“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.”
Call your Congressperson and your U.S. Senators at (202) 224-3121
The story of the improbable becoming possible — told by the people who slept in the park.
About The Series
In 2008, a Wall Street crash gutted millions of lives. It took until 2011 for the Left to answer — a call to protest went out, thousands came, and they tried to build an anti-capitalist village in a small Manhattan park.
Told through the voices of activists who camped in Zuccotti Park for almost two months, Occupy! An Unfinished Uprising gets inside a movement that grew fast, felt transcendent and chaotic at once, and then violently flamed out. The press called it a failure. It changed the national conversation about capitalism, gave us the language of the 99%, and trained a generation of organizers.
As Occupy’s 15th anniversary arrives this September, it’s a reminder that collective action can still reshape what looks impossible.
It’s been a century since an administration decreased the national debt.
Listen To This Story
When Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, the national debt had not yet reached $1 trillion. However, in his inaugural address, the new president recognized the looming danger that it posed.
“For decades we have piled deficit upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our children’s future for the temporary convenience of the present,” he said. “To continue this long trend is to guarantee tremendous social, cultural, political, and economic upheavals.”
Reagan added that it is possible for individuals to live beyond their means by borrowing money, but that this only works for a limited amount of time.
“Why, then, should we think that collectively, as a nation, we’re not bound by that same limitation?” Reagan said. “We must act today in order to preserve tomorrow. And let there be no misunderstanding: We are going to begin to act, beginning today.”
And act he did. By the end of his two terms in office, the debt had nearly tripled to almost $3 trillion.
Fast forward to 2016, when the debt was $19 trillion. At that time, presidential candidate Donald Trump echoed Reagan and also warned that “we are mortgaging our future [and] we are mortgaging our children’s future.”
Fortunately for America, he went on to explain that he “went to Wharton” and understood the debt, and that the country would “pay it back so easily” once he created a dynamic economy (it’s worth watching the clip just to hear Bill O’Reilly sigh 6:57 into this interview).
Well, that didn’t happen. In just 10 years, the debt doubled again and reached $40 trillion on Wednesday.
And it keeps piling up.
For example, even though the “One Big Beautiful Bill” cut $1 trillion from social programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by taking healthcare and food stamps away from millions of Americans, this one piece of legislation will add $3.4 trillion to the debt over the next decade — about five times as much as the nation had racked up through the first 200 years of its existence.
That number pales in comparison to the interest the country has to pay to the people and governments to which it owes money. This year, that figure will surpass $1 trillion for the first time. And, over the next decade, interest payments are expected to total $16.2 trillion.
Of course, one has to take into account inflation, which is why it is worth comparing the debt to the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP).
When Reagan took office, it amounted to a bit over 30 percent of GDP. Now, that figure has soared to 122 percent.
In other words, if we took the money generated by selling all of the goods and services produced in the US in the coming year (from lemonade stands to every single manufacturing plant) and used it to pay down the debt, the country would still be in the red by $8 trillion.
And, of course, that is not the government’s money to take; it just gets a part of that in the form of taxes. So let’s think about the debt in that way: Last year, the government collected $5.23 trillion in revenue, more than half of which comes from individual income taxes (while that seems like a lot, keep in mind that it also spent more than $7 trillion, which gets to the heart of the problem).
So, let’s say that the federal government starts spending nothing for a while (but still collects taxes). That means no military, no Medicare, no Social Security, no judges, no federal law enforcement, no Congress, no air traffic controllers, and not even a shiny new ballroom.
When Reagan took office, it was $4,000 (or about $17,000 in today’s dollars). Now, however, it has ballooned to $120,000 for every American, or $286,000 per taxpayer (i.e., not counting children, retirees, and billionaires like Trump who often avoid paying taxes altogether).
At the current rate (and taking into account those interest payments), it would take nearly a decade to eliminate all of that debt.
All of these numbers are almost too large to fathom, so it helps to look at the problem on an individual level.
The median income in the US is about $65,000. If somebody making that much money had as much credit card debt, percentage-wise, as the US, (which is a more apt comparison than a mortgage because a mortgage is backed by a property) that would come out to about $80,000. To get out of that debt, they would have to use every penny they earn for 15 months to pay off that credit card — without spending a dime on food, shelter, health insurance, taxes, gasoline, etc.
Or let’s look at the share of the debt per person. When Reagan took office, it was $4,000 (or about $17,000 in today’s dollars). Now, however, it has ballooned to $120,000 for every American, or $286,000 per taxpayer (i.e., not counting children, retirees, and billionaires like Trump who often avoid paying taxes altogether).
That is your share of the bill that the nation’s leaders have accrued over the past four decades or so.
And this is a bipartisan problem.
It’s been a century since an administration decreased the debt. In the eight years that Warren Harding (who died in office) and Calvin Coolidge were at the helm, it decreased $7 billion. Ironically, that is how much the debt increases every single day now.
Since then, it has just gone up, up, up.
In the first four years after Reagan made that nice speech, it was up 82 percent. Since then, the debt has increased less than 30 percent only three times — twice under Bill Clinton and then in Barack Obama’s second term.
We have no faith in these lawmakers, who refuse to make tough choices because they only worry about their next election and not the problems their inaction causes down the road — whether that’s related to the debt, climate change, or artificial intelligence.
That doesn’t necessarily mean Democrats are more responsible stewards of taxpayer money. Instead, it’s probably more of a reflection of how Republicans only care about fiscal responsibility when one of their own isn’t in the White House but they control Congress.
The main difference is that they are bigger phonies when it comes to the debt because there is no tax cut for billionaires or military increase that they don’t like (and, for what it’s worth, as Reagan and other GOP presidents have proven, none of that money is “trickling down” to regular Americans).
