DOJ slaps Karen Bass, LA City Council with 'long overdue' lawsuit: 'It ends under President Trump'



Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass stated earlier this month while radicals were savagely attacking U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in her city, "We will not stand for this."

The Democratic mayor was not condemning her fellow leftists' attacks on federal agents but rather the agents' enforcement of federal immigration law.

In the wake of the Los Angeles riots, Bass has kept up her anti-ICE, pro-illegal alien rhetoric, noting on Sunday, for instance, "Every community in L.A. is feeling the shock of these horrific ICE raids — this isn't just targeting one group, it's striking at the heart of our collective safety and trust."

The Trump administration gave Bass more than just ICE raids to complain about on Monday, filing a lawsuit against the mayor, Los Angeles City Council, and the City of Los Angeles over their alleged interference with the federal government's enforcement of immigration law.

"Sanctuary policies were the driving cause of the violence, chaos, and attacks on law enforcement that Americans recently witnessed in Los Angeles," Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. "Jurisdictions like Los Angeles that flout federal law by prioritizing illegal aliens over American citizens are undermining law enforcement at every level — it ends under President Trump."

The complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California notes that immediately after President Donald Trump's re-election, the Los Angeles City Council, "wishing to thwart the will of the American people regarding deportations, began the process of codifying into law its Sanctuary City policies."

RELATED: Democrats who locked down America during COVID now cry dictator over Trump's deportations

 Photo by BENJAMIN HANSON/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

In late November, the L.A. City Council unanimously voted to establish L.A. as a "Sanctuary City."

The following month, Bass ratified the corresponding ordinance titled "Prohibition of the Use of City Resources for Federal Immigration Enforcement," which enshrined sanctuary policies into municipal law and barred "the use of City resources, including property and personnel, from being utilized for immigration enforcement or to cooperate with federal immigration agents engaged in immigration enforcement."

'Today’s lawsuit holds the City of Los Angeles accountable for deliberately obstructing the enforcement of federal immigration law.'

The ordinance — the "urgency clause," which makes clear that undermining the "incoming federal administration" was the goal — also prohibits city officials, including law enforcement officers, from directly or indirectly sharing data with federal immigration authorities.

The DOJ's lawsuit notes that L.A.'s sanctuary city laws are illegal and "are designed to and in fact do interfere with and discriminate against the Federal Government’s enforcement of federal immigration law in violation of the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution."

Lawyers for the government asked the district court to recognize that the ordinance's violation of the Supremacy Clause and 8 U.S. Code § 1373 makes it unlawful, unenforceable, and void ab initio, as well as to enter a permanent injunction barring Los Angeles, its city council, and the mayor from enforcing the ordinance.

RELATED: JD Vance rejects Democrats' narrative, names the 'real threat to democracy'

 Photo by Apu Gomes/Getty Images

"Today’s lawsuit holds the City of Los Angeles accountable for deliberately obstructing the enforcement of federal immigration law," said U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli for the Central District of California, who stressed in a tweet that the lawsuit was "long overdue."

'Very simply, we will liberate Los Angeles and make it free, clean, and safe again.'

"The United States Constitution's Supremacy Clause prohibits the City from picking and choosing which federal laws will be enforced and which will not," continued Essayli. "By assisting removable aliens in evading federal law enforcement, the City's unlawful and discriminatory ordinance has contributed to a lawless and unsafe environment that this lawsuit will help end."

The Los Angeles Times, which indicated Bass did not immediately respond to a request for comment, noted that radical L.A. city officials are contemplating striking back at the Trump administration with a lawsuit of its own.

The DOJ's lawsuit appears to be a major step toward another promise kept on Trump's part.

In his Tuesday speech at the 250th anniversary of the Army at Fort Bragg, Trump said, "Within the span of a few decades, Los Angeles has gone from being one of the cleanest, safest, and most beautiful cities on Earth to being a trash heap with entire neighborhoods under the control of transnational gangs and criminal networks."

"They don't like it when I say it, but I'll say it loudly and clearly: They'd better do something before it's too late," continued Trump. "Very simply, we will liberate Los Angeles and make it free, clean, and safe again."

"We will use every asset at our disposal to quell the violence and restore law and order right away," stressed the president.

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How a viral video exposed the fall — and rise? — of California



Social media often serves as a cultural barometer, providing useful insight into cultural trends and their shifts. Consider a song parody video that recently went viral. “California Freedom” is an AI-generated satirical reimagining of the 1960s classic “California Dreamin’” by the Mamas and the Papas. Remember that one?

