“As an adjudicated insurrectionist, Trump is an illegitimate president according to Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, and therefore every official act as president will be illegitimate.”
–Mike Zonta, co-editor of OccupySF.net
The 14th Amendment states: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”
BAY AREA: NO WAR ON IRAN, NO WAR ON MIGRANTS, NO WAR ON PALESTINE!
Friday, June 20 5PM SF Federal Building (90 7th st)
As the U.S. escalates aggression on Iran—backing Israeli strikes and pushing for war—it exposes its imperialist playbook: defend Zionism, crush resistance. From Gaza to Tehran, the U.S. fuels war and genocide to maintain control.
At home, the war continues through ICE raids, family separations, and repression of migrants—all part of the same violent system.
We reject this imperialist war machine and stand with all people resisting Zionism and U.S. domination.
SANCTIONS AND ARMS EMBARGO ON ISRAEL NOW!
JOIN US in the streets: Friday, June 20 at 5PM at San Francisco Federal Building.
I had a great time at Saturday’s No Kings protest. It was inspiring seeing photos of similar actions across the nation. Anti-Trump forces are great at mobilizing rallies. Now the focus should be on expanding grassroots organizing. It’s the best strategy to win over Trump voters and others who have yet to join the opposition.
Organizing shapes public attitudes. So does the lack of organizing. The November 2024 election further confirmed this.
People who canvassed voters in swing states often felt their targets should have been called or door-knocked several months earlier. That isn’t done by volunteers flying into a state for a weekend. Or by nightly phone calls to voter lists. Rather, it’s what fulltime organizers do.
This is particularly true with young voters. The Democratic Party still shortchanges organizing programs targeted to youth. Young people who feel disconnected from politics do not suddenly become engaged by a stranger knocking on their door two weeks before an election. A deeper relationship—like those fostered by community organizers—is needed.
Increased organizing is the best strategy for changing the nation’s political dynamics. But how does that happen? The grassroots organizing infrastructure that built support for progressive goals from the 1970’s through 2008 is largely gone.
It must be rebuilt if national progressive policies are to return.
The Rise of Community Organizing
In the heyday of community organizing we had the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, the primarily Christian-funded Industrial Areas Foundation (founded by Saul Alinsky), the Center for Community Change, National People’s Action and the nationwide community group ACORN. Connected to these groups, and there were far more networks than listed above, were a huge number of community-based nonprofits that received funding to do grassroots organizing.
Secular foundations supported organizing. Many were staffed by the activists emerging from 1960’s and 70’s movements.
We are in a different organizing landscape today.
Progressive constituencies took a huge hit in 2009 when the foundation world defunded the national organizing group, ACORN. ACORN was the nation’s preeminent progressive grassroots organizing group. It did more to recruit and develop young organizers than any other entity.
A book should be written on the negative impact on low-income people, immigrants and other vulnerable communities caused by ACORN’s demise. And the tragedy is that foundations walked away from the group based on a misleading story going viral manufactured by a right-wing activist.
ACORN built community leadership. It offered political education to those bypassed by election campaigns. Building community leadership requires one on one meetings and the development of organizing skills. It’s a process many organizations deem too time consuming. But it makes a difference on the ground.
And in winning the hearts and minds of voters on election day.
Based on funding patterns some foundations have lost faith in the power of organizing. The only current national organizations that rigorously trains large numbers of young organizers is the PIRG’s and their related Environment America. The PIRG’s New Voter Project has boosted campus turnouts but lacks the resources to reach young voters who are not in school.
Obama Defunds Organizing
ACORN’s demise coincided with President Obama’s decision to sharply reduce the scope of the powerful Obama for America that got him elected. Obama had over two million campaign volunteers. Those were the troops that could have won passage of comprehensive immigration reform, labor law reform, health care with a public option, and other progressive policies.
After Obama’s 2008 victory I wrote, “After the Victory, Engaging Obama Volunteers.” I saw his massive grassroots campaign as becoming the mobilizing base for his presidency. But Obama disempowered this massive organization just when it was needed most. When the Tea Party emerged to resist Obama’s plans for real health care reform, comprehensive immigration reform, and other big 2009 priorities, the powerful grassroots campaign organization that elected Obama was gone.
