Los Angeles sheriff is 'the Donald Trump' of L.A. County: Rhambo

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Los Angeles sheriff is 'the Donald Trump' of L.A. County: Rhambo
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The political toxicity of Donald Trump will be tested in Los Angeles County as Sheriff Alex Villanueva seeks re-election.

"Villanueva has appeared on Fox News to dismiss the notion of widespread police brutality, and in regular social media broadcasts, he has taken on a Trump-like demeanor, calling his critics trolls and out-of-touch elites. His news conferences have featured conservative politicians and personalities. He's reveled in publicly rebuking local elected Democrats, including the mayor of Los Angeles, for what he sees as their inept handling of the city's homelessness crisis, and he eagerly joined the campaign to kick the county's ultra-progressive district attorney out of office," the Los Angeles Times reported Monday.

Javier Gonzalez, a campaign consultant for Villanueva, said the campaign knows what it is doing, even though Donald Trump lost L.A. County by 44% points.

"We're running against the woke left, and we're going to win," Gonzalez said. "It's going to be a revolt of the regular people who want things done."

The similarities to Trump could harm Villanueva in the election.

LAX Police Chief Cecil Rhambo announced on Monday he is challenging Villanueva.

"The former assistant sheriff -- who stood up against corruption in the department under former Sheriff Lee Baca -- formally announced his candidacy on Monday," ABC 7 reports. "Rhambo has worked for 33 years in law enforcement and also served as city manager of Compton from 2017 through July 2019 and assistant city manager of Carson from 2014 to 2017."

"Sheriff Alex Villanueva is the Donald Trump of L.A. County," Rhambo said in a video announcing his bid.

Watch:

Cecil Rhambo for LA County Sheriff: For Good www.youtube.com

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'Slave tourism' argument in Trump-friendly SCOTUS brief flagged by legal expert

A law professor flagged a legal theory from a Trump amicus brief that he says would let foreigners bring enslaved people into the U.S.

During an interview on the Legal AF podcast, legal expert Paul Gowder talked about American legal scholar Richard Epstein and an argument he made in an amicus brief filed in Trump's birthright citizenship case. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court ruled against Trump's bid to end birthright citizenship, and Epstein filed the brief on Trump's side.

Gowder explained that Epstein argued that the phrases "subject to the jurisdiction" and "within the jurisdiction" have different meanings in the Constitution. Epstein observed that the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction" is used in the 14th Amendment, which guarantees birthright citizenship, and the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery.

Epstein interprets that to mean that those two amendments can only apply to people who are members of society in the United States, or "subject" to the jurisdiction, not simply within it, according to Gowder.

"Richard Epstein wants to read 'subject to the jurisdiction' to mean like in more control of the U.S., basically a member of the U.S. community, not somebody who's just passing through," Gowder explained.

That would allow Epstein to argue, "We can read the 14th Amendment to exclude tourists and to exclude undocumented people," Gowder said. But with slavery and the 13th Amendment, "he just, like, embraces the notion that therefore the 13th Amendment must mean that if somebody from a country that has legal slavery comes to the U.S. as a tourist, they can bring their slaves with them," Gowder explained.

"Like, what?" Gowder said in dismay as he described Epstein's idea as "slave tourism."

Gowder stressed that Epstein isn't a fringe legal scholar and described him as a "very, very famous NYU law professor, worshipped by the [Federalist Society], like basically, for a certain kind of right-wing thinker, people on the right often think he's like the greatest legal mind of his generation."

However, for Gowder, Epstein is "completely nuts."

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Trump 'really angered' during his speech by act that left him vowing 'revenge': journalist

A journalist pointed out that Trump's speech revealed what angered him much more than election meddling.

During an episode of The Daily Beast Podcast, executive editor Hugh Dougherty looked back at Trump's Thursday night speech on election security. Trump had touted it as a "primetime" speech earlier in the week, and what left him fuming more than election meddling was how it was snubbed by major television networks like ABC and NBC.

"That's the thing that really angered him," Dougherty said. "He wanted this speech to be on prime time. There's nothing he loves more than being on prime time. There's nothing he loves more than ratings, and he was boycotted. Effectively, he was switched off."

Trump showed that he was enraged by the snub more than anything because "the rest of the speech was, if I'm honest, a bit low T," Dougherty said.

"He was raspy," Dougherty said. "He was not quite slumped, but he was not standing energetically, and he went through a whole lot of grievances."

Dougherty noted that Trump did seem "very sore" about losing a presidential election. "He's very sore about what happened six years ago," Dougherty said. "And he became president again, but he can't get over that. He lost."

By contrast, "the most alive bit of this speech on Thursday night was when he demanded that they face revenge for not showing their speech," Dougherty said, referring to how Trump complained that networks such as ABC and NBC were "part of a plot."

Trump suggested that ABC and NBC should lose their broadcast licenses for not airing his remarks, reporting by The Daily Beast noted, adding that the White House Rapid Response Team even went after members of the press for their coverage afterwards.

DHS chief's election threats shut down as critics tell him he has 'zero power'

Online critics scoffed at threats from the head of the Department of Homeland Security that he would mandate election changes.

At a press conference where DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin threatened to jail state officials, he also said that he plans to make "mandatory" changes to elections, including having states "scrub" their voter rolls. Mullin's remarks came the day after Trump delivered a speech about supposed election security vulnerabilities.

While reactions were swift to his threat to jail state officials who don't cooperate, with blue states daring him to follow through, online critics pointed out that Mullin doesn't have any power to implement the sweeping election changes he planned to mandate.

"Yeah, no lil buddy," former GOP operative Rick Wilson responded on X. "That's not how this works."

"Someone should read the Constitution," wrote Melanie D'Arrigo, a former Democratic congressional candidate and the executive director of the Campaign for New York Health. "The executive Branch cannot mandate states to make changes to how they administer elections."

"Senate Republicans, this is the crap you pretend will not happen when Trump nominees sit in front of you and lie," complained Michael Steele, a political commentator and former chairman of the Republican National Committee. "And you know they are lying. The DHS secretary has NO role to play in our elections. You know that too. 'Mandatory' my a--!"

"Ha! No he's not," immigration attorney and policy analyst Aaron Reichlin-Melnick posted in response to Mullin's claims. "DHS has literally zero power to do this. The Trump admin has lost every single lawsuit on their efforts to get state voter data or change voter requirements. The power to administer elections is given to the states."

"This would be actual proof of rigging an election," commented disability rights advocate James Tate.

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