The original song painted California as a paradisiacal escape from the drab and dreary East Coast, a dream only a lucky few could call their home: “All the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray. I’ve been for a walk on a winter’s day. I’d be safe and warm if I was in L.A. — California dreamin’, on such a winter’s day.”

California Freedom gets closer every day as locals rise to the challenge and opportunity in front of them.

The song predates the internet era, but its imagery is timeless: golden sunshine, palm trees, beaches, teens in drop-top cars cruising down Sunset Boulevard. It depicted California as a place of effortless joy — life as it ought to be.

— (@)  
 

This is a starkly different California. The scenes are familiar but jarring: riots, wildfires, corrupt officials with clown faces, piles of money from China and other state malefactors. Set to the same tune, the new lyrics deliver a biting contrast:

Our governor’s a clown, so’s the mayor of L.A. Corruption at the top, arrogance on display. Always assumed we would conform — we’re finally awake. California freedom gets closer every day ...

At first glance, this parody video might seem dark and pessimistic, a major fall away from the sunshine of the original. But the opposite is true. The Mamas and the Papas’ version is the one with a sad, nostalgic, depressed message despite its lovely harmonies and lilting flute interlude. The writer is resigned, stuck. He has little agency in his condition. He tells us:

Stopped into a church I passed along the way. Got down on my knees, and I pretended to pray. You know the preacher liked the cold, he knows I’m gonna stay ... if I didn’t tell her I could leave today… California dreamin’ on such a winter’s day ...

The lead singer contributed nothing to the California dream he longed for and felt no control over his own life. Many in his generation shared that attitude. Baby Boomers who came of age in the mid-1960s soaked up messages that told them they were powerless over their future. They grew up and raised children with little resilience, unprepared to face adversity.

These were the kids who never walked alone in the woods or dug up worms by hand. They grew into college students who needed “safe spaces” and coloring books to cope with opposing viewpoints. They are the fragile offspring of a generation that surrendered its agency — and passed along the habit.

RELATED: LA wildfires point to a long list of failures by California authorities

  Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images

 

But the “California Freedom” video tells a different story. Early on, the bear from the state flag rears up, growls, and bares its teeth — startling Nancy Pelosi. We see ICE and law enforcement pushing back on rioters. And after a litany of the corrupt and destructive acts of key state leaders, the original song’s flute solo plays once again — but this time, Donald Trump is shown performing it in front of California’s most iconic and breathtaking landscapes.

Trump playing the flute may draw laughs — a wink at his claim of childhood musical talent — but the image carries weight. His administration has moved swiftly and forcefully to restore order where leftist leaders welcomed chaos and destruction. Through initiatives like the Department of Government Efficiency and budgetary reform, Trump has choked off taxpayer funds to activist groups pushing bloated, often corrupt government control over everyday life.

The video places Trump against California’s most iconic landscapes — redwoods, poppy fields, the Golden Gate — transforming a moment of satire into something more. It’s not just a gag. It’s a statement: California’s promise still lives. Freedom, prosperity, and integrity don’t flow from bureaucrats or ideologues. They come from the land itself — and the people who choose to defend it.

The video speaks clearly: We have agency. California doesn’t have to remain broken. Beneath the corruption, arrogance, and engineered collapse lies a chance to rebuild. The bear — California’s symbol — rises, growls, and shows its teeth. And through the noise, the music plays again. Behind the drug camps and trash-choked boulevards, the state’s beauty and strength still hum with life.

This energy, stronger than COVID lockdowns that crushed working people while Gavin Newsom dined at the French Laundry, signals something new. The future is coming — and it looks nothing like the ruins left behind.

I first traveled to the San Francisco Bay Area in the early 1970s to meet my fiancé’s family, and I fell in love immediately with the land and the sea. Later, while living in Silicon Valley, we explored the state whenever possible. In the L.A. area, I walked the ocean paths often.

What happened to California in the decades since grieves me. It’s one reason I refused to retire there.

But now, a new generation offers hope. Young people inspired by Trump are shedding the passive fragility their parents too often embraced and indulged. They’re building a different California — one rooted not in globalist pretensions or bureaucratic arrogance but in the sea, the mountains, and the enduring beauty of the land itself.

California freedom gets closer every day as locals rise to the challenge and seize the opportunity in front of them.

Street riots can’t set US immigration policy



The New York Post last week chided President Trump for not “getting it right” on deportations. But its real target wasn’t Trump. It was Stephen Miller, the president’s longtime immigration adviser and current White House deputy chief of staff. The Post’s editorial board warned that Miller’s plan to apprehend 3,000 illegal aliens per day is “asking for trouble.”