Obama’s post-election Organizing for America group was a shadow of the campaign organization. After enlisting a new generation of organizers, Obama pretty much let them disappear.
Obama’s team was allegedly uncomfortable with Obama-funded organizers pressuring Democrats. So to avoid potentially causing discomfort to Democrats not on board with the president, Obama sacrificed his agenda.
That’s what happens when Democratic power-brokers don’t fund organizing. Progressive policies lose.
You don’t expand a movement by repeatedly mobilizing those already involved. Organizing reaches people who do not attend these events. Organizing builds a broader political base.
My book shows how UFW organizers trained by Fred Ross Sr. went on to lifetime careers working for progressive change (a new film on Ross, American Agitators, will soon be released). Had the UFW not invested in organizing, two generations of activists who furthered social justice for decades would not have had the opportunity.
Organizing Wins Elections
The UFW’s door to door organizing campaigns won Robert Kennedy the 1968 California presidential primary. It helped elect Jerry Brown governor in 1974. The UFW door to door outreach model won Barack Obama the Democratic presidential nomination and then the White House.
Yet the forces that spent over $1 billion to elect Kamala Harris are not investing meaningful dollars in organizing. That has to change. Organizing reaches the low-information voters who disproportionately backed Trump.
So while we get inspired by how many took to the streets last weekend, let’s think about how to reach those who did not attend. Let’s think how best to get them on our side.
I think that primarily happens through community organizing.
Randy Shaw is the Editor of Beyond Chron and the Director of San Francisco’s Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which publishes Beyond Chron. Shaw’s new book is the revised and updated, The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco. His prior books include Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America. The Activist’s Handbook: Winning Social Change in the 21st Century, and Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century.
This breaking news piece was first published by Ken Klippenstein on his Substack. Zeteo is republishing it with his permission, as it includes important revelations.
Netanyahu talks to Trump during a meeting in the Oval Office on April 7, 2025. Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Donald Trump is lying about almost everything regarding Israel and Iran.
Trump knew that Israel was going to attack Iran, knew the basic outlines of the strategy, and implicitly gave the U.S. okay.
Trump also quietly (and enthusiastically) embraces Israel’s unstated goal of “regime change,” two high-level U.S. officials involved in the internal discussions tell me.
Trump hasn’t officially “approved” anything, hasn’t committed anything to paper, and hasn’t signed off on any specific act. But in the dance of phone calls and back channel messages and things said and not said, the two countries found agreement. Trump has given Israel a green light by not saying no.
This is the world of statecraft at the highest level, where leaders say one thing and do another. This is not only for “deniability” sake or to intentionally mislead the public. It’s just the way of the world that includes a set of rules and workarounds that allows leaders to never be frank.
There are massive risks involved in Israel’s campaign, and in America’s implicit support, but in the ways of national security, we just don’t get to discuss them.
It all started during the Biden administration, the two knowledgeable insiders tell me, when Israel first pitched America on the campaign playing out now. Fearing escalation and things spinning out of control, fearing the United States getting dragged in, fearing Iranian civilian deaths, Biden “vetoed” Israel’s plan, that is, under the table and off the record, in the shadow world of deniable diplomacy.
Washington’s lack of assent meant that direct action to operate outside the context of the Hamas war off the table. Instead, Israel in 2024 carried out a spate of assassinations of extremely high-level adversaries. First, Israel killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. Then they bombed an Iranian embassy building in Damascus, killing high-ranking Iranian generals. Israel carried out the devastating pager operation and killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Nobody expected these operations to be as successful as they were, which emboldened Israel.
On April 1, 2024 Iran attacked Israel in a massive and unprecedented missile and drone attack. Quietly, the U.S. military helped to defend its number one ally. The Arab states looked the other way. The Iranian attack was largely thwarted which, sources tell me, came as a surprise to the U.S. government and further emboldened Israel. Even so, Joe Biden didn’t want a broader war and the risk it entailed. So he kicked the can down the road to Donald Trump.
