Lone Candle
Champion of Truth
“U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut concluded that the president’s description of “War ravaged Portland” was “simply untethered to the facts.””
https://reason.com/2025/10/06/why-a-trump-appointee-ruled-that-his-national-guard-deployment-in-portland-was-illegal/?nab=1
“Every American who is concerned about the state of our liberties ought to find harrowing President Donald Trump’s recent declaration that the National Guard is now in place in Portland, Oregon. As he wrote on social media, the goal is to restore law and order as “conditions continue to deteriorate into lawless mayhem.”
There are some protests against ICE’s increasingly abusive raids and detentions, but this is nothing more than a pretext to exert federal control over cities. I’m in Portland regularly, and it’s one of the nation’s most placid and safest big cities. Protests have at times been unruly over the years, but are well within the ability of local police to control.
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We should all be fearful when politicians exaggerate problems to grab more power. And it’s not just Portland. Trump previously deployed National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles and is threatening to do so in Chicago and Memphis. The president’s declared reason—to tamp down on protests—should raise the hair on everyone’s neck. He also suggested federal troops would target crime problems.
In his speech to the nation’s generals, Trump said, “We should use some of the dangerous cities as training grounds” for military intervention, as he prattled about a “war from within.” That’s authoritarian bluster of the sort heard in despotisms. Note the support or eerie silence from limited-government, constitutional conservatives who spent years warning us about government oppression.”
https://reason.com/2025/10/10/deploying-troops-to-american-cities-is-an-assault-on-the-constitution/?nab=1
Deploying the National Guard isn’t just costly in the direct costs of the deployment, but in how it takes workers and students away from work and school.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-STmAGQwqvM
They are invading my Chicago?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJssE42rpGA
Texas Deploys Troops to Chicago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65KazC_Cl-Q
“Using military personnel for domestic law enforcement is dangerous and fraught, and any political leader who does it should be held strictly accountable for the consequences. Given the absence of any real need for militarized law enforcement in Chicago, it would be a grave abuse of power for the president to send any troops there on a law-enforcement pretext — as it was when he mobilized the National Guard for law enforcement in Washington, D.C. But for more than one reason, that mobilization in D.C. is easier to defend constitutionally than sending the Texas National Guard to Chicago would be. Justifiably or not, constitutional law treats all of D.C. as an exception to the McCulloch principle: The people of D.C. are, as a general matter, subject to a lawmaking authority — Congress — that they play no part in electing. (That’s why some D.C. license plates bear the protest slogan, “Taxation Without Representation.”) But regardless of whether that exception is justified in D.C., it has absolutely no application in Illinois. Like Nebraskans and Pennsylvanians and Kansans, Illinoisians are constitutionally entitled to be constituents of whatever body governs them.
Any military force is likely to behave with less restraint toward a population to which its leaders are not responsible than toward a population to which its leaders must answer democratically. If the Texas National Guard behaves poorly in Chicago, the locals have no electoral mechanism for holding Texas authorities to account. The governor of Texas never appears on any ballot in Illinois. He has nothing to fear, politically, from the people his National Guard will police. Surely a militarization at the hands of a non-responsible power is no less tyrannical, and no more constitutional, than a tax imposed by one.”
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/09/09/chicago-protest-trump-national-guard-dangerous-00552873
““We do need protection here,” said Mable Carter, 82. “I have to come down on the bus. It’s horrifying.”
There might be military units patrolling Union Station and public spaces where tourists often come, she said, but “none of them over here. They are armed — on the Mall. Ain’t nobody doing nothing on the Mall. It’s for show.”
Carter wants to see more police in this area — the city’s own police, under the direction of Chief Pamela Smith. “I’d rather see them give her a chance. She has the structure in place.”
The Pentagon, when asked if there were plans to deploy the National Guard to higher crime areas like Anacostia and who determines that, sent a list of stations where the military units were present as of late last month. None of those deployments included stations east of the Anacostia River.