The Post argued the number is unrealistic. Even if Immigration and Customs Enforcement focuses on “the worst of the worst,” the roundup will still trigger media-fueled hysteria and nationwide riots. Mass arrests, it claimed, carry the “highest risk public-opinion-wise.”

If we concede to street violence, we let the enemy set the terms. That’s not leadership. That’s surrender.

The Post envisioned a wave of anti-ICE demonstrations, media pearl-clutching, and chaos. It feared ICE would be stretched too thin trying to hit its daily targets. Worse still, agents might apprehend illegal immigrants who entered before Biden — or even before Obama — and have “put down some roots.” That, we’re told, would create “economic problems,” particularly for agriculture.

The solution? The Post recommended a “scalpel, not a hammer.” Encourage illegal immigrants to self-deport. Offer incentives. Go soft. Supposedly, a million have already left on their own. And if Trump continues gently urging them out, the paper claims, many more will go peacefully.

The problem? We don’t even know if that number is real. The Department of Homeland Security doesn’t systematically track self-deportations. It’s possible some of the exits happened during the Trump years or even before. Regardless, they’ve hardly made a dent in the 11 million people Homeland Security says are here illegally.

But more troubling than the questionable data is the message Trump would send if he adopted the Post’s approach: that he’s willing to pull back on deportations — not because it’s the right policy, but because it might provoke the left. It would mean ICE can’t arrest even violent felons if it risks upsetting the street mobs funded by Democrats. And because the left treats all illegal immigrants as future voters, that would effectively shut down enforcement altogether.

As a historian, I’ll offer a provocative but fitting comparison: Today’s leftist thugs resemble the Nazi brownshirts of the Weimar era. Back then, many thought the nationalists could harness the street violence for political gain. They were wrong. The brownshirts brought chaos, not order. I see nothing morally or politically superior about the rioters in Los Angeles. They may call themselves anti-fascists. But their behavior — and their impact — is the same.

RELATED: Police union calls on Cudahy vice mayor to resign over video taunting violent street gangs to defend LA from ICE agents

  Photo by MARVIN RECINOS/AFP via Getty Images

Those who excuse or encourage this violence, or who blame the government for trying to remove violent criminals, don’t care about law and order. They don’t care about stopping murderers, rapists, or cartel operatives. They care about power.

If some illegal immigrants have lived here for years and become productive members of society, the government can evaluate those cases once the criminals are gone. Prioritizing felons doesn’t mean abandoning discretion. But it does mean enforcing the law — despite the noise.

Trump’s crackdown will also encourage more self-deportation. If illegal immigrants know there’s a new sheriff in town, they’ll think twice about staying. As for the rioters and their wealthy enablers? Perhaps, we could find a way to help them self-deport to Antarctica. At a minimum, they deserve the same accommodations the left gave to January 6 protesters.

Even if Miller’s 3,000-a-day goal can’t be fully met, the effort matters. Laura Ingraham is right: We won’t deport all of the Democrats’ future voters. But that’s no reason not to try. The street violence and intimidation are designed to cow Republicans into submission. They’re a threat — not just to policy but to republican government itself.

If we concede to street violence, we let the enemy set the terms. That’s not leadership. That’s surrender.

No more accommodation. Crush the coup.

Flipping cars for ‘justice’ — then back to poli-sci class



Some images linger like bad philosophy. One such image: a masked individual standing triumphantly on a vandalized car, waving a giant Mexican flag, at a protest against mass deportations. It’s not a political cartoon. It’s the radical left’s icon. And it perfectly captures the confused moral universe behind the Los Angeles riots and the so-called “indigenous land” movement.

— (@)  
 

As a professor at a secular university, I can assure you this isn’t fringe lunacy. It’s the tip of the philosophical iceberg. Beneath that smoldering car is a massive ideological structure that has been meticulously constructed over decades — paid for, ironically, by federal and state tax dollars.

These rioters don’t actually want to return the land. They want the luxury of moral superiority minus the inconvenience of coherent thought.

If it were possible, I’d love to survey the people flipping cars and heaving concrete blocks at police cruisers. I strongly suspect many of the ringleaders hold degrees in the liberal arts — more specifically, degrees in identity activism. You know the type: gender studies, black studies, Latinx studies, queer theory, or some intersectional combination thereof.

Don’t worry — they went to college

If you visit the department websites of these programs at any given university, you’ll often find “activist” listed as the No. 1 career path. No need to wonder what you can do with a $120,000 degree — you can become the ideological arsonist who trains the next generation to believe the United States is irredeemably Christian, unjust, and colonial — and maybe even get in some looting of the capitalist luxury stores.

So when you see a rioter in Los Angeles shouting on CNN about how the land was “stolen from Mexico,” just know: That’s the university curriculum talking. In one now-viral clip, a young woman (yes, I just assumed her gender) yells at a police officer, “As long as you feel OK with capitalism, racist, imperialist state.” Asked if she even knows what she’s saying, her reply is priceless: “Yes, b***h, I'm in college.”

Exactly.

These students have never been taught about the establishment of land ownership in world history or even the basic historical facts of the American Southwest. They don’t know that Mexico owned it for only 27 years, yet they think it is their ancestral homeland. If anything, Spain should be in the mix, asking for it back from Mexico.

And remember: We’re all paying for that education through state funding — drawn from taxes paid by ... wait for it ... capitalists. No gratitude. No irony. Just tuition-funded tantrums.

RELATED: The lie that launched a thousand riots

  Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

A modest glance at history will remind you that the United States conquered large parts of Mexico in 1848. But here’s the twist: The U.S. didn’t just grab the land and walk away whistling. No, it gave back a substantial portion, paid Mexico $15 million (a princely sum at the time) for the remaining territory — including what is now California — and forgave the Mexican government’s outstanding debts.

But the student activists aren’t interested in political history. And they don’t really want to live in Mexico. Even if they did, Mexico's immigration laws are strict, its economy is difficult, and it most certainly doesn’t tolerate foreigners burning down public property in the name of “revolution against the government.”

Marxism underwritten by capitalists

These rioters don't actually want to return the land. They want the luxury of moral superiority minus the inconvenience of coherent thought. They want their air conditioning, DoorDash, TikTok, and virtue signaling ... on stolen land. Any one of them could sell the assets they acquired within the capitalist system and donate the proceeds to an indigenous cause. But they want to make other people do this with their money.

At their campus protests and university-sponsored events, they perform ritualized “land acknowledgments,” reciting that their college stands on “unceded indigenous territory,” as if confessing to a metaphysical sin. But the penance never includes selling their house and giving it to a tribe. And why?

Because the first tribes are lost to history — conquered by later tribes, who were themselves conquered, until eventually the Spanish brought law and order to warring tribes. The cycle of conquest is not new; it is one of the oldest stories in human civilization. What’s different now is the selective outrage.

Here lies the real problem: Modern activist ideology seeks to appeal to justice but lacks a standard by which to define it. This is why all of this activist nonsense we are paying gender studies professors to teach is so empty. It appeals to justice without any standard by which to adjudicate the question.

If the land was stolen, then: Who stole it? From whom? And what court now has jurisdiction?

Even if you could answer the first two — and in most cases, you can’t — the third is impossible under their belief system. If you begin playing “we were here firsties,” you have to go all the way back.

Theirs is a godless appeal to justice, and godless justice is just another word for mob rule. It is ultimately just mob rule stirred up by malcontents to motivate masses of discontents — which is why they are simply called Marxists. Not because they’ve read “Das Kapital” but because they’re looking for a framework that legitimizes their rage and offers power without accountability. And in Marx, they find a convenient excuse to tear down everything that came before — especially anything remotely Christian.

All of their disappointment in life is aimed at the outward object called “the United States.” No reflection on their own condition — just rage against the machine.

God has the last word

But for those who believe that God is the final judge, the phrase "Let God judge between us” is not a cliché. It’s a fearful thing. It means a moral order lies beyond human manipulation. It means that even if we don’t see civil justice now, true justice is ontological, everlasting, and inescapable.

Marxist rioters cannot make this appeal. They live in a world of only immanent causes and material grievances. No final judge and no moral standard above power awaits to hold their actions accountable — therefore, no peace. They rage because they must. Their rage is at existence itself. And when they finish one protest, they must invent another. Their revolution has no eschaton — only exhaustion.

So they flip over cars and set fires. Some loot — not just because they're angry at injustice or need a new pair of shoes, but because they have no vision of the good, only a fixation on the bad. And in seeking a purely material form of justice, they have lost their souls.

They complained about the one who supposedly stole land while forgetting about the one who can cast their soul into hell. The prospect of God’s justice should make all of us repent.

It is time to stop funding this madness. It is time to restore an education grounded in truth — not truth as a tool of power but truth that judges us all.

Until then, don’t be surprised when your car is flipped by someone with a $100,000 degree in “decolonial eco-poetics.” And don’t be shocked when they scream “justice!” without the ability to define what it is.

After all, they went to college.

Protest Is Overrated

For most protests in modern America, the operating assumption is that action from the government will solve the problem.

