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Trump Wants to Rule as a Dictator. Make Him Do It.

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June 12, 2025 5:59 p.m.
Los Angeles, CA - June 12:California Senator Alex Padilla is pushed out of the room as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem holds a news conference in Los Angeles on Thursday, June 12, 2025. (Photo by David Crane... Los Angeles, CA - June 12:California Senator Alex Padilla is pushed out of the room as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem holds a news conference in Los Angeles on Thursday, June 12, 2025. (Photo by David Crane/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images) MORE LESS
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I was driving when this afternoon’s events in Los Angeles took place. So I didn’t know about them in real time and only found out what had happened a couple hours later. (Appropriately enough, I was listening to the audiobook version of a Raymond Chandler novel.) Secretary Noem is now claiming that she, along with everyone else there, didn’t even know who Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) was. This is even more absurd than you might imagine. The press conference was in Los Angeles and he’s one of the state’s two senators. More than that, he’s the ranking member of the Judiciary subcommittee on Border Security and Immigration. Of course she knows who he is. If she doesn’t remember his face, she’s an even dumber degenerate punk than I already thought.

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