The open letter, co-signed by Oakland’s Lakeshore and San Francisco’s Castro LGBTQ+ cultural districts, calls on the coffee chain to reverse its controversial move.
Philz Coffee has a store in Oakland’s Lakeshore LGBTQ Cultural District. The district, along with San Francisco’s Castro LGBTQ Cultural District, sent an open letter to the coffee chain criticizing the CEO’s decision to remove Pride flags from all locations. Credit: Courtesy of Philz Coffee
A day after the CEO of Oakland-headquartered Philz Coffee demanded that Pride flags be removed from all of the chain’s stores, the Oakland and San Francisco LGBTQ+ cultural districts are speaking out.
In an open letter sent Thursday afternoon, the Oakland Lakeshore and San Francisco Castro LGBTQ+ cultural districts told CEO Mahesh Sadarangani that his announcement was “an extreme disappointment.”
Both districts represent neighborhoods with deep histories intertwined with LGBTQ+ communities. And both are hosts to Philz Coffee cafes.
“When Philz came to our neighborhoods, it did so knowing it would be serving our communities,” the district representatives wrote. “These recent actions, however, suggest that you do not prioritize us or the diversity of the LGBTQ community.”
Philz Coffee did not immediately respond to questions from The Oaklandside about the letter.
But Sadarangani previously said the decision, which will take down all types of flags, was intended to create a “more inclusive experience” at Philz stores. “This is a change in how our stores look, not in who we are,” he wrote in a statement sent to multiplemedia outlets.
Both LGBTQ+ cultural districts pushed back on Sadarangani’s comments, saying the move does the exact opposite.
“Let us be clear: there is no community more inclusive of all backgrounds, creeds, races, genders, religions, immigration statuses, or classes than the LGBTQ community,” the districts’ letter read. “We encompass every community across the world.”
The letter, which both districts also posted on social media, called for Philz to reverse the decision and reaffirm its commitment to the LGBTQ+ community. It also urged community members to sign a Change.org petition, launched by Philz Coffee baristas, demanding that company leadership reinstate Pride flags at all locations.
“We stand with Philz baristas and workers who have spoken out about the importance of maintaining Pride flags in their stores and who have organized a public petition calling for their reinstatement,” the district leaders wrote.
Philz was purchased by the private equity group Freeman Spogli last year for $145 million. A controversial part of the deal was the cancellation of stocks owned by 10 former employees. An FAQ published on Philz Coffee’s website after the sale said Freeman Spogli intended “to preserve and build upon Philz Coffee’s rich history, maintaining the unique, authentic coffee experience that has made the brand so special for over two decades.”Send a note to the Oaklandside newsroom.*
Roselyn Romero covers public safety for The Oaklandside. She was previously The Oaklandside’s small business reporter as a 2023-24 Poynter-Koch Media & Journalism Fellow. Before joining the team, she was an investigative intern at NBC Bay Area and the inaugural intern for the Global Investigations team of The Associated Press through a partnership with the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting. She graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 2022 with a bachelor’s in journalism and minors in Spanish, ethnic studies, and women’s & gender studies. She is a proud daughter of Filipino immigrants and was born and raised in Oxnard, California.More by Roselyn Romero
Three candidates are facing off for one seat on the San Francisco School Board: Incumbent school board president Phil Kim, and two candidates who are attempting to unseat him.
Kim came under fire this year after SFUSD teachers went on strike for the first time in nearly 50 years, and shut down the city’s public schools for a week.
A special election this June will determine whether Kim keeps his seat and his presidency over the school board. If either of his challengers are elected, the board’s vice president, Jaime Huling, will take over until the board votes on a new president.
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Virginia Cheung, who joined the school board race in March, immediately following the strike, has already won the support of the United Educators of San Francisco, the union that led the strike and bargained with the district for higher wages and fully funded healthcare for teachers.
Though the race for the San Francisco school board is largely nonpartisan, the race has split along political lines. Both Cheung and the election’s third candidate, Brandee Marckmann, have received endorsements from San Francisco’s union leaders and progressive wing.
The San Francisco Democratic Party and the moderate political interest group, Grow SF, along with the parent-led coalition S.F. Parents Action has thrown their support behind Kim, who was appointed by former Mayor London Breed in 2024.
Every week, Mission Local will ask the candidates one question leading up to the June 2 election to see where they stand on major issues.
Our first question: What is your No. 1 priority if elected to the San Francisco school board?
Phil Kim
Job: Deputy Director and Chief of Staff at the San Francisco Human Rights Commission
Age: 35
Residency: San Francisco
Education: PhD in Education, UC Berkeley; master’s in urban education policy from Loyola Marymount University; bachelor’s in neuroscience from Bucknell University
SFUSD Experience: Charter school educator, SFUSD administrator and current school board president
As a former 7th grade science teacher and lifelong educator, I believe the most important relationship in any school system is between a teacher and a student.
My number one priority is improving student outcomes by ensuring every classroom is led by a qualified and effective teacher. Teachers need consistent support, strong instructional systems, and the stability to focus on their students, not uncertainty about budgets or operations.
After years of fiscal mismanagement, we have begun to stabilize SFUSD’s finances and operations. We cannot go backward. My focus is making sure we sustain that progress so every student, in every neighborhood, has access to the high-quality education they deserve.
Endorsed by: Mayor Daniel Lurie, Senator Scott Wiener, Assemblymember Matt Haney, Assemblymember Catherine Stefani, San Francisco Democratic Party … read more here.
Virginia Cheung
Job: Nonprofit executive
Age: 42
Residency: San Francisco
Education: Bachelor’s from UC Irvine in social ecology
SFUSD Experience: Parent of child at Alice Fong Yu, former director of Wu Yee Children’s Services
Our children deserve fully staffed, stable schools. They are our future, and they are depending on us. Excellence should be consistent in every classroom at every school. A child’s future should not depend on luck.
My first priority as a school board member is to build trust and strong partnerships with families, educators, and all school communities to ensure every student receives an excellent education.
As the daughter of refugees, I saw firsthand how my non-English-speaking parents struggled to establish stability. I was fortunate to have a dedicated kindergarten teacher who supported me early on, helping me become the first in my family to graduate from college. With over 20 years of experience across maternal health, early education, cultural immersion, and arts education—and as a former director at San Francisco’s largest Head Start program — I’ve seen how early support, strong educators, and stable systems can change a child’s trajectory.
As a full-time working mom and public school parent with a child at Alice Fong Yu and in the Wah Mei before and after-school program, I rely on a coordinated system of care and trust the educators who show up for my child every day.
We cannot address chronic absenteeism or improve student outcomes if students begin the school year without a permanent teacher or the paraprofessionals needed to support them. Stability in the classroom is foundational.
When schools are fully staffed and students’ basic needs are met, students are more likely to feel supported, show up ready to learn, and thrive.
Endorsed by: United Educators of San Francisco, San Francisco Green Party, Supervisor Connie Chan, S.F. Public Defender Mano Raju, Phil Ting, Norman Yee, Eric Mar … read more here.
Brandee Marckmann
Job: Director of parent-led group
Age: 53
Residency: San Francisco
Education: Bachelor’s in English and French from Central College
SFUSD Experience: Parent of SFUSD student
My #1 priority is to stop the threat of school closures in SFUSD. Public schools bring our communities together and are the foundation of our democracy. School closures are not the solution to our budget issues. What a lot of people don’t know is that closing schools doesn’t end up saving the school district money. School closures make public schools less desirable to prospective parents, which depresses enrollment (and therefore funding).
