endangering

Like with cigarettes, la migra should come with a warning label: Proximity to ICE could be hazardous for your health.

From Los Angeles to Chicago, Portlandand New York, the evidence is ample enough that wherever Trump sends in the immigration agency, people get hurt. And not just protesters and immigrants.

That includes 13 police officers tear-gassed in Chicago earlier this month. And, now, a U.S. marshal.

Which brings us to what happened in South L.A. on Tuesday.

Federal agents boxed in the Toyota Camry of local TikToker Carlitos Ricardo Parias — better known to his hundreds of thousands of followers as Richard LA. As Parias allegedly tried to rev his way out of the trap, an ICE agent opened fire. One bullet hit the 44-year-old Mexican immigrant — and another ricocheted into the hand of a deputy U.S. marshal.

Neither suffered life-threatening injuries, but it’s easy to imagine that things could have easily turned out worse. Such is the chaos that Trump has caused by unleashing shock troops into U.S. cities.

Rather than take responsibility and apologize for an incident that could’ve easily been lethal, Team Trump went into their default spin mode of blaming everyone but themselves.

Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that the shooting was “the consequences of conduct and rhetoric by sanctuary politicians and activists who urge illegal aliens to resist arrest.”

Acting U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli chimed in on social media soon after: “I urge California public officials to moderate their rhetoric toward federal law enforcement. Encouraging resistance to federal agents can lead to deadly consequences.” Hours later, he called Times reporter James Queally “an absolute joke, not a journalist” because my colleague noted it’s standard practice by most American law enforcement agencies to not shoot at moving vehicles. One reason is that it increases the chance of so-called friendly fire.

Federal authorities accuse Parias of ramming his car into agents’ vehicles after they boxed him in. He is being charged with assault on a federal officer.

Time, and hopefully, evidence, will show what happened — and very important, what led to what happened.

The Trump administration keeps claiming that the public anger against its immigration actions is making the job more dangerous for la migra and their sister agencies. McLaughlin and her boss, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, keep saying there’s been a 1,000% increase in assaults on immigration agents this year like an incantation. Instead of offering concrete figures, they use the supposed stat as a shield against allegations ICE tactics are going too far and as a weapon to excuse the very brutality ICE claims it doesn’t practice.

Well, even if what they say is true, there’s only one side that’s making the job more dangerous for la migra and others during raids:

La migra.

It turns out that if you send in phalanxes of largely masked federal agents to bully and intimidate people in American cities, Americans tend not to take kindly to it.

Who knew?

Gregory Bovino, center, of U.S. Border Patrol, marches with federal agents to the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building in Los Angeles on Aug. 14.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

We’re about to enter the sixth month of Trump’s plan to rid the country of undocumented immigrants. Sycophants are bragging that he’s doing the job, but they’re not caring to look at the mess left in its wake that’s becoming more and more perilous for everyone involved. They insist that those who are executing and planning raids are professionals, but professionals don’t make constant pendejos out of themselves.

Professionals don’t bring squadrons to chase after tamale ladies or day laborers, or stage flashy raids of apartments and parks that accomplish little else than footage for propaganda videos. They don’t go into neighborhoods with intimidation on their mind and ready to rough up anyone who gets in their way.

A ProPublica investigation showed that ICE has detained at least 170 U.S. citizens this year, many whom offered proof that they were in this country legally as la migra cuffed them and hauled them off to detention centers.

Professionals don’t lie like there’s a bonus attached to it — but that’s what Trump’s deportation Leviathan keeps doing. In September, McLaughlin put out a news release arguing that the shooting death of 38-year-old Silverio Villegas González in Chicago by an ICE agent was justified because he was dragged a “significant distance” and suffered serious injuries. Yet body cam footage of local police who showed up to the scene captured the two ICE agents involved in the incident describing their injuries as “nothing major.”

