June 9, 2025

OPEN THREAD: Monday, Monday.

Posted at 9:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds 215

FIERY BUT MOSTLY PEACEFUL:

Posted at 9:14 pm by Ed Driscoll 42

TYLER O’NEIL: Who Organized the LA Anti-ICE Protests That Escalated Into Riots?

When anti-U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agitators took to the streets in the Los Angeles area over the weekend attacking officers, setting cars on fire, and looting, they drew attention to the left-leaning activist groups that may have helped instigate the riots.

Three major organizations have come under increased scrutiny: the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, Los Angeles; the Party for Socialism and Liberation; and the Service Employees International Union. One of these groups, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, Los Angeles, has received millions in government funding.

We should also ask the mayor of L.A. about her role in mobilizing her party’s shock troops:


Posted at 8:45 pm by Ed Driscoll 37

DON’T TRUST CHINA. CHINA IS ASSHOE.

Posted at 8:32 pm by Glenn Reynolds 45

ED MORRISSEY: Newsom Plans to Sue Trump to Remove Nat’l Guard.

Did these ‘protests’ interfere with the ability of ICE to execute their legitimate law-enforcement operations? They did indeed. Did Newsom or Karen Bass take action to restore order and allow those operations to proceed? They most certainly did not. Instead, Bass insisted that the city would not do anything to assist ICE in terms of their operations or protection, and Newsom refused to act. Instead, Newsom and Bass have insisted that ICE stop its legitimate operations in California rather than enforce the law. Their inaction and rhetoric attempted to leverage the violence directed at ICE as a way to prevent the Department of Homeland Security from ‘execut[ing] the law of the United States.’

Reuters spoke with four legal experts who cast doubt on this provision, but it exists clearly and explicitly in statute and in precedent. The rhetoric from Newsom and Bass — including Newsom’s remarks to Tom Homan that the NYT includes as context for this legal effort — makes it clear that Democrat leaders in California intend to prevent the federal government from executing federal laws in their jurisdiction. Newsom has taken the George Wallace/Orval Faubus position in history, and while he might find a federal judge to temporarily agree that Newsom can dictate terms of federal law enforcement in California, that won’t last long. Trump has both the law and precedent on his side here, and he will accelerate this to the Supreme Court before removing a single National Guard troop from LA.

Speaking of states’ rights issues, this ABC News employee is suddenly a big fan: The View’s Whoopi Questions Whether Trump Admin Is Now ‘Pure Fascism’ After Weekend of LA Protests. “What ever happened to states’ rights?” the ABC moderator asks.

Following a weekend of protests over ICE raids in Los Angeles being escalated by the Trump administration sending in the National Guard, “The View” host and moderator Whoopi Goldberg wondered on Monday morning if the country is now experiencing “pure fascism.”

“What ever happened to states’ rights? I thought that was what you do,” she said, kicking off the day’s Hot Topics. “Because you tell the state ‘This is what we’re thinking of doing,’ you know, you don’t just send people in. You don’t just send troops in.”

Each of the hosts agreed, and as the conversation progressed, Whoopi also called out Trump’s reinstated travel ban.

“None of the countries that are on this ‘you can’t come in here’ list seem to have done anything of note to keep them from coming in,” she said. “So, what is it? Are we about state’s rights? Are we about keeping people in or out? Are you out because you got here in a different way, because you fled the nation you live in?”

“So what is it? Is this just pure fascism that’s happening?” she added. “Is this what’s going on?”

Well, it can’t be “pure fascism,” since Whoopi Goldberg and ABC are both still very much on the air to disagree with Trump’s decisions, despite her paranoia at the beginning of 2024 that “That If Elected Again Donald Trump Will ‘Disappear’ Journalists And ‘Gay Folks.’”

As VDH asks today, “Why Is Governor Newsom Going Full Jefferson Davis? What triggered the American Civil War were state officials who refused to honor federal law and instead boasted of their open defiance of Washington.”

Back in May of 2016, he similarly explored: The Nihilism of Sanctuary Cities.

