1. United States
2. Ohio
3. Letter

Los Angeles, the city which is currently under occupation by US troops and Marines in an escalation that was not only unnecessary, but explicitly intended to inflame tensions in the city. So why did Trump do this? Because he needed a distraction. It’s a distraction from his feud with Elon, who exposed the reconciliation bill as a farce and then basically called him a pedophile. It’s a distraction from the Republican budget that will strip healthcare away from 13.7 million Americans and cut food assistance by $300 billion and explode the deficit to the tune of trillions of dollars. It’s a distraction from his spate of court losses; Stanford released an analysis showing that the Trump administration has lost an unprecedented 96% of cases. And it’s a distraction from Trump’s fast sinking poll numbers, even on issues on which he and Republicans are historically strong, like immigration and the economy. Trump desperately needed to gin up some controversy so he settled on an easy target: Los Angeles, a big blue city in a big blue state. He sent ICE in to terrorize not the hardened criminals (as he’d continually promised), but the hard-working immigrants who make the city and this country what it is. The immigrant population in LA is not just a benefit to the city, it’s integral to the city. But that’s apparently of little import to an administration that derives its value by how many lives of brown people it can destroy. The people deserve better.