Is President Trump 'overreacting' in a 'threat to democracy' over a "peaceful" non-crisis that in any case isn't happening in Los Angeles, as a string of lefty arguments would have us believe?
Will a lefty judge pop out of the woodwork like a wooden cuckoo on a clock to say time for an injunction?
So far, that isn't happening.
That's because in this case, he's on extremely strong legal ground. President Eisenhower deployed the National Guard in 1958 to desegregate schools in Arkansas. President Johnson deployed the National Guard to Alabama during the March on Selma in 1965 to protect peaceful protestors. President Bush deployed the National Guard to guard gas stations and other sensitive locations in New York City on the day of 9/11 -- the only reason I know this is I saw it. The former two instances were done explicitly over the governor's objections, and if 9/11 happened today, the latter would have been done over the woke governor's objections, too.
Jonathan Turley has a superb legal analysis that explains just why that's so, and he even cites leftwing legal eagles as being in agreement.
Trump has the authority under Section 12406 of Title 10 of the U.S. Code to deploy the National Guard if the president is “unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.”
The Administration is saying that that is precisely what is unfolding in California, where mobs attack vehicles and trap federal personnel.
Most critics are challenging the deployment on policy grounds, arguing that it is an unnecessary escalation. However, even critics like Berkeley Law Dean Erwin have admitted that “Unfortunately, President Trump likely has the legal authority to do this.”
There is a fair debate over whether this is needed at this time, but the President is allowed to reach a different conclusion. Trump wants the violence to end now as opposed to escalating as it did in the Rodney King riots or the later riots after the George Floyd killings, causing billions in property damage and many deaths.
Courts will be asked to halt the order because it did not technically go through Newsom to formally call out the National Guard.
Section 12406 grants Trump the authority to call out the Guard and employs a mandatory term for governors, who “shall” issue the President’s order. In the memo, Trump also instructed federal officials “to coordinate with the Governors of the States and the National Guard Bureau.”
Newsom is clearly refusing to issue the orders or coordinate the deployment.
Which sounds pretty George Wallace-y on the part of Newsom. Wallace lost that one.
AT contributor and attorney Charlton Allen has two strong pieces with additional legal arguments here and here.
Which rather leaves the leftist arguments and legal challenges in the dust, though as Allen notes in one of his pieces, it's likely they could find a leftist judge to issue an injunction to delay the matter.
But as Turley and Allen both note, Trump has that covered, based on his order to deploy Marines from TwentyNine Palms with an invocation of the Insurrection Act of 1807 if a judge sidelines the Guard.
It raises questions as to why the left is fighting so hard to stop Trump on this matter, given the potential for violence, destruction, deaths and lost tax revenue.
Two things spring to mind:
The first is that the state is funding it. One of the key organizers of these "peaceful" protests is an NGO called CHIRLA which isreportedly the recipient of $34 million in state funding from the California Department of Social Services.
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— Finance Trending (@FinTrending) June 9, 2025
California taxpayers just found out what they really funded last year and it’s not just roads, schools, or healthcare.
CHIRLA - the Coalition for Humane… pic.twitter.com/7mAZuCGgHC
The other is the impact of illegal immigration enforcement on the size of the state's most powerful blue cities. How big would Los Angeles be if every illegal immigrant was sent home?
According to Peachy Keenan, a Los Angeleno:
If you ever drive through the grimy parts of the city, where graffiti stains every square inch of available concrete and wall, piles of fast food trash cling to rusted chain link fences, and infinite ramshackle cell phone repair sheds and illegal outdoor taco shops, and cheap schmatta stores cling to street corners, you will have one overriding thought:
it’s way more than 10 million. It’s more than 20 million. There are at least five to ten million extra people just in Los Angeles who are here illegally. Maybe more.
The official number of illegals in L.A. is 950,000. Lmao.
What would sending every illegal home do to federal funding for welfare distribution (which is under investigation by the Trump administration anyway for illegal disbural to illegals), the tax base, and congressional represenation?
As San Diego Supervisor Jim Desmond has noted, they have built a whole civilization around the concept of illegal alienhood, which means Trump's effort to restore order, which he was elected to do, is a threat to them.
As he noted on X:
What we’re seeing unfold in Los Angeles didn’t happen overnight — it’s the result of years of reckless policy and failed leadership. California politicians handed out free healthcare to illegal immigrants, gave them in-state tuition, and even used taxpayer dollars to cover their legal fees during deportation cases. Add to that the millions allowed to enter the country over the past four years — many shielded by sanctuary laws, even after committing additional crimes — and this outcome was inevitable. This crisis isn’t the fault of the President or the National Guard. It’s the fault of weak, radical politicians who encouraged this lawlessness and are now standing by as violence and chaos erupt on our streets.
That would explain the violence, the lawfare, the doxxing, the eggings on, from even their leaders.
You can see why they fight so hard, even with the most bogus and surreal arguments -- even to protect migrant criminals.
The civilization they built, premised on a foreign helot class, in a falsely claimed sanctuary city and state is about to come crashing down, with President Trump an existential threat to the house they built.Trump is positioned well to take them down, and he should do it.
Image: X video screen shot