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gavin newsom
White House Working to Criminalize Left-Wing Dissent as 'Domestic Terror' in Wake of Kirk Murder
"We must end any form of political violence—and reject those who try to exploit it," one Democratic congresswoman asserted.
Sep 15, 2025
Senior Trump administration officials on Monday made fresh threats to crack down on a nonexistent left-wing "domestic terror movement" following last week's assassination of Charlie Kirk—a move that critics called an attempt to exploit the far-right firebrand's murder to advance an authoritarian agenda targeting nonviolent opposition.
Even as investigators work to determine the motive of Kirk's killer, members of Trump's inner circle and supporters have amplified an unfounded narrative of a coordinated leftist movement targeting conservatives.
According to The New York Times:
On Monday, two senior administration officials, who spoke anonymously to describe the internal planning, said that Cabinet secretaries and federal department heads were working to identify organizations that funded or supported violence against conservatives. The goal, they said, was to categorize left-wing activity that led to violence as domestic terrorism, an escalation that critics said could lay the groundwork for crushing anti-conservative dissent more broadly.
Appearing on the latest episode of "The Charlie Kirk Show" podcast—which was guest hosted by US Vice President JD Vance—White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said that "we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people."
"It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie’s name," Miller vowed.
Vance said during the podcast that he wanted to explore “all of the ways that we’re trying to figure out how to prevent this festering violence that you see on the far left from becoming even more and more mainstream."
“You have the crazies on the far left who are saying, ‘Oh, Stephen Miller and JD Vance, they’re going to go after constitutionally protected speech,'” the vice president said. “We’re going to go after the network that foments, facilitates, and engages in violence."
Vance, who like Trump and numerous supporters claim to champion free speech, also took aim at "people who are celebrating" Kirk's killing.
Another unnamed administration official told the Times Monday that government agencies would be investigating people, including those accused of vandalizing Tesla electric vehicles and dealerships and allegedly assaulting federal immigration agents, in an effort to implicate US leftists in political violence.
Vance and Miller's threats ignored right-wing violence—which statistically outpaces left-wing attacks—including the recent assassinations of Democratic Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark Hortman, who were murdered in June by a right-wing masked gunman disguised as a police officer.
Investigative reporter Jason Paladino reported last week that the US Department of Justice apparently removed an academic study previously published on the National Institute for Justice's online library showing that "since 1990, far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than far-left or radical Islamist extremists, including 227 events that took more than 520 lives" versus "42 ideologically motivated attacks that took 78 lives" committed by "far-left extremists."
“Militant, nationalistic, white supremacist violent extremism has increased in the United States. In fact, the number of far-right attacks continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism.”The Trump DOJ scrubbed this study from their website.
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— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan.bsky.social) September 12, 2025 at 6:43 PM
Responding to Miller's remarks, New Republic staff writer Greg Sargent noted on social media that "Stephen Miller was directly involved in one of the largest acts of organized domestic political violence the United States has seen in modern times, the January 6 [2021] insurrection."
Congresswoman Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) weighed in Monday on Miller's attempt to exploit Kirk's murder, writing on the social media site Bluesky that "it's never acceptable to kill someone for their political beliefs. But the Trump [administration] exploiting the shooting of Charlie Kirk to follow their authoritarian instincts and crack down on the left is incredibly disturbing."
"We must end any form of political violence—and reject those who try to exploit it," she added.
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom noted Monday on social media that Miller "has already publicly labeled the Democratic Party as a terrorist organization."
"This isn’t about crime and safety," Newsom added. "It’s about dismantling our democratic institutions. We cannot allow acts of political violence to be weaponized and used to threaten tens of millions of Americans."
The progressive Working Families Party (WFP) said Monday on social media that "JD Vance and Stephen Miller want to use the horrifying murder of Charlie Kirk to target and dismantle pro-democracy groups."
"Their comments call to mind some of the darkest periods in US history," WFP continued. "They're dividing people based on what box we ticked on our voter registration."
