Stephen Miller is not a happy camper. Miller (also known as Pee-wee German) is the most fascist member of Trump's Administration and one of his closest advisors. Miller is the man most responsible for ICE's cruel raids that have uprooted lives and destroyed communities. Stephen Miller is the face of evil. And that is not just MY assessment. That was the assessment of his cousin, Alissa Kasmer, who wrote a lengthy, heartfelt Facebook post in July decrying the monster he had become. (Miller's uncle, David Glosser, had already denounced him in 2018 for being an immigration hypocrite.)
So why is Miller unhappy? He doesn't think the ICE raids into Blue cities are enough. He doesn't think sending the National Guard into Blue Cities to protect ICE agents from angry crowds is enough. He hates the Posse Comitatus Act which prohibits the military from being used to enforce the law against U.S. citizens, and he is pushing President Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act which would override the Posse Comitatus act and empower the President to do just that.
The Insurrection Act allows the president to use the military under three circumstances.
- When the legislature or governor of a state calls for help from the federal government to suppress an insurrection against the state.
- To enforce federal law or suppress a rebellion when local and state law enforcement are incapable or unwilling to do so.
- To protect the civil rights of a class of people when state or local officials are unwilling to do so.
(See Rebellion vs. Insurrection — What's the Difference?)
Now we know why Trump and Miller are describing Portland and Chicago as lawless hellholes even though they are nowhere near the most violent cities. (Portland had the 72nd most violent crime rate per capita among cities with a population over 100,000 in 2024, and Chicago ranked 80th. The governors of both Oregon and Illinois have denounced Trump's attempts to send the military into Portland and Chicago, and Trump isn't sending them in to protect a class of people. So the only way they can justify invoking the Insurrection Act is to exaggerate the hell out of Portland and Chicago's crime rates and make them look like war zones.
Of course, Trump and his supporters say that we shouldn't be looking at data from 2024. They claim that recent protests in Chicago and Portland near ICE facilities have turned those areas into war zones. But the courts aren't buying it. US District Court Judge April Perry noted that there were never more than 200 protestors at Chicago's ICE facility and the 100 state and local law enforcement officials were able to handle the crowd without federalized troops being sent in. Trump's supporters will discount Judge Perry's ruling because she was appointed by President Biden. But what about Judge Karin Immergut who issued a temporary restraining order against sending federalized National Guard into Portland because Trump's assertion that federal and local law enforcement could not handle the protests was "simply untethered to the facts"? She was appointed by (drum roll, please) . . . DONALD TRUMP!
Miller responded to Judge Immergut's ruling well, and by "responded well" I mean he responded like a two-year-old on meth.
Legal insurrection. The President is the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, not an Oregon judge. Portland and Oregon law enforcement, at the direction of local leaders, have refused to aid ICE officers facing relentless terrorist assault and threats to life. (There are more… https://t.co/vMwF0nlU9U
— Stephen Miller (@StephenM) October 5, 2025
Note the word "insurrection" in his tweet. It's Miller's way of nudging Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act. And I'm not the only one who was alarmed by Miller's language. Former US Attorney, Preet Bharara, explained just how dangerous Miller's rhetoric is.
What the hell even is that? It’s a self-cancelling oxymoron, as absurd as saying nonviolent war or lawful terrorism. By definition, an insurrection is a violent uprising against authority. Legal process, on the other hand, is the authority of law and action.
You can’t have a legal insurrection any more than you can have a peaceful war. The phrase collapses under its own weight. It’s nonsense and dangerous nonsense at that. . . .
Miller’s rhetoric isn’t just moronic, it’s dangerous. Tossing around words like “insurrection” and “coup” to malign lawful court decisions has a distinctly authoritarian echo. It’s the kind of language tyrants use to delegitimize any challenge to their power. To claim emergency powers in the absence of any emergency. As Garry Kasparov recently said, “Everything will be called an emergency until total control is established. Once that happens, it doesn’t matter what you call it anymore.” The message is chilling. In Miller’s view, if you don’t bow to the executive’s will, you’re an enemy of the state, even if you’re a co-equal branch of government. We’ve seen this kind of demonization of judges in other countries and it never ends well.
Will Miller be able to convince Trump to send the military in to Blue cities against their will? I don't know. But it looks like Trump is trying to prepare the military to invade on his command.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered more than 800 admirals and generals to travel to Quantico Virginia on short notice for a meeting to hear him and Trump deliver messages that could have been delivered through Zoom or email. Trump's lecture was rambling and unhinged, with much of it being a diatribe against the left. I urge you to watch his speech yourself and form your own opinion, but if you don't have time to watch the video, then please read Charlie Syke's column "The War On America". Here are the alarming highlights that he pointed out.
Trump suggested the generals and admirals would be crucial to his fight against the “enemy from within” and could use the homeland as a “training ground.”
“We’re under invasion from within,” Trump said. “No different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult in many ways because they don’t wear uniforms.”
He added: “In our inner cities – which we’re going to be talking about because it’s a big part of war now. It’s a big part of war.”
At another point: “I told Pete, we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military – National Guard, but military. Because we’re going into Chicago very soon.”
“San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles. They’re very unsafe places. And we’re gonna straighten them out one-by-one. It this is gonna be a major part for some of the people in this room. It’s a war, too. It’s a war from within.”
Here are timestamps for key parts of the video.
36:44 – Trump starts talking about vicious people and demonizes the press.
38:04: Trump starts talking about America being under invasion from within.
45:55 - 47:27: Trump said, "They spit, we hit." He then gives ICE officers permission to murder anyone who throws a brick at their cars.
47:15 – 48:06: Trump talks about blowing up Venezuelan boats that might be carrying drugs. He acknowledges that he is destroying Venezuela's fishing industry.
48:32: Trump mentions his executive order to train a quick reaction force to quell civil disturbances and tells the military officers that they need to handle the enemy from within before it gets out of control.
Trump's attempt to enlist the military in his partisan war against the left is alarming, but we can take comfort in the fact that the admirals and generals seemed at least uncomfortable, or outright dismayed, at what they were hearing. The military has a long history of being politically neutral, and they seemed distressed by Trump's ambition to deploy them as a weapon against his enemies. Do you want a chaser after watching Trump's speech or reading Charlie Sykes's summary of the speech? Then look at Sykes's follow-up column--"Yesterday Was Not as Bad as You Thought." It consists of just a three-sentence quote from former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and one picture, but oh-what-a-picture. The expression on the faces of our highest-ranking military officers says it all.
Update 10/13/25: The Trump regime wants you to think Portland is a war zone. Watch this video and see if you agree with Trump-appointed Judge Immergut's assessment that their depiction of Portland is "simply untethered to the facts."
