Democrats Have a Severe ICE Problem

The new L.A. riots are all on them

Jun 09, 2025

The city geared up for another day of protests Monday after anti-ICE demonstrations in downtown Los Angeles escalated over the weekend.
The California chapter of the Service Employees International Union planned for a rally before the arraignment of its president, David Huerta, who was arrested on Friday while protesting a raid by ICE agents in Los Angeles.
U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Bilal “Bill” Essayli said that agents were executing a warrant at a work site in Los Angeles when Huerta “deliberately obstructed their access by blocking their vehicle.”
Videos captured people surrounding vans, shouting and chanting. As word spread, more people showed up, and the protests grew and lasted into the night.
President Trump deployed the National Guard on Saturday night over the objections of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, with the president saying that local leaders didn’t move quickly enough to address the clashes.
Newsom called on the Trump administration to rescind the deployment of the National Guard, saying the move was a breach of state sovereignty. In a social-media post Monday, Newsom threatened to sue Trump, saying the deployment was illegal and had inflamed tensions in the city.
Trump sent the troops “to manufacture chaos and violence,” the Democratic governor said earlier in a post on X. “Now things are destabilized and we need to send in more law enforcement just to clean up Trump’s mess.”
On Sunday, protesters gathered outside the detention facility where Huerta was detained and stood off against National Guard troops.
Law-enforcement officers fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disband the crowds.
Other pockets of demonstrations broke out. California Highway Patrol officers pushed protesters off Highway 101 using flash-bang stun grenades and tactical positioning after hundreds of people spilled onto one of the city’s main thoroughfares. On Sunday evening, demonstrators threw tree branches, scooters, fireworks and debris from a freeway overpass onto police vehicles below.
Mounted police galloped by on horses and demonstrators set at least five Waymo driverless taxis on fire, threw rocks at officers and covered the neighborhood in graffiti that said “F— ICE.”

More here:

How Gavin Newsom Blew It

I joined Brian Kilmeade this morning to discuss what’s happening in California:

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Gavin Newsom had a golden opportunity this week to prove that he's learned something in the time since the summer of George Floyd. He had an opportunity to set himself up as a Democrat willing to take on the factions of his own coalition when their methods go from peaceful protest to setting fires in the streets, destroying property, and all-out anti-cop violence. He could have taken a stand for law and order, taking flack from his own side for standing up for the law-abiding citizens of California.

Instead, he blew it. He called the decision by President Trump to deploy the National Guard “an illegal act, an immoral act, an unconstitutional act”, and announced a lawsuit against the government over the issue. He laid the problem entirely at the feet of President Trump: “He’s exacerbated the conditions. He’s lit the proverbial match. He’s putting fuel on this fire,” Newsom told NBC. “Donald Trump needs to pull back. He needs to stand down. Donald Trump is inflaming these conditions. This is Donald Trump’s problem right now, and if he can’t solve it, we will.”

Newsom's response is laughably out of touch. His regrets in the NBC interview weren't for people whose property was destroyed, or for cops and ICE agents being targeted just for doing their jobs, but for the meta-narrative the violence played into. "They’re just playing right into Donald Trump’s hand," Newsom mourned. Even if we could've guessed that's what really matters to the slick politician from San Francisco, he didn't need to just go out and say it.

Democratic unwillingness to take on the sacred cows of their party in big blue cities and states across the country has become an obvious anchor on their hopes for political comeback. They are unwilling to take on their pro-Hamas faction, their trans men in girls' sports faction, and their pro-illegal migrant faction in any serious way. Newsom can give lip service to these ideas, but that's all it is.

Until this changes — until someone prominent within the party is willing to set out on a different path — Democrats are going to continue to find their most extreme wing giving President Trump one chaotic gift after another, casting him as the champion of law, order, and normalcy. Whatever that approach is, it is not the path to political victory.

Colombian Soldiers Now Work For Mexican Cartels

LA Times:

Dangerous new hired guns have arrived on the battlefield of Mexico's cartel wars: Colombian mercenaries.
Former combatants in Colombia's long-standing internal conflict are increasingly being lured to Mexico by criminal groups to train hitmen, build bombs and fight bloody turf battles.
Eleven Colombians were arrested in Michoacán state last week in connection to a roadside bomb attack that killed eight members of Mexico's National Guard. Colombia's foreign ministry said all of the detained men had once been soldiers.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro said on X that a cartel known as Los Reyes had "hired the Colombian mercenaries to confront the Mexican state.”
The phenomenon highlights the growing intensity of Mexico's cartel warfare as well as the expanding role of Colombian combatants in conflicts globally. Recruited via private companies and even via TikTok, Colombians have fought in Sudan, Yemen and Ukraine.
More than 300 Colombian fighters have died defending Ukraine from Russian attacks, Colombian officials say.
Haitian authorities allege 26 Colombian mercenaries participated in the 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise. Colombians also were implicated in the 2023 killing of Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio.
Many of the fighters are former military personnel with meager or no pensions and little training for any activity other than war.
"You have this pool of human resources that is poorly compensated and not utilized to their full potential," said Elizabeth Dickinson, a Colombia analyst with the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit think tank. "They're being swept up with these attractive offers, both by states, by defense companies and also by criminal groups."

Warner Bros. Discovery To Split Into Two Companies

Hollywood Reporter:

Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav told Wall Street analysts Monday that the “bold choice” to effectively unbundle the company he helped forge three years ago “reflects our belief that each company will go further and faster apart than they can together.”
“We are in the midst of this generational disruption, and things are changing, they’ve changed significantly in the last few months,” Zaslav said.
The CEO and WBD CFO Gunnar Weidenfels (who will become CEO of the spun out TV networks business once the deal closes) hosted an investor call early Monday, outlining the rationale that led to the looming split and detailing a little bit about what each business will look like once they deal is complete.
“These companies will be better aligned with shareholders based on each business’s individual dynamics and growth prospects, more agile, more aggressive and creative in pursuing growth and sharper in their ability to deliver consumers more of the stories and entertainment they demand,” Zaslav said, adding that they expect each business to attract very different sets of investors.
Zaslav will oversee the studios business, which will include the Warner Bros. film and TV studios and HBO Max, while Weidenfels will manage the global networks, including TNT, TBS, CNN and the former Discovery channels, as well as Discovery+. Notably, it will also include WBD’s sports rights, with the CFO suggesting that the rights could give it optionality down the line: “The U.S. sports rights will reside at the global networks, and its management team will determine how best to monetize the streaming and digital rights over time,” Weidenfels said.
But as strong an asset as the sports rights are, Weidenfels will also assume one of WBD’s least desirable assets: Its tens of billions of dollars in debt.
“It’s safe to assume that the majority of the debt is going to live with global networks and a smaller portion — but a not-insignificant portion — on streaming & studios as well,” he told analysts.
The executives remained coy on how the companies will team up after the split, though they indicated that they may still work together on things like distribution and ad sales, but that each company will also focus on their own business and do their own deals.

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