And that brings us back to the Gipper.
Reagan wasn’t wrong when he said that “to continue this long trend is to guarantee tremendous social, cultural, political, and economic upheavals.”
Now, different economists have different opinions as to when the debt becomes unsustainable. We believe that it already is for the simple reason that there is no political will to do anything about it.
We have no faith in these lawmakers, who refuse to make tough choices because they only worry about their next election and not the problems their inaction causes down the road — whether that’s related to the debt, climate change, or artificial intelligence.
This year, between one-fifth and a quarter of all government revenue will go toward paying interest on the debt. If that’s not unsustainable, then what is?
There are those who say there is no magic bullet to fix this.
Perhaps.
However, there is a pot of money that grows even more quickly than the US debt: the wealth of American billionaires.
Since 2020, the debt grew a little more than 30 percent under Joe Biden and it’ll be the same again under Trump (or more in light of the sluggish economy, high inflation, and a proposed $1.5 trillion military budget).
However, the wealth of US billionaires skyrocketed 32 percent in just the first year of Trump’s second term and totaled $2.2 trillion — more than the annual budget deficit.
And that’s just individual billionaires, not the other ultra-rich (there are nearly a million individuals in the US whose net worth is at least $10 million, and 74,000 households are worth $100 million or more) and corporations that are raking in record profits — often while being subsidized in some way by taxpayer money — while regular Americans are struggling with a surging cost of living.
That seems like a great place to start.
And we better get to it soon, because we are either on the precipice of the upheaval Reagan was predicting or (like Wile E. Coyote) we have already gone over that cliff without realizing it.
One way or another, what comes next won’t be pretty… and time is up.
Klaus MarreKlaus Marre, a former congressional reporter, is a senior editor for US politics at WhoWhatWhy. He writes regularly here, and you can also follow him on Bluesky and Substack.
Nixon’s breakthrough victory, and losses by Republicans endorsed by President Donald Trump in several Florida congressional primaries, suggested that maybe Florida is no longer quite as immune to national trends. Photo: CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
OAKLAND PARK, Fla. — State Rep. Angie Nixon, a progressive firebrand who ran such an underdog campaign that she could not afford a single television ad, won the Democratic Senate nomination in Florida on Tuesday in a shocking upset.
With her defeat of Alex Vindman, a candidate with establishment backing who raised more than 16 times as much campaign money, Nixon, a democratic socialist, continued the left’s winning streak this year in Democratic primaries.
Florida had appeared impervious to the prevailing political winds in recent election cycles, with Republicans doing exceptionally well in the state in 2022, in what was otherwise a strong year for Democrats. Nixon’s breakthrough victory, and losses by Republicans endorsed by President Donald Trump in several Florida congressional primaries, suggested that maybe Florida is no longer quite as immune to national trends.
Here are six takeaways from Tuesday night’s primaries in Florida, Alaska and Wyoming, and a special election in California:
(Almost) no money? No problem. The grassroots propelled the left to victory, again.
Money is usually key to political campaigns in Florida, the nation’s third-largest state and home to 10 television markets. Nixon raised only $975,000, compared with Vindman’s more than $16.3 million. And she spent just $60,000 on advertising, according to AdImpact, a media tracking firm, compared to his $2.2 million.
Vindman will face questions about why his campaign did not spend more introducing him to voters. But credit Nixon, a union organizer, for knowing how to harness the enthusiasm of grassroots Democrats and volunteers — and deftly using social media — to inform them about her candidacy.
A final weekend push in South Florida, home to many Democratic voters even as much of the region has trended toward Republicans, appears to have paid off: Nixon, who is from Jacksonville, defeated Vindman in Miami-Dade County, the state’s most populous, and in neighboring Broward County, where he lives.
After a long hiatus, Democratic enthusiasm is back. Will it be enough for Nixon?
Some of the most exciting elections for Florida Democrats over the past 20 years featured Black progressives named Barack Obama, who won the state twice, and Andrew Gillum, the former mayor of Tallahassee who lost a governor’s race by a hair in 2018. Nixon will surely try to learn from the coalitions they built and capitalize on the excitement that propelled her big win.
But neither Obama nor Gillum entered the general election with so little name recognition, campaign organization or money, all of which are needed to reach Florida’s giant and varied electorate.
Also: How will the democratic socialist label play? Nixon joined the Democratic Socialists of America in June, though the DSA has not endorsed her candidacy. And Florida has gotten redder since Obama won the state in the 2008 and 2012 presidential races and Gillum narrowly lost the 2018 governor’s race. Sen. Ashley Moody, the Republican incumbent who faced no serious primary opposition Tuesday, is sitting on more than $8 million in campaign funds.
Florida could elect its first Black governor. He’s a Republican.
Republican challenger says he thinks the incumbent has done a poor job of protecting public safety and has the wrong priorities
Rep. Byron Donalds, who has long had Trump’s endorsement in the president’s adopted home state, crushed his rivals in the Republican primary for Florida governor. He has far out-raised the Democratic nominee, former Rep. David Jolly, a former Republican.
But Donalds did not break 50% on Tuesday, as some Florida Republicans had hoped. And he did not win some largely white, rural counties in North Florida. Donalds is Black. Some Republicans will be looking at his underperformance in those counties with concerns about whether some white Republicans will be unwilling to vote for a Black nominee, choosing to stay home in November instead.
Donalds dismissed concerns that he had not won a majority of the vote, telling reporters he would earn that support.
“They want the same thing we all want,” he said of Republicans who voted for his rivals. “We want a Florida that is based on common sense, law and order, freedom.”
