Along Highway One at Mori Point in Pacifica this morning, folks were alerting passing motorists to their anger at the Trump regime. There were plenty of friendly honks.
The MAGA Budget Bill now moving in the Senate would cripple many of our parks. The National Parks Conservation Association is leading the pushback.
A career foreign service officer, Bridget Brink served as US ambassador to Ukraine under Biden. Now she's running for Congress in her home state of Michigan. It seems possible that having been witness up close to a genuinely existential struggle leaves this observer with "no fucks to give" in a political race.
Over images from the Russian assault on Ukraine, Brink declares: "Appeasing a dictator will never achieve a lasting peace..."
The House district is competitive. There will be other Democratic contestants. I have no idea whether this approach will "work" for Brink, but I find it refreshing.
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As we watch helplessly while Donald Trump playacts the strongman in the most volatile arena in today's world, it doesn't hurt to be reminded of what war, even a "small" war, looks like.
Today is the federal holiday of Juneteenth, created by Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2021. This celebration of freedom, the end of enslavement won in war by the federal Union in 1865, is still a novelty to white America. So it seems worth sharing this short history from people's historian Heather Cox Richardson.
Amazon, Verizon, and other major corporations have ended or reduced their support for Juneteenth celebrations this year, forcing events in major cities to be significantly scaled back, a Popular Information investigation reveals.
.. Amazon rolled back its DEI programs in December 2024. An internal letter from an Amazon senior human resources executive stated that the company would eliminate “outdated” policies and programs. This included removing language from the company’s website about Amazon’s support for “Equity for Black people.” Amazon also removed all references to DEI from its 2024 annual report and donated $1,000,000 to Trump's inaugural committee. Amazon did not respond to a request for comment.
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An LA Times political commentator wondered whether Donald Trump can just make the Juneteenth holiday go away. As in so much of American life which MAGA wants killed off, it turns out that is harder then they may understand.
Trump wouldn’t have the power to do that on his own, according to Loyola Marymount University Law School professor Jessica Levinson.
“Federal holidays are created and abolished by Congress,” Levinson explained, adding that presidents can make recommendations and sign and veto bills, but they cannot unilaterally create or cancel laws.
Our current reality seems to consist of an ongoing test of that proposition. The No Kings protests show there are are lot of us who think our system of government ought to mean we still have a say.
Judge rules that anti-woke is just racism
You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a rancid bigot.Earlier this week, a federal judge in Boston explicitly called out the Trump administration for its “palpably clear” discrimination against racial minorities and LGBTQ+ Americans in a case involving canceled grants from the National Institutes of Health....
Judge [William] Young, who was appointed to the federal bench by Ronald Reagan in 1985, called the terminations “arbitrary and capricious.” But he went further than other judges in the many impoundment suits, calling the administration out for its flagrant animus against racial and sexual minorities.
“I am hesitant to draw this conclusion — but I have an unflinching obligation to draw it — that this represents racial discrimination and discrimination against America’s LGBTQ community,” he said, according to Politico. “That’s what this is. I would be blind not to call it out. My duty is to call it out.“
...“You are bearing down on people of color because of their color,” the judge hammered on. “The Constitution will not permit that.”
... In 1954, [lawyer Joseph] Welch’s “Have you no decency, sir!” marked the beginning of the end for Sen. Joe McCarthy. Public support for his witch hunt collapsed, and he died in disgrace three years later. But decency is in short supply these days, and the White House is digging in.
“It is appalling that a federal judge would use court proceedings to express his political views and preferences,” White House flack Kush Desai sneered. “How is a judge going to deliver an impartial decision when he explicitly stated his biased opinion that the administration’s retraction of illegal DEI funding is racist and anti-LGBTQ?”
A hit dog will holler. And maybe that dog will win a reprieve from the Supreme Court, too. But even so, it still matters when old bulls of the judiciary, particularly conservatives like Judge Young and Judge Royce Lamberth, who enjoined attacks on trans prisoners, call out the Trump regime for turning civil rights laws on their head.
