The ongoing court battle concerning President Trump’s decision to send the California National Guard and the Marines to enhance security during the riots and unrest in Los Angeles continues to intensify. The debate has now reached the United States Senate, where Senate Democrats are insisting that the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s Chair, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), convene hearings involving Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.
There was a sternly worded letter involved.
Democrats on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee are pressing their chair, Senator Rand Paul, to arrange a session addressing the Trump administration’s approach to the Los Angeles demonstrations against federal immigration actions and deportation processes.
According to a new letter obtained by POLITICO, the Democrats urge the Kentucky Republican to summon Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to testify before lawmakers on the administration’s handling of the ongoing protests in Los Angeles. President Donald Trump’s response to the protests against his immigration policies was the deployment of National Guard troops and Marines — a move California Governor Gavin Newsom criticized as “purposefully inflammatory” and which led the California state government to rapidly mount a legal challenge.
Now that may be sternly worded, but it’s also a load of codswallop. One of the primary purposes of the National Guard is dealing with civil unrest, a task for which every member is trained. We might also note that the streets of this major American city are literally ablaze, and the deployment of the National Guard is inflammatory? You want to know what’s inflammatory? Setting cars on fire and throwing rocks at cops.
These Democrats, in this sternly worded letter, are revealing themselves to be the basest sort of blind ideologues.
“[T]he President has harmed public safety by federalizing a state’s National Guard against the wishes of the governor and sending them into a city whose law enforcement is already dealing with the protests,” the Democratic senators wrote to Paul. “We therefore call on you to immediately hold an oversight hearing with Administration officials … to provide answers regarding the administration’s dangerous and intentionally provocative actions.”
The governor in question, the impeccably coiffed Governor Gavin Newsom, has demonstrated very plainly that he’s not up to the task. Ditto for Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. If we waited for them to deal with the protests riots, the whole city would burn down.