Yet another scandal-plagued House Republican loses a primary.
Rep. Cory Mills lost the Republican primary in Florida’s 7th Congressional District to Ryan Elijah, a former local television news anchor, after Mills lost key support within his own party. Two House colleagues endorsed Elijah, saying they could not risk losing the Republican-leaning seat with a weak candidate.
Mills faced a House Ethics Committee investigation related to allegations of assault and threatening behavior toward women. His ouster followed that of Rep. Chuck Edwards of North Carolina, who was accused of sexually harassing two female former staff members and announced Aug. 5 that he would not seek reelection. The next day, Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee lost a primary after drawing criticism for anti-Muslim remarks.
It wasn’t a progressive sweep. See Wasserman Schultz, Debbie, and Moskowitz, Jared.
Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Jared Moskowitz, both moderate, pro-Israel Democrats, easily fended off rivals after Republican gerrymandering led them to compete in new districts. Wasserman Schultz, an 11-term incumbent, overcame frustration from Black Democrats who did not want her to represent a historically Black district. Moskowitz bested a democratic socialist.
Sullivan (the senator) and Peltola advance to November ballot.
Sen. Dan Sullivan, the incumbent Republican, and former Rep. Mary Peltola, a Democrat, easily advanced to the general election ballot Tuesday in Alaska’s Senate primary, setting up a highly anticipated matchup that could decide control of the Senate.
But the real intrigue was whether Dan J. Sullivan, a retired fifth-grade teacher accused by Republicans of being a Democratic plant to confuse voters and draw votes away from the other Sullivan, would join them. (The lesser-known Sullivan has denied the allegations.) Alaska’s nonpartisan primaries send the top four vote-getters to the general election, and many votes were yet to be counted.
After World War II, Dems lost touch with their New Deal roots. Now they’re coming back home.I’ve been reading the journals of historian-speechwriter-liberal activist-Prospect founding sponsor Arthur Schlesinger over the past week. They’ve helped me understand a good deal about American liberalism (as well as making clear, were there any doubt, that the line between Harvard historian and party animal was, and surely still is, easy to cross).
Schlesinger’s three-volume history of the New Deal, written during the 1950s, remains essential reading for anyone interested in the waxing and waning of American liberalism. Even as Schlesinger was embarked on that project, he also became one of the leading speechwriters for Adlai Stevenson, the Illinois governor who was the Democrats’ presidential nominee in 1952 and 1956, losing both times, decisively, to Dwight Eisenhower.
Despite his allegiance to and affection for Stevenson, Schlesinger admits in his 1952 journal entries that Stevenson had no interest in incorporating the class-based politics of the New Deal (and of Harry Truman’s Fair Deal) into his speeches and, more broadly, into his political identity. A few weeks after Stevenson’s loss to Eisenhower, Schlesinger writes, “Adlai was right that we should not run against Hoover,” the Republican president on whose watch the pre–New Deal economy collapsed, and against whose relatively laissez-faire and pro-corporate economics both Roosevelt and Truman had successfully campaigned. “This issue meant very little to younger people,” Schlesinger continues, “for whom Social Security and collective bargaining and economic opportunity were as secure and unalterable parts of the landscape as the trees and bushes.”
A decade later, while working in John F. Kennedy’s White House, Schlesinger comes away from a meeting with UAW President Walter Reuther and Sen. Hubert Humphrey, noting that both of them still spoke in “the New Deal’s distinctive rhetoric. Walter and Hubert could talk about ‘the people,’ about their ultimate wisdom, and the importance of doing things for them, in a way quite alien to the New Frontier”—the not particularly class-based perspective of the Kennedy administration. “I wish I could figure out,” Schlesinger laments, “the terms in which the idealism and imagination of the New Deal could be infused into the anti-sentimental, anti-rhetorical, understated mood of the New Frontier,” whose leaders he terms “technocrats.”
Read today, these passages illuminate the links between the shifting shapes of American liberalism—and, for that matter, American socialism—and the American economy. Writing at a time when New Deal reforms had produced an economy of opportunity “as secure and unalterable” as the landscape, when, as historian Nelson Lichtenstein recently noted in our pages, the real wages of working-class Americans doubled in a single generation, the postwar Democratic establishment had abandoned the class politics of its predecessors, whose victories had appeared to create a permanent middle-class majority. Reuther and Humphrey, by contrast, were at that point semi-social democrats who were concerned about those who either didn’t make it into that middle-class majority or whose membership therein was precarious. At the time, as Schlesinger noted ruefully, their concerns about these numerically marginal constituencies (at least, that was how they were viewed by the liberal establishment) registered only at the margins of liberal consciousness. The whole point of Michael Harrington’s The Other America, published in 1962, was to document the persistence of American poverty at a time when that poverty—as opposed to the pervasive poverty that preceded World War II—had become largely invisible.
Even as Schlesinger was writing his Stevenson- and Kennedy-era journal entries, American liberalism was slowly turning to those who’d been excluded by reason of race or gender from the rights and benefits of post–New Deal citizenship. It was Black activists who compelled the Democrats to focus on ending, or at least diminishing, those exclusions, but despite the socialist ideals of such civil rights leaders as Martin Luther King, A. Philip Randolph, and Bayard Rustin, it was the prisms of race and gender far more than that of class through which Democrats viewed the American landscape, and through which they largely defined themselves for the rest of the 20th century.
But can anyone look at what Schlesinger was writing in the 1950s and yet still marvel at the rebirth of class-based progressivism and socialism today? There are virtually no young people today who view their economic prospects as “secure and unalterable,” a view we now know was peculiar to the boomer generation. Is it any wonder that DSA, despite the fierce moral commitments of its founders, stayed a small organization of several thousand until the crash of 2008 and its prolonged and incomplete recovery made clear to young people, then and since, that the economy—deregulated and all but devoid of unions—was anything but secure? Is it any wonder that this year’s Democratic primaries, including this week’s in Florida, are defined by the precinct-walking and phone-banking of the young, class-based left, while the Democrats opposed to them can mobilize money but few if any volunteers?
The technocrats are being driven from the Democrats’ temple—or opting, rather, to hurriedly grasp onto some of the class-war perspectives that the Democratic base has embraced. While Schlesinger would doubtless reject some of DSA’s stances (as do AOC and Bernie Sanders, and it’s hard to imagine Angie Nixon celebrating Fidel), I’m confident he’d welcome the Democrats’ turn to a 21st-century version of the New Deal. They’re speaking his preferred language again.
US President Donald Trump, joined by Republican lawmakers, signs the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law on July 4, 2025 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Eric Lee/Getty Images)
“There is one point that should be very clear: It has been run up almost entirely due to Republican tax cuts and their inept management of the economy.”
But economists and policy analysts say Republican policy decisions—from massive tax cuts for the rich to disastrous wars of choice in the Middle East—are primarily responsible for the explosion of the national debt over the past quarter-century. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly promised to eliminate the national debt, has so far overseen an $11.6 trillion debt surge across his two White House terms.
“I have never been a deficit hawk, and I’m not about to change my religious affiliation now,” Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, wrote Thursday. “But whatever we think of debt and deficits, there is one point that should be very clear: It has been run up almost entirely due to Republican tax cuts and their inept management of the economy.”
Economist Paul Krugman similarly wrote that while the $40 trillion figure “has no special significance,” it underscores “the incredible irresponsibility of the Trump administration, with its unfunded tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy, billions in wasteful military spending—redesigning aircraft carriers because Trump doesn’t like the way they look!—and more.”
“As Jared Bernstein and Bobby Kogan have shown, our deficit would be far more manageable if first [George W.] Bush, then Trump, hadn’t rammed through tax cuts that hugely favored high-income Americans,” Krugman added.
Kogan, senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress, estimated in 2023 that tax cuts enacted during the Bush administration and Trump’s first term were “responsible for 57% of the increase in the debt ratio since 2001, and more than 90% of the increase in the debt ratio if the one-time costs of bills responding to Covid-19 and the Great Recession are excluded.”
“From now on, whenever you hear someone fret about how huge, horrible, and out-of-control the national debt is, explain to them that it’s largely because of tax cuts to the wealthy—who are also the major recipients of interest on that debt,” former US Labor Secretary Robert Reichwrote on Thursday.
The US national debt reached $40 trillion months earlier than forecasters expected, partially due to lost federal revenue from Trump’s court-invalidated tariffs.
“Before his second term is even over, Donald Trump is responsible for more than $10 trillion of this,” Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) wrote on Thursday. “Just INTEREST on this debt is now sucking up more of our public money than even the military and Medicare. DC Republicans are leaving our kids a colossal mess to clean up.”
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
San Francisco City Hall shot at Fulton and Pierce, near Alamo Square. Photo by Genesia Ting
The California Democratic Party narrowly voted in early August to support the upcoming billionaire wealth tax. San Francisco’s local party chapter appears poised to buck that choice: It is taking unprecedented action to independently consider whether to oppose the measure next Wednesday.
The tax, or Prop. 40, would impose a one-time 5 percent levy on roughly 200 billionaires in California. It would use the money raised to fund Medi-Cal, which will face an estimated $30 billion shortfall per year once federal tax cuts go into effect on Jan. 1.
In the past, the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee (DCCC), the county Democratic Party, would not have been able to break from the state party’s endorsement on California ballot measures. “By our bylaw, we cannot endorse state propositions, it’s the role of the California Democratic Party,” read the party’s endorsement page in 2020.
But this year, on June 24, a week after Prop. 40 qualified for the ballot, the local party voted to change its bylaws. Now the San Francisco Democratic Party is able to diverge from the state Democratic Party on endorsements of state ballot measures.
The change gives the committee “the power to take a position” when a measure “really does not align with our values,” Mike Chen, a member who sponsored the amendment in June, said ahead of the vote. The Los Angeles County Democratic Party also has the power to make separate endorsements, Chen added.
At that meeting, Michael Nguyen, another DCCC member, asked if anything on the November ballot had prompted the change. Chen replied that he did not have a specific measure in mind when drafting the amendment.
As of Thursday, Prop. 40 is the only state ballot measure that the San Francisco DCCC is considering in its endorsement process, according to its agenda.
“The only reason to bring it up is that they object to it,” said Kim Tavaglione, the executive director of the San Francisco Labor Council. “Clearly they do.”
David Campos, the former Mission District supervisor and vice chair of the state Democratic Party, agreed. “If you’re happy with where the state is” on Prop. 40, he said, “then there’s no reason to put it on the agenda.”
Nancy Tung, the San Francisco democratic party chair who opposes the measure, said in a statement that the party is considering Prop. 40 locally “because the endorsement process at the state executive board meeting was very split, and because of the strong position against held by respected groups like Planned Parenthood and the California Professional Firefighters.”
Prop. 40 has picked up its fair share of opposition among Democrats. Gov. Gavin Newsom and his likely successor, Xavier Becerra both oppose the measure. So does Mayor Daniel Lurie, who told San Francisco Business Times in January that it would drive revenue out of California.
The San Francisco DCCC can spend funds promoting its preferred candidates and causes, and do so handsomely: It had $556,120 in the bank as of June 30.