None of this, of course, began in 2024. Iran and Israel have been engaged in a tit-for-tat shadow war for years, with Iran arming Hamas and other Israeli adversaries. This culminated in Hamas’ October 7 attack in 2023, a traumatic event that could not have taken place without Iran’s long standing support and funding.
That shadow war is what’s at the background of all of this, not Iran’s nuclear capabilities, the hobbyhorse of a Washington unwilling to deal with the reality of the decades-long war and the absence of our own policy for finding peace with Iran.
What has changed since 2024 is Donald Trump. Trump has dropped the Biden administration’s use of the word “ironclad” to describe U.S. support for Israel, and the president openly favors better relations with the rich autocratic Arab states.
And yes, there’s the additional factor that the president thinks he can negotiate anything and everything. But as he has pursued nuclear talks with Iran, he’s also warned of the consequences if those talks failed.
“The president has made clear that Iran cannot have uranium enrichment,” Vice President Vance said today. “And he said repeatedly that this would happen one of two ways — the easy way or the ’other’ way.”
In reality, while the negotiations commenced, in secret chambers involving just a handful of principal officials, Trump and his closest advisors talked about Israel’s long-standing “plan.”
A hint of these discussions appeared this past weekend, when Trump told the Wall Street Journal that his team had foreknowledge of Israel’s plans.
The lesson Israel took from 2024 is that Iran might be able to bloody its nose, but not destroy it or the region. Not now, anyway. Israel also assesses that its many attacks on Iran’s proxies, the emergence of a new Syrian regime, the “failure” of the nuclear talks, and, of course, its precise intelligence on Iran’s leadership, makes this the best moment to act.
“We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran,” Trump blurted out today — his use of the word “we” a tell that he is fully behind Israel.
It will take a while for the military and the bureaucracy (and of course Congress) to catch up. The news media will be filled with stories about the contradictions of this and that, about how close Iran was or wasn’t to acquiring a nuclear weapon, about World War III and how toppling the Iranian regime is just the next Iraq or Libya. Right up until “it” happens, whatever it will be.
“Everyone should evacuate Tehran!” Trump said Monday.
President Trump has been unusually tight-lipped about Israel’s military campaign. Asked Monday about the possibility of regime change, the normally loquacious Trump said simply, “I want to see no nuclear weapon in Iran; and we’re well on our way to making sure that happens.” Pressed further at the G7 (before the president walked out) about what he “knew,” he answered totally out of character that he didn’t want to talk about that.
Israel has not yet “officially” said that its goal is regime change — that’s part of the game as well — but with much of Iran’s military leadership eliminated in a lightning-fast series of strikes since Friday, Israel’s objectives clearly extend beyond just halting their nuclear program. According to the IDF, as of yesterday, Israel has struck more than 865 targets (really aimpoints at targets, not targets themselves). The IDF says that 20 plus senior military commanders have been eliminated. Israel is also attacking Iranian missile launchers and it says it has already eliminated 120, a third of Iran’s force.
Aware of Israel’s desire to mount a stronger attack, Trump publicly said that he wanted 60 days to negotiate with Iran.
“I had 60 days, and they had 60 days, and on the 61st day, I said, we don’t have a deal,” Trump said during a press conference yesterday.
Israel didn’t ask. Trump didn’t say no. Israel waited and prepared even more, timing the execution of its campaign for precisely when the talks faltered.
By laying out a deadline like that, Trump was signaling to Israel, without explicitly saying so, that the United States would then not oppose Israel launching their military campaign. In discussions with the uniformed military at the highest level — I’m told only a half dozen generals were involved in the discussion — everyone agreed that it was wise to keep the U.S. at arm’s length from Iran’s reprisal in order to best serve U.S. interests. (Trump also didn’t want to antagonize his Arab friends like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who have publicly come out in support of Iran.)
The desire to minimize blowback on America is clear in the Trump administration’s public messaging. Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a brief statement on Thursday saying little more than that Israel’s action was “unilateral” and that “We are not involved in strikes against Iran…”
The statement closes with a warning: “Iran should not target U.S. interests or personnel.”
