Banner photo: Fort la Latte, Plévenon, Côtes-d’Armor.
An American’s observations of a first time trip to France.
Color directly influences the soul. Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings.” ~ Wassily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art.
Whether it’s a market stall, or a vast garden surrounding a chateau, or a just a bike parked in front of a bright building, France is a gala of colors.
It was our usual ritual. After getting up early and having cookies and a quick cup of coffee, I was out the door while Cora slept in. I took the metro to the historic 3rd and 4th arrondissements of Paris.
Just browsing.
When it comes to capturing a good color photograph produce markets are always
An American’s observations of a first time trip to France.
*Normandy Landings
Gold Beach,October 2, 2025 It’s chilly, windy, and threatening rain when we arrive in Normandy. We’re renting a house in Ver Sur Mer, a small community near Gold Beach. Gold Beach isn’t a name that the local tourist bureau thought up as a gilded draw for tourists. The approximately five-mile-wide stretch of sand between Port-en-Bessin and La Riviere Mer (just east of Ver Sur Mer) that makes up Gold Beach, was likely named in 1944 by British General (to become Field Marshall) Sir Bernard Montgomery.
Gold Beach,Eighty-one years ago At around 05:30 on the morning of June 6, 1944, the area was rocked by a naval bombardment, while seven kilometers off shore in a pitching twilit sea, elements of the British 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division and No. 47 Commando of the Royal Navy were being loaded from ships onto landing craft.
At 0:615 the boats were launched on a journey that would take approximately one and a quarter hours. Upon landing on the beach, the British soldiers faced fierce resistance by the German defenders but by the end of the day the beaches were secured and nearly 25,000 Allied soldiers had landed at Gold. The cost was approximately 1100 British casualties, with 350 killed.
Gold was just one of five landing beaches that were assaulted on June 6th, 1944. In addition, Allied soldiers were parachuted or transported by glider farther inland.
In all, it was the largest amphibious and airborne assault in history, 160,000 men, 5000 vessels and 11,000 aircraft. And it all took place on the shores up and down the Normandy Coast. The peace of the region was shattered in the dark, early hours of June 6, 1944. The ground was pounded by a naval bombardment while aircraft roared overhead.
Most people are drawn to France by Paris, the City of Light, or for the chance to break out the Speedo and bake under the summer sun by the crystal blue waters of the French Riviera. There’s food, culture, food, the arts.
And did I mention food? The French may not have invented cooking but they sure as shit elevated it.
And it doesn’t hurt that France is conveniently located right next to four other popular destinations; Germany, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland. And it’s just a short Chunnel ride from the U.K. “Hey Sheila, since we’re in the neighborhood why don’t we drop by and see what the French are up to,” said Norman.
D-Day brought Cora and I to France. Everything else is whipped cream on the eclair.
It started with New York. With everything American going sideways and listing to the right, we were afraid that leaving the country, (unless the leaving was permanent), might be a bad idea. It wasn’t so much the leaving but the potential problems reentering as U.S. Customs has been feeling its violent, unconstitutional oats since January 20th. We originally had planned on New York, until the Big Apple was taken off the menu because of an unexpected illness, thus setting aside any further talk of travel.
One evening in June, inertia compelled me to pull up a documentary about the D-Day invasion. Cora stopped what she was doing in the kitchen and through tears we watched. Tears over the bravery and the sacrifice. Maybe it was sorrow over ideals that were fought for by so many brave men; ideals that have been fading from a troubled nation’s memory and falling into disfavor. The documentary ended and I said to Cora, “Fuck it, let’s go to France.”
An American’s observations of a first time trip to France.
*The road less traveled.
When I told friends that Cora and I were going to venture outside of Paris during our trip to France I was advised to take the train. “The trains in Europe are great,” they (the ubiquitous ‘they’) all said.
It’s an open secret that, by and large, European trains are a great way to travel and that America could learn a lot from Europe about train travel (America could actually learn a lot from Europe about many things, but that’s another multi-volume set of books).
I have no argument with the argument for taking European trains but for my purposes the train presents two problems. One, it follows a single track, with no veering onto an intriguing track less followed, and two, the train only stops when and where the schedule says it will stop.
When you’re on the train you can’t just stop whenever you spot something interesting that captures your imagination. Sure you can pull the emergency stop handle but that only works the first time around. After that you’re no longer welcome on the train.