Closer to home, a federal jury in Los Angeles last month acquitted an activist of striking a Border Patrol agent after federal public defender Cuauhtémoc Ortega screened footage that contradicted the government’s case and poked holes in the testimony of Border Patrol staff and supervisors. Last week, ICE agents detained Oxnard activist Leonardo Martinez after a collision between their Jeep and his truck. McLaughlin initially blamed the incident on an “agitator group … engaged in recording and verbal harassment,” but footage first published by L.A. Taco showed that la migra trailed Martinez and then crashed into him twice — not the other way around.

Professionals don’t host social media accounts that regularly spew memes that paint the picture of an American homeland where white makes right and everyone else must be eliminated, like the Department of Homeland Security does. A recent post featured medieval knights wearing chain mail and helmets and wielding longswords as they encircle the slogan “The Enemies are at the Gates” above ICE’s job listing website.

The Trump administration has normalized racism and has turned cruelty into a virtue — then its mouthpieces gasp in mock horror when people resist its officially sanctioned jackbootery.

This evil buffoonery comes straight from a president who reacted to the millions of Americans who protested this weekend at No Kings rallies by posting on social media an AI-generated video of him wearing a crown and dropping feces on his critics from a jet fighter. And yet McLaughlin, Noem and other Trump bobbleheads have the gall to question why politicians decry la migra while regular people follow and film them during raids when not shouting obscenities and taunts at them?

As I’ve written before, there’s never a nice way to conduct an immigration raid but there’s always a better way. Or at least a way that’s not dripping with malevolence.

Meanwhile, ICE is currently on a hiring spree thanks to Trump’s Bloated Beastly Bill and and has cut its training program from six months to 48 days, according to The Atlantic. It’s a desperate and potentially reckless recruitment drive.

And if you think rapidly piling more people into a clown car is going to produce less clown-like behavior by ICE on the streets of American cities, boy do I have news for you.

WASHINGTON — America’s public health system is headed to a “very dangerous place” with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his team of anti-vaccine advisors in charge, fired Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chief Susan Monarez warned senators on Wednesday.

Describing extraordinary turmoil inside the nation’s health agencies, Monarez and former CDC Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry described exchanges in which Kennedy or political advisors rebuffed data supporting the safety and efficacy of vaccines.

Monarez, who was fired after just 29 days on the job following disagreements with Kennedy, told senators deadly diseases like polio and whooping cough, long contained, are poised to make a comeback in the U.S.

“I believe preventable diseases will return, and I believe we will have our children harmed by things they don’t need to be harmed by,” Monarez said before the Senate health committee.

Monarez describes her firing by RFK Jr.

Monarez said she was ordered by Kennedy to resign if she did not sign off on new vaccine recommendations, which are expected to be released later this week by an advisory panel that Kennedy has stocked with medical experts and vaccine skeptics. She said that when she asked for data or science to back up Kennedy’s request to change the childhood vaccination schedule, he offered none.

She added that Kennedy told her “he spoke to the president every day about changing the childhood vaccination schedule.”

Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a physician who chairs the powerful health committee, listened intently as Monarez and Houry described conversations with Kennedy and his advisers.

“To be clear, he said there was not science or data, but he still expected you to change schedule?” Cassidy asked.

Cassidy carefully praised President Trump for his commitment to promoting health policies but made it clear he was concerned about the circumstances surrounding Monarez’s removal.

Houry, meanwhile, described similar exchanges with Kennedy’s political advisors, who took an unprecedented role in preparing materials for meetings of the CDC’s advisory vaccine panel.

Ahead of this week’s meeting of the panel, Houry offered to include data around the hepatitis B shot that is administered to newborns to prevent spread of the deadly disease from the mother. She said a Kennedy advisor dismissed the data as biased because it might support keeping the shots on the schedule.

“You’re suggesting that they wanted to move away from the birth dose, but they were afraid that your data would say that they should retain it?” Cassidy asked.

Critical vaccine decisions are ahead

During the Senate hearing, Democrats, all of whom opposed Monarez’s nomination, also questioned Kennedy’s motives for firing Monarez, who was approved for the job unanimously by Republicans.

