ICE

LA Fights Back

A look at the timeline of the situation in Los Angeles so far, as well as a few of the other trillion things going on right now

Endeavorance

09 Jun 2025 — 10 min read

Timeline of the LA Protests

Friday, June 6

ICE in conjunction with several other federal agencies launched a shock-and-awe style operation in Los Angeles. Armored vehicles, men in full tactical gear and masks. Literal military equipment rolling down a quiet street to arrest people working at their jobs.

In response, locals began to protest the agents, working to help prevent the arrest of their community members. On the first day, it was estimated that about 200 people joined in the protest at a detention facility and federal building.

44 people were arrested, including the regional president of the United Service Workers union.

Saturday, June 7

ICE continued their raids, now targeting the city of Paramount, which has a more than 80% latino population. Raids targeted day laborers outside of a Home Depot, sparking further protest from the community.

This time, it's estimated a crowd of about 400 showed up in solidarity.

Later in the day, Trump announced he would be federalizing and deploying 2,000 members of the National Guard to L.A. to quell protests. This is the first time in 60 years that a president has done something like this. California Governor Newsom and LA Mayor Bass both publicly requested Trump to not do this, and were ignored. They're now planning to sue the federal government.

Pete Hegseth got in on the stupidity, announcing that he's ready to deploy US Marines from a nearby base if need be. That is not how the military works, by the by. But what does that matter?

For a few hours, we didn't know what the hell would happen next. Then, Trump thanked the National Guard for solving the issue, despite the fact that they hadn't yet arrived in L.A.

So at this point, it becomes clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that the US Government is trying to stoke this flame into an inferno. They have continued to escalate their rhetoric, now saying protestors can't wear masks; obviously an intensely inflammatory statement given the current issue of ICE agents literally hiding their identities with masks.

Sunday, June 8

The national guard arrived in LA, doing… god knows what. They're just sitting around mostly. There's even a livestream of them standing around looking confused.

Meanwhile, we have photos of community members cleaning up the mess of rubber bullets and gas canisters the cops left behind

By the evening, a much larger scale protest began, which sparked a bunch of headlines about "escalation," which is a deeply ominous word to describe "more people joining in to peacefully show unity in pushing back against government overreach in their locality while feds launch tear gas at them."

Protestors taking over the street in a peaceful march

The protest remained peaceful, despite media coverage. It was a bunch of people marching in solidarity in the street. With that will always come some scuffles, but it's not the desolate warzone that is being depicted across most major outlets.

At time of publishing, we're basically just waiting to see if the government will continue their escalation. We've seen some police brutality as some of the agents seem to feel empowered to just be cruel. Two clips come to mind in particular, one of a man intentionally and repeatedly trampled by police horses, while another is of a cop taking aim and firing a rubber bullet directly at a reporter brazenly on camera with no remote threat posed to the cops.

Policy

Tulsa Reparations (Kinda)

The mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma is preparing a plan for reparations to the Black community in the city in response to one of the darkest moments in race relations in recent US history: the Tusla Race Massacre.

Up front, I want to clarify that the money set aside for this—just a bit over $100 million—is privately raised. The city's first Black mayor is spearheading the effort, which will see an investment in the community, rather than individual direct cash rewards.

The Tulsa Race Massacre is one of those little bits of history that the United States government really likes to just not talk about anymore. It is often overlooked in history classes despite its monumental impacts on our country's history.

Here's a very brief overview. Tulsa, Oklahoma saw unprecedented Black prosperity in the late 1910's and early 1920's. A chunk of the city was dubbed "Black Wall Street," referring to the business district. This did not sit well with the white supremacists in the area, who staged a two-day long massacre against the Black neighborhoods. The state actually deputized some of the white supremacists, all but directly endorsing the attacks. Hundreds of people were murdered, hundreds more were injured, and 35 square blocks of Black neighborhoods and businesses were razed to the ground, leaving over 10,000 people homeless.

So it's up there with the 1985 MOVE bombing, that little thing where the Philadelphia Police Department literally dropped bombs on rowhomes full of Black people, then let the fire burn out of control for over an hour, destroying dozens of homes.

But go on, please, keep talking about Tiananmen Square, because we have no local incidents that make our government look fucking unhinged.

Trump / Musk Implosion

We knew this was coming, we just didn't know when. Trump and Musk have had a spectacular and public falling-out which involved both of the man-baby's taking to their social media platforms to VERY MASCULINELY subtweet each other for a few days.

Things kinda came to a head when Musk tweeted that Trump is in the Epstein files (which, fucking dug) and then Trump went on to say that Musk "lost his mind" and is reportedly calling Musk a "big time drug addict" behind the scenes. Musk also endorsed impeaching Trump, and is seemingly motioning to start a new political party of his own, which I guess would be further right of Trump somehow??

The spat escalated from 0 to 1,000 in a matter of hours, basically.

The reactions from the right have been wild. At first, it was general disbelief and dejection, which a lot of major right wing figures publicly pleading for the two dweebs to kiss and make up. As things went on, the disbelief dug deeper for some folks, who seem to believe this is all a "distraction" or a ploy, and that Musk and Trump are somehow in on it. Unfortunately for those with that theory, it hasn't really panned out, as Tesla stock has crashed again and major figures have started staking out if they're siding with Musk or Trump.