The train does stop in Bodilis, France. To get there you pretty much have to know the place exists and then have a reason to buy a train ticket to get there. It’s only by car that one can make a rewarding unplanned stop at Bodilis or most of the other French villages.
An American’s observations from a first time trip to France.
“To be treated well in places where you don’t expect to be treated well, to find things in common with people you thought previously you had very, very little in common with, well that can’t be a bad thing.” ~ Anthony Bourdain.
“The French don’t like Americans.”
“Snobby.”
“Arrogant.”
“Stand off-ish.”
Those were the admonishments we received before getting on a plane to Paris.
How many times did I hear how rude the French are?
Once was far too many.
We’ve completed nearly a week in Paris and I have to say that Cora and I have experienced none of that. What we have encountered is friendliness, hospitality, and –
good manners.
Plenty of good manners.
In the good old U.S. of A, good manners are not only headed towards extinction, under the current administration, graciousness is a bad thing, something to be frowned upon as soft and effete. In America rudeness is the next big thing. “We’ve never seen anything like it.”
If you want to know if a people are well mannered and courteous just take a ride on their urban public transportation. It’s a rare occurrence when Cora has to stand while riding in a crowded metro in Paris. By and large my experience in Europe is that women who have more years behind them than before them are readily given a seat (A gentle reminder that I’m fossilizing was the young French woman who offered me her seat on the metro).
Maybe more to the point is that by and large the French treated us like, well, regular people. No extra deference and certainly no hints of disdain.
And in France treating someone like regular people means they greet you even if they don’t know you and may never see you again. People greet perfect strangers at a nearby bistro table with a bonjour. They greet people they pass on a trail with bonjour. Bonjour when you enter a shop, a bar, a soccer stadium – damn near anywhere.
There’s one exception to this rule and that is when it’s evening. Then it’s
bonsoir.
Yes, they even greet Americans. And make no mistake, Europeans can spot an American a mile away. I don’t know if it’s a vibe or an odor or the cheesy t-shirt and the ball cap (two things which I didn’t bother to pack this time), but Europeans have radar that’s sensitive to Americans.
Wanna make a good impression? Return the greeting.
Bonus points if you do it in French.
Double bonus points if you extend the greeting first.
When in doubt, just say
bonjour.
Day one
After our arrival from the airport at about two in the afternoon, Cora settles in to relax, and I’m off to explore. A little aimless walking brings me to Place Charles De Gaulle, where, in the center sits the famous Arc De Triomphe. Fifty meters tall, the structure was built to honor the fallen in the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars.
I’ve seen pictures of this iconic structure. Being a historian, the image that sticks most in my mind is the one of Nazi soldiers passing beneath the Arc after France has capitulated to the German blitzkrieg. I imagine Hitler was overjoyed at the idea of his soldiers goosestepping over the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War I, which lies in a vault beneath the Arc. It was the German Army’s defeat and the harshness of the Treaty of Versailles that stuck in the warlord’s craw and aroused his hunger for retribution, and the establishment of a thousand year Reich. A Reich that fell short by 988 years, and in the end costing millions of lost lives.
Seeing the bulky structure in person gives me the same jolt that strikes me on the first day of all of my European trips.
“Hey! I’m in fucking Paris!
As I stroll towards the giant plaza I pass some crepe carts where vendors churn out the famous stuffed, lace thin pancake. I watch one of the vendors deftly assemble a crepe and I’m tempted to try the popular banana and Nutella (correct me if I’m wrong but I believe that Nutella is one of the food groups). The young woman I’m watching is going pretty light on the filling. I’ll pass.
Besides, there’s something more interesting going on at Place Charles de Gaulle.
On Constitution Day 2025, the Trump Regime tore off yet another piece of the Constitution of the United States of America and tossed it into the dumpster. There, in that dank bin, that poor metaphorical slip became part of a growing pile of bits, pieces, scraps and chunks of a document that was ratified 238 years ago.