Closed schools are usually converted into charter schools, which often do not offer adequate support for newcomer students, students with IEPs, and other marginalized groups. I believe all San Francisco students should be able to attend a fully-funded neighborhood public school.
Endorsed by: Harvey Milk Democratic Club, SEIU 1021, Supervisor Shamann Walton, Supervisor Jackie Fielder, Dean Preston, Aaron Peskin, Mark Leno, Tom Ammiano … read more here.
Answers may be lightly edited for formatting, spelling, and grammar. If you have questions for the candidates, please let us know at marina@missionlocal.com.
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Legally and factually speaking, being the sitting president doesn’t make you above the law. Not legally, not constitutionally, not morally, not in any document any founder ever signed, or any US law ever passed, and no not even in the Trump Vs US SCOTUS ruling.
If the president shoots a random person on Fifth Avenue, a police officer can and should arrest him. If he’s running a billion-dollar pardon sale scam, state and federal authorities both have standing to investigate and charge him. And if he commits any crime that any other American would go to jail for, he goes to jail for it too. A broke guy in Tulsa who steals from his employer loses his job and does time; yet currently the president is a prolific child molester who enjoys no legal consequences because he won a rigged popularity contest, despite no law legal backing for that collective presumption.
Every judge, every attorney general, every sheriff, every prosecutor who declines to investigate or charge documented criminal conduct because the man committing it is currently president has made a choice. They may not have said the words. But their actions have said them plainly: the president is above the law. That’s the only conclusion their inaction supports.
And you’re not pro-democracy if you’re not willing to apply the law the same to a president as to a homeless person.
Most Americans have come to believe that Donald Trump is effectively above the law because he is the sitting president. Not because they want him to be, but because they think the Supreme Court made it that way. They point to Trump v. United States and say the Court gave him immunity; they point to impeachment and the 25th Amendment and say those are the only two remedies. They’ve concluded, reasonably but inaccurately that until Congress acts with a supermajority, nothing can touch him. They’re wrong. And the people who benefit from that confusion have every reason to keep it going.
Trump v. United States created a partial shield in federal court for official acts. But the Court never defined what an official act actually is, and no court has ever held that bribery, selling pardons, child molestation, or sex trafficking qualify. More importantly, the ruling explicitly did not weigh in on state prosecution. This wasn’t the result of an oversight or a loophole, but a core doctrine in US law.
The dual sovereignty doctrine, which has been the law of this land since the founders wrote it into the architecture of the republic, gives every state independent authority to prosecute crimes committed within their borders; a presidential pardon cannot touch a state conviction. Congress doesn’t have to act. No supermajority is required. If the president commits a crime, a prosecutor with jurisdiction can charge him, and that’s how it has always worked. This article is going to prove that, doctrine by doctrine, objection by objection, because you deserve to know the truth that not even the most conservative justice on the Supreme Court, has ever argued that a president is completely above the law until removed from office through political means.
The founders weren’t subtle about why they built it this way. They’d watched a king operate above the law, and they designed a system with two parallel sets of courts, two parallel sets of prosecutors, two parallel sets of criminal codes, and two parallel sets of criminal statutes specifically so no single actor could capture the whole machine. The dual sovereignty doctrine wasn’t a legal technicality they left lying around; it was the design. States retain independent authority to prosecute crimes committed within their borders because the founders understood that the day would come when the federal government couldn’t be trusted to police itself. That day has a name now. It’s today.
There was a reasonable argument, once, that states should defer to federal institutions on matters like this because those institutions could be trusted to handle them. That argument had merit when the referees were presumed good faith actors. The Justice Department is being used to target political enemies; the FBI actively helped cover up the Epstein files while powerful men whose names appear in those documents walked free. Handing the ball to a corrupt referee and waiting for a fair call isn’t deference. It’s surrender. We saw how the “wait for midterms, then try a few impeachments, then wait until the election, then charge him with crimes” strategy worked last time he was President. Have we collectively forgotten how this entire playbook was run before? The Heritage foundation came with a game plan to change things by exploited every vulnerability they could find and learning based off their shortfalls in the first Trump term. The bad guys can’t be the only ones smartening up or we are all doomed.
If you’re telling your constituents that impeachment is the only solution for criminal behavior of a president, then I’m telling you that you don’t believe in democracy. Look at the record. Impeachment: four attempts, zero convictions, zero consequences, zero deterrence. Federal prosecution: sat on for four years by Merrick Garland, handed to a special counsel, and abandoned the moment the political calendar made it inconvenient. Civil suits: ongoing, unresolved, and irrelevant to a man who has no shame and unlimited legal fees. New York dropped its case because a judge decided the timing was wrong. Georgia spent eighteen months being litigated in bad faith, the prosecutor’s private life was investigated until they found something to use against her, and the case was ultimately set aside the moment Trump was about to be president again. Waiting for elections: we waited, he lost in 2020, went home, and came back.
Letitia James announced during her 2018 campaign that she was coming for Trump. She opened the investigation in March 2019, accumulated 930,000 documents, and had fraud documented back to 2011. She chose civil over criminal the entire time, filed her lawsuit in September 2022, and won a judgment of over $450 million in February 2024. Trump came back anyway, and the Justice Department is now using its full weight to prosecute her for it. The cautious path didn’t protect her or stop him. I have tremendous respect for NY AG Letitia James, she made a better version of the standard version judgement call by pursuing civil actions against the man himself. She did everything the right way and after enough delays, Trump was about to be president again and Judge Merchin decided no punishment was appropriate for the mad king. Lest humble Judge Merchin should gain his ire, rather than perhaps some financial or Epstein style “backroom benefits” for enough successful delays in decision making. So much for impartiality, I guess lady justice takes off her blindfold to make absolutely sure the person isn’t president.
We know how to fail. We keep trying the exact same thing, waiting and trying and failing in identical ways, and somehow expecting a different result. Why can’t we switch it up? Meanwhile, Republicans pass blatantly unconstitutional laws and fight them out in court; they take the long shots, press every issue they have, and dare judges to stop them. And here’s what that strategy does that ours doesn’t: it forces courts to draw lines. The only way we find out where the boundary between the Supreme Courts “official” and “unofficial” act actually falls is by bringing criminal cases that make courts decide, and every charge not filed is a definition left unmade. And deferral that Donald Trump has not earned the right to have. Every case not brought leaves that boundary undefined, and undefined boundaries drift toward more presidential power, not less. Our criminal justice system is now so used to deferring to power that it makes sense a billionaire president would become king. And that’s what he is if he is above the law as a result of his office.
So here’s what everyone on our side needs to understand about the law, stated as plainly as it can be stated.
The Justice Department has an internal policy memo saying a sitting president can’t face federal prosecution. Congress never passed that as a law, and the Constitution never established it; the department wrote the rule about itself, and it’s now stopped two separate special counsels, Mueller and Smith, from completing their work. The Supreme Court’s 2024 immunity ruling in Trump v. United States gave presidents broad protection for official acts in federal court, and together, the memo and that ruling have built something close to a king at the federal level. But dual sovereignty is still there. No justice argued the immunity ruling should reach it, and no Congress has passed a law touching it. That defense is still standing. States retain independent authority to prosecute crimes committed within their borders, a doctrine established since the founding and upheld in Gamble v. United States (2019).
