Daughter Number Three: What Time Is It?

I'm afraid I can't wrap my head around what's happening in Los Angeles enough to say something coherent about it. It seems so obvious that it's all caused by Trump, Miller, and Homan's actions, and the deportation quotas imposed on ICE, both as real policy and as pretext to create a situation that allows the regime's fascism to build further.

I've been following it pretty closely since it started, coming as it did on the heels of the combined raid in South Minneapolis.

Here are some posts from BlueSky that relate to the militarized police state being imposed in LA, some more obviously than others. These are in chronological order, as much as I could make them. All below the line are quoted from the attributed accounts.

Except this one, which makes a good beginning:

Just to recap, Trump has taken the extraordinary step of federalizing 2000 member of the California National Guard — over the objections of the state’s governor — in response to a protest that currently involves A FEW DOZEN PEOPLE AT A HOME DEPOT
Judd Legum

__

I'm 100% behind protestors everywhere against ICE, and so should you be and so should your elected officials and you should tell them that.
Charlotte Clymer

I was an immigration lawyer for about fifteen years. The people I met… the way they wanted to give their absolute best to this country, and then DID. Skills, ideas, beauty, culture… that’s what they bring. America is a nation of immigrants, and immigration is what made America.
Charles Soule

Today:
Tanks are being moved en masse into DC.
Trump is deploying a state national guard over a governor’s objection to police protests.
Trump threatened a major donor with “severe consequences” if they support his political opponents.
If you’re still wondering what time it is, read this again
Ian Bassin

only six months in and we're already deploying the national guard on the american people, jesus
Sharon @sharonk.bsky.social

Just to make it clear to you guys — having to yoink the National Guard away from the governor and dispatch them at platoon strength because 400 zoomers are camped out in a Home Depot parking lot is regime *weakness*. It indicates how little power you actually have.
KANADI-Class NHP @seed-corn-thoughts.bsky.social

“Why are these police dressed like they’re going into combat?” Cause we gave them the clothes and the gear. There was a very public discussion about it.
Zack Pizzaz @chadstanton.bsky.social

Man, it's bad enough to watch your nation sinking into fascist dystopia but for THAT guy? the barely sentient former game show host with the laughably stupid combover? Really, that's the dude for whom we're giving up democracy? The corrupt rapey guy? This is your champion, you dumbass maga fucks?
Tom Tomorrow

I just can't stress enough how many of us warned that the creation of the Department of Homeland Security after 911 would lead to fascism. There is a very clear through line from the US's reaction to 911 to this moment.
Sasha Fury

The very WORD homeland is way too reminiscent of Fatherland, a favorite of Adolph. I said the same thing.
Mike and Carol and Luffy @weareallbozos.bsky.social

[ICE is] committing crimes [in Los Angeles]. And when people understandably protest the fact that they're committing crimes, they're shooting flashbangs at them.
Radley Balko

Welcome to America, where protesting illegal kidnappings without due process is an insurrection, but attacking the nation’s Capitol is not.
God @thegodpodcast.com

Miller should insist platoons of Guard members sleep in random LA people’s homes this evening, just to see if the Supreme Court would 6-3 or 5-4 its way to overturning the third amendment. Real opportunity for truly original Originalist hijinks.
Kieran Healy

kind of just endlessly sad and grieving that there are so few voices in the public sphere making the basic principled argument that immigration is an affirmative good in every way and the best way for this country to serve humanity is to welcome people who want or need to leave their homes
Julia Carrie Wong @joolia.bsky.social

ICE is a much greater threat to this country than illegal immigrants. The current administration is by far the greatest threat this country faces. The problem is not st our borders. It is in the White House.
David Rothkopf

Isen Siel

The weird, often whitewashed way the civil rights movement is taught (or not taught) seemed to convince a lot of people that nonviolence was met with nonviolence, instead of you know, dogs, hoses, beatings, death, etc
Kashana

Everything that’s happened over the past six months has been a response to an imaginary crisis. There is no immigrant invasion. No trade crisis. No scientific or governance crisis. Just people completely high off their own supply trying to fundamentally reorder society. None of this had to happen.
Josh Zingher @zingherpolisci.bsky.social

In 2020 they framed #Minneapolis protests as Riots (they escalated AFTER)
MPD, Hennepin County others attacked protestors who were NOT violent
Law Enforcement INTENTIONALLY targeted #Journalists
They shot people on their own property
Millions in lawsuits and two Consent Decrees later - Nothing changes
quick13

I'll say it over and over again; you can't build the mass deportation machine without first building the police state machine.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick

The media use the term 'violence' to describe the actions of the protesters in LA, but do not use the term 'violence' for the often violent actions of ICE and the police? Why? Is an action no longer violent if it is committed by someone with a uniform working for the State?
David Graeber Institute

All of the talk about "peaceful protest" makes me think of all the times I have been part of a protest where the police cracked someone over the head and then charged that person with assault. They will call you violent. You can't control that or other people.
Puff the Magic Hater @mskellymhayes.bsky.social

Rikibeth

They seem to think there’s a right to anonymous policing, but not to anonymous protest.
Radley Balko

Ordinary Germans did not come out in numbers to try to block the troops taking their Jewish neighbors away, so this moment is giving me a lot of hope and pride. Americans aren't ready to capitulate to fascism
sirosenbaum.bsky.social

