enter the case as amici curiae — Latin for “friends of the court” — the retired generals, admirals, and former U.S. Army and Navy secretaries did not explicitly take Gov. Gavin Newsom’s side in the case. They did suggest Sunday, however, that the Trump administration’s bid for an emergency stay of a lower-court ruling and continued push to quell “violent riots” in Los Angeles amid nationwide “No Kings” protests over ICE raids may not pass legal muster when compared to historical precedents.

Again, although the retired admirals and generals did not support either party to the case, they implicitly warmed to Breyer’s ruling that the definition of “rebellion” has not been met and that, in the proposed amici’s words, the “recent and ongoing situation” in Los Angeles “appears to be different in kind” from the “extreme circumstances” of the 1992 Rodney King riots and the times when state governors “openly” and defiantly stood against the end of racial segregation during the Civil Rights era.

The brief concluded that Trump’s injection of the military into “domestic political controversies” — “undermining its ability to achieve its core mission of protecting the nation” — is a case in point as to why troops “should be kept out of domestic law enforcement whenever possible.”

LA Times: LA police swiftly enforce downtown curfew as protests against Trump’s immigration crackdown continue

After days of fiery protest against federal immigration raids, Los Angeles residents and officials braced for the arrival of hundreds of U.S. Marines on Tuesday in what some called an unprecedented and potentially explosive deployment of active-duty troops with hazy mission objectives.

As Trump administration officials vowed to crack down on “rioters, looters and thugs,” state local officials decried the mobilization of 700 troops from the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, calling it a clear violation of law and civility. L.A. Mayor Karen Bass even likened the deployment to “an experiment” that nobody asked to be a part of.

According to the U.S. Northern Command, which oversees troops based in the United States, the Marines will join “seamlessly” with National Guard troops under “Task Force 51” — the military’s designation of the Los Angeles force

Air Force Gen. Gregory Guillot told The Times on Tuesday that the troops are in Los Angeles only to defend federal property and federal personnel and do not have arrest power.

It’s the “defend” part that we’re all afraid of — “defend” to the military means “destroy”.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/marines-on-streets-of-la-bring-peril-questions/ar-AA1Gt3Yk

Defense News: LA deployments to cost $134 million and last 60 days, Pentagon says

The military’s deployment of almost 5,000 National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles in response to immigration protests will cost around $134 million and last 60 days, the Pentagon’s acting comptroller told lawmakers in a hearing Tuesday.

That funding will come from the Defense Department’s operations and maintenance budget and cover travel, housing, food and other incidental expenses, Bryn MacDonnel said at a House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense hearing. Together, the description gives the clearest sense yet of the military’s bill for the administration’s controversial deployments to the city.

And it’s only “necessary” because ICE thugs insist on showing up in a militarized convoy instead of doing their raids professionally and discretely. You put on a show, you get an audience, you got what you asked for, suckers!

https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2025/06/10/la-deployments-to-cost-134-million-and-last-60-days-pentagon-says

Mirror: LA immigration protests LIVE: Mass protests spread to new cities, with tear gas thrown in Dallas

The President sent another 2,000 National Guard troops to confront immigration protesters in LA, as the demonstrations spread to other US cities

President Donald Trump has defended his decision to send another 2,000 National Guard troops to confront immigration protesters in Los Angeles, as the demonstrations spread to other US cities.

The protests began Friday in downtown LA after federal immigration authorities arrested more than 40 people across the city. Trump on Monday authorized the deployment of 700 Marines and additional National Guard troops to LA as the protests entered a fourth day. It came after an initial 300 troops arrived in the city on Sunday.

The demonstrations spread to other cities including Boston, Houston and Philadelphia on Monday. In Dallas, hundreds of protesters gathered for a rally which police declared was “unlawful.” Authorities said one person was arrested.

https://www.themirror.com/news/us-news/la-immigration-protests-live-flash-1195445

Hegseth asserts Trump can send troops anywhere to protect ICE agents conducting raids

Pentagon budget official estimated LA troop deployment to cost $134 million.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told lawmakers Tuesday that he and President Donald Trump have the power to send National Guard and active-duty troops anywhere in the country to ensure Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents can enforce the law, an assertion that — if carried out — would open the door to a historic clash between Trump and Democratic governors.

“We believe that ICE, which is a federal law enforcement agency, has the right to safely conduct operations in any state, in any jurisdiction in the country,” Hegseth told the House Appropriations Defense subcommittee.

“ICE ought be able to do its job, whether it’s Minneapolis or Los Angeles,” he added.

President Donald Trump also opened the door for possible military deployments elsewhere, telling reporters on Tuesday that if protests break out in other states “they will be met with equal or greater force.”

Civil War II is really here. 🙁

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/hegseth-testify-capitol-hill-house-dem-calls-marine/story?id=122668997

Daily Beast: ICE Barbie [Bimbo #2] Asked Hegseth to Give Bombshell Order to Troops in L.A.

In a leaked letter, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi [Bimbo #2] Noem asked the military to start arresting rioters in Los Angeles.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi [Bimbo #2] Noem has asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to instruct soldiers deployed to Los Angeles to help arrest rioters, even though the military is generally barred from domestic law enforcement.

In a leaked letter, [Bimbo #2] Noem asked Hegseth on Sunday to have the Pentagon give “direction to [Department of Defense] forces to either detain, just as they would at any federal facility guarded by military, lawbreakers under Title 18 until they can be arrested and processed by federal law enforcement, or arrest them,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/kristi-noem-asked-pete-hegseth-to-give-bombshell-order-to-troops-in-la

Mediaite: DHS Secretary [Bimbo #2] Noem on Los Angeles: ‘They’re a City of Criminals’

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi [Bimbo #2] Noem deemed Los Angeles “a city of criminals” as protests continued on Monday night.

“Today, we had over 400 to 500 targets we were going after that were known members of gangs in L.A. that have been victimizing people for years, that Gavin Newsom has done absolutely nothing about, that Mayor Bass has done absolutely nothing about,” Noem said, taking issue with the fact that Bass said Los Angeles is a city of immigrants ….

Criminals in L.A.? She can start with LAPD Rampart Division. 😀