Those Calling for Non-Violence Are Speaking to the Wrong People
Make June 14 the Biggest Expression of Protest
“We have no kings here, we have no queens here, we have no emperors, we have no dictators, we have no despots, and we have no serfs and no slaves and no subjects, and none of us is a subject to Donald Trump” –Congressman Jamie Raskin
Thursday’s forced removal and assault of California Senator Alex Padilla from a press conference by Homeland Security Secretary Kristie Noem should put to rest any notion of federal authorities playing by the rules.
Padilla is one of the nation's highest-ranking Hispanic public officials, and is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee's immigration panel. Noem has appeared before that committee and still somehow claims she didn’t recognize the Senator. Maybe she thinks all brown people look alike.
He was escorted into the room by both the FBI and the National Guard. Padilla was there in part because her Department had mostly ignored his queries for months about what agents had been doing, but with little to no response.
The use of force against a public official came immediately after that public official began to challenge this statement from the podium by the Secretary:
“We are not going away,” she said. “We are staying here to liberate this city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into the city."
The term “liberate” unequivocally means take from power. It implies force. And the way to free political territories is to overthrow existing governance. If some government official said that about where I live, I’d have questions, too.
Here’s what the California Senator said… “Madam Secretary, I want to know why you insist on exaggerating and embellishing…” before he is forcefully pushed back by security.
I have never and don’t expect to ever call for violent protests. I don’t see the point in individual behaviors in changing public opinion nor forcing the state apparatus into changing its policies and actions. But all this proselytizing about non-violence in opposing the administration needs to stop, if for no other reason that the Trump administration is egging on its own forces to be violent.
Mostly I don’t believe in using force just because of all the times historically those on the front lines of demonstrations have been used as fodder, both by authoritarians and opportunists claiming to be protest leaders. Martyrdom doesn’t put food on people’s tables and it won’t tax the ultrawealthy; it’s nearly always abused as a propaganda tool. I believe in winning this battle against techno-monarchism by using asymmetrical tactics combined with overwhelming public sentiment to undermine their power.
I have a strong urge to tell all those preaching “peace” to shut the fuck up. We can’t stop the media bootlickers from portraying protests in the most negative manner possible, but I think the blatancy of the situation certainly gives people the right to say they’re willing to defend themselves.
The Chuck Schumers of the world can stop with the stern letters and start actually doing stuff; everybody needs to be rowing in the same direction at this point all the time everywhere. The US Senate, with the help of 16 Democrats, were rowing in the direction dictated by the Crypto class.
From The American Prospect:
In theory, you can compartmentalize actions happening outside legislative votes with the votes themselves. But in this instance, cooperating with a Republican Party that keeps arresting, indicting, and detaining the political opposition, on a bill that would place congressional sanction on corruption in the digital asset space, including that personally conducted by Donald Trump, as well as severely destabilizing the financial system, cannot be blindly forgotten without some highly situational ethics. “They will continue to stern-letter us into fascism,” one former Hill staffer told me.
This is in part an example of the extreme power of the crypto industry. They wanted their rewards from buying Congress. They got Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) to end regular order in the Senate, and now they got Democrats to shake off the attack on Alex Padilla, so they could stay on schedule for their task.
But part of this is on Schumer and his leadership team. Democrats in the House of Representatives called for adjournment after hearing the news about Sen. Padilla, gathered on the steps of the Capitol, and then marched en masse to Thune’s office. Democrats in the Senate stuck around to take another vote after Schumer’s remarks. Sure, a handful returned to give floor speeches, but the they did not have the entire caucus with them, nor were they prepared to use their power to do more than chatter, to disrupt, dislodge, slow down, or at the very least not actively cooperate with the business of government so long as they are targets of it.
Nothing should be done on the Capital that requires consent of the minority party; give the legacies of Mitch McConnell and Newt Gingrich a solid taste of their own medicine.
As the California Senator noted in his remarks after the incident, if the so-called security forces were willing to do this to an elected official in front of cameras and witnesses, what’s happening away from the public’s gaze must be really awful.
There’s both video and audio of the entire incident by multiple sources about what happened. Yet supporters of the Trump administration are straight up lying about what occurred, blaming Sen. Padilla for things he didn’t do and trying to convince the public that he’s somehow at fault.
Via Mother Jones:
Despite the disclosure that he was a sitting US senator, at least four security members were seen forcibly pushing and dragging Padilla out of the room as he condemned the false narrative that the immigrants targeted in President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda are criminals. Noem did not appear to acknowledge Padilla’s presence or his forced removal, while she continued with her speech defending the president’s deployment of the military in Los Angeles. Another video showed officers handcuffing Padilla.
