Stephen Miller's Dream
Plus: Trump's big parade, Elon Musk makes amends, Zohran Mamdani gains, and more...
Stephen Miller mad: The Trump administration had been, at the beginning of its term, carrying out fewer deportations than the Biden administration had during the former president's last year in office. So Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff/hardcore restrictionist, started putting pressure on Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to step up their game. Miller's goal? 3,000 arrests per day.
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"Agents didn't need to develop target lists of immigrants suspected of being in the U.S. illegally, a longstanding practice, Miller said," reports The Wall Street Journal. "Instead, he directed them to target Home Depot, where day laborers typically gather for hire, or 7-Eleven convenience stores. Miller bet that he and a handful of agents could go out on the streets of Washington, D.C., and arrest 30 people right away." It was a Miller-directed raid on Friday at the Home Depot in the Latino neighborhood of Westlake in Los Angeles that set off the protests and riots we're currently seeing, for which Marines and the state National Guard have been sent in, and a curfew now imposed. And this week's Just Asking Questions guest, longtime critic of California politicians Laura Powell, tells us that the actual number of people arrested in the precipitating event was very small, that the protesters and rioters themselves haven't even focused much on those cases, and that we don't know much about why exactly they were arrested:
Independent journalist Cam Higby, who was on the ground in L.A., tells Pirate Wires:
Eventually, it came to a point where there were so many bricks, cinder blocks, electric scooters, bikes, and whatever else they could get their hands on being dropped on the police cars that the police had to stop under the underpass because it was the only place that the protesters couldn't get them. And that's California Highway Patrol, who are known for not screwing around. So they're trapped under there. And the protesters are just pelting these cars for hours with stones, bricks, whatever. Eventually the protesters start throwing cardboard, mass amounts of cardboard down there. And I don't even know where they got it, but they started throwing tinder—literally like hay and small shreds of paper—off the overpass, onto the front of the police cars. And at one point, they threw some lit tinder off the overpass, and the first cop car caught on fire.
So the cop car is now completely on fire, at least the front of it, and a police officer kind of comes closer to the edge of the underpass where he's not fully covered. And he uses the fire extinguisher to extinguish the fire on the front of the police cruiser just so it doesn't explode and kill them. And somebody pegged him right in the face with a brick. He had to stop, and then I think somebody took over from further under the underpass.
Some deportations raising alarm: "In Irvine, Calif., ICE agents drove a phalanx of military vehicles in the Orange County suburb to arrest a person, though not for illegal immigration. They were seeking a resident's son who had allegedly posted fliers alerting neighbors to the presence of ICE agents," reports The Wall Street Journal. "The raid alarmed the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, an organization that defends free speech, which requested a copy of the warrant. 'Criticism of government officials is core protected speech, and to criticize them you have every right to identify them,' said Aaron Terr, the group's director of public advocacy."
But it's not constitutionally suspect actions like this one that are getting protesters up in arms, by and large; in fact, it's not even clear that many of the people out in the streets—especially those doing the most damage—care or know much about incidents like these. The streets of Los Angeles have become opportunities for the "night crew" to vent generalized anger, destroy property, and sow mayhem, while the "day crew"—the peaceful protesters—has their cause tarnished by the actions of the others. (More on this dynamic from Nancy Rommelmann, who is on the ground there.)
The big picture: "In a Democrat-dominated city of 1.5 million foreign-born residents, in the nation's most immigrant-rich state, where infamously ineffective politicians have long touted sanctuary from immigration enforcement while defining themselves largely in opposition to Trump," writes Matt Welch, "the prospect of a theatrical clash probably looked to the White House like a win-win-win: Draw out the most self-defeating elements of the protest left, highlight the intransigent ineptitude of once-ambitious Dems, and continue to scare immigrant communities into self-deportation. All while releasing pent-up demand for a 2020 rewrite."
Welch details the ways in which the current protests are not quite the same as the summer of George Floyd, nor at the scale of the Rodney King riots in the '90s; but there's one facet worth paying attention to, that might lead to more unrest this weekend and the powder keg, in fact, blowing: Trump will be marching tanks and artillery launchers through Washington, D.C., this Saturday, to honor the Army's 250th anniversary. But it also just so happens to fall on the president's 79th birthday, which you'd be forgiven for thinking looks a bit like a massive military parade in his honor, sure to invite more protesters. Trump warns they will be "met with very big force," which sounds almost like a provocation.
Trump on his parade this weekend: "If there's any protester that wants to come out, they will be met with very big force. For those people that want to protest, they're going to be met with very big force." pic.twitter.com/xUqWdXfFIy
— The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) June 10, 2025
Scenes from New York: Kind of insane that socialist Zohran Mamdani has amassed this much support:
New Emerson poll of the Democratic primary for NYC mayor ends with Cuomo 54.4%, Mamdani 45.6% pic.twitter.com/jop2f7cSmv
— bryan metzger (@metzgov) May 28, 2025
QUICK HITS
- Wild ruling:
Oh boy, here we go. In a 7-3 decision DC Appellate Court just ruled governments are responsible for lost rent due to eviction moratoriums. You hearing this @MayorOfLA and @GavinNewsom https://t.co/z0G8dJHkwC
— Joey - Master of Wit and Sarcasm (@jjstyx) June 10, 2025
- "I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week," said Elon Musk on X. "They went too far."
- "Sadly it's common for an overdose to occur soon after Harm Reduction supplies are handed out. I have personally witnessed it dozens of times and question whether this is actually reducing harm," writes independent journalist Kevin Dahlgren on X, in a very sad thread about overdose and addiction.
- "Hong Kong's pension fund managers have formed a preliminary plan to sell down their Treasury holdings within as soon as three months if the US loses its last recognized top credit rating, according to people familiar with the matter," reports Bloomberg.
- Hear about all the hot new trends courtesy of Reason Roundup:
Out: Native American land acknowledgements.
In: Conquistador land acknowledgements. https://t.co/kozLeLEIfk
— Legal Phil (@Legal_Fil) June 11, 2025