“I’ve never seen a record where racial discrimination was so palpable,” Judge Young fumed. “I’ve sat on this bench now for 40 years. I’ve never seen government racial discrimination like this.”
Once upon a time, (1782 to be specific) we affirmed a national motto: E Pluribus Unum -- out of many one. That's in the national DNA and it isn't going away.
While there is a cadre of Trumpist true believers who will obey the Leader under any circumstances, most of those doing the dirty work of undermining democracy and the rule of law are cowards and opportunists. They’re willing to participate in the destruction of America as we know it because they believe that many others will do the same. As a result, they believe that they are unlikely to face any personal consequences for their actions and may even be rewarded for their lawbreaking.
And what of those who oppose Trumpism? While there are heroes willing to take a stand against tyranny whatever the personal cost, most anti-Trumpists are reluctant to stick their necks out unless they believe that they are part of a widespread resistance that will grant them some measure of safety in numbers.
In other words, the victory or defeat of competitive authoritarianism will depend to a large extent on which side ordinary people believe will win. If Trump looks unstoppable, resistance will wither away and democracy will be lost. On the other hand, if he appears weak and stymied, resistance will grow and — just maybe — American democracy will survive.
So what we saw on Saturday was more than just the juxtaposition of a poorly attended parade that was supposed to glorify the Leader against massive, enthusiastic protests. We also saw a body blow to Trump’s image of invincibility and a demonstration that millions of Americans are willing to stand up for democracy.
... This isn’t the end of the assault on American democracy. It isn’t even the beginning of the end. But it may well be the end of the beginning. Trump spent his first 6 months in office trying to steamroller over all opposition, creating the impression that resistance is futile. Clearly, he hasn’t succeeded. ...
I think Paul's got this right. The No Kings demonstrations across the nation on Saturday were a milestone. If the people lead, maybe we can get more of our leaders to follow. Let's take deep breaths and go forward together in the struggle for democracy and a better future.
Part Two: the people mill about in Civic Center
In this household, we sometimes apply a principle about demonstrations: either the march or the rally. Not both. But Saturday, after recording the start, I took BART down Civic Center to record some of the huge crowd.
Part One: the people assemble in Dolores Park.
I'm told that by the time the march got underway it took two hours to get everyone into the street and off to Civic Center. From the viewpoint of the not-terribly-mobile photographer, it's easier to interact with folks on the grass perimeter. The San Francisco Chronicle says "tens of thousands" of marchers, whatever that means.
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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, many peoples' nomination for NBA basketball's GOAT, and I are the same age. We both came up in California in the 1960s. In this moment of Trump's attempted military coup in our state and nation, he speaks for me.
... I grew up in a time of massive political unrest that changed the country from a fortress guarding the wealthy and their rules that benefited only them to a country that questioned those rules and the authorities enforcing them. Protests advocating for civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, and ending the Vietnam War were daily occurrences. That shock to the system of seeing hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets to demand change jump-started America into a nation that was more aware of injustice and more committed to addressing it.
Protest is an act of love, not one of anger.
U.S. Rep. John Lewis (1940-2020), civil rights activist
As a human rights activist for 60 years, I’m used to the predictable pattern of protests and the inevitable backlash. People who are outraged by the government’s deliberate and callous acts of injustice march through the streets to raise public awareness and gather enough support to end the injustice. They do this after realizing that they will not be getting any help from most elected politicians, who are too afraid of compromising their jobs to do what’s right.
Instead, the government party in charge wants to demonstrate to its supporters that they are powerful and can protect the status quo against change. As they did in the sixties, they send in cops and troops to force a violent confrontation. This then justifies any action the government takes because now they have news footage of violent protesters. The result of this carefully manipulated photo-op violence is the curated disapproval and scolding by politicians relieved to have an excuse to reject protesters. Thousands of lives are being destroyed, but it only takes one burning car to allow people to justify their lack of involvement.
Lost in all this political theater is the injustice that was being protested.
This government was founded on protest.