The apparent principle of sanctuary cities is akin to roulette. The odds suggest that most illegal aliens detained by officials are not career felons and thus supposedly need not be turned over to ICE for deportation. On the chance that some of their 10,000 released criminals will go on to commit further crimes in the manner of Juan Lopez-Sanchez, officials then shrug that the public outcry will be episodic and quickly die down, or will at least not pose political problems as great as would come from deporting aliens.

Yet the idea of a sanctuary city is Confederate to the core, reminiscent of antebellum Southern states picking and choosing which federal statutes they would abide by or reject. Even before the Civil War, the Nullification Crisis of 1832-33 pitted South Carolina against a fellow southerner, President Andrew Jackson, as the state declared that federal tariff laws were not applicable within its confines. Jackson understood the threat to the union, and promised to send in federal troops before South Carolina backed down.

The problem with legal nullification is always the enduring principle, never just the immediate landscape, of its implementation.

Sanctuary cities are careful to employ euphemisms rather than explicit references to illegal immigration. But not labeling San Francisco as an “illegal alien sanctuary” or even an “immigration sanctuary” only institutionalizes the idea of any city becoming a “sanctuary” from any federal law it finds convent. If sanctuary cities continue to flaunt federal immigration laws and if the federal government does not cut off federally earmarked funds to such offenders — or if ICE does not, in Jacksonian style, threaten to use force to arrest and deport illegal aliens — then the concept will spread, and spread well beyond matters of immigration law.

Hence the Bad Orange Man, and Karen Bass’s Orwellian doubletalk in response:

She’s never going to change, no matter what the consequences: OMG, Her Face! CNN Confronts Karen Bass with Trump’s Approval Ratings with Deportations and LOL (Watch).

UPDATE:

Posted at 8:30 pm by Ed Driscoll 183

GREAT MOMENTS IN OBJECTIVITY: ABC News Drops All-Time Insane Description of ‘Mostly Peaceful Protesters’ in Los Angeles.

A local ABC News affiliate in Los Angeles raised eyebrows when one of their anchors described rioters as “just a bunch of people having fun watching cars burn.”

It’s the ‘Mostly Peaceful Protester 2.0.’

The ‘Fiery but Mostly Peaceful Protest’ on steroids.

I’m not sure what kind of mental exercises one has to go through to develop the ability to perform verbal gymnastics at this level, but this ABC reporter would surely take gold in the Olympics.

As Redstate’s Nick Arama reported on Sunday, pro-illegal immigrant rioters have been calling in Waymos – self-driving vehicles – just to set them on fire.

The ABC 7 news anchor, while watching these vehicles burn in the background, voiced his concerns about law enforcement stepping in and whether it might escalate the situation. You know, beyond all the criminal activity taking place.

“There’s a large group of people – it could turn very volatile if you move law enforcement in there in the wrong way, and turn what is just a bunch of people having fun watching cars burn into a massive confrontation and altercation between officers,” he said.

At PJM, Matt Margolis writes, “Who is Marc Brown, who made this insane observation?”

He’s not some random reporter; he’s the longtime co-anchor of ABC 7’s Eyewitness News and perhaps one of the most recognizable faces in Los Angeles broadcasting. Over the years, Brown has racked up an impressive collection of honors, including four Emmy Awards, a Golden Mike, and accolades from both the Associated Press and the Radio and Television News Directors Association.

Previously, during a surreal exchange on CNN, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) had to correct anchor Dana Bash after she claimed on air that these weren’t “real riots.” She tried to minimize the violence by comparing it to the 1992 Rodney King riots, as if the chaos in L.A. today somehow doesn’t qualify.

But the gaslighting didn’t stop there. CNN’s Juliette Kayyem dismissed the mayhem as merely “some unrest,” and another CNN reporter outright called the scene “very peaceful,” claiming not to have seen any violence at all.

In contrast though: L.A. Police Chief Admits Officers ‘Overwhelmed’ as Thousands of Rioters Block Freeway, Torch Cars.

UPDATE: Another ABC7 journalist has his “fiery but mostly peaceful” moment, while standing on the set of Full Metal Jacket: 

Posted at 8:15 pm by Ed Driscoll 168

#JOURNALISM:

Memo to Jeff Bezos: You can lay off a lot of staff at WaPo without losing much.

