L.A. Mayor Karen Bass Delivers Fiery Reprimand Of Kristi Noem's Description Of City After Brief Visit: 'A Lie'
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass — accused of being out of touch and slow to action during the recent fires — took the gloves off Thursday in response to the assault on California U.S. Senator Alex Padilla by members of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's security detail earlier in the day.
'The just shoved and cuffed a sitting U.S. senator,' said Bass emphatically. 'How could you say that you did not know who he was? We see the videotape. We see him saying who he was. But how do you not recognize one of two senators in our state?'
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She also alluded to what many, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, have characterized as Noem's ICE agent cosplay and photo-op appearances during raids.
'I was listening to the words of the secretary at her press conference and she described L.A. as a 'war zone,'' began Bass. 'It is my understanding that she arrived last night, was here for a few hours today, and came to that conclusion. There's no one up here [onstage] who sees Los Angeles like that. This is isolated to a few blocks in a city that is over 500 square miles. And out of those 500 square miles, the protests and especially the protests that devolved into vandalism, represents about half a square mile.'
She continued, 'So the notion that this is happening all over our city, the notion that this city is not governable, the notion that we need the military to intervene …To characterize what is going on in our city as a city of mayhem is just an outright lie. I'm not going to call it an untruth. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I'm going to call it for what it is, which is a lie.'
Bass, who was in the U.S. House of Representatives for a dozen years before becoming mayor, then added a more personal jab.
'I served with the secretary for probably about 10 years in Congress, and Madam Secretary, I do not recognize you anymore. I do not know Kristi Noem that I served with for 10 years.'
Bass then ended on an unusually strident (for her) tone.
'No matter what happens out of the White House,' she said at one point, 'we will always uphold and reflect what Los Angeles and the United States are truly about: freedom, tolerance and, for God's sake, our Constitution.'
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34 minutes ago
- Yahoo
‘No Kings' Protests Start Tomorrow. Here's Why You Should Show Up.
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." // Greetings from Los Angeles, California, which if you trust cable news is currently on fire. It is demonstrably very much not, but if my inbox is any indication, a surprising number of grown human beings trust cable news. This week, I wrote a piece about what I saw while I was downtown at the ICE protests last weekend, and how little it matched up with the dystopian chaos loop that's been playing on television ever since. A lot of people who were also down there got in touch to back my assessment up. And a few people, none of whom were there, told me I was wrong. They knew better. This message sums it up nicely I wanted to reply, something to the effect 'go look in a mirror and read those words back to yourself,' but there's no point. It was a real test of my 'do not engage' policy, and I just barely passed. But you have to admit: 'Your essay about how little real life matches what I'm being shown on television is wrong, and I know that because of what I'm being shown on television' is a hell of a point for a grownup to make. The one percent of protests that feature fire and property damage are about one hundred percent of what the television is showing us, and on social media, I have seen footage from other protests along with some truly dog shit AI images, and with our collective media literacy at an all-time low, a few of us are very confidently jumping to some very dumb conclusions. I do like being called Cupcake, though. It's fun and flirty. This Saturday, the protests are going to grow and multiply and stretch across the entire country, and if your mother trusts cable news, she doesn't want you to go. But you absolutely should. Here's the bottom line: They're going to be peaceful, and if we want to make super-extra-double-sure that they're peaceful, then more peaceful people need to show up. Will there be a commotion at the protest? Maybe. People are angry and scared and feeling hopeless and—at least here in L.A.—we have the National Guard and the Marines armed on the streets, which has somehow not proven to be a calming influence. It could escalate, but—as with here—it mostly won't. Show up for the angry and the scared and the hopeless. Will there be agitators at the protest? Maybe. There will always be a couple dozen agitators, anywhere. People went to that Minecraft movie just to film themselves throwing things when Jack Black said 'chicken jockeys.' There is a tiny percentage of any group that wants to cause chaos, and now some of them do it by setting shit on fire and breaking windows, because calling sports talk radio stations and saying 'BABA BOOEY' doesn't have the same cultural impact it used to. A couple dozen agitators in a group of a hundred is a problem. A couple dozen agitators in a group of a thousand isn't. Five thousand, they're barely there. Things are dire. You saw the video of Senator Alex Padilla being wrestled to the ground, and that's bad enough. What has been shared less often is the statement he went into the room to ask Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem about. 'We are not going away,' she said. 'We are staying here to liberate this city from the socialist and burdensome leadership that this Governor Newsom and this mayor placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into this city.' That's a literal military coup she's talking about, right into a microphone and in front of a camera, that's how fast this is moving. That's a liberation nobody here asked for, an idea as un-American as it gets. Also, if California is a socialist state, I'm going to need someone to tell the home prices. Show up on Saturday. 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34 minutes ago
- Yahoo
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Yahoo
34 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Gavin Newsom's Comments About Trump's Military Parade Are Going Viral: "That's About As Small As It Gets"
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