Thurgood Marshall (1908-1993), first Black Supreme Court justice
No matter how peaceful protesters want to be, it rarely ends up that way. There are too many people who benefit from having it turn violent. First, some infiltrators are the political enemies of the protesters who commit violent acts to discredit the cause. Second, there are hardcore radicals who agree with the principles of the protesters but don’t agree that their non-violent methods produce change fast enough. Third, the police and troops who should be trained in how to de-escalate violence after all these years of facing protests, know that de-escalation is not why they were sent in. Their job is to punish protesters to scare others from protesting. Ironically, they are there to protect a political party’s power, not protect the country.
So, yeah, protests are messy, impure, sloppy, and emotional. For many, it is a last resort born out of frustration, anger, and disappointment for a country that has not lived up to the promise it makes every time it hoists a flag. They see a felon for a president who has been accused of sexual assault more than two dozen times, who has used his office to increase his personal wealth, who dishonors the U.S. Constitution to gain more power, who ignores the U.S. Supreme Court in an effort to cleanse the country of immigrants, legal and illegal, who demands law and order, yet pardons horrible criminals who cheated average people out of millions, and others who invaded the Capitol Building. That’s who we picked as our leader and guardian of our values.
When an individual is protesting society’s refusal to acknowledge his dignity as a human being, his very act of protest confers dignity on him.
Bayard Rustin (1912-1987), Civil Rights Movement leader
New York Times opinion writer and historian Jamelle Bouie breaks down the political theory behind the Trump regime -- why they feel confident that they can and should subdue Senator Alex Padilla, the people of Los Angeles, the people of California, and the entire nation.
... "the president and his various viziers see themselves as the kings of America and the rest of us must obey ...
... "in traditional American political thought, sovereignty belongs to the people...Trump sees his election as something that embodied him as the will of the people ... he is the people in some mystical way and whatever he says goes, he's the boss ... he says that protest constitutes some effort to overturn the will of the people... the political theory of the Trump administration made Trump something like the king, ... unquestioned authority.
... "the Trump government is the closest thing we've ever come to electing the Confederacy... the Confederacy was founded on this fundamental notion that humans were not equal, some were to be high, some were to be low and that's clearly the operating belief system of the administration. ...
... "Kristi Noem is promising a January 6 led by the administration ... they'll storm any capital they need to to make sure that we obey. they don't want to govern us, they want to rule us. "
We used to say, "be there or be square." That seems right for this weekend's No Kings Day on Saturday.
... our friend Reverend William Barber says: A king is only a king if we bow down.
A single mobilization won’t turn this ship around. But it can do a few very important things:
Change the narrative. A massive show of popular opposition everywhere in the country can disrupt Trump’s effort to project strength. It shows that resistance is big, powerful, growing, and everywhere.
Bring in new people. A mobilization of this scale and scope reaches people who aren’t yet engaged, and -- if done right -- helps to draw them into a cycle of action and relationships on the ground.
Foster community. When you show up, you realize that not only are you not alone -- you’re actually part of something enormous. And that helps to build the shared sense of identity we’ll need for the path ahead.
Spread courage. After Hands Off!, we heard from people in positions of power within institutions -- law firms, universities (one big university, in fact), and elsewhere -- who told us they were emboldened by the protests to push back on pressure from the Trump regime. As we often say, courage is contagious.
Trump’s birthday parade and his attack on LA are all part of the same agenda of fascist theatrics, divide and conquer politics, and the consolidation of power.
Trump wants to look strong. What he doesn’t understand is that true power comes from the people. And on June 14th, we’re going to prove it.
Student of eastern European fascism Timothy Snyder calls for a new birth of freedom:
In the end, and in the beginning, and at all moments of strife, a government of the people, by the people, for the people depends upon the awareness and the actions of all of us. A democracy only exists if a people exist, and a people only exists in individuals' awareness of one another of itself and of their need to act together. This weekend Trump plans a celebration of American military power as a celebration of himself on his birthday -- military dictatorship nonsense. This is a further step towards a different kind of regime. It can be called out, and it can be overwhelmed.
Thousands of Americans across the land, many veterans among them, have worked hard to organize protests this Saturday — against tyranny, for freedom, for government of the people, by the people, for the people. Join them if you can. No Kings Day is June 14th.