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Like Carter, people would like more law enforcement resources, but they distrust the motives behind the surge and how it has usurped the authority of the mayor and local officers. And while they acknowledge crime is more serious here than most other areas of the district, it is nowhere near the levels of three decades ago, when the D.C. National Guard worked with the Metropolitan Police to address the violence.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/07/in-1-dc-neighborhood-after-federal-intervention-a-mixed-view-of-more-authority-00549954?fbclid=IwY2xjawMr9qNleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHvutC7qWw3ceE-Mrqu6bQr52yIHLg5tHooS703ENgGqh0ftBwRBxJ7jy-Rvp_aem_6QxikMxK9stiAymZ7HQvgQ
Although crime in DC has been down, it has still been very bad. The streets are quieter since the Feds came to town, but this isn’t a long term solution. Some residents are living in fear of the Feds, especially Hispanics, including ones here legally because the Feds will arrest people they falsely suspect are illegal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cW65phBjzi0
“The takeover has allowed Trump to flex his muscles, but it’s coming at a steep cost to American taxpayers. The Intercept reports that the use of military forces in Washington, D.C., could cost $1 million per day. With more National Guard members flooding into the capital, the campaign could end up costing hundreds of millions of dollars, according to The Intercept.
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“Trump hosted a “big, beautiful” military parade to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Army. The event, which happened to coincide with the president’s 79th birthday, included a barrage of tanks, jet flyovers, and soldiers walking through the nation’s capital, and ended up costing American taxpayers $25 million to $45 million. That’s “$277,778–$500,000 per minute,” Reason’s Billy Binion reported.
Trump has also displayed America’s military power at his Independence Day celebrations, including the 2019 “Salute to America,” which ran up a tab of more than $13 million, and the 2020 events in D.C. and Mount Rushmore that cost close to $15 million. Next year’s Independence Day, which will be America’s 250th birthday, is expected to be even bigger. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) appropriated $150 million to the Interior Department for “events, celebrations, and activities surrounding the observance and commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States.”
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The OBBBA also allocated nearly $30 billion to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for detention facility maintenance, transportation costs, and recruitment efforts at the agency. ICE appears to be sparing no expense.
In addition to offering starting salaries of nearly $90,000 and signing bonuses up to $50,000, ICE has also wasted taxpayer money on marketing gimmicks and vehicle upgrades. Recently, the agency spent “$2.4 million for Chevrolet Tahoes, Ford Expeditions, and other vehicles, as well as custom graphic wraps,” writes Reason’s Autumn Billings. These gold-detailed wraps include the words DEFEND THE HOMELAND, INTEGRITY, COURAGE, and ENDURANCE.
This vehicle spending is on top of the $700,000 that ICE spent on two gold-wrapped trucks, which the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) used in a (cringe) recruitment campaign on X.
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On Tuesday, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced that the entire U.S.-Mexico border wall will be painted black. “That is specifically at the request of the president, who understands that in the hot temperatures down here when something is painted black it gets even warmer and it will make it even harder for people to climb,” said Noem.
During his first stint in the White House, Trump proposed an identical plan. The Washington Post reviewed a copy of federal painting estimates at the time, which showed “costs ranging from $500 million for two coats of acrylic paint to more than $3 billion for a premium ‘powder coating’ on the structure’s 30-foot steel bollards.”
More than five years later, the cost to paint the border wall is sure to be higher.
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In 2018, Trump signed a $3.9 billion agreement with Boeing that would see the airplane manufacturer deliver two new jets to the Air Force One fleet by 2022. The planes are now expected to be delivered by 2027, years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget.
Under the terms of the contract, the cost overruns will be paid for by Boeing. Despite these delays, Trump may soon be flying in a luxury jetliner that was gifted to him by the Qatari government. While the president has called this new Air Force One “free,” renovating the plane will cost Americans millions of dollars. As The New York Times reports, the Pentagon recently transferred $934 million from a nuclear missile project account to a classified project, which “congressional budget sleuths have come to think…almost certainly” includes the renovation of this new jet.
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In January, Trump revived an executive order that he signed in his first administration to establish a National Garden of American Heroes. The garden, which is expected to open next year on America’s 250th birthday, will include 250 life-sized statues of American heroes.
But the $34 million project has run into a basic, but serious, issue: America doesn’t have enough quality sculptors to complete the garden by next July or a designated location to put it. Daniel Kunitz, editor of Sculpture magazine, told Politico that the idea “seems completely unworkable.””
https://reason.com/2025/08/22/500-million-to-paint-the-border-wall-5-of-trumps-strangest-most-expensive-vanity-projects/
“When Trump took control of the California National Guard last June, he relied on 10 USC 12406, a previously obscure statute that authorizes the president to “call into Federal service members and units of the National Guard of any State” in three circumstances: 1) when the United States “is invaded or is in danger of invasion by a foreign nation,” 2) when “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States,” or 3) when “the President is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.” The government’s lawyers argued that Los Angeles’ protests against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown created both of the latter two conditions.”
https://reason.com/2025/08/27/when-it-comes-to-fighting-crime-with-the-national-guard-trump-says-he-can-do-anything-i-want-to-do/