The local DCCC has undergone a shift in recent years. The majority slate of its current elected members were supported in their 2024 election by tech-backed political action committees, and lean moderate and pro-business. They took over after eight years of progressive control of the party.
The DCCC also voted in March to oppose Prop. D, the San Francisco “Overpaid CEO tax” in the June election. Opposed by Lurie and a barrage of spending, it subsequently lost.
Party members and organizers say that while it is too early to say definitively, it is likely the DCCC will vote to oppose the billionaire tax. Progressives on the body are discussing their options, Nguyen said. “But we have no votes to stop it.”
Voting to oppose the tax would be “a complete change from the party’s practice,” said Peter Gallotta, a progressive member of the San Francisco DCCC since 2017. “It’s important that there is a one-voice rule where as Democrats we stand together and unite around the state party’s decision and its process around these decisions.”
Having the state party taking one position on the billionaire tax, and the local party potentially taking another, Gallotta argued, could be confusing to voters.
“People already find it hard to understand where the Democratic Party is on key issues that affect their lives,” he added. “This is not the time to create more confusion.”
Tung, the DCCC chair, disagreed. “I don’t think it will cause confusion any more than seeing opposing views play out during the election,” she wrote. “It’s important for us to have rigorous debate on issues of statewide significance.”
Local chapters are not breaking rules by having separate ballot measure positions, said Campos. The state party’s bylaws only prohibit local chapters from diverging on candidate endorsements.
But no other local party has taken up the issue, Campos added.
Much of the San Francisco DCCC’s power lies in its ability to make endorsements. Voters are “looking for information from a trusted source, and there’s no more trusted source in San Francisco politics than the Democratic Party,” said Jim Ross, a political consultant with decades of experience in local politics, during the 2024 election.
If the local party votes to oppose Prop. 40, it could unlock a war chest from wealthy donors — many of them billionaires — who are already giving millions of dollars to defeat the measure. Among them are tech titans who have already bankrolled candidates and ballot measures in recent San Francisco elections, like crypto billionaire Chris Larsen, venture capitalist Michael Moritz, Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan and tech financier Ron Conway.
Plus, taking a position against Prop. 40 could unlock vast sums from the state groups fighting the billionaire tax, which the local party could then spend on slate cards promoting other, unrelated candidates. Those groups have spent tens of millions to fight the measure already.
“The S.F. DCCC slate card and political program would have a shit ton of money from the ‘No on Prop. 40’ committees,” said Gordon Mar, a progressive member of the local party.
Meanwhile, the “No on Prop. 40” statewide campaign would also gain: It could advertise that the San Francisco Democratic Party, a supposed bastion of liberalism, has come out against the measure. “It’s an arrow in their bow that they can then utilize and put in the mail pieces across the state,” Gallotta said.
Prop. 40 has a narrow lead in a recent poll conducted by UC Berkeley’s IGS Poll, but is below the 50 percent threshold needed: 48 percent of likely voters supported it in the poll, and 41 percent opposed. Divisions were along party lines.
We won’t ignore your neighborhood
When a San Francisco neighborhood has a Mission Local reporter, it means someone is there. We’re following new housing projects proposed on your block, keeping tabs on what your district supervisor is up to at City Hall, and letting you know when longtime businesses close (and new ones open). When big news breaks, we already know the context.
Most neighborhoods don’t have that. Yours could.
That’s what Mission Local is building. Our reporters don’t parachute in — they write consistently on San Francisco, so you’re never reading about your neighborhood from someone who just looked it up.
So far we are in five of San Francisco’s neighborhoods. But we know all San Franciscans deserve our kind of coverage. Will you join us?
Junyao covers San Francisco’s Westside, from the Richmond to the Sunset. She joined Mission Local in 2023 as a California Local News Fellow, after receiving her Master’s degree from UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Junyao lives in the Inner Sunset. You can find her skating at Golden Gate Park or getting a scoop at Hometown Creamery.More by Junyao Yang
PACK THE COURT for the Sentencing Hearing of 7 defendants of the GG26 at 12:45PM on Friday, on the steps of the 850 Bryant Street
The hearing will address the 43 misdemeanor convictions out of 1144 charges initially levied against the GG26 defendants.
The jury hung on felony conspiracy and misdemeanor trespass, but Jenkins has refused to drop these charges, pushing this case toward a second costly trial funded by San Francisco’s tax payer dollars.
**Seating in the courtroom is limited so please only enter if invited by one of the seven defendants. We’ll send our comrades into the courtroom and continue our rally outside where we’ll hear from members of our community. We’ll also share updates live from inside the courtroom. We’ll have snacks and beverages to share.
4:00pm We’ll end the day’s court affairs with a press conference on the steps of 850 Bryant Street at 4PM, where we’ll hear from the defendants and their legal team.
Brief history:
Last month, in the felony trial of the GG26, a SF jury found 7 defendants guilty on false imprisonment, unlawful assembly, obstruction of a thoroughfare, and failure to disperse, for protesting the US taxpayer-funded genocide in Gaza. While the genocide in Gaza and Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaigns continue with the unwavering support of the US government, SF DA Jenkins brings Trump’s assault on dissent to San Francisco.
The jury hung on felony conspiracy and misdemeanor trespass, but Jenkins has refused to drop these charges, pushing this case toward a second costly trial funded by San Francisco’s tax payer dollars.
We’d also like to invite you to support a fundraiser for the seven felony defendants of the GG26 who continue to incur expenses while being away from work due to the demands of this ongoing prosecution. Please consider sharing and donating at chuffed.org/project/gg26fundraiser .
