- Losing My Perspicacity
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- Losing My Perspicacity, June 13, 2025
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Good Morning and Happy Free Friday! Boy, things just keep getting better out there, don’t they? Thanks for starting your day with me.
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News was breaking like crazy while I was writing this newsletter and after I had already scheduled it to publish - sorry in advance for the whiplash!
Welp, it only took us five months to get to the point where the Marines have been deployed to the streets of Los Angeles and US Senators are being frog marched out of press conferences for asking a question. If you haven’t seen it by now, here’s a video of Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) being thrown to the ground and arrested by federal agents.
Sen. Alex Padilla was just removed from Kristi Noem's press conference in Los Angeles (video: Bill Melugin/Fox News)
— Phil Lewis (@phillewis.bsky.social)2025-06-12T18:09:56.723Z
Must be one of those pesky socialists DHS is trying to liberate Los Angeles from.
In all seriousness, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem tried to justify taking a US Senator to the ground by falsely claiming that Padilla didn’t identify himself as a US Senator and that he was lunging towards her. Neither of those things is true.
Unfortunately, far too many in the media went along with Noem’s version of the story. Nicole Wallace was one of the few who immediately corrected the record.
You can hear Padilla attempt to identify himself several times before he’s pushed out of the room. But even if that weren’t true, Padilla is the ranking member on the Senate’s Immigration Subcommittee. Noem probably met with him ahead of her confirmation hearing, and she definitely knows who he is. He’s the senior senator from California! If she doesn’t, she probably (definitely) isn’t qualified to hold office.
Even more infuriating, Padilla is forced to the ground by law enforcement even after he’s identified himself. Just look at this picture.
In what world does a United States Senator get taken down by three cops because he dared ask a question at a press conference?
According to his statement, Senator Padilla was in LA “exercising his duty to perform Congressional oversight of the federal government’s operations in Los Angeles and across California.” Padilla also said he was in the building to be briefed by General Guillot of the US Northern Command.
There are a couple of things going on here — both of them bad. First, a cabinet member is unapologetic about law enforcement roughing up a U.S. senator for attempting to ask a question. That’s the kind of thing you see in fascist regimes, not in the United States of America. As Tim Miller pointed out on Nicole Wallace’s show, you can’t even see Noem in the same frame with Padilla, so the claim that he was a physical danger to her is ridiculous. All of this has been about quashing dissent and showing the American people that the Trump Administration can get away with whatever it wants to. They do not recognize checks on their power, and they don’t care about violating the Constitution or your rights. They’ll do what they want.
Furthermore, all of this has been a significant (orchestrated) distraction from Trump’s budget bill, which most outlets haven’t covered for days. We’re not talking about cuts to Medicaid and medical research anymore. Now, we’re all arguing about whether or not protestors in LA have been “peaceful” or not. We all fell for it, not that I blame us, because when we see guys cosplaying as Navy Seals shooting “less lethal weapons” at other Americans, how can we talk about anything else? And cops should ask Linda Tirado how those rubber bullets worked out for her.
It’s no coincidence that of the 35 attacks on journalists covering the LA protests, 30 came from law enforcement.
The Marines are expected to be on the streets of LA sometime today, ahead of the #NoKings protests set to take place at over 2000 locations across the US on Saturday. But in a happy surprise, US District Judge Charles Breyer (brother of former SCOTUS Justice Stephen Breyer) issued a temporary restraining order directing Donald Trump to turn control of the California National Guard back over to Governor Gavin Newsom. I followed along as Joshua Friedman live-skeeted the hearing at Bluesky today. For a hearing over statutory authority, it was pretty dramatic.
Here’s part of the ruling:
Trump is definitely not going to give anything to “Newscum,” as he calls California’s Governor, so God knows where we’ll be by the time you’re reading this Friday morning. Bet you all that he’ll be melting down about it on Truth Social overnight.
Before we move on, I wanted to share this Judge Breyer quote from Thursday’s hearing. It’s really the whole ball of wax.
“The president is of course limited to his authority. That's the difference between a constitutional govt and King George! It's not that the president says something and it becomes it. Otherwise they become something other than a constitutional officer.”
UPDATE: Aaaand never mind. As of 11pm, Breyer’s order has already been blocked by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The matter was heard by a 3 Panel Court that featured to Trump appointees. A hearing has been set for Tuesday.
