In my first post I wanted to make clear the specifics of what was happening with the National Guard. The President has the power to federalize the State National Guards. I wanted to make sure everyone knew that this is not a power Trump made up. It’s within his power and authority. As far as I know the last time this was done over the objection of state’s governor was during the Civil Rights era to enforce federal civil rights law. But every Presidential power can be abused and this is the one perhaps most liable to abuse. This whole situation is a definitional abuse of power. It is a wholly manufactured crisis. The President has the authority to federalize the National Guard. But the powers he takes from that decision are far from unlimited.

This is serious enough to break in on the weekend.

You’ve seen the intentionally provocative ICE raids in LA and the protests spawned by them. A short time ago White House immigration Czar Tom Homan said he was sending in the National Guard to control the situation. It wasn’t clear what he meant since the California National Guard reports to the Governor of California. The President has to nationalize the Guard to put it under his command. About fifteen minutes ago Gov. Newsom tweeted out a statement that the President is in fact nationalizing the California State Guard. The exact words from his statement were “the federal government is moving to take over the California National Guard and deploy 2,000 soldiers.” But that’s clear what that means.

A few thoughts on yesterday’s antics.

I imagine that in many parts of the world, yesterday’s Musk-Trump blow-up reminded people of the events of two years ago and the so-called Wagner Group Rebellion in which erstwhile oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin got increasingly cranky and finally started a military drive on Moscow before standing down at his moment of apparent but perhaps illusory strength. Two months later, Prigozhin died in a plane crash.