Jeff Childers Paywalled ( but not for Goldtenters )

Since January, more judges than I can count have tripped over themselves denying President Trump’s declaration of “an invasion” at the southern border. Yesterday, the New York Times ran a fretful story headlined, “Trump to Send National Guard to LA to Quell Immigration Protests.” The sub-headline angrily added, “Gov. Gavin Newsom called the decision to call in National Guard forces ‘purposefully inflammatory.’

President Trump, ignoring Governor Hair Gel’s hand-wringing, activated 2,000 National Guardsmen yesterday to contain swelling crowds of masked foreign nationals waving Mexican flags, looting stores, and torching U.S. streets in Los Angeles. Even during the 2020 Summer of Mostly Peaceful Molotovs™, while the same tired protest playbook played out, Trump never invoked this extraordinary authority.

For context, it’s been sixty years since a president overrode a governor to deploy the Guard, when in 1965 LBJ ordered troops into Alabama to support civil rights protesters. This time, the troops’ job is to suppress anti-enforcement protesters. It’s a perfect rhyming couplet of history.

“Governors,” the Times correctly noted, “almost always control the deployment of National Guard troops in their states.” But a specific provision within Title 10 of the U.S. Code allows federal deployment of the National Guard if “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”

Media was outraged. But … but … the protests have been mostly peaceful! Mostly. In a paroxysm of understatement, the Times euphemistically admitted, “Some demonstrations have been unruly.”

Unruly could describe a high-school cafeteria food fight. Watch out for the jello salad! The pictures and video coming out of LA look more like Tenochtitlán’s revenge tour.

Title 10 also allows the president to call up “members and units of the National Guard of any State in such numbers as he considers necessary to repel the invasion.” One wonders whether the sneering judges would agree that “unruly” mobs of masked foreigners carrying flags from a foreign nation, rioting in U.S. streets, looting retail stores, and violently resisting federal law add up to a rebellion or invasion. In their unelected opinions, of course.

If this isn’t an invasion, what is it? A street festival, with explosives?

There’s something deeply, almost comically incongruous about the protests. Foreign nationals, many here illegally, are taking to American streets to protest U.S. immigration enforcement— while proudly waving the Mexican flag.

But … if they love Mexico so much, why are they here?

And, if being returned there is some kind of human rights violation, then what exactly does the flag stand for? National pride? Or personal trauma? You can’t claim asylum from a terrifying hellhole of a country while simultaneously celebrating it like you’re marching in the Noche de Rábanos parade

If this were really about asylum, we’d see desperate appeals to law, to justice, and especially to American ideals. Instead, we’re watching coordinated displays of foreign national identity, wrapped in defiance rather than desperation. That’s not a cry for help. That’s a declaration of something.

When you combine the widespread waving of other countries’ flags, the open rejection of U.S. law, organized street violence, looting, and arson, and the refusal to return to the country they claim to love, the “asylum” narrative starts to look like a fig leaf for something else. It is more like political colonization by crowd.

In short: an invasion.

? Upon hearing yesterday’s National Guard news, progressives tightly clutched their pearl necklaces. “It is using the military domestically to stop dissent,” wailed Erwin Chemerinsky, 72, UC Berkeley’s wispy-haired law school dean. Erwin’s far-left blood ran cold. He darkly labeled Trump’s override as “truly chilling.”

For his own reasons, the state’s hapless Governor did not welcome the help. He didn’t criticize the rioting illegals, who rolled right over local police. No, Gavin criticized President Trump, calling the unsolicited National Guard help “inflammatory.”

News flash: it’s already burning.

Oh, Gavin. Once the manicured front-runner for the post-Biden progressive baton, the Governor now finds himself shrieking “inflammatory!” while the streets of his biggest city literally burn in flames. It’s not the best audition clip for Commander-in-Chief. When his presidential campaign’s soft-launch looks more like the fall of Saigon than the dawn of Camelot, maybe he should rethink the messaging.

And the story provided me with another “I told you so moment.”

Back in 2020, when I sued Alachua County over its covid-era mask mandate, I didn’t just argue the science was flimsy and the policy was unconstitutional— I also warned it would open the door to criminal anonymity. In my appellate brief, I quoted a 2000 Georgia Supreme Court decision that called face masks “the criminal’s dress.” I devoted five full pages (over 10% of the brief) to the idea that letting people legally obscure their identities in public would ultimately do far more harm than good.

Yesterday, President Trump finally caught up to my 2020 brief. Reuters ran the story: “Trump bans masks at protests after LA unrest.” In the President’s own words:

So, in one sense, LA’s illegal alien riots and the federal response are a much bigger story than they appear in corporate media’s carefully crafted rear-view mirror. This was also a return of sanity, reviving a pre-pandemic point of moral clarity, the prodigal return of common knowledge and common sense.

It’s a simple truth we once knew but were bullied into forgetting: Masks are bad news. They’re not any symbol of virtue. They’re not an altruistic signal of “care for others.” Masks are just a convenient disguise for criminals and cowards— one that gave cover to the worst among us, while silencing the best.

……

Fully’s Comment

“Never Let a Good Crisis go to waste ”

This is a Democrat Mantra .

Is it possible that Waving these Mexican Flags at this “Riot” is “OUR” very own “False Flag ” Event ?

How easy would it be to provide these paid Bad Actors with Mexican Flags …Our very own useful idiots ! !

Now Trump can Claim Invasion by Foreign Actors and suspend Habeas Corpus and maybe even suspend the Constitution and Go for martial law in these Demofested Hell Holes like LA and NYC

Pass the Popcorn