Hi everyone!
LA Mayor Karen Bass was incensed on Thursday after ICE arrested an illegal immigrant outside California Governor Gavin Newsom's press conference on redistricting. His plan is to bypass the independent districting commission and redraw the state's congressional districts with the intent of punishing Texas. This was just too sacred of a presser, per Bass, for ICE to show up and stage an arrest.
"There is no way this was a coincidence," she said when asked about it. "This was widely publicized that the governor and many of our other elected officials were having a press conference here to talk about redistricting, and they decided they were going to come and thumb their nose in front of the governor's face.
"Why would you do that? That is unbelievably disrespectful. It's a provocative act. They're talking about disorder in Los Angeles, and they are the source of the disorder in Los Angeles right now. This is just completely unacceptable. This is an administration, this is a Customs and Border Patrol that has gone amok. This absolutely has to stop. There was no danger here. There was no need to detain anyone here, and there was certainly no need to have a provocative act right here, where the governor is having a press conference."
Oh please, Karen, there is nothing "respectful" about a press conference held by the governor of one state to bypass that state's constitution for the expressly stated purpose of giving the middle-finger to another state. A poll from the state of California shows that 64% of California voters don't want Newsom to wrest the power away from the independent redistricting commission and redraw the maps. But Newsom is drunk on power, podcasting, and the promise of a presidential run.
He doesn't care what's best for California, he cares what's best for himself. He doesn't care about the voters, he cares about getting one over on Texas. And what did Texas do? They exercised their own procedures and plans as permitted under the laws of their own state. That's what states do. As for ICE? They showed up to do what they do, and if California followed federal law, they wouldn't have had to do it.
Newsom let the arrest essentially hijack his stupid press conference, also leaning into the issue that the arrest wasn't "coincidental," as if that's even relevant. Why shouldn't ICE show up at gatherings where they suspect illegal immigrants will be in attendance?
"And right outside at this exact moment are dozens and dozens of ICE agents," Newsom said as the crowd booed. "Donald Trump—You think it's coincidental? Donald Trump and his minions, Tom Homan, tough guy, covertly decided, coincidentally or not, that this was a location to advance ICE arrests. Indiscriminate? Perhaps we'll find out later, but certainly indiscriminate when a 15-year-old disabled boy had a gun put to his head in Los Angeles, trying to go to school just a few days ago."
A student was wrongfully detained after a case of mistaken identity outside a public school orientation. None of that would happen if LA officers worked with federal law enforcement to turn over illegal immigrant criminals. But for Democrats, when ICE is forced to go out into the community to make arrests, politicians get the photo ops they want. They want to see law enforcement in the communities, they want to see public arrests, they know their refusal to comply with federal law will make things worse for illegal immigrants, and that's what they want the public to see.
"I met with him," Newsom said. "I don't need to belabor this, except I want to level set. People are scared. People are fearful. You had a United States senator that was thrown down the ground in a federal building, Alex Padilla, JD Vance, his name is Alex Padilla, not Jose Padilla. That's the vice president United States." Padilla hadn't identified himself when he rushed DHS Secretary Kristi Noem during her June conference and was forcibly removed. He didn't wear his congressional pin, and then, like all good Democrats, he screamed racism.