Now the objections, one at a time, because you’re going to hear all of them.
“Qualified immunity protects him?” No, qualified immunity is a civil doctrine; it applies to lawsuits for money damages, and it’s never applied to criminal prosecution in any jurisdiction in the history of the United States. It’s not a defense to a criminal charge. That’s the end of that argument.
“The Supremacy Clause protects federal officials from state prosecution?” No, the Supremacy Clause says federal law is supreme over conflicting state law, but it doesn’t say federal employees are immune from state criminal charges. The Supreme Court said so directly in Johnson v. Maryland (1920): holding federal employment doesn’t secure a general immunity from state law. And In re Neagle (1890) confirmed the protection applies only when the federal officer was acting within lawful federal authority. There’s no federal law authorizing the sale of pardons, so there’s nothing for the Supremacy Clause to make supreme.
“Trump v. United States makes him immune?” No, that ruling covers official acts in federal court, and that’s the entire scope of it. No justice argued it reaches state prosecution, not one, and the Court never defined what an official act is. No court has ever held that bribery, corruption, or selling pardons qualifies. The protection that stopped the federal cases doesn’t exist at the state level.
“The feds will just take over and kill the case?” No. First, understand what moving to federal court actually means: it is still a state case. Still state law, still a state prosecutor, still state charges, still the same criminal statutes, still pardon-proof. The federal court is just the room it’s in, and nothing got handed over to the federal government. They can attempt removal under 28 U.S.C. § 1442, but the state charges don’t evaporate; the immunity defense must be litigated before an actual judge who must actually rule on it. That’s months or years of legal exposure and a documented public record that can’t be executive-ordered away.
Trump and co regularly take people to court when they know they will lose the case. Why? Because even the cases you lose still involve forcing the other side to use time and energy and resources while possibly gaining bad press.
“What about Trump v. Anderson? States can’t do this.” Trump v. Anderson dealt with Colorado trying to enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, a federal constitutional provision, against a federal candidate; the Court said states can’t unilaterally enforce clauses of the federal Constitution. But nobody here is asking states to interpret the federal Constitution. We’re asking state attorneys general to enforce their own laws against people who broke them, and those are different.
Which brings us back to the people with the power to act. Any elected official, any attorney general, any sheriff, any prosecutor who says in one breath that no one is above the law and in the next breath declines to investigate or charge documented violations of state criminal statutes against this president and his cabinet, has made a choice. Words are cheap. Jurisdiction isn’t. If you have it and you won’t use it, you own the outcome that we all suffer from.
I wrote this because too many people on our side believe that impeachment is the only legitimate path to accountability. That conviction is the prerequisite for consequence. That we have to wait for the votes, wait for the moment, wait for the landslide, wait until the stars align just right and then the consequence fairy will come down and make it all go away. Just like she did with his 34 convictions, right?
None of that’s in the Constitution, none of it’s in Trump v. United States, none of it’s in the Supremacy Clause or the dual sovereignty doctrine or any statute passed by any legislature. It exists only in the minds of people who’ve convinced themselves that charging a president with a crime is somehow more radical than letting him commit them freely.
The 25th Amendment isn’t saving us, and impeachment isn’t saving us. We won’t have the conviction votes, like we didn’t have them the last however many times, and we probably won’t even with a once-in-a-generation landslide in 2026. Of course, if you’re a Congressional Democrat you should pursue impeachment, because you have almost no power outside of that.
If you’re a prosecutor? Waiting and not charging has never been a successful deterrent.
We don’t need a supermajority or a wave election needed or to wait 6-8 more months and hope nukes aren’t dropped or that elections aren’t successfully stolen by a guy with time, resources, and intent, who is being told “break any law you want because the only way you go down is if you fail to keep this title.”
It requires prosecutors with jurisdiction and the willingness to use it, and those prosecutor exist in your state right now. The statutes exists. The conduct is documented. The only thing missing is the decision to act.
I wrote this so nobody on our side can say they didn’t know.
In the coming weeks, The Existentialist Republic will be covering the specific criminal statutes in every state that give that state standing to act. Standing, in plain terms, means the legal right to bring a case: your state has to show it has a legitimate stake in the outcome, that a crime was committed within its jurisdiction or against its residents, before a prosecutor can charge anyone. We’ll do the research. We’ll identify the statutes. And in true Existentialist Republic fashion, we’ll hand you everything you need to deliver it directly to your AG and your DA yourself. Your state officials are busy people. We’ll help do some of their homework for them, and you can help make sure it lands on their desk.
The legal architecture behind everything in this article, including the full taxonomy of state constitutional tools via the academic working paper, with more resources for free download via the links at the bottom of this page.
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Stephan: Nancy Pelosi, as experienced and knowledgeable a Congress member as anyone alive, is now openly calling for the removal of psychopath Trump from office under the 25th Amendment, and she is far from alone. Many advocating this are even Republicans. I certainly support this. Trump’s call for genocide of a multi-thousand-year-old culture, even though he has now TACOed that threat, ranks as perhaps the most evil call by a President in America’s 250-year history. Donald Trump is a psychopath, a convicted criminal, a multiple-bankrupt sex offender. The American people should be ashamed and embarrassed that he was ever elected to that Presidency, and should now rise up and demand his removal. We cannot go through two more years of this madness, and still remain the America of all our prior history.
Former Speaker of the House Nancy PelosiCredit: News Channel 9
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Tuesday urged members of President Trump’s Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment and hand his powers to the vice president over his remarks about wiping out Iran’s civilization.
If the Cabinet is unwilling to take that action, Pelosi said Republicans in the House and Senate should move to end the Iran war.
“If the Cabinet is not willing to invoke the 25th Amendment and restore sanity, Republicans must reconvene the Congress to end this war,” she added.
Pelosi previously said the 25th Amendment should be invoked against Trump during his first term, touting support from other lawmakers.
Her recent comments fall in line with other House Democrats who have warned Trump’s plans to bomb infrastructure in Iran and threat to wipe out a “whole civilization” if the Strait of Hormuz is not reopened would constitute war crimes against civilians if they were carried out.
What if millions just said No and opened escrow accounts?
I’ve been wending my way toward the exit of the TurboTax fun house, as I do every year in preparation to send the US Treasury and the California Franchise Tax Board what my partner and I wind up owing as law-abiding taxpayers.
It turns out I owe a fair amount this year, as none of my income comes from W-2s or has otherwise been subject to withholding.
I have decided not to pay it, and I am writing this column to explain why.
Let me begin by stating that this has been a very difficult decision. I’ll be 70 next year and I have always paid my taxes, in full, on time — even in years when I passionately objected to what the government was doing with my check.
Like when George W. Bush invaded Iraq and rammed through the Patriot Act along with massive tax cuts for corporations and the rich.
I grumbled, I even yelled, but I sent. Because taxation — however determined and apportioned, and however spent — is fundamental to the compact that binds us into a nation. It is, in a sense, the price of representation.
In our form of democracy, both our voice and our funding are mediated, indirect. We vote for the leaders we believe represent our values and priorities and we fund the project as they devise it, holistically, as one big package. Anything else — picking and choosing, consenting and refusing — would spell chaos.