Trump’s punitive strike was precision, not permission for war



President Donald Trump made clear from the start: A nuclear-armed Iran is unacceptable. But until just recently, few paid attention. In March, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testified that while Iran had enriched a suspicious amount of uranium, it lacked a viable weapons program — let alone a bomb.

At the same time, left-wing agitators tried to spread immigration riots from Los Angeles to the rest of the country. Trump stayed focused on the domestic agenda his voters demanded. Israel’s sudden strike on Iran threatened to drag the United States into another foreign war — and derail Trump’s progress at home.

Trump knows his voters support a strong defense — but they’re tired of wasting American blood and treasure to fight foreign wars while their country falls apart at home.

Now that the U.S. has carried out a precision strike and set back Iran’s nuclear program, it’s time for Trump to return his full attention to rescuing America from Joe Biden’s open-border catastrophe.

Every presidency races against time, political capital, and public attention. Trump understood from the outset how easily foreign entanglements — especially in the Middle East — can swallow an administration.

That’s one reason the MAGA base remains loyal: Trump prioritizes domestic issues most presidents ignore while playing global policeman. Even while negotiating with Iran, Trump kept his focus on immigration. He battled leftist protesters and rogue judges at home, while keeping one eye on foreign threats.

But nearly two years after the terrorist attacks on October 7, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saw the window for war with Iran closing. Israel launched initial strikes on June 13 without American approval. Supporters insisted Israel could finish the job alone.

That was welcome news to Trump’s base, which feared any new conflict in the Middle East would derail his domestic policy blitz. But then the neoconservatives started moving the goalposts. Suddenly, it wasn’t just about airstrikes — it was about regime change.

Trump approved the use of U.S. bunker-buster bombs, believing them essential to destroy uranium enrichment sites buried deep in Iran’s mountains. U.S. forces entered and exited Iranian airspace without incident, delivering their payloads. Both sides issued conflicting reports about the strike’s effectiveness. But Trump clearly saw the operation as a means to reduce foreign policy pressure and pivot back to domestic priorities.

That pivot didn’t go as quickly as planned.

Israel and its allies quickly shifted from nuclear disarmament to full-blown regime change. Iran fired retaliatory missiles at a U.S. base in Qatar. While those strikes appeared calibrated to avoid casualties, tensions escalated.

Trump announced a ceasefire he had brokered between Iran and Israel. Both nations violated it within hours.

Netanyahu even defied Trump directly, ordering another strike while the president live-tweeted his demand for Israeli jets to turn back. They dropped their payloads anyway.

Frustrated, Trump told reporters Tuesday morning he was fed up with both countries. Israel, a close ally, had no interest in honoring its commitments. “Truth is, they have been fighting so long and so hard they don’t know what the f**k they’re doing. Do you understand that?” he said.

RELATED: It’s not a riot, it’s an invasion

  Blaze Media Illustration

American and Israeli interests were never fully aligned. Israel wants regime change. It lacks the capability to do it alone. Americans don’t want a nuclear Iran, either, but they have no appetite for another long war.

Trump’s airstrike may have succeeded, but that won’t satisfy Netanyahu. He clearly hopes to drag Trump into a broader conflict.

Israel’s refusal to respect a ceasefire negotiated by its primary benefactor makes the next step obvious: walk away.

On Tuesday, Trump issued a flurry of social media posts calling for mass deportations. He got what he wanted in Iran. Now, he’s ready to exit.

Would Israel continue its push for regime change without U.S. support? Maybe. It’s time to find out. The U.S. shouldn’t fight another unpopular Middle East war for an ally that won’t keep its word.

In his farewell address after his first term, Trump listed avoiding war as one of his proudest achievements. He knows his voters support a strong defense — but they’re tired of wasting American blood and treasure to fight foreign wars while their country falls apart at home.

Republicans always promise domestic wins. They spend their political capital overseas. Trump’s first hundred days this term have been different. He’s delivered rapid-fire domestic victories. That’s where the focus belongs.

Americans don’t want more war in the Middle East — especially one waged on behalf of an ally that does not respect their president. Biden’s open-border nightmare still haunts the nation. Crime, poverty, trafficking, and collapsing infrastructure all stem from the ongoing invasion of illegal immigrants.

Whatever nuclear threat existed in Iran has been neutralized.

Now Trump must do the job he was elected to do — the job he wants to do.

Deport illegal aliens, finish the wall, and put America first.

L.A. Sheriff’s Dept. Apologizes For Post Saying ‘Hearts Go Out To Victims’ Of U.S. Strike On Iran’s Nuclear Sites

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department on Sunday removed and apologized for its social media post sympathizing with the “victims and families impacted” by the U.S.’s strike on Iran’s nuclear sites, which were bombed Saturday night. The original post stated, “Our hearts go out to the victims and families impacted by the recent bombings in Iran,” […]

'BIG WIN': Newsom's losing streak continues as 9th Circuit Court delivers Trump more great news



The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overruled a Clinton judge and delivered some bad news to California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) that might wipe the default grin off his face.