“The president has shown remarkable restraint in keeping our military’s focus on protecting our troops and protecting our citizens,” Vance said today. “He may decide he needs to take further action to end Iranian enrichment. That decision ultimately belongs to the president.”
Indeed it does, and that decision is formulating as Trump works himself into a lather. “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER,” Trump posted today, all caps and all in. At least for now.
It is a hellish world, when this dance of carefully worded statements, obfuscation, and even denial reign supreme. Trump, Vance, and Rubio are all lying, but then that’s the strategy.
Numerous House progressives said Tuesday that they will support legislation that would force President Donald Trump to obtain congressional permission to wage war on Iran, a development that followed Monday’s introduction of two Senate measures aimed at stopping Trump from dragging the United States into the widening Israel-Iran war.
Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) on Tuesday introduced legislation affirming the legal requirement under the War Powers Resolution of 1973—also known as the War Powers Act—for the president to notify lawmakers within 48 hours of committing troops to military action and limiting such action to 60 days, with a 30-day withdrawal period, unless Congress declares war or issues an authorization for the use of military force.
“The Constitution does not permit the executive branch to unilaterally commit an act of war against a sovereign nation that hasn’t attacked the United States,” Massie explained in a statement. “Congress has the sole power to declare war against Iran. The ongoing war between Israel and Iran is not our war. Even if it were, Congress must decide such matters according to our Constitution.”
In a post on the social media site X, Massie thanked the resolution’s co-sponsors, all of them Democrats: Don Beyer (Va.), Greg Casar (Texas), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Lloyd Doggett (Texas), Jesús “Chuy” García (Ill.), Val Hoyle (Ore.), Pramila Jayapal (Wash.), Summer Lee (Pa.), Jim McGovern (Mass.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Delia Ramirez (Ill.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), and Nydia Velazquez (N.Y.).
More lawmakers—possibly including Republicans—are expected to sign on to the measure.
“The president does not have the power to unilaterally declare war. Congressional authorization isn’t optional,” Lee said on social media. “When some profit both financially and politically from endless war, the rest of us pay the price. We can’t let them lie us into another conflict that will cost innocent lives.”
Tlaib asserted that “the American people aren’t falling for it again. We were lied to about ‘weapons of mass destruction’ in Iraq that killed millions [and] forever changed lives.”
The progressive political action committee Justice Democrats welcomed Massie’s measure: “Here’s an opportunity for bipartisanship that doesn’t sell out the American people. Every member of Congress should oppose U.S. involvement, funding, weapons, or troops fighting another endless war in the Middle East.”
The House proposal follows Monday’s introduction of a war powers resolution by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and bill by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) that would prevent the Trump administration from using federal funds for a military attack on Iran without congressional approval. It also echoes a 2020 resolution proposed in the then-Democrat-controlled House that would have banned Trump from waging war on Iran without lawmakers’ approval.
Explaining her support for Massie’s legislation, Omar said, “I support this resolution because the American people do not want another war.”
Indeed, an Economist/YouGov poll published Tuesday revealed that only 16% of surveyed voters “think the U.S. should get involved in the conflict between Israel and Iran.” Just 10% of respondents who voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris last year and 19% of 2024 Trump voters want the U.S. to wage war on Iran, as do 15% of self-described Democrats, 11% of Independents, and 23% of Republicans.
A separate survey commissioned by Demand Progress and conducted by the Bullfinch Group recently found that 53% of registered voters—including 58% of Democrats, 47% of Independents, and 56% of Republicans—want Trump to “obtain congressional authorization before striking targets in other countries.”
“We applaud Rep. Massie and Sen. Kaine for introducing these resolutions to keep us out of yet another war in the Middle East,” Demand Progress senior policy adviser Cavan Kharrazian said Tuesday. “It should be in the interest of Republicans and Democrats to uphold the Constitution and prevent Israel from dragging us into a disastrous war with Iran.”
“The American people, including a clear majority of Republican voters, believe the president must obtain congressional authorization before initiating strikes against another country,” Kharrazian added. “Congress must listen to them and reassert its constitutional war powers authority by passing these resolutions.”