This is all incredibly dumb. Let's be real up front about that. These men are—and I do not say this lightly—nincompoops.

Abrego Garcia's History Book Chapter is Solidifying

Kilmar Abrego Garcia—the man who was mistakenly deported due to "an administrative error"—has been brought back to the United States after months of the Trump administration claiming they couldn't do that. But apparently they can now, because they've brought him back to stand trial for new charges from Attorney General Pam Bondi which claim that Abrego Garcia was invovled in a decade-long operation smuggling immigrants across the border.

Abrego Garcia was being held at CECOT, the infamous torture prison in El Salvador where the current United States administration has been sending some of the people it has been disappearing from the streets, including Abrego Garcia, who was not charged with any crime before being sent to the prison in the one country where his status in the United States explicitly prevented him from being deported to.

What's not particularly selling me on the charges is the fact that as these charges were announced, a long-standing and high ranking US Attorney working where the case is being held abruptly quit his position.

According to ABC News:

The decision to pursue the indictment against Abrego Garcia led to the abrupt departure of Ben Schrader, a high-ranking federal prosecutor in Tennessee, sources briefed on Schrader's decision told ABC News. Schrader's resignation was prompted by concerns that the case was being pursued for political reasons, the sources said.

Schrader had been working at the Nashville US Attorney's office for 15 years.

World

Ukraine Done Attack

Ukraine pulled off a massive operation against Russia last week, using drones to take out Russian war planes deep inside Russian territory: as far as 2,500 miles from Ukraine.

The operation reportedly took a year and a half to plan, and involved getting decoy trucks into position inside Russian borders near military installations, then using 117 drones piloted manually from field stations nearby to fly over and bomb the aircrafts.

According to the Guardian, this is the most damaging drone strike so far in the war.

Here's some amazing shit: no casualties. Ukraine planned and executed a high level military operation spanning almost all of Russia, and did so without losing operatives or harming civilians, or even enemy military personnel. I had almost forgotten that you can do surgical, targeted strikes instead of just carpet bombing hospitals.

Russia has since responded to the attack, bombing Kyiv and vowing revenge, despite also claiming that their aircraft just "caught fire" and that it wasn't a big deal. For real guys, don't put it in the newspaper that they're mad..

South Korean Presidential Election

South Korea has a new president after the mess created by former South Korean president calling for martial law and getting ousted for it. He had attempted to use martial law to put a chill on opposition forces, but even his own party called him out on it, and he became the first South Korean president arrested and indicted.

Now, Lee Jae-myung won the election, bringing a more center-left party into power in South Korea. He has previously likened himself to Bernie Sanders, but mostly ran a campaign of general pragmatism and stability in the face of a nation dealing with political crisis.

Lee is seeking to improve economic stability in the nation while making movements towards labor rights and expanding foreign diplomacy beyond in response to the weakening position of Washington, DC on the world stage.

North Korea's Warship Salvaged

Remember the North Korean warship I talked about a few issues ago which capsized during launch? Well they fixed it. Mostly. According to the KCNA (state-owned NK media), the warship has been righted and safely entered the water.

Satellite imagery shows the ship being redeployed, or at least it showed the ship moving locations around the pier. That counts.

Reportedly it was a "manual effort" to right the ship, including workers using ropes and barges to try and right the ship. Unfortunately, no amount of hard work can shake off the bone-chilling insults that Kimmy Jong threw their way. I mean, the man said they showed "absolute carelessness, irresponsibility and unscientific empiricism," which is just brutal.

Gaming

Switch 2 Launch

The Nintendo Switch 2 has launched in the States, bringing Nintendo into the newer console generation.

Despite initial backlash about the pricing, the Switch 2 saw what you'd expect from a typical Nintendo console release day: long lines and sold-out stores.

Now that it's in the hands of the people, we're learning a good bit more about the console itself. For one, we're seeing that the Joy-Con control stick Nintendo used is a lot similar to the Switch 1 Joy-Cons, which infamously struggled with "stick drift," causing longstanding legal headaches for Nintendo. It is not a guarantee to happen again given that it's still a different part, but its the same mechanism.

Otherwise, folks are throwing their Switch 1 games into the Switch 2 and finding improved framerates and render distances. It's almost like the Switch 1 was near-decade old hardware and wasn't even particularly powerful for its time when it initially launched! But hey, nice to know if I wanna go back to some Switch 1 games, I can get some improved visuals (aside from, yknow, emulating, which I'd never do because thats ILLEGAL.)

Witcher 4 Tech Demo

We got a look at a tech demo of the Witcher 4, showing off some really gorgeous looking in-engine footage with impressive levels of detail running on a base PS5 model at a solid 60fps.

I am vibrating with excitement for this game

Unfortunately, what we saw was made specifically for the tech demo, and is more of a proof of concept of their tooling than anything else. The captured footage is more to show that they're focusing on optimizing performance from the ground up than to actually show off the game.

Regardless, I'm hype, and tech demos are still pretty neat even if they're mostly just to generate said hype.

Summer Games N Such

Its also time for Summer Game Fest and all the "here's our big trailers and announcements" times for the Big Gaming Companies (the BGCs, if you will).

The list of announcements is too much to just include here verbatim, but here's a few that stood out to me: