Another day, another scary headline.

I rushed out the door this morning to my volunteer gig at El Rancho de las Golondrinas and almost missed the scary headlines coming out of Los Angeles: ICE personnel conducting raids around the city to round up "illegal immigrants", ordinary Americans mobilizing on the spot to peacefully push back against ICE, ICE throwing flash-bang grenades at reporters who clearly identified themselves as members of the media, and on and on. My reaction mirrored that of a lot of us, I think: 

ibrandify | Deposit Photos

Now Trump has ordered the mobilization of two thousand National Guard troops to "restore order", even though LA Mayor Karen Bass hasn't asked for help, and even though California Governor Gavin Newsom has asked Trump to stand down. As we learned a few summers ago, when Trump ordered peaceful protestors chased out of Lafayette Park in DC so he could walk a block to hold up a Bible for a photo op in front of a church, he's just itching for any excuse to call out the military on US soil.

It's not martial law yet, according to legal experts I follow on social media, but it feels damn close. 

The Brennan Center said in 2020 that the president doesn't have the authority to declare martial law, and even if he did, Congress would have to agree. But that's not as encouraging as it might otherwise be, considering Republicans have control of both houses of Congress right now and Trump has proven himself willing to do whatever the hell he wants, legal or not.

This is a developing story, as they say, and to be honest, I don't know what else to say about it right now. My reporter instincts are to just try to keep up with the facts as they unfold and leave any analysis for later.

One thing did occur to me, though: This action in LA is giving Trump and his minions footage of "American carnage" that actually happened here in the US and not in some other country.

Not to mention that we've all forgotten about the Trump-Musk breakup.

Stay tuned, as they say. And as Dan Rather has been known to say: Courage. 

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Why the emoji illustration? Because I didn't want give the impression that the reaction was limited to only certain people, whether immigrants or Black people or whatever. I hope we're all shocked, and scared, by what's going on in LA.

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These moments of disquieting blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Courage.