Israel claims it attacked Iran to stop it from obtaining nuclear weapons. However, successive U.S. intelligence assessments have concluded for decades—most recently in March—that Iran is not trying to build nukes. On Tuesday, Trump brushed off his own director of national intelligence’s findings that Iran is not close to having a nuclear bomb.
As Trump ratcheted up his cryptic threats against Tehran amid ongoing Israeli attacks on Iran and Iranian counterstrikes, anti-war voices including the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) and the peace group CodePink urged restraint and negotiation to avert escalating the Mideast crisis.
NIAC, which is circulating a petition demanding Congress act to avert U.S. intervention, is planning to hold a Tuesday afternoon No War With Iran Action Hour co-hosted with Peace Action and Action Corps.
“Trump continues to renege on his own commitments to diplomacy and an end to wars by perpetuating [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s war of aggression through his own vocal support and U.S. military equipment and personnel in the region,” NIAC said Tuesday. “Israel’s assaults on Tehran have killed upwards of 224 Iranians and hospitalized over 1,277 more.”
“Happening at the same time, in just the last day alone, Israeli forces have also killed at least 51 Palestinians desperate for aid and food at a World Food Program site in southern Gaza,” NIAC noted. “There is no telling how much more devastation for Iran, Israel, and the U.S. an expanded war on Iran would bring.”
“President Trump must immediately halt military aid and support for the Israel war on Iran,” the group added, “and if he will not, Congress must act within its constitutional authority to save millions of American, Iranian, Israeli, and Palestinian lives.”
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Demonstrators protest outside the KI Convention Center before the start of a town hall meeting with Elon Musk on March 30, 2025 in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
(Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images)
“We cannot allow billionaires and powerful corporate interests to continue undermining democracy by injecting unlimited amounts of money into the political process.”
Independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and seven of his Democratic colleagues on Tuesday urged party leaders to ban super PAC and other forms of dark money from party primaries to curb outside corporate giving and the shadowy influence of the megarich.
“We cannot allow billionaires and powerful corporate interests to continue undermining democracy by injecting unlimited amounts of money into the political process,” states the letter to Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). “As you know, the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission has been a disaster for our country.”
Citizens United allowed corporations and outside organizations to spend unlimited amounts of money on U.S. politics, often by giving through unaccountable political action committees (super PACs), which can take donations from groups that don’t have to disclose the source of their funding. Since the high court’s landmark decision, “dark money groups have spent at least $4.3 billion on federal elections” alone, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
Schumer has said that “overturning Citizens United is probably more important than any other single thing we could do to preserve this great and grand democracy,” the senators’ letter notes. Martin has promised a resolution on dark money and that he “will be pushing hard for our party to come up with solutions on this so that we actually have our candidates and campaigns realize that we have to live our values.”
“We support legislation to comprehensively reform campaign finance to remove the corrosive influence of money in our elections, including by overturning the Citizens United decision,” the senators wrote. “But we don’t have to wait until then. There is action we can take now to get billionaire super PACs and dark money out of Democratic primaries. In recent election cycles, right-wing billionaires have spent hundreds of millions of dollars funding super PACs to dominate in our primaries.”
“In addition to intervening in Democratic primaries, it is not uncommon for these same super PACs and dark money groups to fund general election campaigns where they work overtime to defeat Democrats,” they pointed out. “The result: they have defeated a number of excellent members in the House and Senate. That is unacceptable.”
Republican President Donald Trump was elected to a second term last year with significant support from the richest person on Earth, Elon Musk—who then spearheaded the administration’s sweeping assault on the federal bureaucracy via their so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
“The American people are disgusted with a corrupt political system that allows Elon Musk to spend $270 million to elect Donald Trump. They want change. We can make change,” argued Sanders (Vt.) and Democratic Sens. Ed Markey (Mass.), Jeff Merkley (Ore.), Chris Murphy (Conn.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Peter Welch (Vt.), and Chris Van Hollen (Md.).
“If our opposition to Citizens United is going to be taken seriously, we must begin by cleaning our own house. Super PAC money and dark money must be banned from Democratic primaries,” the coalition asserted, pointing to a recent example of state action as proof that the policy “is not some pie in the sky dream.”