On Constitution Day, Brendan Carr, Trump’s FCC Chairman, put ABC into a hammerlock and demanded that Jimmy Kimmel be punished for remarks, largely benign, regarding the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Carr’s demand was made in language that’s characterized the regime’s tone since January 20, Inauguration Day. Using language that could’ve come from the mouth of an enraged Tony Soprano, Carr threatened, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
Meanwhile, Jesse Watters, a celebrity (I won’t deign to call him a newsman), on state television, AKA Fox News, raged, “We’re gonna avenge Charlie’s death in the way Charlie would want it to be avenged. They are at war with us, whether we wanna accept it or not, they are at war with us. And what are we gonna do about it? How much political violence are we gonna tolerate? And that’s the question we’re just gonna have to ask ourselves.” Brendan Carr was cool with Watters’ call to “take to the mattresses,” and Jesse is still on the air, happily churning out myths and legends with a few threats sprinkled in.
Two days before Constitution Day, Pam Bondi, the sitting Attorney General, tore off her own shred of the Constitution, by declaring that the Federal Government will “go after” Americans for hate speech. Said Bondi, “There’s free speech and then there’s hate speech.” Bondi, who will never be confused with Edmund Randolph (America’s first A.G.), should possibly take some time to read the Constitution as it makes no exception for “hate speech.” One has to wonder who, in this ideologically infected administration, would determine what is “hate speech,” and what is not. Fortunately, Bondi was challenged from both the right and the left and was forced to walk back her remark.
All of this was part of the fury following the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Trump and MAGA; they aren’t unlike the roadkill skunk decomposing down the block that the animal control boys aren’t getting around to picking up. Festering and funky in the afternoon sun it sits there and cooks, the effluvium is never ending, 24/7/365 – for four rotten years. And there’s no escape.
It’s dark on the Bay Trail this morning. The sun still has a good twenty minutes to climb up and over the backside of the East Bay Hills before it paints the waters of San Pablo Bay in morning pastels. On other sections of the trail, light intrudes from the nearby, just waking neighborhoods. But not on this one short section. This is where the trail plunges down a steep curving hill under a canopy of oaks, and bay trees.
It’s murky black out here.
I could turn on my cell phone flashlight. But why?
The darkness is peaceful. It excites the senses.
It’s noise free in this short dip in the trail. Noise – the sounds of neighborhoods and cars starting their day.
But there are sounds here. Noise versus sounds; there’s a difference.
Down the bayside slope, unseen, the San Pablo Bay waters are riffling onshore. Somewhere, far out on the dark, placid bay a buoy is moaning. A sighing breeze ruffles the oaks, and morning birds are greeting their day. When it’s very still I can hear Lexi’s nose snuffling. On a moonless morning I can barely see her as she sweeps back and forth in front of me, nose almost scraping the ground, her olfactory radar excited, hard at work, enjoying nature’s special gift to dogs. Occasionally an animal scrunches, unseen, over the ground cover in the oak thicket and Lexi’s ears perk up.
I’ve been covering sections of the Bay Trail for countless years and with two different dogs. For most of those years it was a run. But at 71, and after two broken ankles, a broken metatarsal, chronic Achilles tendinitis, and 55 years of pounding the pavement, the runs have turned into brisk walks. Always thought that the end of the running trail would leave me heartsick but the only regret is that Lexi doesn’t get to stretch out her legs and run. Feel more sorry for her than I do for myself.
But even here, the MAGA scream intrudes. It’s the shrieking, slicing metallic brrrrr in a redwood grove. The roar of a speedboat on an otherwise placid lake. Old dr’unckle Bob, stewed to the gills at the family picnic. It’s trying not to think about Trump when someone says, “Hey, don’t think about Trump.”
I often recall a sign carried by a woman at a May Day protest in Martinez, California. The sign read, Trump has stolen all of the joy and safety of living in America. Fuckin-A right. For any American who is paying attention, any joyful glow gets veiled by the dark MAGA cloud.
It’s even impossible for those trying to live blissfully ignorant to remain blissfully ignorant; that’s called poetic justice.
At a certain point we all need to find a time and a place to recover our composure. It’s a difficult thing. The ataxia is relentless. It stalks you in the haven of your bedroom at night and even out here in the calm of an early morning thicket.
It’s everywhere – and it’s become routine. Let’s not kid ourselves, America is no longer on the road to the irrational. Hell, that threshold was crossed a long time ago. Some would have us believe that we passed through the doorway on the fifth day of last November 2024. Hardly. By that day the vestibule separating the commonness of reason from the normalcy of the aberrant was already far behind us. November 5, 2024, Election Day, was the day we heard the ominous click of the gate locking behind us.