She states: “Every officer on the scene testified that the protesters were peaceful, non threatening, and polite.
The only violence on the bridge was when a motorist twice attacked protesters, nearly throwing one into a metal railing. He was moved back to his car by protesters using nonviolent, de-escalation techniques. The officer on the scene ordered him to stay in his car and away from the protesters. He was the only motorist ordered to stay in his car, the others were all moving around, going to the bathroom, talking to each other, accepting snacks and water from the protesters, and making calls. No one called 911 saying they were being falsely imprisoned.
One motorist helped 180 cars turn around and go backwards off the bridge, before handing the job off to another motorist and driving away himself. CHP stood around and watched but didn’t help
There are more sketches by Laurie Moorhead and testimonies of all 7 defendants at the instagram site below
2. Friday, 6:00pm – 7:00pm, Monthly Gathering at Alex Nieto’s Altar
Bernal Hill Site near where Alex was murdered SF
MUNI # 67
All are welcomed to join Alex’s parents Refugio and Elvira Nieto on the 21st of each month as they remember Alex. It’s been 12 years since Alex was killed.
On March 21, 2014, Alex was murdered by SFPD officers Jason Sawyer, Richard Schiff, Nathan Chew, and Roger Morse, with 59 bullets.DA Gacon (at the time) declined to file criminal charges against the officers. .
When Chesa Boudin was SF DA (short term) He had is staff to do an investigation in Alex’s and other victims of police brutality cases. When Brooke Jenkins became the DA she dropped the investigations and either re-assigned or let the staff working on cases go.
There is still no justice for SFPD’s execution of Alex nor of any other victims of SFPD’s executions.
This is held outdoors, please dress for the weather. We will have signs, candles, music, and snacks. We invite you to join us for 5 minutes, or for the whole two hours. This vigil is held on the the third Friday of the month. Pictures from our previous vigils can be seen here:
Join the San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper for a community discussion on the U.S.-backed blockade against Cuba and its impact on everyday people.
Cuba has been under a complete 8-month oil blockade, and a 67-year general blockade because the U.S. government does not want Cubans in Cuba to determine the island’s fate without their interference.
5. Sunday, 12:30pm – 2:30pm, Film Screening and Discussion: Children No More: Were and are Gone
The New Parkway 474 24th St Oakland
SF Bay Area Friends of Standing Together and Chochmaters for Collective Liberation present:
A special screening of Oscar nominated short documentary- CHILDREN NO MORE: “WERE AND ARE GONE”.
The screening will be followed by a Zoom discussion with the director Hilla Medalia about strategies of protest and hear from local organizers other ways we can show up and support the struggle for peace, justice and equality in Israel/Palestine.
CHILDREN NO MORE: “WERE AND ARE GONE” is an observational documentary short about a vigil that began in March 2025, when a handful of women stood silently in a public square in Tel Aviv, each holding a photograph of a child killed in Gaza. On every image: the child’s name, age, date of death, and the words “WAS AND IS NO MORE.” Their stillness is heavy, pressing against the rhythm of ordinary life. Some passersby look away; others respond with denial, sorrow, or rage. Yet week after week, new names are added, new photographs are printed and lifted high. And each week, more people step forward to join this quiet act of protest.
From Oscar®-nominated and Emmy® Award-winning filmmaker Poh Si Teng, American Doctor follows three American physicians— Palestinian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian—united by a single oath to save lives: Dr. Thaer Ahmad (Chicago, IL), Dr. Mark Perlmutter (Rocky Mount, North Carolina) and Dr. Feroze Sidhwa (trauma surgeon,California https://www.ferozesidhwa.org/).
After volunteering in besieged hospitals in Gaza, they return home determined to fight for the patients and colleagues they left behind, taking their battle from the front lines of war to the halls of Congress. FROM FIRSTSHOWING.net (by Alex Billington, July 15, 2026):
QUOTE: “American Doctor follows three American physicians – Palestinian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian – united by a single oath to save lives. After volunteering in besieged hospitals in Gaza, they return home determined to fight for the patients and colleagues they left behind. Dr. Thaer Ahmad is measured and strategic, Dr. Mark Perlmutter is blunt and wears his heart on his sleeve, and Dr. Feroze Sidhwa is media-savvy and prolific. Filmed in unfolding, on-the-ground scenes, the story follows the three of them from a Gazan hospital under siege, to the halls of Congress to continue the struggle where it matters most: the United States. American Doctor is directed by doc producer / filmmaker Poh Si Teng, directing her first feature film after producing many other docs including St. Louis Superman previously. Produced by Poh Si Teng, Kirstine Barfod, and Reem Haddad. This initially premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, and it also played at True/False, SXSW, and CPH:DOX. Watermelon Pictures debuts American Doctor doc in select US + Canadian theaters starting August 14th, 2026 coming up this summer.”
7. Tuesday, 9:00am, Tell the Airport Commission to rein in ICE at SFO
SF City Hall – Room 400 1 Dr. Carleton B. Goodlett Pl (4th Floor) SF
Come out the SF Airport Commission meeting to tell SFO to stand up to ICE:
ven for domestic flights, airlines send reservation data to the TSA, which passes it on to ICE. Travelers are being targeted and abducted by ICE at check-in counters, gates, jetbridges, and baggage claim areas.
The City and County of San Francisco owns and operates SFO. But the Airport Commission has ignored our “sanctuary city” ordinance and capitulated prematurely to untested DHS claims of unlimited power.
OSF Editor: Will a future aircraft carrier be named after Doris Miller or Trump?