As the letter details, “The Arizona Democratic Party recently took steps to bar super PAC money from primaries by adopting a resolution committing to ‘ensure, to the greatest extent possible, that candidates in Democratic primaries are not benefited by, dependent on, or elected due to outside or independent electioneering spending’ and launching a process to develop enforcement procedures to implement this commitment.”
After those moves, Sanders—who caucuses with Democrats and sought the party’s presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020—had congratulated the Arizona party “for getting the ball rolling on this enormously important issue,” declaring: “Billionaires must not be allowed to buy Democratic primary elections. Other states should follow suit.”
Similarly, the new letter congratulates the state party and says that “the national Democratic Party must follow.”
Since last November’s election, when Democrats lost not only the White House but also both chambers of Congress—setting up Trump and Republican lawmakers to push their “Big Beautiful Bill” that would give tax cuts to the rich while gutting key healthcare and anti-hunger programs—Sanders has challenged Democratic Party leaders to actually prioritize working people and launched a Fighting Oligarchy Tour that’s visited several states.
Meanwhile, Schumer has faced pressure to step down from leadership after leading nine other members of the Democratic caucus in helping Republicans advance a GOP stopgap funding bill to a final vote in March. That decision provoked fresh calls for progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)—a frequent speaker on Sanders’ tour—to launch a primary challenge against him for 2028.
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In a lengthy post on the social media platform X, U.S. Vice President JD Vance urged Americans to “trust” President Donald Trump to make the right decision about potential war with Iran—but progressive observers noted that Vance’s 374-word exposition was based on an entirely false premise: that the president has the authority to unilaterally decide to take military action against a foreign country.
“If it involves military action, that decision belongs to Congress, which has not authorized war against Iran,” said Matt Duss, a former foreign policy adviser to U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and executive vice president at the Center for International Policy. “A former senator should know this.”
Vance said he could provide a look “from the inside” amid escalating tensions over Israel’s bombardment of hundreds of targets in Iran, which have killed more than 220 people since last Friday.
The airstrikes came amid U.S. talks with Iran over the Middle Eastern country’s nuclear program, which Iranian officials say is used only for civilian purposes. Trump exited the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran during his first term, even though the deal effectively blocked Iran from militarizing its program.
On Tuesday, Trump suggested the U.S. and Israel could target Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, and demanded the country’s “unconditional surrender”—intensifying concerns that the administration intends to directly involve U.S. troops in the conflict.
Already, Air Force refueling planes have headed for Europe in recent days, and Trump demanded that Tehran’s population of 10 million people evacuate the city at 2:00 am local time on Tuesday—suggesting the U.S. is already involved.
In his post on X, Vance expounded on what he said was widespread “confusion” about Iran’s nuclear capabilities since the first Trump administration tore up the 2015 deal, before claiming that Trump “has shown remarkable restraint in keeping our military’s focus on protecting our troops and protecting our citizens,” and that the president “may decide he needs to take further action to end Iranian enrichment.”
“That decision ultimately belongs to the president,” claimed Vance.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) suggested the vice president was obfuscating the simple question of whether the U.S. military should become directly involved in the conflict. Despite silence from top Democrats including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), at least 25 lawmakers have faced the issue head-on by supporting legislation to stop Trump from unilaterally starting a war with Iran.
“That is a lot of words with no position. Will you stand with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and me and oppose U.S. strikes in Iran without congressional authorization?” asked Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), naming the only congressional Republican who has backed a war powers resolution regarding Iran so far.
Vance said as recently as 2023 that he would not support unprovoked U.S. military action against Iran.
“If you’re talking about an attack on the Iranian mainland,” he toldCBS News at the time, “I think that would be a significant escalation.”
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From the acclaimed author of Listen, Liberal and What’s the Matter with Kansas, a scathing collection of his incisive commentary on our cruel times–perfect for this political moment
What does a middle-class democracy look like when it comes apart? When, after forty years of economic triumph, America’s winners persuade themselves that they owe nothing to the rest of the country?
With his sharp eye for detail, Thomas Frank takes us on a wide-ranging tour through present-day America, showing us a society in the late stages of disintegration and describing the worlds of both the winners and the losers–the sprawling mansion districts as well as the lives of fast-food workers.