“Frankly, she stood up for protecting the well-being of the American people, and for that reason she was fired,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who caucuses with Democrats.

Monarez said it was both her refusal to sign off on new vaccination recommendations without scientific evidence and her unwillingness to fire high-ranking career CDC officials without cause that led to her ousting.

Kennedy has denied Monarez’s accusations that he ordered “rubber-stamped” vaccine recommendations but has acknowledged he demanded firings. He has described Monarez as admitting to him that she is “untrustworthy,” a claim Monarez has denied through her attorney.

While Senate Republicans have been mostly loath to challenge Trump or even Kennedy, many of them have expressed concerns about the lack of availability of COVID-19 vaccines and the health department’s decisions to scale back some childhood vaccines.

Others have backed up Kennedy’s distrust of the nation’s health agencies.

Kansas Republican Sen. Roger Marshall, a doctor, aggressively questioned Monarez about her “philosophy” on vaccines as she explained that her decisions were based on science. Alabama GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville said Trump was elected to make change and suggested Monarez’s job was to be loyal to Kennedy.

“America needs better than this,” Tuberville said.

The Senate hearing was taking place just a day before the vaccine panel starts its two-day session in Atlanta to discuss shots against COVID-19, hepatitis B and chickenpox. It’s unclear how the panel might vote on the recommendations, though members have raised doubts about whether hepatitis B shots administered to newborns are necessary and have suggested COVID-19 recommendations should be more restricted.

The CDC director must endorse those recommendations before they become official. Health and Human Services Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill, now serving as the CDC’s acting director, will be responsible for that.

“I’m very nervous about it,” Monarez said of the meeting.

Seitz and Jalonick write for the Associated Press. AP writers Mike Stobbe in New York and Lauran Neergaard in Washington contributed to this report.

Aug. 16 (UPI) — Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill accused California-based Roblox of enabling online predators to endanger children in a state lawsuit filed on Thursday.

Murrill filed a lawsuit against Roblox in the state’s 21st Judicial District Court in Livingston Parish, where an alleged sexual predator of children recently was arrested while using the site.

“Due to Roblox’s lack of safety protocols, it endangers the safety of the children of Louisiana,” Murrill said in a statement.

“Roblox is overrun with harmful content and child predators because it prioritizes user growth, revenue and profits over child safety,” she said.

“Every parent should be aware of the clear and present danger posed to their children by Roblox so they can prevent the unthinkable from ever happening in their home.”

Roblox reports 56% of its users are age 16 or under, including 40% who are age 12 or under, Murrill said.

She said the interactive online gaming platform that was launched in 2006 has nearly 82 million active daily users who can access millions of online games.

Among them are games with names that include “Escape to Epstein Island,” “Diddy Party” and “Public Bathroom Simulator Vibe.”

Such games “are often filled with sexually explicit material and simulated sexual activity, such as child gang rape,” Murrill said.

She cited a recent report that shows openly traded child pornography and solicitations for sex from minors among 3,334 of Roblox members.

Murrill noted that Livingston Parish police officers recently arresting a local Roblox user in Livingston Parish under suspicion of possessing child sexual abuse material.

The suspect allegedly was active on the Roblox site at the time of the arrest and used voice-altering technology to mimic a young female’s voice, she said.

The individual allegedly was luring and sexually exploiting minors on Roblox, which is one example of why her office has taken legal action against Roblox, Murrill added.

She accuses Roblox of violating the Louisiana Unfair Practices Act, negligence and public nuisance, and unjust enrichment and seeks civil penalties, restitution for the state’s enforcement activities and other damages.

Roblox officials denied allegations that the site intentionally or negligently enables such activities.

“Any assertion that Roblox would intentionally put our users at risk of exploitation is simply untrue,” the company said in a statement on Friday.

“No system is perfect, and bad actors adapt to evade detection, including efforts to take users to other platforms, where safety standards and moderation practices may differ,” Roblox officials said.

“We continuously work to block those efforts and to enhance our moderation approaches to promote a safe and enjoyable environment for all users.”