The vulgar stain of the Trump regime has infiltrated the American fabric. It contaminates every waking hour and, stupid me, I’ve allowed it to infect the joys of my retired life – my grandson’s basketball, photography, and writing. I’ve become so wound up in protesting that I’ve stopped going to Jackson’s games on Saturdays. I haven’t taken a photo excursion, other than photographing protests, since sometime in late winter. And writing? Reading this answers that question neatly.
Woe is me? Let’s just say, pissed is me. I’m angry that a lying, uncouth ignorant fraud, and Stephen Miller, the ferret face Nazi, along with the rest of the regime have stolen life. But I’m not ignorant of the fact that, relatively speaking, and notwithstanding my criticism of the regime, I’m not on the MAGA radar. I’m a 71 years old, white guy, American born of American citizens. If I didn’t identify as a Social Democrat I’d be among the safest of the safe.
So why let it affect me?
It has little or nothing to do with democracy. As I’ve pointed out a number of times, on this site, American democracy is mostly a misconception and has been since, well, the founding. I’m touched by sadness when I see a young Hispanic woman selling trays of strawberries in a supermarket parking lot; the couple selling pupusas in a small office parking lot in Richmond; the stooped old Hispanic man selling helados from the ding-ding-a-linging cart on on the sidewalk in nearby Richmond. Every time they step out of their homes to make their small harmless pittance by selling fruit or ice cream they must wonder whether, come nightfall, they’ll be back home (and still not necessarily safe) or in a detention center (jail). How have we come to normalize a government policy that strikes fear into the lives of peaceful people?
What did that young woman selling strawberries or that old man pushing an ice cream cart, or the teens playing soccer on a rutted field in Richmond, or the Hmong woman at the Asian market in San Pablo ever do to that bitter old fuck on Facebook who wants to get rid of “those illegals.” Did he lose his job selling flats of strawberries in a Home Depot parking lot to some kid from Peru?
I would love to say that I’m completely done with writing about life in MAGAstan, but I’d be lying to myself in the process. If not for any other reason but maintaining my sanity and some smidgen of joy in my life I’m returning to photography, life stories and travel stories. Politics isn’t dead on this site but the regular 47 series is going on the back burner.
Its formal name is Independence Day, and with apologies to all the Christians out there, it should be the most revered of American holidays; more revered than Christmas and Easter. Take it from an agnostic.
Traditions keep us grounded and I followed one every Independence Day. Before dawn, I would, with a genuine sense of reverence, hang the American flag over the garage door. It may have been a meaningless gesture the other 364 days, but on Independence Day it really meant something.
Year after year it was the same morning drill; get up, hang the flag, go for a run with the dog, make sure the pool was clean for the kids and grandkids, wonder how many hot dogs Joey Chestnut would consume in that nonsense at Coney Island, get the barbecue fire going (properly done ribs require a good six hours), make the mop sauce, put on the ribs – enjoy the day.
Every
damn
year.
How could life be worse? Family, dogs (hot and four legged), splashing in the pool, good music and unhealthy food on the patio. The American fucking way.
That all started to change in 2016, when a pretender took up occupancy in the White House. During that first term I somehow managed to put Donald Trump and the cult of MAGA out of my head and convince myself that it was all a fluke. It was just a four-year phase that the country would outgrow. The nation was having its red Corvette, young blonde in the passenger seat, midlife crisis.
COVID notwithstanding, Independence Day 2021 was a brighter one. We’d (sort of) survived January 6th, and Trump was (hopefully) in self-exile. But still something was off. Four years of Donald Trump had thrown the American universe out of kilter.
Two apostles of Trump, blood brothers, a pair of the most annoying people in the history of the planet, Ted Cruz and Tucker Carlson, in a shouting match. These two are almost always in concert when it comes to – anything.
I didn’t know whether to laugh, sing hallelujah, or look for some pearls to clutch.
So I did all three.
It was hilarious schadenfreude to watch Ted Cruz, the guy who hates elites while sporting the professorial beard, and old Tuck with his perpetual expression of confusion, go nose to nose in an argument that looked nostalgically like baseball manager Earl Weaver and any umpire you could (or couldn’t) name having an old fashioned shouting match. All that was missing was some infield dirt for them to kick on each other.