The Line Has Been Crossed
So what has changed? Why am I now moved to violate this well-understood commitment by which I have abided my whole working life?
Put very simply, the federal government, under President Donald Trump, has made itself my enemy — the mortal enemy of everything I hold dear, everything I value. It’s that serious.
Every day I wake to some fresh hell spawned from his evil madness. And every day — literally every day — I rage anew. With the helpless impotence of a spectator at a slaughter. Yes, I march every now and then; yes, when decorum permits, I talk to others; yes, I write — but I talk and write mainly to those as outraged as I am.
And I warn, and warn, and warn.
But isn’t the time for warning over? All that I’ve warned about, throughout and long before this abomination of a presidency — is here. And its breadth and depth are damn near unfathomable.
Yes, it will get worse. There’s your warning. But, if someone doesn’t get it by now, I doubt anything I can say or write will do the trick.
So I feel, much if not all of the time, as if I am doing nothing. Nothing public enough to matter. I am taking little or no risk. Like Rick, in Casablanca, I have been sticking my neck out for nobody.
I’m Done
I’m done with that. Done with being a Good American. And done with financing an evil regime led by a madman, as it destroys all the things I love. As it blackens my hope for the future. While bringing untold suffering to those helpless to fend it off.
I have seen online chatter about a tax revolt this year. And I’ve tracked down a few organizations devoted to this tactic. Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) made news as 2025 drew to a tumultuous close by calling for a tax revolt among disillusioned Trump supporters. The New York Times deemed the matter worthy of a full-length news article last month.
I’ve also repeatedly advocated for mass economic action against the Trump regime, as being far more effective, and for the most part less risky, than physical demonstrations.
Mass protests have been remarkably peaceful thus far — but the potential for violence, provoked by either side, always exists, along with the potential for that violence to spread and lead to the kinds of crackdowns that authoritarians like Trump relish.
Nor, for all the show of goodness, decency, caring, empathy, and community that the No Kings and other rallies have manifest, have they succeeded in stopping the madness. God bless the people of Minneapolis and their courage, but ICE, while executing a tactical retreat there, still lurks and terrifies. And elsewhere, the construction of the “detention camps,” which may as well be concentration camps, continues apace — along with a “massive” presidential bunker.
Please don’t misconstrue me. The mass protests, along with the millions of daily acts of kindness, reflect the best of us and are a reason to hope for our country.
But stopping our deranged president will take more than protests, even involving millions; and it will take more than letters to our officeholders, or even personal lobbying of such, unless you happen to have a corporate check for half a million or so for their PAC in your pocket. And even then.
It will take, at minimum, a free and fair election, and there is hardly a guarantee of that. And it will take practical rather than symbolic impact — and that translates to mass economic action.
That comes in essentially three forms: boycotts, strikes, and tax revolts. Of these, the withholding of tax payment is, at scale, the most directly impactful. But it is also the most difficult to organize at scale and make publicly visible and contagious.
Pay for This?
I am not so naive as to assume that anyone, let alone masses, will follow suit. Or that a critical mass of others, of their own accord, will act on their own rage and defiance in this particular manner — though I am always up for a pleasant surprise.
No, the driver of this decision is conscience, personal and solitary. I am well aware of the personal risk, the price likely to be paid. The question posed is whether I can, in good conscience, fund this regime and its unconscionable — and often illegal — actions, at home and abroad. Can I add my money to the stream that irrigates these poison fields?
How can I lend material support to:
Threatening genocide (“A whole civilization will die tonight”), even if merely a negotiating tactic — in a social media post — after starting a war of choice, with no evidence of immediate threat and in the midst of promising negotiations, and with no exit plan?
Blowing up fishing boats in the open sea, and murdering all those aboard — again, with no evidence of justification?
Building concentration camps to hold detained “illegals,” but also conveniently available, when political push comes to shove, for American citizens who are dissidents and opponents of the regime?
Constructing a massive underground presidential bunker reminiscent of the Fuhrerbunker below the Reichschancellery that Hitler retreated to in the final days of World War II?
Attacking renewable energy sources, climate-change mitigation programs, public health, basic scientific research, higher education, the legal profession, the media, and the historical recorditself?
Using the powers of his high office to fatten his own bank accounts; grift and graft and pay-to-play. “Deals” that take our tax money to make the rich, starting with the Trump family, richer and richer. Plus finding ever more slippery ways to evade paying their fair share of tax — having lobbied hard for the loopholes to make that possible — driven not by conviction, although Trump did once say he didn’t like what the government did with his money, but by greed and entitlement.
The whole suite of behaviors that would not be one iota different were Vladimir Putin personally directing them.
Now the mob boss with nukes wants $1.7 TRILLION for his military — while claiming there’s not enough federal money for day care, Medicare, Medicaid, and other such luxuries that only the non-rich might need.
We can’t take care of day care. You got to let a state take care of day care. And they should pay for it, too. They should pay. They’ll have to raise their taxes, but they should pay for it.
We have to take care of one thing: military protection. We have to guard the country.
If you’re keeping score at home, the “Peace President” is proposing a massively militarized America — at $5,000 military spending per capita, we’d leave even North Korea deep in the dust — with the social safety net, including provisions for health and education, ripped to shreds.
Just exactly when in hell did Americans — blue, red, or purple — say okay to that!?
But it’s hard to see how ordinary political processes can stop Trump from setting in motion more global upheaval such that his wishes come true and the country — which, under his new budget, would spend more on its military than the current military budgets of the next 28 highest-spending countries combined — would need even more “guarding.” Including from the so-called “enemy within.”
This is, to put it bluntly, insane.
It is one thing to oppose a policy or suite of policies one’s duly elected government is implementing. It is quite another to try opposing the kind of escalating derangement that Trump, having banished all adults from the room, has exhibited throughout his second term.
Even more difficult since the madness is sane-washed by an access-driven media, thoroughly condoned by a craven GOP, and tolerated by a public that has grown too accustomed to things just working out, one way or another. What we’re experiencing is a combination of virulent infection and breakdown of our political immune system.
All of this has been written about — oh, has it been written about! — fiercely, brilliantly, eloquently, and so very copiously. We keyboard warriors have shown Trump — to quote our self-designated “secretary of war,” Pete Hegseth — no quarter.
Now I’m not saying words don’t matter. They do. And there’s even some risk in them — though, for all of Trump’s war on the media and those who speak against him, the First Amendment seems still to be standing, albeit wobbly.
But words are not enough to stop the madness. That will take something tougher, and riskier.
We Have Leverage, Real Leverage
This is the world’s richest nation, one that is all about money, with a president who is all about money. So what better weapon is there than the withholding of money — from the corporate sphere via boycotts and general strikes, and from the governmental sphere through tax revolt?
It has to start somewhere, and, frankly, I have become ashamed of urging others on from the safety of my laptop.
Some have already given their lives. Renee Good and Alex Pretti come immediately to mind, but there have been others, less honored. Inevitably, every tyranny takes its toll.
So, let’s roll.
Here’s my plan. I will pay my state taxes as always. I will take the money I would ordinarily send to the US Treasury next week and deposit it into a separate bank account held in escrow until January 21, 2029, or until such time someone other than Donald J. Trump occupies the White House — assuming that that someone is sane enough to signal the end of Trump’s mad and evil rampage.