Posted at 8:11 pm by Glenn Reynolds 18

FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT:

Posted at 7:26 pm by Glenn Reynolds 55

CNN: MAKE THE GULAGS GREAT AGAIN! CNN Uses Pompous Clooney Play to Say Trump Era WORSE THAN ‘Red Scare.’

Decades later, the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy remains a favorite liberal bogeyman. So who could possibly be worse? Why, Donald Trump, of course!

In a CNN This Morning segment promoting CNN’s broadcast of George Clooney’s Broadway play, Good Night and Good Luck, based on Edward R. Murrow’s media campaign against Sen. Joseph McCarthy, host Audie Cornish played a clip of CNN’s Anderson Cooper asking Clooney whether “it’s worse now than in McCarthy’s time.” Clooney replied: “It’s worse now.” Nobody asked what it was like to live under communism in the 1950s.

Cornish then asked Axios media reporter Sara Fischer for her take on Clooney’s claim that things are worse today, under Trump, than they were during McCarthy’s time (or Eisenhower’s time). Fischer dutifully agreed that things are indeed worse today. Whereas McCarthy was focused exclusively on uncovering Soviet spies, under Trump:

“It’s really focused on going after anyone who pushes back against the government, who questions power.”

As is common amongst liberals, Fischer displayed nostalgia for the good old days, when there were few news outlets, and all of them leaned left. “In the McCarthy era, there was [sic] three broadcast networks, maybe a handful of newspapers, that people listened to and read. In this era, it is so much easier to target journalism because the institution of journalism is disaggregated,”

Translation: the liberal media oligopoly has been weakened, and conservative voices can now compete. Fischer complained “we’re in the digital era now. It’s so much easier to bully and taunt people 24/7*, especially because we do have people in power who are very good at using social media, who might even own their social media networks.”

Related: George Clooney Thinks Trump’s Coming for Him.

George Clooney recently sat down with Anderson Cooper and expressed concern that Donald Trump might personally target him. For what? That time he murdered Batman on screen? Or perhaps for being the kind of guy who still thinks his political commentary matters.

Trump played a businessman on TV as himself. You played a space cowboy in Solaris. Maybe sit this one out.

George Clooney isn’t the target—he’s circling the White House

Clooney acts like Trump’s gonna storm into office and slap a target on his back like he’s public enemy number one. George, calm down—you’re not exactly top of mind outside the Vanity Fair cocktail circuit.

Evergreen:

* “It’s so much easier to bully and taunt people 24/7.” To be fair, that’s something that CNN were experts at during Trump’s first term:

Posted at 6:45 pm by Ed Driscoll 95

WELCOME TO PROTEST SEASON, WHERE THE CAUSE CHANGES BUT THE TACTICS STAY THE SAME:

(Classical reference in headline.)

Posted at 5:45 pm by Ed Driscoll 93

STEVE HAYWARD: The Tanenhaus Variations.

Other prominent nodes of the [William F. Buckley] story get fresh new details, including his time at Yale and as editor of the Yale Daily News (would he get that appointment if he was at Yale today?), and the runup and rollout of his famous first book, God and Man at Yale. (Among other things, we learn that T.S. Eliot didn’t like it.) Buckley’s support for Joseph McCarthy is explicated at length, revealing more about Buckley’s ambivalence toward the man himself rather than his cause. His ambivalent relationship with Nixon is well-covered, while his relationship with Ronald Reagan, the president with whom Buckley was clearly closer both personally and ideologically, receives strangely uneven treatment. For example, there is nothing on Buckley’s split with Reagan over arms control and U.S.-Soviet relations during Reagan’s second term, nor on many other details from Reagan’s presidency about which Buckley commented relentlessly. It is just at the point that the book loses steam completely, making the reader wonder if [Sam] Tanenhaus grew bored with the project or simply wanted to release the book on the 100th anniversary of Buckley’s birth. After 800 pages detailing the Buckley story from 1925 to 1980, the years from 1980 to his passing in 2008 are condensed into just 40 pages. This “definitive” biography is definitively unfinished.