These militarist ICE raids are the actual government oppression that right wingers dreamed was happening during Covid. They are not up in arms like they were about masking, go figure.
D.A. Bullock @bullycreative.bsky.social

The military isn’t being employed to carry out an immigration policy. The immigration policy, and especially the way the administration is choosing to carry it out, is an excuse to call out the military.
Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social

CATO Institute [Libertarian think tank] Director of Immigration Studies:

The Tennessee Holler

Regular liberal people must come to understand that there is no way you can appease Nazis and especially that there is no way that you can shrink yourself so they won't hurt you. Their main goal is to hurt you.
Prisonculture

How many steps is it from sending the military into an American city to cancelling elections? Asking for a democracy.
David Ho

Can’t help but suspect this is happening in California instead of New York or Illinois or Maryland or Oregon because Stephen Miller is acting out his high school resentments.
Dana Houle

The "right" way to protest is to have protested 60 years ago, so people can safely and easily agree that it was the right thing to do. The "wrong" way to protest is to protest today, unfairly forcing people to take an inconvenient moral stance.
Peter Aidan Byrne

Mayor Karen Bass: blocking a freeway or not leaving an area when commanded by police is not *violence*. Words have meaning and you should know that. Don’t do Trump’s work for him. Ok, she said “not peaceful.” Which is also incorrect, and will be heard as “violent.”
@pattho.bsky.social

When they say peaceful they mean not disruptive. They interpret any interruption of the status quo as violent
Kendra "Gloom is My Beat" Pierre-Louis @kendrawrites.com

The Boston Massacre occurred because Bostonians had gathered to protest the killing of a child who had thrown a brick at an impost office, and the crowd became so hostile that British redcoats fired in self-defense
Kaitlin Is Just Getting Started @gothamgirlblue.com

One thing I saw a lot this afternoon was individual cops just getting annoyed by an individual and then suddenly clubbing or shooting rubber bullets at them. With all sorts of LAPD superiors, hundreds with phones and media present. Like they can just go off in public if they're feeling pestered.
Peter Flax @pflax1.bsky.social

Worth bearing in mind that illegal entry is a misdemeanor and being unlawfully present in the country is not even a criminal offense, but a civil one. [Stephen Miller's perspective] is the equivalent of saying we need to torch the Constitution and send in the SWAT team to catch jaywalkers & people with overdue library books.
Julian Sanchez @normative.bsky.social

Mass protests are an implicit threat of potential violence even when they are entirely peaceful. They serve to keep state power in check by demonstrating “there are more of us than you so fix your shit.” The state knows this, which is why its agents often respond to them with unprovoked violence. People participating in mass protests do not have to DO anything violent to be perceived as a threat by the state because—from the perspective of the state—a unified mass presence IS the threat. State violence in response is often disproportionate because it’s a reassertion of dominance and power.
Leah McElrath

Vast majority of undocumented people in the US have been here for years, are employed, pay taxes, speak English. Many came here as small children and only know the US. A sane society would hold an amnesty and legalize them (last done 1986) but instead we trap them in limbo. That's the reality.
Hare @haredurer.bsky.social

We are currently ruled by a bunch of people who think the tragedy of Anne Frank is she wasn’t found sooner
Grudgie the Whale

what [the majority of surveyed] people seem to believe is that there is a large number of criminal, layabout immigrants who can be easily found and deported. they support doing so snd are dismayed by the deportation of otherwise law abiding people. the problem is that the criminal group is imaginary!
jamelle @jamellebouie.net

It's just strange to me that we've all been so successfully conditioned to say "oh a big group of angry people who are regular citizens? I hope they are nonviolent. "Instead of "oh a big group of angry people who are regular citizens? They must have something important to say"
S.E. Fleenor

on January 6th, while attempting to overthrow an election, multiple rioters wore Nazi paraphernalia. they declared their intent to murder elected officials. the right stood steadfastly behind them and are now more powerful than ever. you can stand behind someone waving a Mexican flag.
Peter @notalawyer.bsky.social

Every other property in Minnesota has a Norwegian or Swedish flag flying. Entire towns have. But, the racist Trumpers can't make that leap because BROWN PEOPLE! We're doomed.
Mizzoh

We've seen highly controlled, highly choreographed moments of protest in recent months. That's something completely different than a whole bunch of people getting fed up and moving in the way that folks have been moving in CA. It’s like yelling at water about the proper way to boil.
Puff the Magic Hater @mskellymhayes.bsky.social

Democratic Party leaders' version of the old expression "There go my people. I must find out where they are going so I can lead them" is "There go my people. I must find out where they are going so I can stop them."
Geoff Johnson @geoffthejohnson.bsky.social

the right way to protest is to go inside your closet and shake your head so all the sweaters know you disagree
regular meghan @ruemcclammyhand.bsky.social

This seems like a great day to remind Bluesky that Stephen Miller lived four doors down from me freshman year. And our student council person asked him (and everyone) to sign a birthday card for our dorm’s janitor. And he threw a tantrum and wrote an op-ed about not socializing with “the help.”
David Shiffman, Ph.D. @whysharksmatter.bsky.social

__

And Tom Tomorrow's cartoon of the week, which he had started before the LA situation began, and he had to keep changing as it was still in process through his deadline:

As seen on the Daily Kos.