Sooner or later — sooner if the woefully understaffed Internal Revenue Service has fired up its AI, later if it has not — when I receive an IRS letter querying the whereabouts of my Tax Year 2025 payment, I will let them know its whereabouts, my intentions, and my reasons. And we’ll take it from there.
I know that Trump and his regime can play rough, but I don’t plan to lose any sleep over this. If the IRS takes three years to “come after me,” I will gladly pay what I owe, with interest and any penalties, to the treasury of whatever president we elect in 2028 (assuming it is not anyone named Trump).
If, as is more likely, I hear from the IRS during Trump’s current term, I will do all I can to drag out adverse proceedings to January 2029. If and when penalties are levied, such that my ultimate payment — to the next administration — is significantly greater than my current obligation, so be it, with my compliments.
But in no event will I willingly contribute materially to a regime actively engaged in the corrosion and destruction of our country.
As I stated, I take this action as a matter of conscience — I cannot, in good conscience, do otherwise.
As a political weapon, of course, at such small scale, it has no practical value.
I do not, however, believe that I am wrong in imagining there are millions of American taxpayers as done as I am with this nightmare, but who — out of tradition or habit, or stopped cold by fear — have not yet consulted their consciences and considered the full range of options open to them.
I am writing about my own decision in the hope to inspire such consideration, and the action I hope springs from it.
I am aware of a strain of thought that Trump is so far gone that he will bring about his own demise, or at least be self-limiting. He will continue digging his hole deeper, goes this thinking, so just stay out of the way and let him keep digging until he disappears.
There may be something in that — and, then again, there may not. As I’ve written previously, Trump has entered what I call the dictator’s doom loop — a vicious cycle of escalating resistance and repression — and has effectively abandoned popularity in favor of power.
And he retains vast powers of command — over a growing proto-SS in ICE, over a purge-in-process military, and over a massive nuclear arsenal, still literally at his fingertips with no one authorized to stop him. We certainly cannot count on his going gentle, nor on the adults who have left the room.
The Die Has Been Cast
Trump’s nonnegotiable imperative is to hold power and avoid accountability at all costs. He has shown every sign that he will make a multipronged play to subvert the midterms.
And, consider carefully, then what? What form would our resistance take when that battle is joined? Will the courts be enough? Will the rule of law hold against desperation tactics and deadly force?
These are threats that must be taken seriously. The things I’ve warned about previously — threats that may have seemed alarmist at the time — have come to pass. We Cassandras and catastrophists, it turns out, had it right. A bad dream became a worse reality.
No one wants this battle. But we’re not given much of a choice. The only real choice we have is how we fight it — what tactics, what weapons we are willing to employ.
Embraced at scale, with the safety of numbers, the withholding of federal tax payment is the most potent weapon in our control, laser-focused on a regime that has moved beyond incompetent, wrong-headed, and unpopular to deadly dangerous and criminal.
It is a tactic that is, most critically, nonviolent; and thus does not provide a target for the regime’s use of deadly force.
If employed en masse it would force a reckoning — within the Cabinet and/or the halls of Congress — leading, one way or another, to the removal of a president who, if he remains in power, is on a course to do untold damage to our country and the world.
As Merry reminds Frodo near the end of The Lord of the Rings, “You won’t rescue … the Shire just by being shocked and sad.”
The oath binds action. A constitutional breach triggers duty. Silence enters the record as complicity. Photo credit: Jacques-Louis David, The Oath of the Horatii, 1784, oil on canvas, Musée du Louvre, Paris
Two of my children wore that uniform. I know the wait for a call that might not come, the measurement of distance in miles and minutes, the calculation of risk in silence. Both came home. Other parents are still waiting. The present moment is not ordinary; delay carries immediate and irreversible consequence. Each passing hour marks a parent staring at a silent phone. Every family understands that silence. Families deserve a Congress that acts on the record to stop the war placing those children at risk. Repeated inaction across each prior escalation culminates here as participation; the record establishes ongoing dereliction of constitutional duty. Accountability now attaches to every officeholder who possessed authority, reviewed the record, and refused to act.
What Trump posted on Truth Social on the morning of April 7th was not a military communiqué. The post was a genocidal threat directed at a civilization of 93 million people.
“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”
That language appeared on the personal account of the President of the United States, attached to a deadline for Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. On Easter Sunday Trump had preceded the threat with an expletive-laced post threatening to bomb Iranian bridges and power plants. By Tuesday evening Trump announced a two-week ceasefire, claiming the United States had “already met and exceeded all Military objectives.”
The ceasefire announcement does not erase the documented record. Under the Genocide Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, a threat to destroy a national or ethnic group carries legal weight independent of whether the act is carried out. More than 200 human rights organizations issued a joint urgent statement calling Trump’s language potential genocide under international law. Congressman Steve Cohen, a member of the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, was unambiguous: “Calling for the end of Persian civilization is a call for genocide, something so far beyond acceptable that any decent human being must oppose it.”
While this unfolded, the Vice President was in Budapest.
Vance spent April 7th at a stadium rally urging Hungarians to re-elect Viktor Orbán, a pro-Kremlin leader who has dismantled press freedom, banned Pride events, and maintained Russian energy contracts throughout the Iran war. Trailing Orbán’s challenger by double digits, the incumbent needed rescue. Vance declared Orbán “wise and smart” and “one of the only true statesmen in Europe,” then pulled out a cell phone and dialed President Trump from the stage, holding the phone to the microphone so the crowd could hear Trump announce full support for the Hungarian prime minister.
The Vice President was campaigning for a foreign authoritarian’s re-election while the President issued genocidal threats, American service members took casualties in an active war theater, and the war behind all of this remained without a single congressional authorization.
That is not editorial framing. That is the documented sequence of a single day.
They Have Names
The war in Iran began on February 28th. Congress declared nothing. The War Powers Resolution sat unused. A legal authorization has never been produced for public review.
At least 15 American service members are confirmed dead. The Pentagon has been caught issuing outdated figures. A defense official told The Intercept directly: what is happening is a cover-up.
Sgt. 1st Class Noah Tietjens was 42. Tietjens had a wife and a teenage son. The family trained in martial arts together. Opening a studio someday was the plan. Capt. Cody Khork was 35, from Winter Haven, Florida. Khork’s family said Khork “felt a calling to serve his country.” Both were killed on March 1st in Kuwait.
The man who sent them wore a ball cap to the dignified transfer. Trump told the families every single one had said the same thing. “Finish the job, sir. Please finish the job.”
That is what Trump said at a ceremony for the dead Trump created.
Iranian missiles have struck American bases in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Three US fighter jets went down by friendly fire because the air war became so chaotic that allied defenses could not distinguish US aircraft from Iranian ones. The ceasefire is two weeks long, conditional, and was negotiated over Truth Social.
The parents who got the call have been handed a folded flag.
The ones still waiting are doing the math.
The ceasefire announced Tuesday is two weeks long and conditional. The Hungary election is Sunday. The impeachment window is now, before the news cycle moves and the moment calcifies into history. This investigation is reader-funded. If you want the work to continue through what is coming, an annual subscription is 25¢ a day. That is the whole ask.
By Tuesday evening, more than 85 House Democrats had formally demanded Trump’s impeachment or removal through the 25th Amendment. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rep. Ilhan Omar, and Senators Ed Markey and Ron Wyden were among those on record. Rep. John Larson filed articles directly. A total of 70 Democrats petitioned the Cabinet to invoke the amendment, transferring executive power to the Vice President.