How it started

Exercising his constitutional and statutory powers, President Donald Trump deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles on June 7, noting that the anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement riots constituted "a form of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States."

'It is likely that the president lawfully exercised his statutory authority under § 12406(3).'

Newsom — among the many Democrats who downplayed the violence and appeared sympathetic to the rioters' cause — asked a federal district court judge to force Trump to surrender control of the federalized California National Guard.

U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer, a Bill Clinton appointee, sided with Newsom, claiming on June 12 that Trump's actions "were illegal — both exceeding the scope of his statutory authority and violating the Tenth Amendment of the United States Constitution."

Newsom subsequently told Trump, "You must relinquish your authority of the National Guard back to me and back to California," then smugly attacked the president in a press conference where he called Trump "weak."

The governor's gloating was cut short when the Trump administration appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and secured an emergency ruling to return command of the National Guard to the president.

How it's going

Newsom optimistically stated on Tuesday, days ahead of the appellate court's ruling, "I'm confident in the rule of law. I'm confident in the Constitution of the United States. I'm confident in the reasoned decision issued last week by a very well-respected federal judge. And I'm confident that common sense will prevail here."

Common sense prevailed — just not in Newsom's favor.

RELATED: Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass to California: 'Look what you made us do!'

 Mario Tama/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

On Thursday, a three-judge panel of the appeals court ruled unanimously in the president's favor, granting a stay of the Clinton judge's order.

The appeals court concluded that "it is likely that the president lawfully exercised his statutory authority under § 12406(3), which authorizes federalization of the National Guard when 'the president is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States'" and indicated Hegseth's transmittal of the order "likely satisfied the statute's procedural requirement that federalization orders be issued 'through' the governor."

'The Judges obviously realized that Gavin Newscum is incompetent and ill prepared.'

The court also recognized that Trump had "a colorable basis" for deploying the National Guard, citing evidence that the anti-ICE rioters:

  • interfered "with the ability of federal officers to execute the laws";
  • threw objects at ICE vehicles attempting to complete a law enforcement operation;
  • threw Molotov cocktails and vandalized property;
  • "'pinned down' several [Federal Protective Service] officers defending federal property by throwing 'concrete chunks, bottles of liquid, and other objects,' and used 'large rolling commercial dumpsters as a battering ram' in an attempt to breach the parking garage of a federal building."

To Newsom's likely chagrin, the court noted further that "the president's failure to issue the federalization order directly 'through' the governor of California does not limit his otherwise lawful authority to call up the National Guard" and that "Newsom had no power to veto or countermand the president's order."

Newsom, like Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and other Democrats, suggested that the presence of the National Guard was inflammatory and prompted more unrest.

RELATED: The Democrats’ key to success

 California National Guard troops outside a Los Angeles federal building on June 9, 2025. Photo by David McNew/Getty Images

The appellate court was not buying what the governor was selling, noting both that "these concerns are counterbalanced by the undisputed fact that federal property has been damaged and federal employees have been injured" and that such concerns "are too speculative."

President Trump celebrated the ruling, suggesting the decision affirms his ability to take similar action elsewhere if necessary.

"BIG WIN in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on the President's core power to call in the National Guard!" the president wrote on Truth Social. "The Judges obviously realized that Gavin Newscum is incompetent and ill prepared, but this is much bigger than Gavin, because all over the United States, if our Cities, and our people, need protection, we are the ones to give it to them should State and Local Police be unable, for whatever reason, to get the job done."

"This is a Great Decision for our Country, and we will continue to protect and defend Law abiding Americans. Congratulations to the Ninth Circuit, America is proud of you tonight!" added Trump.

Newsom expressed his disappointment, vowing to press forward with his "challenge to President Trump's authoritarian use of U.S. military soldiers against citizens."

Judge Breyer is reportedly contemplating whether to slap Trump with another injunction, restricting the president's use of National Guard troops in Los Angeles.

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Why I won’t celebrate Juneteenth as a federal holiday



Expect a wave of corporate media pieces today, all aiming to elevate Juneteenth’s importance in the American consciousness. These articles are sanctimonious, astroturfed exercises in progressive virtue signaling — gaslighting the public into believing Juneteenth deserves equal or even greater recognition than the Fourth of July.

But Juneteenth neither marks the beginning of slavery nor its end. Activists have hijacked the holiday to undermine the moral clarity of Independence Day.