Vance and Miller "want to stoke fear and resentment to justify their un-American crackdowns on free speech, mass abductions of working people, and military takeovers of our cities," WFP added. "This isn't going to fly. We’ve survived crises like this before as a country, and we can choose to live in a place where our political freedoms are protected, where we settle disagreements with words not weapons, and where no one has to fear losing a loved one to gun violence."
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Is Trump Inciting a Civil War 2.0 to Steal the Midterms?
Both JB Pritzker and Gavin Newsom have explicitly said that they believe Trump is preparing to use troops for voter suppression in blue areas of the country during the 2026 elections to prevent Democrats from taking Congress.
Sep 08, 2025
Last week, US President Donald Trump posted a stolen valor war meme on his failing, Nazi-infested social media site, with the bonespurs-draft-dodger wearing a US Army Cavalry hat and the slogan, paraphrased from the movie Apocalypse Now:
’ I love the smell of deportations in the morning…” Chicago is about to find out why it’s called the Department of War.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker replied on BlueSky:
The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city. This is not a joke. This is not normal. Donald Trump isn't a strongman, he's a scared man. Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator.
So, how could this play out? It’s important to begin the conversation—and planning—for what appears to be the Civil War 2.0 that Trump’s apparently trying to incite.
First, there’s precedent for the federal government to send federal troops into a state to enforce the law as ordered by a court.
JFK did it in the 1962 Ole Miss crisis to enforce the Supreme Court’s Brown v Board decision, mobilizing up to 31,000 federal troops, including the 503rd Military Police Battalion, the 108th Armored Cavalry Regiment, and soldiers from the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions. Kennedy also sent federal troops and readied thousands near Birmingham, Alabama during violent resistance to those same federally mandated desegregation efforts.
To accomplish this, Kennedy invoked the Insurrection Act of 1807, which is actually a series of laws passed over a two-decade period, that constitute a virtual blank check for presidential power.
Particularly problematic is Section 253 of the law that allows the president to use troops to suppress “any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy” in a state that “opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws.”
As the Brennan Center for Justice explains:
This provision is so bafflingly broad that it cannot possibly mean what it says, or else it authorizes the president to use the military against any two people conspiring to break federal law.
Adding to Trump’s potential power, in 1827 the Supreme Court ruled that “the authority to decide whether [a crisis requiring the militia to be called out] has arisen belongs exclusively to the President, and... his decision is conclusive upon all other persons.”
Both JB Pritzker and Gavin Newsom have explicitly said that they believe much of this is Trump preparing to use troops for voter suppression in blue areas of the country during the 2026 elections to prevent Democrats from taking Congress.
Pritzker said voters “should understand that he [Trump] has other aims, other than fighting crime” and that this is part of a plan to “stop the elections in 2026 or, frankly, take control of those elections.”
Newsom pointed out, “Interestingly, we still have federalized National Guard assigned through Election Day. Is that a coincidence? Through Election Day?!”
Additionally, the governors of 19 blue states issued a statement saying:
Instead of actually addressing crime, President Trump cut federal funding for law enforcement that states rely on and continues to politicize our military by trying to undermine the executive authority of governors as commanders in chief of their state’s National Guard…
Whether it’s Illinois, Maryland, and New York or another state tomorrow, the president’s threats and efforts to deploy a state’s National Guard without the request and consent of that state’s governor is an alarming abuse of power, ineffective, and undermines the mission of our service members. This chaotic federal interference in our states’ National Guard must come to an end.
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner went a step further, saying he was willing to actually arrest federal agents who exceed or break the law:
Let’s be clear: If the National Guard comes to Philadelphia and commits crimes, they will be prosecuted locally and Donald Trump cannot pardon them.
So, how does this play out?
Trump is already reportedly positioning Texas National Guard troops and other federal officers at the Naval Station Great Lakes, just north of Chicago, presumably preparing for an invasion of that city as soon as this week.
The vision of former Confederate-state troops seizing control of the largest city in a former Union state is explosive and may well provide Trump with the violence he’d hoped for but didn’t get in LA and DC. Violence he could use to justify invoking the Insurrection Act like Kennedy did, and then using that to lock down the 2026 elections.