Pelosi’s statement was precise. “Donald Trump’s instability is more clear and dangerous than ever. If the Cabinet is not willing to invoke the 25th Amendment and restore sanity, Republicans must reconvene Congress to end this war.”
That sentence is a demand. Constituent pressure is what moves demands like this one forward.
The Cabinet knows what happened Tuesday. The question is whether Cabinet members will be made to answer for knowing the record.
Republicans control both chambers. Without a cross-aisle revolt, articles of impeachment do not advance. But pressure campaigns advance without a visible destination. Building the record, shifting cost calculations for individual members, and moving the number is the work.
A Lake Research Partners survey released this week found that 52 percent of likely 2026 voters support impeaching Trump. Among independents, 55 percent. Among Republicans, 14 percent. That last figure is the one that moves chambers.
Dereliction Is Not a Metaphor
Every Republican who has seen the record of April 7th and remained silent has made a choice. The name for that choice is dereliction.
The oath taken on January 3rd was pledged to the Constitution, not a party. Article II, Section 4 is not a suggestion. A president who threatens the annihilation of 93 million people without a congressional vote has provided the grounds in Trump’s own words, timestamped and archived.
Silence at this moment is a verdict. Treating a presidential genocide threat as a matter requiring further review has zero constitutional defense. Several Republicans have expressed private concern about Trump’s Iran escalation while refusing to go on record. A witness who will not testify while the trial is in session is not a moderate. The record will carry the date of that silence into every election those members ever run.
Article I grants Congress the exclusive power to declare war. Trump entered the Iran war absent both a formal declaration and a War Powers Resolution authorization. Every member who has not moved to end that war is in active violation of congressional constitutional duty. The Impeachment Clause is what the Framers designed for exactly this moment. A Congress that witnesses impeachable conduct, holds that mechanism, and declines to apply the remedy is not exercising restraint but abdicating the specific function Congress was elected to perform.
Vance is not a bystander, and Budapest is not a footnote.
The duties of the Vice President are enumerated in Article I and the 12th Amendment. Campaigning for a foreign authoritarian’s re-election is not among those duties. Vance deployed the full platform of Vance’s constitutional office to intervene in the sovereign democratic process of another nation. The Emoluments Clause prohibits federal officers from acting in service of foreign powers without congressional consent. Congressional consent was never sought. The trip served zero diplomatic purpose. The sole documented target was the electoral rescue of a pro-Kremlin leader who has blocked NATO funding for Ukraine and dismantled Hungary’s free press. Willful misuse of a constitutional office for purposes outside the office’s defined function meets the impeachment threshold. The charge is met on Budapest alone.
Section 4 of the 25th Amendment assigns the Vice President a specific affirmative duty when a president is unfit to serve. The obligation is binding. Vance reviewed the record of April 7th and said nothing. Silence in that position is a constitutional violation by a sworn officer who held the remedy and chose inaction over duty. What Trump did on Tuesday compounds the charge. The case against Vance stands on its own. This week’s record belongs in any articles filed against either principal.
Every day this record goes unanswered is a day both men are choosing to be on the wrong side of history.
The Constitution does not grade on a curve. Neither will the record.
The Lever You Are Already Holding
The one action is a direct public tag to your Republican representative demanding an on-record answer on Rep. Larson’s impeachment articles. Everything below is how to maximize that single action across every complicit Republican target.
Find your Republican House member’s handle at house.gov. Copy this and send today:
“@[HANDLE] Trump announced a two-week ceasefire AFTER threatening to annihilate 93 million people without a congressional vote. The genocide threat is archived. The war powers violation stands. Rep. Larson’s impeachment articles are filed. You have not responded. Are you on the record or not?”
For 25th Amendment pressure, Marco Rubio is on record expressing unease with the Iran escalation. Copy this:
“@SecRubio A two-week ceasefire does not erase Tuesday’s record. The President threatened 93 million lives on Truth Social, entered a war without congressional authorization, and used the presidency to threaten genocide. Section 4 exists for exactly this moment. History is recording who knew and chose silence.”
For Instagram, screenshot Trump’s actual Truth Social post and post the screenshot as a Story. The caption is the full name of every complicit Republican on the Armed Services and Judiciary Committee lists below, posted one per Story in rapid succession. Tag each official account directly. Visual evidence of the original language attached to every silent member in the same morning builds a public record those members cannot explain away individually or collectively.
After sending the direct tag to your own Republican member, screenshot the sent post and repost in Stories with one caption: “Sent. Your turn.” Tag three people by name. Ask each one to pick a different Republican from the committee lists below and send the same demand. One reader covering one name is not the pressure campaign. Every name on both lists tagged before Sunday defines the campaign that moves chambers.
Armed Services Republicans to contact: Roger Wicker, Deb Fischer, Tom Cotton, Mike Rounds, Joni Ernst, Dan Sullivan, Kevin Cramer, Rick Scott, Tommy Tuberville, Markwayne Mullin, Ted Budd, Eric Schmitt, Jim Banks, Tim Sheehy.
Judiciary Republicans to contact: Chuck Grassley, John Cornyn, Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Thom Tillis, John Kennedy, Josh Hawley, Marsha Blackburn, Katie Britt, Ashley Moody.
A coordinated wave hitting every member on both lists on the same morning from readers across the country is not noise. What cannot be absorbed is ten thousand constituents tagging every silent member in the same 24-hour window with the same documented question, the same archived post, and the same demand for a yes or a public refusal on the record. Every complicit Republican who has seen April 7th and said nothing is calculating whether silence still carries no cost. This week answers that calculation. Hungary votes Sunday and every target is already named.
What the Record Requires
The parents doing the math on proximity tonight did not choose this war. The Congress that could stop it has not moved. The record of who knew, who held the remedy, and who said nothing is being written in real time.
The refusal to let that record go unmarked is the work. Begin today.
Eight centuries ago a poet mapped the geography of moral failure. The category reserved for those who witnessed great evil and chose neutrality was not mercy. The category was the deepest fire.
Every Republican who sat quiet while Trump threatened the annihilation of 93 million people on a public platform and Vance campaigned for a pro-Kremlin authoritarian on foreign soil has already chosen a location.
“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.”
— Dante Alighieri
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By Tara Duggan, Staff Writer Updated April 9, 2026 (SFChronicle.com)
Gift Article
Philz Coffee on Castro Street in San Francisco. The company is drawing criticism for deciding to remove Pride flags from all of its locations.Lea Suzuki/S.F. Chronicle
On Sunday, a group calling itself Philz Coffee Baristas decried in a Change.org petition what it described as “Philz Coffee’s recent decision to remove pride flags from their stores” and asked the company to reverse it.
In an emailed statement to the Chronicle, CEO Mahesh Sadarangani said that Philz “was working toward creating a more consistent, inclusive experience across all our stores, including removing a variety of flags and other decor.” The company did not answer a list of detailed questions the Chronicle sent to its public relations firm.
It’s unclear when the flags will be taken down. On Thursday, a large Pride flag and chalkboard sign adorned with a rainbow and unicorn reading, “Welcome to the Queerest coffee shop in town. Period,” still hung above the barista station in the Castro location. Similar decorations remained on display at a downtown San Francisco location of Philz Wednesday morning.