Google AI: No final decision has been made, but the U.S. Navy is actively conducting internal discussions about renaming the future aircraft carrier (CVN-81) to honor President Donald Trump. [1, 2, 3]
The vessel was originally named the USS Doris Miller in 2020 during Trump’s first term. Recent internal documents have shifted to referring to the ship strictly by its hull number, CVN-81. [1, 2]
Key Details of the Potential Change
Unprecedented Move: Naming a supercarrier after a sitting president would be entirely unprecedented in modern U.S. Navy history.
Alternative Plans for Miller: Officials are considering moving Doris Miller’s name to a different warship (such as a destroyer). Concurrently, there is a push to posthumously award Miller the Medal of Honor, upgrading his current Navy Cross.
Decision Makers: The authority to finalize the ship’s name lies with Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]
The proposed change has already generated significant public debate and backlash from veterans’ advocates and lawmakers. They emphasize that CVN-81 was intended to be the very first U.S. aircraft carrier named after an enlisted sailor and a Black American. [1, 2, 3]
Doris “Dorie” Miller was a U.S. Navy sailor who was the first black recipient of the Navy Cross and a nominee for the Medal of Honor. As a mess attendant second class aboard the battleship USS West Virginia, Miller helped carry wounded sailors to safety during the attack on Pearl Harbor. He then operated an anti-aircraft gun[3] and, despite no prior training in gunnery, officially shot down one plane (according to Navy Department records), but Miller and other eyewitnesses claimed a range of four to six.[4]Wikipedia
Jason Watson, the US service member who was arrested on the steps of the US Capitol last month after calling for the impeachment of President Donald Trump, has been detained once again — just days after he criticized the president in an exclusive CNN interview.
The US Air Force major was “ordered into pretrial confinement” Tuesday, a US Air Force spokesperson told CNN. As of Wednesday evening, he has not been formally charged, but the spokesperson said the case is still under investigation. Watson is currently being detained at a county facility in Maryland and is on a military hold, according to the public information officer for that detention center.
It is unclear what charges Watson might be facing.
Watson’s attorney Chris Mutimer said the airman was arrested while on duty the day after his interview on CNN earlier in the week. Mutimer said Watson was refusing to wear his uniform.
“While he was at work he, through counsel, informed his chain of command that he would no longer be wearing his uniform,” Mutimer said. “Shortly after that, he was told he needed to put his uniform on. Within about 20 minutes, and my understanding is around 330, he was then arrested and he was brought to a county jail.”
Mutimer said on CNN Wednesday evening they are “expecting charges related to Article 88, which is contempt towards an officer or Article 92, which is failure to obey, which would be related potentially to him not putting his uniform back on.”
“He expected this,” the attorney said. “He expected to be arrested.”
The Air Force spokesperson said in a statement, “Military members are required to comply with the Uniform Code of Military Justice and all applicable regulations.” The spokesperson added, “Based on probable cause to support allegations of continued misconduct, Maj. Watson was ordered into pretrial confinement on Aug. 18, 2026. Maj. Watson is presumed innocent and will be afforded all rights under Rule for Courts-Martial 305 as his pretrial confinement is reviewed.”
CNN has asked the Air Force for further details.
On Monday, Watson spoke with CNN’s Erin Burnett and criticized Trump, whose impeachment and removal he continues to call for.
“What is happening with President Trump is not normal. He has failed us,” Watson said. “And not only is he a failure as president, he is flagrantly violating the Constitution, breaking the law, engaged in rampant corruption and is killing Americans. And that is unacceptable to me and it should be unacceptable to all of us.”
Airman arrested after protesting Trump in uniform speaks out: Trump ‘has failed us’
Public dissent within active-duty military ranks is rare as service members are required to follow orders in accordance with the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which criminalizes contemptuous words against the president, vice president, Congress and other top officials under Article 88.
“Maj. Watson’s personal statements do not reflect the views or policies of the Department of the Air Force,” the agency spokesperson said in the statement Wednesday.
Watson was previously arrested on July 1 on the US Capitol steps after he gave a speech calling for the impeachment and removal of Trump and Vice President JD Vance.
US Capitol Police told CNN at the time that members of the public are not allowed to demonstrate on the steps of the House unless they are accompanied by a member of Congress. Watson was “escorted” to the steps by a member, who then “left the area,” according to police.
Watson was wearing his uniform during the demonstration. Military regulation bans wearing a uniform while participating in political activities, though to date Watson had not been charged with an infraction tied to the demonstration.
Watson told CNN earlier this week that he is willing to pay the price of speaking out against the administration.
“We just have to be willing to accept that we can change what is happening in our country if we’re just willing to pay a price for it,” Watson said. “So all that I could do was ask myself what’s the highest price that I’m willing to pay. And this is what I ultimately came up with.”
This story has been updated with additional details.
Davis Winkie and Piper Hudspeth Blackburn contributed to this story.
One of the surveys released by the group, Median Strategies, claimed that Francesca Hong was leading the Wisconsin Democratic primary for governor by more than 20 percentage points. Photo: LaShawnda Jones, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
An organization that released public election polling in recent weeks withdrew the results of two surveys, revealing that it had fabricated the polls as part of a “short-term social experiment” meant to expose how quickly false information could spread.
One of the surveys released by the group, Median Strategies, claimed that Francesca Hong was leading the Wisconsin Democratic primary for governor by more than 20 percentage points. (She went on to lose by less than 1 percentage point.) Another, shared by Mayor Karen Bass on the social platform X in a since-deleted post, showed Bass leading Nithya Raman by nearly 12 percentage points in the Los Angeles mayoral runoff.
On Monday, Median Strategies withdrew those results, saying they “should not be treated as genuine polling data.”
