He does seem to be pushing back in the video, or at least resisting being shoved. “Lunge” seems a bit strong, but it’s hard to tell. It’s pretty clear that Padilla did not instigate the physical contact, and did identify himself clearly once shoved.
It’s on International news. Just saw the video on BBC. Great Fuck, almighty.
Reports are that he DID identify himself prior to being shoved.
I was going to come back to this thread to talk about exactly this.
She seems to be saying – is saying – that the Administration is going to occupy Democratically-run cities and states and remove local power.
I remember a time when the 10th Amendment was the Republicans’ second favorite amendment, with only the 2nd Amendment being more cherished.
They just lie about everything.
It’s not hard to tell. He is being grabbed and pushed by one, and then a second one, and then a full scrum of DHS and FBI agents out in to the hallway, where he is then force to kneel and is handcuffed for no apparent reason since he was already removed from the conference room and was not threatening or using force (you can see him putting his arms out, palms forward in the universal sign of surrender) and attempts to comply with the order to put his hands behind his back even as the officer restraining his arm. As you note, he clearly identified himself by name and as a senator; as such, he has expansive legal authority to inquire as to the actions of federal employees and agencies.
Stranger
He was aggressively surrendering. /s
Absolutely disgusting abuse of power. Just as outrageous was Speaker Johnson putting the blame on Padilla. Republicans have lost all credibility and every last one must be voted out of office.
I’ve been mildly surprised by just how craven and obsequious Republican members of Congress have been over the years. Introducing bills to put Trump on the $100 bill, build monuments to him, rename areas after him, etc., etc. are bad enough. But Trump can insult them to their faces, or insult their wives, and they’ll continue to support them. I think it was Representative Brandon Gill who said something along the lines that it his job to push through Trump’s agenda. He didn’t say it was his job to work with Trump or the rest of the party, it was his job to do what Trump says. As a whole, the Republican senators and representatives are cowards through and through.
What I meant is that it’s hard to tell how forcefully he is pushing back, in part because it depends on how hard they’re pushing him.
Please don’t interpret my post as a defence of the security agents. I’m just trying to assess the video: it’s very clear that he did not instigate anything physically, and that he was met with overwhelming and unnecessary force.
I didn’t intent to interpret that way or to suggest that you were defending the agents, but to my eyes there was no ambiguity in how one sided the physical aggression was or that it was wholly unjustified. As a US Senator, Padilla absolutely has a right to perform oversight of DHS including asking the Secretary questions during a public news conference, even if she doesn’t like those questions and refuses to answer them.
Stranger
When your philosophy is based upon the ends justify the means, you’ll put up with anything as long as your enemies are punished and destroyed. There is no humiliation a Republican wouldn’t endure to purge the US of brown people.
Noem told Fox LA afterward that she had a “great” conversation with Padilla after the scuffle, but called his approach “something that I don’t think was appropriate at all.”
That’s a report from Fortune, of all places, but I also heard it on the news.
I want to hear from Padilla about this. What can “great” possibly mean?
She’ll claim he apologized and promised unthinking fealty.
She didn’t have to take him out to the gravel pit and shoot him in the face.
Stranger
How is that great for her? What will she put in her next book?
She’ll think make up something.
I know she can be somewhat long-winded and sometimes kind of rambling in her video ‘chats’, but Heather Cox Richardson pointedly addresses the Los Angeles protests and the Padilla assault as well as all of the things going on beneath the surface that aren’t getting reported in conventional media. It’s worth the 35 minutes to listen to the entire thing but if you are pressed for time and don’t want a rehash of current events jump to the 9:45 mark where she leads into what is actually going on in Congress.
Stranger
I don’t know but I have a title for her:
Noem is Burning: The Rise and Fall of a Bungling Autarky
Stranger
The New York Times article on this said he “began questioning the authenticity of a bank of mug shots behind Ms. Noem” when he was forcibly removed. And I remain amazed at her statement about “liberating” people from the mayor and governor.
Is this outside Article I, Section 6 of the Constitution, safeguarding the inviolability of legislators? Were his actions within the scope of his oath as a senator, even if he wasn’t on the senate floor?
Or can Trump toss senators to alligators at Mar A Lago like Tiberius at Capri?