Rendezvous with Oblivion is a collection of interlocking essays examining how inequality has manifested itself in our cities, in our jobs, in the way we travel–and of course in our politics, where in 2016, millions of anxious ordinary people rallied to the presidential campaign of a billionaire who meant them no good.
These accounts of folly and exploitation are here brought together in a single volume unified by Frank’s distinctive voice, sardonic wit, and anti-orthodox perspective. They capture a society where every status signifier is hollow, where the allure of mobility is just another con game, and where rebellion too often yields nothing.
For those who despair of the future of our country and of reason itself, Rendezvous with Oblivion is a booster shot of energy, reality, and moral outrage.
Thomas Frank is the author of Pity the Billionaire, The Wrecking Crew, and What’s the Matter with Kansas? A former columnist for The Wall Street Journal and Harper’s, Frank is the founding editor of The Baffler and writes regularly for Salon. He lives outside Washington, D.C.
San Francisco has 43,000 undocumented immigrants — 5% of the city’s population, according to 2019 estimates by the Migration Policy Institute. And nearly 40% of them are from Central America.
Many sanctuary laws emerged in the 1980s to help Central American refugees fleeing U.S.-backed wars.
Sylvie Sturm/San Francisco Public Press
Sisters Genesis, Daisy and Dulce — on behalf of their parents, who immigrated from Guatemala decades ago — protest the Trump Administration’s plans to conduct mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. They joined a Feb. 14 march from San Mateo through San Bruno, Daly City and San Francisco.
This article is adapted from an episode of our podcast, “Civic.” Click the audio player below to hear the full story.
Ever since President Donald Trump’s inauguration this year, thousands of residents and officials across the Bay Area have been showing support for municipal and state policies that protect undocumented immigrants.
Communities from San Mateo to Dublin have held protests each week in response to the Trump administration’s promises of mass deportation and threats to cut federal funding to sanctuary cities.
Sisters Genesis, Daisy and Dulce joined a 20-mile march on Jan. 18 from San Mateo through San Bruno, Daly City and San Francisco while holding signs stating, “My parents fought for my future. Now I will fight for theirs.”
They declined to provide a last name to protect their parents, who fled extreme poverty in Guatemala decades earlier.
“They just think we’re all criminals,” Daisy said, “but at the end of day, we’re not, we’re not — we’re just trying to work.”
Living in the United States without documentation is rarely considered a serious crime since entry without a visa is a misdemeanor, and overstaying a visa — the case with most undocumented immigrants — is a civil violation, not a criminal one. Individuals may be charged with a felony only if they are deported and re-enter illegally.
Nevertheless, Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, has characterized all undocumented immigrants as criminals while justifying Trump’s authorization for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to enter schools and churches.
“It’s not OK to enter this country illegally. It’s a crime,” Homan told CNN. “National security threats and public safety threats have no safe haven in this country, and we’ll go where we got to go.”https://player.simplecast.com/1f0fb759-82f1-42bc-bfc6-0d448d69175a?dark=false
This episode of “Civic” examines the roots of U.S. immigration challenges, San Francisco’s 40-year history as a sanctuary city, the impact of the Trump administration’s threat of mass deportation, and how city officials and civil rights advocates are responding.
Ana Garcia, 35, who grew up in the United States under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program established in 2012, co-organized the 20-mile march. She urged 300 protestors gathered at city hall in Daly City to push back against rhetoric that demonizes immigrants.
“We work hard, and we take care of everyone who needs our help, and we don’t deserve to be treated this way,” Garcia said. “We don’t deserve to live in fear. We don’t deserve to be disrespected and dehumanized every time the president opens his mouth. Enough is enough.”
Sylvie Sturm / San Francisco Public PressHundreds of protestors gather on the steps of City Hall in Daly City on Feb. 14 for one stop on a 20-mile march from San Mateo through San Bruno, Daly City and San Francisco to oppose the Trump Administration’s plans to conduct mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.