“If you have any conscience, take your money elsewhere,” Don Doyle, a longtime neighborhood resident and Philz customer, told people walking toward the Castro Philz Coffee on Thursday. The store is two doors down from the headquarters of the nonprofit National AIDS Memorial.
Doyle called the pending Pride flag removal a form of “erasure” of the gay community, comparing it to attitudes during the Reagan administration and the AIDS crisis. “Thousands of people died because they wouldn’t allow for conversations around this community,” he said.
The Change.org petition echoed that sentiment. “The Pride flags within the stores hold deep meaning and value to both staff and visitors, symbolizing that these locations are safe and welcoming spaces for all individuals, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity,” it reads. “Removing these flags risks alienating a core group of team members and loyal customers who see Philz not just as a coffee shop, but as a place where they are embraced and celebrated for who they are.”
The Chronicle was unable to reach the organizers of the petition through Change.org before publication. By Thursday afternoon, about 2,700 people had signed the petition. The company’s decision also drew intense criticism on Reddit.
Philz’s “longstanding support of the LGBTQIA+ community is unchanged,” Sadarangani said in his statement. “This is a change in how our stores look, not in who we are. Our allyship runs deeper than what is on our walls. It shows up in who we hire, how we treat one another and in our annual Pride Month Unity celebration, which returns this June as it has every year. Unity is fundamental to how we operate.”
Employees at the Noe Valley, Castro and Chase Center locations of Philz told the Chronicle they had not heard about the policy directly from the company. Isabella Dixon, team leader at the Noe Valley Philz, said that a Pride flag that used to hang at the store disappeared a few months ago, and that someone more recently removed a plaque that hung on the front door saying “Everyone is welcome” with a Pride flag.
“Considering everything going on in the world — we’re seeing a fall into more conservative values and the rise of fascism with Trump — it’s a weird thing to do right now,” Gordon Nipper, a barista at the Castro Philz, said about the policy.
“Philz is part of the neighborhood here in San Francisco, so the choice to remove Pride flags from their cafes is deeply disappointing. Businesses that operate in and benefit from LGBTQ+ communities should stand with us, especially as we face unprecedented rollbacks of our rights at the federal level,” said Suzanne Ford, executive director of San Francisco Pride, in a statement. “It may seem small, but removing a Pride flag sends a message, and for many in this neighborhood, it feels like another blow right at home.”
Sadarangani has been CEO since 2021. Phil Jaber and his son Jacob founded Philz in Jaber’s former corner store on 24th Street in the Mission in 2003. It became known for its cup-at-a-time pourovers and specialty drinks, such as iced mojito coffees brewed with fresh mint. The company expanded, eventually moving its headquarters to Oakland and opening more than 60 locations throughout California and in Chicago. Last year, Philz was purchased by private equity firm Freeman Spogli & Co., which also owns Popeyes Chicken and El Pollo Loco, for a reported $145 million, according to Mission Local, though the company did not provide details of the deal.
Tara Duggan is a reporter in the Chronicle’s Food & Wine department, where she has been on the staff for over 20 years, and was also recently a reporter on Chronicle’s climate and environment team. She wrote investigations into nonprofit organizations and businesses as well as the narrative story “The Fisherman’s Secret,” a finalist for an Online Journalism Award. She also won a James Beard Award for her food journalism and is the author of five cookbooks. Reach her at tduggan@sfchronicle.com
California State Senator Scott Wiener answers a question at a candidate forum for California’s 11th Congressional District at UC Law on Jan. 7, 2025. Photo by Mariana Garcia.
SEIU California, one of the state’s most influential and wealthy unions, has un-endorsed state Sen. Scott Wiener in his bid to succeed Nancy Pelosi in Congress. Supervisor Connie Chan is now SEIU California’s sole endorsee.
SEIU attributed the withdrawal of support to Wiener’s opposition to San Francisco’s Proposition D, informally known as the “Overpaid CEO Tax.”
Prop. D, a measure put onto San Francisco’s ballot for the June election by San Francisco labor unions — including local branches of SEIU — would levy taxes on companies where the CEO earns 100 times more than their median employee. The measure is intended to fill the city’s $650 million deficit and stave off layoffs.
“A candidate’s stance on the Overpaid CEO Act is more than just another policy choice — it reveals who is standing with working people in this moment as we fight the Trump Administration’s attacks on our healthcare and our communities,” said Theresa Rutherford, president of SEIU Local 1021 and board member of SEIU California. “We need elected leaders ready to fight — not equivocate.”
Supporting the tax “should be an easy choice for San Francisco’s congressmember when it means saving the city’s mental health programs, public hospitals, and emergency response services,” she added.
Prop. D is supported by a supermajority of the Board of Supervisors. But other local politicians, including Mayor Daniel Lurie and Wiener have opposed it, saying that, if approved by voters in June, it will push businesses to leave the city and paint San Francisco as unfriendly to business.
“Downtown is still recovering from the pandemic, and I strongly support Mayor Lurie’s economic recovery work,” Wiener said in a statement. “In Congress, I will fight for progressive taxation, ensuring the largest corporations pay their fair share, starting with reversing the Trump and Bush tax cuts and closing loopholes that enable corporate tax dodging.”
That SEIU’s statewide chapter even endorsed Wiener in the first place was a shock to many — including some of SEIU’s San Francisco branches.
SEIU 1021, a large San Francisco union of government and healthcare workers, did not support Wiener’s endorsement, instead advocating for a sole endorsement of Chan. SEIU 1021 members didn’t like Wiener’s state-level push for YIMBY housing policies and his reluctance to call Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide.
But they were outvoted by other SEIU locals across the state, which supported Wiener, citing his record at the state legislature on budget and transportation issues. In the end, a co-endorsement of Chan and Wiener was put forward.
Chan had been expected to gain widespread backing from labor, and has racked up endorsements from other progressive unions including the San Francisco Labor Council, the California Federation of Labor Unions, and the California Teacher’s Association.
“She will be the best representative in Washington for working people,” said Martha Hawthorne, a member of SEIU 1021’s San Francisco political committee. “Her record speaks to our issues: union rights, affordable housing, tenant protections, funding for public services, and taxing billionaires.” In 2024, San Francisco unions spenthundreds of thousands on her reelection as District 1 supervisor.
With the sole endorsement, Chan may get funding for her congressional race from SEIU. Previously, any funding would have had to be split evenly between the two campaigns.
“The choice is clear: Connie Chan is the candidate of working people,” said Julie Edwards, Chan’s campaign spokesperson. “We’re proud to stand with the healthcare workers, janitors, in-home caregivers, school and city employees of SEIU as we work to reach every voter in San Francisco with a simple message: Connie will take on Trump, the billionaires and big corporations to fight for us.”
Critics of Wiener are celebrating. “It’s about time,” Hawthorne said. “The lesson is that all rank and file members should be listened to. Ages ago we endorsed Connie Chan, but our union’s opinion was not taken.”
“I commend the state council for having the courage to change an endorsement,” Hawthorne said. “That’s not easy.”
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Io is a staff reporter at Mission Local covering city hall and S.F. politics. She is a part of Report for America, which supports journalists in local newsrooms.
Io was born and raised in San Francisco and previously reported on the city while working for her high school newspaper, The Lowell. She studied the history of science at Harvard and wrote for The Harvard Crimson.