In a statement, DHS falsely accused Padilla of failing to identify himself. (He can be heard in videos that have circulated on social media doing just that.) “Sen. Padilla chose disrespectful political theatre and interrupted a live press conference without identifying himself or having his Senate security pin on as he lunged toward Secretary Noem,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Mother Jones.
This incident follows the arrests of elected officials who have attempted to stand up to the administration over the mass deportations. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested in May for allegedly trespassing at an ICE facility in New Jersey. And this week, Rep. LaMonica McIver was indicted on federal charges for confronting ICE officers at the same facility.
House Speaker Mike Johnson called on the Senate to censure Padilla. And the cultish lure of MAGA thought apparently continues to prevent rational thinking by nearly all elected Republican officials.
Washington Senator Patty Murray (D) spoke from the floor about the seriousness of this situation:
“We are a democracy, but we can lose that democracy. It can be gone, unless all of us speak out and forcibly reject what happened to a United States Senator.
“And to send the message that in this democracy it is just, it is right, it is part of our responsibility to speak up, to ask questions, and to be able to have the knowledge we need to represent the people that we come here for.
“We use our voices, Mr. President. We use our votes, Mr. President, to be a part of this democracy. Not violence.
“When violence is done by someone representing this administration, in a forceful way, against a United States Senator, how does any one of us go home and tell our constituents that they can be part of a democracy, speak out about what they believe in?
At the moment, the best response to the Trump administration’s march toward fascism is for overwhelming numbers of people to take to the streets on June 14 to say “No Kings.” Protest harder, dammit.
Obviously, fighting cops/feds in the streets is as ineffective as the mouth breathers who stock up on weapons as a deterrent to whatever they’re afraid of at the moment. Guerilla war strikes on buildings and installations don’t meet this moment simply because they are acts of individualist accelerationism. Our enemy isn’t an outside colonial force; they are all around us.
Being “radical” means getting to the root of something. And the root of all this evil we’re facing is the emergence of an ultra-wealthy class who have decided that greed is a virtue and they’re entitled to rule by virtue of their riches. Yes, let’s get rid of Trump. But let’s not stop there.
EPA Gives Oil Executives What They Paid For via The Revolving Door Project
Last year, the Washington Post reported on a dinner that Trump held with oil executives where he simply asked them to give him $1 billion in campaign money in exchange for a host of regulatory rollbacks that would benefit them. A new proposed rule from the Environmental Protection Agency makes good on that promise by “proposing to repeal all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions standards for fossil fuel-fired power plants.”
The agency further proposes “to make a finding that GHG emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants do not contribute significantly to dangerous air pollution,” which will be news to most scientists and anyone who actually lives near a power plant.
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Dingus of the Week: Kristi Noem by Lyz at Men Yell At Me
“There are rules and regulations,” shouts the lady who is regularly violating the actual Constitution.
Not since Catherine de’ Medici has the world seen this combination of state-sanctioned violence organized by such a head of hair.
Kristi Noem’s crimes against democracy are second only to her crimes against Restylane. And you might be thinking, “Lyz, you are a feminist, why are you going after a woman this hard?”
Simple: Because she’s bad. And she’s bad not because of the hair extensions, but because of the fascism. And we do need to get better at talking about the ways in which white women weaponize their bodies and beauty in the name of racism, fascism, and authoritarianism. That said, you do have to hand it to Kristi Noem: She gets that perfect bold lip color by glossing with the blood of migrant children.
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Florida's literary inquisition by Judd Legum, Rebecca Crosby, and Noel Sims at Popular Information
In a chilling meeting of the Florida State Board of Education last week, a school district superintendent was publicly browbeaten and repeatedly threatened with criminal prosecution. The members of the State Board were incensed that Van Ayres, the Superintendent of Hillsborough County Public Schools, had not unilaterally and permanently removed a list of 55 books from school libraries.
While Florida Republicans have defended removing books from public school libraries in the name of "parents' rights," no Hillsborough County parent had objected to the books at issue. Rather, the State Board had summarily declared that the 55 books were "pornography," even though none of the books met the legal definition of pornographic material.
Many of the books targeted by the State Board are award-winning literature that have been read by students for years — including two finalists for the National Book Award for Young People's Literature, Patricia McCormick's Sold and Elana K. Arnold's What Girls Are Made Of. Also included was Forever, a seminal young adult novel by Judy Blume, winner of the American Library Association's Margaret A. Edwards Award, which honors the best young adult authors.
Techno-monarchists. Good descriptor.