San Francisco has 43,000 undocumented immigrants — 5% of the city’s population, according to 2019 estimates by the Migration Policy Institute. And nearly 40% of them are from Central America.
Roberto Hernandez, a longtime Mission District community organizer, said many of those immigrants fled with their children to escape extreme poverty, violence and chaos wrought by U.S.-backed wars that propped up generations of corrupt regimes and weakened institutions.
“It’s inhumane,” Hernandez said. “You’ve been here 30 years, and you made a better life for yourself. You planted seeds because you came to live the American dream. And now the American dream is becoming the American nightmare.”
Historical U.S. involvement harmed Central America
U.S.-backed conflicts in the mid to late 20th century throughout Central America fueled political corruption, military crackdowns and deep social divisions, leading to a huge exodus.
One of the most notorious military actions occurred in the early 1980s when President Ronald Reagan authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to support the Contras, a right-wing Nicaraguan militia, to combat the influence of the leftist Sandinistas.
This kind of intervention goes back to 1912, when the U.S. Navy and Marines helped to overthrow a president seen as unfriendly to American business interests. Then from the 1930s to the 1970s, the United States propped up the Somoza dictatorship.
When the Sandinistas overthrew the regime in 1979, Washington drew Honduras into the conflict by training Contra forces there and building the largest American military base in the hemisphere outside the United States.
Honduras was already impoverished. American fruit corporations began turning it into a huge banana plantation at the start of the 20th century and dominated its economy and politics, making it the original “banana republic.”
In October 1985, San Francisco adopted its first official sanctuary city policy, the City of Refuge ordinance, which barred local law enforcement from cooperating with immigration officials unless required by superseding law.
San Francisco has remained steadfast despite federal attempts to punish and undermine its sanctuary city laws.
In January 2017, Trump issued an executive order to withhold federal funds from sanctuary jurisdictions. San Francisco filed a lawsuit arguing that the order violated the Tenth Amendment and the Separation of Powers doctrine. Federal courts sided with San Francisco, declaring the executive order unconstitutional and issuing a permanent nationwide injunction against its enforcement.
In February this year, new executive orders again threatened to cut federal funding to sanctuary cities. San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu is leading a coalition of cities and counties in a lawsuit alleging that these federal actions violate several aspects of the Constitution: the Tenth Amendment, the Separation of Powers clause, the Spending Clause, the Due Process Clause and the Administrative Procedures Act.
“No human being is illegal,” Chiu said at a Jan. 18 rally in the Mission District. “We are safer when immigrant victims of crime and witnesses of crime know that they can trust law enforcement to work with us to keep us safe. And let me tell you, as your city attorney, I will do whatever within our power to stand up for our immigrant communities.”
Grassroots organizations and legal advocates in San Francisco are also working together to provide protection and resources that teach immigrants how to respond if approached by ICE agents. They’ve been handing out little red cards listing their civil rights like the right to remain silent, the right to refuse consent for a search without a warrant and the right to ask for an attorney.
Lariza Dugan-Cuadra, executive director of the Central American Resource Center San Francisco, said her community has faced sweeping deportations before, and the “know-your-rights” campaign is making a difference.
“One thing that’s very different this time is that the community knows that we’re the only ones that are going to save ourselves in the sense of upholding our rights,” Dugan-Cuadra said.
Border czar Homan has balked at such efforts, telling CNN, “They call it know your rights. I call it how to escape arrest.”
Homan maintained that undocumented residents who are subject to a judge’s order of removal are being protected by such campaigns. However, during civil rights information sessions, advocates inform undocumented populations that they may refuse ICE orders when there’s no paperwork or if a document is signed solely by the conveying ICE agent. But they make it clear that immigrants must obey ICE agents who have a valid arrest warrant signed by a judge.Get our email newsletter Don’t miss out on our newest articles, episodes and events!
Sylvie Sturm is an award-winning print journalist with 20 years of experience writing and editing for Canadian community newspapers. Since moving to the Bay Area in 2014, she’s shifted her attention towards audio journalism. She’s currently contributing to the “Civic” podcast from the Public Press. She also mentors science writers at UC San Francisco in print journalism and podcasting, and has taught media at San Francisco State University.
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