Today: Morale is reportedly low among the troops in LA; Elizabeth Warren is all out of chewing gum; Kilmar Abrego-Garcia’s lawyers are NOT over it; and The High Note.
Here we go.
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Morale is bad, yo
It’s not easy for any of us to see American troops facing down protestors in Los Angeles (and likely many other places this weekend). It’s easy to say, “Refuse to do it then!”, but we’ve all had jobs we hated by desperately needed. So, while I agree that troops should refuse orders that are unlawful, none of these service members are legal scholars. So I try not to judge too harshly, unless you’re firing rubber bullets at journalists. I, too, have had to take a job that made my principles itch.
That said, the troops aren’t stupid, either. And they reportedly aren’t very happy.
California national guards troops and marines deployed to Los Angeles to help restore order after days of protest against the Trump administration have told friends and family members they are deeply unhappy about the assignment and worry their only meaningful role will be as pawns in a political battle they do not want to join.
Three different advocacy organisations representing military families said they had heard from dozens of affected service members who expressed discomfort about being drawn into a domestic policing operation outside their normal field of operations. The groups said they have heard no countervailing opinions.
“The sentiment across the board right now is that deploying military force against our own communities isn’t the kind of national security we signed up for,” said Sarah Streyder of the Secure Families Initiative, which represents the interests of military spouses, children and veterans.
Assuming the National Guard will be returned to the State of California and doesn’t get tied up in appeals (it will), the National Guard, at least, may be able to go home soon.
If you’re out in the streets this weekend, as I will be, try to remember that there are human beings on the other side of the line who aren’t happy to be spending their Saturday facing off against their fellow citizens (but watch out for the ones that are).
Elizabeth Warren has had it
Elizabeth Warren showed up to this hearing with Treasury Secretary Scott Bassent to kick ass and chew gum, and she’s all out of gum.
Warren to Bessent: "Why is the national debt so very important that you're trying to kick 16 million off their health insurance, but increasing the national debt doesn't seem to matter if you're cutting taxes for billionaires? ... you don't want to answer the question."
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com)2025-06-12T15:43:10.581Z
And here she is again, less than 12 hours later, speaking truth to power about the tackling of Sen. Padilla.
And she was among the first to call for Kristi Noem’s resignation yesterday. She has the energy of a 30-year-old and is among an elite group of the smartest to ever serve in Congress.
This brilliant, principled woman could have been our President. No, I’m not over it, and I never will be.
Kilmar Abrego-Garcia’s lawyers demand satisfaction
Back when I was a Public Defender, our entire team had a lot of loser cases. I mean cases where our clients were caught on video hiding objects in their purses and still insisted on pleading “not guilty.” Or caught driving without a license and wanted a jury trial. With video of them driving the car. There’s nothing to argue in those cases, so we would always joke that our legal strategy was just to “pound on the bench and demand satisfaction.”
In the case of Kilmar Abrego-Garcia’s lawyers, they may get it. They aren’t done coming after the DOJ for jerking them around for months over their client’s case.
But late on Wednesday night, the lawyers (for Abrego-Garcia) sent the federal judge handling the case their most detailed inventory yet of what they described as the administration’s “sustained and flagrant” violations. The lawyers also asked the judge, Paula Xinis, to do something about it. They said that they wanted her to appoint a special master to investigate the failure by Trump officials to comply with her instructions and to impose financial penalties, if warranted, as a punishment for contempt.
The 33-page filing by the lawyers contained a litany of purported wrongdoing by the Trump administration and accused officials in the Homeland Security and Justice Departments of throwing up evasions at every turn, harboring a disdain for the judicial process and, in one instance, potentially lying under oath.
Getting prosecutors in trouble with the judge was one of the greatest parts of my job, so I can’t wait to see how this one goes for the DOJ.
(Oh hey, and now Israel is bombing Iran - I’m sure this will be great for us)
The High Note
Each Day, I do my best to leave you with a smile on your face, a song in your heart, and the will to fight another day.
And finally today, lest you (like me) suffer regular and instense bouts of imposter syndrome, keep in mind that the guy Trump appointed as the head of the Army a) thinks we currently have a man on the moon'; or b) said something he really, really wasn’t supposed to on national TV.
Either way, you’re better at your job than he is.
Survive and advance out there today and stay safe this weekend! Don’t let the bastards get you down.
And if you’re on the fence about heading out to protests this weekend, remember: We fought a war to get rid of kings.
Have a great weekend!
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