Juneteenth has been weaponized to fracture America’s identity through deception and denigration.

Juneteenth commemorates the day Union Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Texas on June 19, 1865, to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation and declare the end of slavery in the state. Early celebrations called it “Jubilee Day,” marking the delayed but welcome fulfillment of the Constitution’s promise and the Declaration’s revolutionary spirit — at least in Texas.

For decades, Juneteenth remained a Texas tradition. It held official status as a state holiday for 41 years and an unofficial one since 1866. But in recent years, radical activists have repurposed it as a tool to advance a racialist rewrite of American history.

A ‘George Floyd’ holiday

Before George Floyd's death in 2020, few progressives were even aware of Juneteenth's existence. But after Black Lives Matter-led riots caused over $1.5 billion in property damage and left at least 20 dead, the left seized the cultural moment. Activists bullied lawmakers into submission — both figuratively and literally.

That year, members of Congress knelt in kente cloth as a gesture of obedience. The Pentagon renamed military bases to satisfy a new moral order. Corporations slapped critical theory slogans on products. The so-called “black national anthem” was played at sporting events, eclipsing the actual national anthem.

And then came the crowning gesture: the creation of a new federal holiday. Juneteenth became the woke sacrament, signaling America’s supposedly unending racism.

It was ludicrous then. It’s borderline insane now.

Juneteenth is Texan — and that’s all

Texas has every right to honor Juneteenth. The holiday commemorates the fulfillment of America’s founding ideals and the abolition of one of humanity’s most enduring evils. But beyond Texas, it holds no national significance.

Juneteenth doesn’t fall on the date of the Emancipation Proclamation. It doesn’t mark the actual end of slavery in the United States. Activists howl in protest, but the truth remains: Juneteenth has been repurposed to challenge and eventually replace Independence Day.

Most of the people writing solemn op-eds about Juneteenth don’t know its history — and they don’t care. What they do care about is creating a “new” Independence Day, one that fits a progressive narrative. Its placement on the calendar — just weeks before July 4 — is no accident.

This is part of the left’s long march through American institutions. National holidays shape national identity. And Juneteenth now functions as a tool to fracture that identity under the guise of moral progress.

Under the Biden administration, some military installations flew flags calling Juneteenth “National Independence Day.” The Department of Defense distributed official guidance using that exact phrase. Nikole Hannah-Jones, architect of the historically illiterate “1619 Project,” uses Juneteenth to promote her claim that America’s true founding began with the arrival of African slaves, not the signing of the Declaration.

Divide, rewrite, replace

As a former Marine and combat veteran, I recognize these tactics: divide and conquer, rewrite and replace. They follow a playbook.

Juneteenth’s federal recognition aims not to celebrate American emancipation but rather to distract from the actual Independence Day. The broader goal is to erode national unity and advance a Marxist agenda: divide Americans by race, replace shared history with grievance, and erase what came before.

RELATED: We should scrap Juneteenth, aka George Floyd Day, for a holiday commemorating America’s 1865 rebirth

  Blaze Media Illustration

I lived in Texas for many years. I’ll celebrate Juneteenth as a Texas holiday. The end of slavery deserves celebration. I would even support a national holiday that commemorates the abolition of slavery, honestly.

But I won’t join in the farce that Juneteenth represents America’s independence. Too many Americans gave their lives to preserve our constitutional republic and the revolutionary idea that all men are created equal and endowed by God with unalienable rights.

Independence Day remains the foundation of this nation. It paved the way for emancipation, the defeat of fascism, the collapse of communism, and the rise of the most prosperous country in world history.

The radical left understands this. That’s why it has targeted Juneteenth as a cultural wedge. Leftists expect Americans to bow at the altar of wokeness and pretend not to notice. And if we object, they call us pro-slavery.

I reject that lie.

I refuse to bend the knee to a movement that seeks to destroy everything good and true about this country. The stakes are too high — and the truth is too important to surrender.

This Yale professor thinks patriotism is some kind of hate crime



Timothy Snyder has built a career trying to convince Americans that Donald Trump is a latter-day Adolf Hitler — a fascist demagogue hell-bent on dismantling America’s institutions to seize power. Last week, the Yale historian and author of the bestselling resistance pamphlet “On Tyranny,” briefly changed course. Now, apparently, Trump is Jefferson Davis.

In a recent Substack post, Snyder claimed Trump’s speech at Fort Bragg amounted to a call for civil war. He argued that the president’s praise for the military and his rejection of the left’s historical revisionism signaled not patriotism but treason — and the rise of a “paramilitary” regime.