“Holy shit,” I shouted.
Loud enough for Cora, who was working in the garden, to poke her head in the door and ask, “What happened?”
“Tucker Carlson and Ted Cruz are going at it over leveling Iran.” (Ted is a “yay”, and Tuck is a “nay”)
“Good!”
An internecine MAGA-land feud is usually welcome news but the fact that this one is over whether or not to bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran (sung to the tune of The Beach Boys, Barbara Ann) is cause to give pause.
War is never a good thing and the fact that the decision of whether or not to wage one is being bounced around between two imbeciles; Pete Hegseth (a former Fox News host with a drinking problem and an overly energized sense of machismo), and Donald Trump (nuff said), makes the whole notion troublesome (normally the Director of National Security, Tulsi Gabbard, would be in on the decision but she pissed Trump off and who knows, maybe she’s on the outs – more below).
What adds a fire hose of gasoline to the flames of anxiety is the realization that Donald Trump is playing this like an eight year old reality show host thirsting for an audience. And the eight year old has an army play set.
Pop quiz. What does Donald Trump love more than Donald Trump?
Answer: The eyes of the entire world on Donald Trump.
And that’s what he’s got, and he’s playing it to the hilt.
Trump is playing a childish game of, tease the war, and the knowledge that the world is hanging on the Donald’s every word and move must be positively orgasmic for him.
“We are not pawns for [President] Donald Trump,” said the young woman dressed in cammies. Her uniform bore two patches, one, U.S. Army, the other, a last name, Colado. She was appearing at an anti-ICE rally in Dallas.
The woman continued, “Why now? It’s because the military was called on against the protesters. In our oath to serve, we serve the people of the United States, the Constitution. These constitutional rights are being stripped, and just denied. And the military will not be pawns to that. So I’m calling on the conscience of military members who served previously and now. We have a conscience, we have a mind. We have a duty and a moral obligation to say no and resist evil orders.”
The announcement that an active duty soldier was speaking out against Trump lit up social media, but the truth of her status as active duty, retired military or just a random person who went to the Army/Navy store and bought an ACU wasn’t clear.
The video was forwarded to me by a friend and my initial response was
Oh hell yes!
But when a story emerges from a little known outlet on either side of the political spectrum, some due diligence is in order to be certain of the facts. So when I saw that the feature originated from a site called Breakthrough News, my bullshit radar lit up.
Turns out it was only a partially newsworthy story as the woman is not active duty, but a veteran who served in the U.S. Army from November 2010 to August 2014 and was an Army reservist from August 2014 to June 2020. Still any new voice is welcome to the anti-Trump choir.
Pimping the Army Meanwhile Donald Trump was at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, delivering a speech that was supposed to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the United States Army. You know, those blue clad musket packing men who overthrew a king and helped deliver what was once the world’s most successful democracy.
Trump’s speech should have been a commemoration of the Army’s history, a paean to sacrifice, and a tribute to duty. It should have been a celebration of the Army as a defender of freedom and of American ideals as penned in the great documents that formed the foundation of the great experiment.
But Donald Trump can’t help himself, and so the speech careened from the righteous road of what it should have been into the muddy ditch of one of his rally style rants.
The apologists shrug it all off as ‘just Trump being Trump.’
And so, ‘just being Trump’, violated yet another presidential norm by delivering, to an inappropriate audience, one of his bellicose, belly aching, falsehood filled, rants that have characterized ten exhausting MAGA years. Sure the speech could have been shrugged off, with a roll of the eyes and a ‘whatever’ had it been delivered in front of the usual amalgamation of red capped rubes and Confederate flag waving, snake oil swilling groupies. But the violation was in the fact that the MAGA tirade was delivered to an audience of active duty soldiers. Partisan harangues to the troops is a no-no.
For two-hundred and fifty years, since our first commanding general, who would become the first commander in chief, the American military has been an apolitical fighting organization. The Army has always, by tradition and by the demands of a democracy, remained loyal to the Constitution and democratic ideals rather than one man. In fact, before deciding on a national army the founders stopped to think long and hard about establishing an armed force that might one day be loyal to a king who would use that force against the citizenry.