Two months before the primary election, millions of California Democrats remain disconnected from the state’s governor race. The combination of the March 28 No Kings marches and Donald Trump’s war on Iran have kept national rather than state politics on the front burner.
Trump’s out of control actions across the world deservedly dominate our attention. But two other factors have diverted attention from the governor’s primary.
First, no governor candidate has galvanized grassroots activists behind their campaign. Wouldn’t you think that California would produce at least one Bernie Sanders/Zohran Mamdani candidate who would inspire young people to get involved? Someone like Michael Tubbs, the former Stockton mayor running for Lieutenant Governor?
We always hear grassroots campaigns don’t work in the big state of California. But in a large field, a candidate capable of mobilizing activists could have prevailed.
Tom Steyer is espousing progressive values that have won him key progressive support. But his campaign has not mobilized a grassroots base.
The second reason for the lack of interest is the absence of an actively contested Democratic governor’s race since Gray Davis in 1998. In the last two contested elections powerful Democratic Party interests unified behind Jerry Brown in 2010 and Gavin Newsom in 2018. Brown didn’t have to mobilize people as he headed to a certain victory in 2010. Nor did Newsom in 2018. So it could be that California Democrats are out of practice in mobilizing for statewide governor primary races.
The Top Two Problem
A low-interest primary wouldn’t matter if California had not approved a top-two election system designed to help Republicans. But top-two was approved. As a result, a sleepy multi-candidate Democratic race could bring Republicans the top two finishers This would force a Democratic write-in candidacy to keep the governor’s office.
Paul Loeb recently wrote about how top-two brought Republicans the Washington Treasurer’s Office in a 2016 election where Clinton beat Trump by 16 points. The same could happen with far more dire impacts in California should no Democrat break from the pack.
Grading the Field
I previously saw San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan as potentially moving forward (“Is Mahan the Front-Runner in Governor’s Race?”). But despite public and financial support from his tech allies, Mahan is treading water. His campaign director just left, not a good sign.
I downplayed Eric Swalwell’s chances, saying in my February story that he “remains unknown to most voters.” But Trump Administration attacks on Swalwell last week has elevated his name recognition. The Guardian, New York Times, Politico and multiple other news outlets all covered how Trump’s FBI is trying to undermine Swalwell.
These attacks have likely built his support among voters. While FBI Director Patel’s plan to release an old case file of never proven charges against Swalwell seemed designed to hurt his campaign, it will instead do the opposite.
Swalwell also recently won the big labor endorsements, which includes the California Teachers Union. We could soon reach a point where top officials, including Governor Newsom, see endorsing Swalwell as the safest course in June.
Will Candidates Drop Out?
The campaigns of Antonio Villaraigosa, Xavier Becerra and Betty Yee are going nowhere. It’s time for them all to drop out. Tony Thurmond is California’s Superintendent of Public Instruction. His campaign is also going nowhere. He too should drop out.
This leaves Katie Porter and Tom Steyer. Both have polled well enough to stay in the race.
Steyer’s Progressive Support
Steyer has become the leading progressive choice. Solid Assembly progressives like Culver City’s Isaac Bryan and San Jose’s Alex Lee are backing him. His personally funded multi-million dollar campaign has boosted his name recognition. His commercials during Bay Area sporting events are omnipresent.
But Steyer lacks the institutional support that labor unions are giving Swalwell. Steyer will not be on many of the slate cards that low-information voters will use in casting ballots.
Porter’s chances remain focused on her being the only woman in the top tier. I still don’t think her personality resonates with enough voters to beat Swalwell or Steyer.
My assessment leaves three white Democrats while the four candidates of color are being asked to drop out. This racial breakdown led to the cancellation of a high-profile USC debate and probably explains why people are hesitant to urge candidates to leave a race they have no chance of winning.
I urged Senator Alex Padilla to run for Governor. He would have won easily and eliminated any risk of a Republican Governor. Kamala Harris would have also easily won. California’s great Attorney General Rob Bonta was not a lock to win but would have been the leader in the Democratic field. He also chose not to run.
If you wonder why the top three California Democrats running for governor are all white, it’s because the top candidates of color chose not to run.
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.
It was a mere 500 years ago that Europeans realized that the Strait of Hormuz was a trade choke point, when Portuguese Admiral Afonso de Albuquerque seized the Island of Hormuz to control trade in and out of the Persian Gulf. It was the first armed European conquest of Arabia meant to control international water routes and trade.
In other words, Trump and Hegseth didn’t know the importance of securing the Strait, although every ship captain has known about this chokepoint for centuries. Oh, well. As the philosopher George Santayana once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, or at the least get their asses kicked and watch gasoline prices go through the roof.” I’m not sure about the authenticity of the last phrase, but you get the idea.
The British, who are pretty good at the imperial power thing, grabbed Hormuz in 1622 from the Portuguese, with Iran’s help. Empires knew about Hormuz without the help of Google Maps.
Somehow, Hormuz’ strategic stranglehold on shipping seems to have slid by unnoticed by Trump’s trillion-dollar defense/intelligence combine.
Well, as Civil War journalist Ambrose Bierce said, “War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.”
But now that Trump has learned the hard way about the Hormuz choke point, he’s suggesting he might turn it into a profit center. He has suggested that an end to the war might include Iran and the US sharing the power to charge tolls to pass through the Strait (about $2 million per tanker!).
There is nothing new under the sun. Five centuries ago, the Portuguese conquistadors imposed a toll (“cartaz”) for ships trying to get through the Strait. Then, after the capture of Hormuz by the Shah of Iran and the mercenaries of the British East India Company, Persia and Britain agreed to split the loot from the cartaz.
The wee problem with Trump’s plan to collect passage tolls is that it violates international laws against piracy.
Above: The interior of the Portuguese castle on Hormuz, still standing today, a tourist attraction; though you may want to postpone that vacation to the Strait until the end of Operation Fast and Furious or whatever Agent Orange calls it.
In 1801, a “new nation conceived in liberty,” the United States of America, declared all such tolls by trolls a crime against humanity. President Thomas Jefferson declared that henceforward, the US would be world’s protector of open seas. And he meant business. Jefferson sent the US Marines into Libya to defeat the Barbary pirates who were exacting tolls from ships passing along Africa’s Mediterranean coast.
Few Americans today know about Jefferson’s war against piracy. It survives mostly in the Marine Anthem, “From the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli,” the pirates’ capital.
But now, Donald “Bluebeard” Trump wants in on the extortion racket. When asked who would operate this new toll booth in the Gulf, Trump said, “Maybe me. Me and the Ayatollah, whoever the Ayatollah is, whoever the next Ayatollah.”
How interesting: Trump recently called Iran’s Ayatollahs “deranged scumbags” and “lunatics” — which, apparently, he thinks qualifies them as perfect business partners.
So, in the end, the ultimate goal of Trump’s war is not to end the Iranian regime’s murderous rule, but to go into business with them to shake down the planet.
Bluebeard Trump’s only remaining problem is that the parrot on his shoulder keeps saying, “That one’s hot, Jeffrey.”
My final concern: Trump’s latest post on Truth Social ordered the Ayatollahs to, “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards,” his affectionate way of speaking to his would-be partners. Given that Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, are we now going to have to change our maps to replace, “Strait of Hormuz” with “Fuckin’ Strait”?
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