If this happens, will Pritzker follow Krasner’s model and begin arresting federal agents and Texas National Guard members if they’re found breaking Illinois or Chicago law? Or will he sue at federal court the way Newsom did? Or both?
If he does the former, it could literally kick off a second American Civil War; if he does the latter, Trump may win Civil War 2.0 without a shot fired, particularly if the six corrupt on-the-take Republicans on the US Supreme Court overrule the lower courts and endorse Trump’s actions.
Now is the critical time for all Americans to get educated about what’s going on and prepare for the eventuality of a totally locked-down police state being imposed on multiple blue cities, particularly in states where not counting the urban vote can flip the entire state red.
And if Pritzker and Newsom are right, all of this is being done—along with extreme gerrymandering—as part of the widespread Republican effort to rig the 2026 election so Democrats can’t take back the House and begin subpoena-based investigations of Trump’s crimes from the Epstein era to his recent murder of 11 immigrants in a boat off the coast of Venezuela.
Meanwhile, as Trump pits Americans against each other, dismantles our federal government, ensures future epidemics, and grifts billions in cybercurrencies, China and Russia are pulling the rest of the world together against America. It’s almost as if Russian President Vladimir Putin was giving Trump weekly directions, a dystopian Manchurian Candidate notion that seems more credible with every passing day.
He’s systematically weakening America while boosting Vladimir Putin. By shutting down Voice of America, dismantling defenses against Russian election interference, ignoring Ukraine, and bungling diplomacy with tariffs and summits that drive allies toward Moscow, he’s handed Putin victories that come at the direct expense of US power and security.
In the face of this, Trump is doing everything he can to ramp up tensions and provoke people in blue cities to violence which he can then exploit to increase his power and further crack down on elections, particularly next year.
All, apparently, in service of converting America from a historic liberal democracy into a one-man personality-driven dictatorship that’s increasingly aligned with—and following the model of—other tyrants around the world.
As a result, now is the critical time for all Americans to get educated about what’s going on and prepare for the eventuality of a totally locked-down police state being imposed on multiple blue cities, particularly in states where not counting the urban vote can flip the entire state red (which is most Blue states).
Trump is trying to take down American democracy for good. This is not a drill. Organize, educate, call your representatives, and prepare to show up in the streets.
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Federal Judge Rules Trump's Los Angeles Military Deployment is Illegal
Judge Charles Breyer warned of the creation of "a national police force with the president as its chief."
Sep 02, 2025
A federal judge ruled Tuesday that US President Donald Trump's deployment of American Marines into Los Angeles violated the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act that bars the US military from being used for domestic law enforcement.
In a 52-page ruling, Judge Charles Breyer of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California ripped apart the Trump administration's justification for sending the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles, and concluded "there was no rebellion" in the city against the federal government that would justify such an action.
Furthermore, he argued that any acts of violence committed by demonstrators against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in the city were well within the purview of civilian law enforcement and not the military.
"The evidence at trial established that defendants systematically used armed soldiers (whose identity was often obscured by protective armor) and military vehicles to set up protective perimeters and traffic blockades, engage in crowd control, and otherwise demonstrate a military presence in and around Los Angeles," Breyer wrote. "In short, defendants violated the Posse Comitatus Act."
Breyer also pointed to statements by both Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that they intend to send National Guard troops into other cities across the country, which he warned would create "a national police force with the president as its chief."
The judge also rebuked the administration for violating its own guidelines with the troop deployments, as he said they "knowingly contradicted their own training materials, which listed twelve functions that the Posse Comitatus Act bars the military from performing."
The Posse Comitatus Act, as most recently amended in 2021, states that "whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, or the Space Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."
The judge's enjoinment of Trump's Los Angeles deployment is a major victory for California Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose office filed a lawsuit arguing that the president's actions were illegal.
The governor's press office celebrated Breyer's ruling shortly after it was delivered and wrote that "the people of California won much needed accountability against Trump’s illegal militarization of an American city!"
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