But with Flag Day just a few days away, the orange counterfeit patriot who wraps himself in the banner he never lifted a finger to defend spoke to American soldiers and dubbed the people of Los Angeles, the people those soldiers took an oath to protect, “animals” and “a foreign enemy.”
“We will not allow an American city to be invaded and conquered by a foreign enemy. That’s what they are,” said the dictator in waiting.
During his rant, the dear leader went after his usual punching bag, his predecessor, Joe Biden. He continued with one of his wildest lies of ten years of exceptional bullshittery; “In Los Angeles, the governor of California, the mayor of Los Angeles, they’re incompetent and they paid troublemakers, agitators and insurrectionists. They’re engaged in this willful attempt to nullify federal law, and aid the occupation of the city by criminal invaders.”
Trump encouraged active duty soldiers to boo his political opponents and the press. Yes, that press. You know, the one whose freedom is named specifically in the First Amendment. The First Amendment is probably the one he hates the most, but there’s always the fourteenth, which has been a particularly thorny one for him. Hell, just clip out the Second Amendment post it on the White House fridge and burn the rest of that troublesome document.
Crickets in command If there was anything more alarming than Trump’s partisan diatribe it was a senior officer corps that remained as silent as the grave of American democracy. Gone are Mark Esper, Mark Miley, John Kelly, and James Mattis, the men who, time and again, told Trump, ‘no you can’t do that. “
This time around Trump has advisors, the despicable authors of that manual of evil, Project 2025, who have instructed Trump to do what every dictator in history has done; and that is to populate the high command with fawning boot lickers.
Trump’s Fort Bragg event was so political and partisan, that the Army went through the trouble of hand picking a friendly audience that would not only smile through Trump’s entire jeremiad, but titter at his lounge act monologue.
An internal 82nd Airborne memo revealed that soldiers in attendance were selected based on political leanings and physical appearance. “No fat soldiers,” (in front of the fat president) read one memo. The italicized part is my own.
The partisanship was so egregious that MAGA paraphernalia was allowed to be sold on base property and some troops were seen snapping up various items of Trumpy gear including something called a White Privilege Card that reads, “Trumps Everything.”
By and large commanders and Pentagon officials seemed foursquare behind this festival of political bias. But not everyone. In an interview with Military.com, one commander, still moored in the harbor of democracy said, “This has been a bad week for the Army for anyone who cares about us being a neutral institution. This was shameful. I don’t expect anything to come out of it, but I hope maybe we can learn from it long term.”
And the cherry on top of this odious sundae is, yes, the name of the base – Fort Bragg. Once again, military bases will be re-named after Confederates, America’s 19th century cadre of traitors. “Fort Bragg is in,” said Trump. “That’s the name. And Fort Bragg it shall always remain. That’s never going to be happening again.”
Just for the record, Braxton Bragg was a slaver and a commander who was known mostly for his incompetence. But Trump wouldn’t know that because he and historical knowledge do not share an intimate relationship.
“Tin soldiers and Nixon coming We’re finally on our own This summer I hear the drumming Four dead in Ohio”
“Four dead in Ohio” were the first words that came to mind when I heard that Donald Trump, on the evening of June 7th, had federalized 2,000 California National Guard soldiers in response to protests against ICE raids in Los Angeles.
The match was struck on June 6th at a Home Depot in Los Angeles where Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers were conducting arrests of day laborers (As stated in a previous post, the Trump regime has veered away from the promise of going after murderers, drug dealers and rapists of white women, and is going after the low hanging fruit in order to satisfy the quotas set by Stephen Miller, America’s ferret faced head of U.S. Gestapo tactics). In response to the DHS action, up to one thousand protesters gathered at the scene.
Tempers flared during the day. A man was seen physically trying to block a federal law enforcement van which did not stop. The man fell down and by some chance intervention of the fates, was not run over. By nightfall, chunks of concrete were being thrown at federal law enforcement. By that point, LAPD and the California Highway Patrol were trying to keep the peace (to the credit of the CHP, it put out a statement saying that their mission was only peacekeeping and it was not assisting ICE in the arresting of immigrants).
By 8:30, the LAPD had issued a tactical alert.
On the 7th, arrests of undocumented immigrants continued as did the protests, with more violence erupting.
The Life in My Years 