In a statement posted to the organization’s website, Median Strategies said the fabricated results were intended to examine “how purported polling information could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification.”
Median Strategies did not respond to a request for further comment on the incident.
The false polls, particularly the one from the California race, spread widely after being picked up by The California Post and various social media polling aggregators. The results, however, were not published by multiple major polling aggregators, and were not included in The New York Times’ poll trackers because the group did not respond to questions about its methodology.
The experiment came as the number of public pollsters has skyrocketed, with about 30 new pollsters cropping up so far this year. The large number of surveys coming from new, previously untested pollsters has made it increasingly difficult to judge survey quality. But while these new pollsters may be unproven, the vast majority appear to be real.
In Wisconsin, the Median Strategies results were largely in line with the other public polls, all of which greatly underestimated Hong’s opponent, David Crowley, igniting a wave of criticism of the value of primary polling.
What Median Strategies hoped to accomplish by adding false polls into a saturated marketplace was unclear, even to experts in the field.
SF claims for exemption from foreclosure-related transfer taxes hit $450 million in the past three fiscal years — more than claimed in the prior 15 years combined
This week, The City will preview San Francisco Opera’s upcoming season, host a stop on Herbie Hancock’s summer tour and throw a tea party at the zoo
“It doesn’t make sense as a social experiment; what are you measuring?” said Mia Costa, a government professor at Dartmouth College. “How do you know who was exposed and who wasn’t? This is just wreaking havoc in an election with real stakes and no real interest in understanding the effects of what you are doing.”
The revelation of such an experiment, and how easily the false results spread, exposed a challenge in a polling world where incentives are high to produce polls that attract attention, and the cost of a low-quality poll is relatively modest.
“The bar to doing a poll has gotten so low that it’s easy to get through without adhering to typical industry standards,” said Josh Pasek, a political science professor at the University of Michigan. “As a result, these bad actors can quickly manipulate our understanding of a race.”
The fake polls, which were first reported on by the Los Angeles Times, also drew attention to the increasing reliance on low-quality polls and betting markets to inform the public’s understanding in races where little information is otherwise available. Additionally, it calls into question how information of varying quality might move the needle in betting markets like Kalshi and Polymarket.
“The ability to manipulate even a marginal amount of information can have a disproportionate impact on the markets,” Pasek said.
Bass’ election odds showed slight improvement in the betting markets after the Median Strategies poll was reported, while no changes were seen in Wisconsin. In its statement, Median Strategies claimed that no one involved received any compensation or financial benefit from the project, and that none of those involved held or traded any position in the various prediction or betting mechanisms.
Without further explanation, the statement about the experiment ended with a message that stood in contrast to the confused reaction that followed from people throughout the polling world: “Thank you for your understanding.”
Trump Regime Takedown: Every Saturday Saturday, March 7, 2026 12:00 PM 2:00 PM Tesla San Francisco999 Van Ness AvenueSan Francisco, CA, 94109United States (map) Google Calendar ICS Keep democracy alive every Saturday by showing up, taking a stand, and sticking together for the long haul. Standing together is better than standing alone. Let’s get together... Continue reading →
HBD Marsha- An All-Trans Drag Show Celebrating Marsha P. Johnson’s Birthday and Trans History Month Date: Saturday, August 22 Time: 4PM Location: Jane Warner Plaza, F-Line Castro Stop Come through to Jane Warner Plaza this Saturday at 4 PM for an All-Trans Drag Extravaganza hosted by Lady Adjacent. Featuring the best talent in the... Continue reading →
Meeting Agenda August 22, 2026 The San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee’s Endorsements Committee and Issues and Resolutions Committee will hold a joint meeting on August 22nd, 2026 at 4:00 pm via Zoom to interview candidates for local elected office and ballot measure proponents and opponents for the November 3,... Continue reading →
This Sunday’s Town Hall: Announcing This Week’s Progressive Town Hall: Every Sunday at 4pm ET/1pm PT RSVP HERE Join PDA activists online from across the country to discuss the importance of progressives reclaiming the American story from the MAGA right, an issue of heightened importance as we’re now within one... Continue reading →
Who’s ready for another election? Read on to find out how to get involved with the League of Pissed Off Voters. Save the Date: August 23rd Endorsement Meeting OMFG this ballot is so long (25 propositions!). We will host our endorsement meeting on Sunday, August 23rd, and we’d love for... Continue reading →
We protest Heritage Foundation EVERY MONDAY (Join us!!!!) By admin | September 2, 2025 | Uncategorized Cliff Cash Comedy Premiered Jul 26, 2025 Every Monday at The Heritage Foundation 214 Massachusetts Ave. Washington D.C. 4pm protest 6pm pizza Every Friday at Fox News D.C. 400 N. Capitol St. Washington D.C. 4pm protest 6pm pizza We are... Continue reading →
Milk Club Trans Caucus Meeting Date: Tuesday, August 25 Time: 5-7 PM Join: Meeting info available to members of the Milk Club Trans Caucus. Please reach out to trans@milkclub.org if you would like to join the Milk Club Trans Caucus.
Milk Club AAPI Caucus Meeting Date: Tuesday, August 25 Time: 6-7PM Video Join Link: Click here We’re here to recruit you! https://tinyurl.com/milkclubaapi
Milk Club BIPOC Caucus Meeting Date: Tuesday, August 25 Time: 7-8:30PM Video Join Link: Meeting info here! Open to Black, Indigenous, People of Color with room for allies to lift up BIPOC voices and discuss BIPOC democratic issues. Please reach out to BIPOC@milkclub.org if you would like to join us or get invited to our signal... Continue reading →
Harold Meyerson
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