MidPoint was joined by Pulitzer prize-winning columnist and local newshound, Dan Ruth, for our quarterly Talk Back Town Hall where we open up the phone lines and invite our listeners to discuss whatever they want to discuss. Not surprisingly, today, the conversations largely focused on the events in Los Angeles where the Trump Administration has federalized the National Guard over the objections of California Governor Gavin Newsom and under dubious legal authority directed them to respond to largely peaceful citizen protests against the actions of ICE who have been rounding up immigrants from the streets of the city. Trump has also dispatched 700 Marines to Los Angeles to “keep order.” This is almost certainly a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Posse Comitatus Act which forbids the use of the U.S. military for domestic law enforcement purposes on American soil.
Our callers in the WMNF community were divided on these events, with some callers grateful for the intervention of the federal government to contain what they believed was widespread violence in the city, and others skeptical of the reports of violence and convinced that any violence was limited and the result of escalation prompted by the presence and actions of the National Guard troops.
You can listen to our conversations here, on the WMNF app, or as a WMNF MidPoint podcast on Spotify or Apple Music.
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