Trump doesn’t want a second civil war. He wants the first one to mean something.

No, seriously. That’s what he thinks.

Renaming Fort Bragg

Trump’s first alleged Confederate offense, Snyder said, was to reinstate the military base’s original name: Fort Bragg. The Biden administration had renamed it Fort Liberty, repudiating General Braxton Bragg’s Confederate ties. Trump reversed the change.

The Biden administration had renamed the base Fort Liberty, citing General Braxton Bragg’s service to the Confederacy. Trump reversed the change. But he didn’t do it to honor a Confederate general. He did it to honor World War II paratrooper Roland L. Bragg, as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth explained.

Snyder wasn’t buying it. He accused the administration of fabricating a “dishonest pretense” that glorifies “oathbreakers and traitors.”

That charge hits close to home.

My grandfather Martin Spohn was a German Jewish refugee who fled Nazi Berlin in 1936. He proudly served in the U.S. Army. He trained with the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Bragg before deploying to Normandy. Like thousands of others, he saw the base not as a Confederate monument but as a launchpad for defeating actual fascism.

Restoring the name Fort Bragg doesn’t rewrite history. It honors the Americans who made history — men who trained there to liberate Europe from tyranny.

That’s not fascism. That’s victory over it.

Deploying the National Guard

For Snyder, though, Trump’s real crime was calling up the National Guard to restore order in riot-torn Los Angeles. That, he claimed, puts Trump in the same category as Robert E. Lee.

According to Snyder, the president is “preparing American soldiers to see themselves as heroes when they undertake operations inside the United States against unarmed people, including their fellow citizens.”

Let’s set aside the hysteria.

Trump didn’t glorify the Confederacy. He called for law and order in the face of spiraling violence. He pushed back against the left’s crusade to erase American history — not to rewrite it but to preserve its complexity.

He didn’t tell soldiers to defy the Constitution. He reminded them of their oath: to defend the nation, not serve the ideological demands of woke officials.

Snyder’s claims are as reckless as they are false.

He smears anyone who supports border enforcement or takes pride in military service as a threat to democracy. Want secure borders? You’re a fascist. Call out the collapse of Democrat-run cities? You’re a Confederate.

This isn’t analysis. It’s slander masquerading as scholarship.

The real division

But this debate isn’t really about Trump. It’s about power.

The left has spent years reshaping the military into a political project — prioritizing diversity seminars over combat readiness, purging dissenters, and enforcing ideological loyalty. When Trump pushes back, it’s not authoritarianism. It’s restoration.

The left wants a military that fights climate change, checks pronouns, and marches for “equity.” Trump wants a military that defends the nation. That’s the real divide.

Over and over, Snyder accuses Trump of “trivializing” the military by invoking its heroism while discussing immigration enforcement. But what trivializes military service more — linking it to national defense or turning soldiers into props for progressive social experiments?

RELATED: The real tyranny? Institutional groupthink disguised as truth

  Photo by Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

And Trump isn’t breaking precedent by deploying the National Guard when local leaders fail. Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson used federal troops during desegregation. Johnson federalized the Alabama National Guard to protect civil rights marchers. The Guard responded during the 1967 Detroit riots, the 1992 Los Angeles riots, and the Black Lives Matter and Antifa upheavals of 2020.

Trump acted within his authority — and fulfilled his duty — to restore order when Democrat-run cities descended into chaos.

A House divided?

Snyder’s rhetoric about “protecting democracy” rings hollow. Trump won the 2024 election decisively. Voters across party lines gave him a clear mandate: Secure the border and remove violent criminals. Pew Research found that 97% of Americans support more vigorous enforcement of immigration laws.

Yet Snyder, who constantly warns of creeping authoritarianism, closed his post by urging fellow academics to join No Kings protests.

Nobody appointed Timothy Snyder king, either.

If he respected democratic institutions, he’d spend less time fearmongering — and more time listening to the Americans, including many in uniform, who are tired of being demonized for loving their country. They’re tired of being called bigots for wanting secure borders. They’re tired of watching history weaponized to silence dissent.

Snyder invokes Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address to condemn Trump. But it was Lincoln who paraphrased scripture when he said, “A house divided cannot stand.”

Americans united behind Trump in 2024. Snyder’s effort to cast half the country as fascists or Confederates embodies the division Lincoln warned against.

Here’s the truth: Trump doesn’t want a second civil war. He wants the first one to mean something.

He wants a Union preserved in more than name — a Union defined by secure borders, equal justice, and unapologetic national pride.

If that scares Timothy Snyder, maybe the problem isn’t Trump.

Perhaps, the problem lies in the man staring back at him in the mirror.