We do receive major discussion of Buckley’s time in the CIA, his dazzling personal and precarious financial life, a roller-coaster that included a near-bankruptcy in the early 1970s (throughout which Buckley never cut back his extensive personal charity, the full scope of which is only hinted at in this book), and his most egregious and consequential mistake, championing the cause of convicted murderer Edgar Smith. Buckley’s public campaign on behalf of Smith resulted in Smith’s conviction being overturned, following which Smith committed another murder with the same MO as his initial crime.

Buckley’s gullibility toward Smith is a portal to one key aspect of Buckley’s character that Tanenhaus brings out well: he was drawn to interesting people, regardless of their ideology. This explains his friendship with numerous liberals like Ken Galbraith, Norman Mailer, and even further left figures like Allard Lowenstein. Tanenhaus thinks this explains why Buckley liked to hire liberal writers, or writers who became liberal in due course, for NR, such as Garry Wills, John Leonard, and Joan Didion. Here, Tanenhaus unwittingly, perhaps, reveals his subconscious disdain for conservatism. He says that Wills, Leonard, and Didion were the best writers NR ever produced. Can he really be so obtuse as to disregard Joseph Sobran, Keith Mano, George Will, Richard Brookhiser, or Charles Kesler (among others)—all NR discoveries? Apparently so, and it is only their ideological content that can explain why Tanenhaus would ignore their talent. Tanenhaus at one point said that Buckley did not always choose his friends and business associates well; might that observation include the choice of Tanenhaus as his biographer?

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 5:30 pm by Ed Driscoll 48

WAIT UNTL 2025-ERA GAVIN NEWSOM DISCOVERS WHAT GAVIN NEWSOM DID IN 2020!

UPDATE: From April of 2020:

As Jack Dunphy wrote in April of 2020: Crackdowns on Lone Surfers and Paddleboarders Threaten to Erode Respect for Law Enforcement Even Further.

UPDATE: Question asked:

MORE:

Posted at 5:14 pm by Ed Driscoll 398

RIP: Frederick Forsyth dies aged 86.

“Appalled at what he saw and using his experience during a stint as a Secret Service agent, he wrote his first and perhaps most famous novel,” the agent added.

That novel, The Day of the Jackal, was published in 1972 and propelled Forsyth to the status of a global bestselling author.

It has since been adapted into a film and more recently, a TV series starring Eddie Redmayne.

The popular novel remains the first and most enduring of his 16 thrillers and follows a hired assassin who targets Charles de Gaulle, the French president.

The TV adaptation marked the third to reach the screen, following one fronted by Edward Fox in 1973, and another that Forsyth disowns, with Bruce Willis in 1997.

Mr Lloyd said: “He will be greatly missed by his family, his friends, all of us at Curtis Brown and of course his millions of fans around the world – though his books will of course live on forever.”

* * * * * * * *

Lee Child, a fellow thriller writer, previously described The Day of the Jackal as “the book that broke the mould”.

Mr Forsyth was long known – alongside his books – for his outspokenness on political matters as a Conservative, a supporter of Brexit and a defender of traditional values.

He disliked the “woke” agenda and cancel culture, saying in 2023 that he would be “horrified” if they tried to make the TV adaptation of The Day of the Jackal “woke”.

“Touch wood, no one has yet called me out, saying my books are un-woke,” he told The Telegraph two years ago, adding: “Woke is stupid rather than sinful, but plain stupid.”

He also expressed disdain that JK Rowling was being attacked for her gender-critical views by the three former Harry Potter child stars that she was once close to.

He said he felt “particular anger on her behalf at the three young stars of the Harry Potter films – Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson – for disowning Rowling when she was attacked by trans activists”.

“These idiots were brought from nowhere to star in the films of her work and now they are against her. But without her, they’d be nowhere,” he added.

The original adaptation of The Day of the Jackal, starring Edward Fox, was of course, utterly brilliant filmmaking. As Roger Ebert wrote in 1973, “I wasn’t prepared for how good it really is: it’s not just a suspense classic, but a beautifully executed example of filmmaking. It’s put together like a fine watch. The screenplay meticulously assembles an incredible array of material, and then [Fred] Zinnemann choreographs it so that the story–complicated as it is–unfolds in almost documentary starkness.”

Posted at 4:45 pm by Ed Driscoll 62