“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
By Rachel Swan, Staff Writers June 18, 2026 (SFChronicle.com)
Gift Article
A surge in demand for AI infrastructure is fueling a boom in data centers, such as this 33-megawatt facility with a closed-loop cooling system in Vernon, just south of downtown Los Angeles. That could mean more data centers near the state’s high-speed rail line.Mario Tama/Getty Images
One day, bullet trains could zip from a palm-lined street in Anaheim to the foot of Salesforce Tower in SoMa.
Along the way, they may pass through a new kind of California landscape: vast acres of warehouses, all humming with servers. These buildings could be essential to the rail system’s survival.
That’s the dystopian future that Visalia (Tulare County) resident Joseph Mello conjured when he addressed the High-Speed Rail Authority board on June 1. Mello said he had read the draft business plan the board was set to approve that day, and one particular element struck him. The plan proposed leasing land or providing energy for data centers that could be built in the Central Valley, fueling a massive tech boom up north.
“As a potential rail user,” Mello said, “I do not want to ride through a valley of data centers.”
He was not alone. Much of the public comment period during the board’s June 1 meeting zeroed in on this new form of industrial development, and how high-speed rail might shape it. People worried that data centers would consume staggering amounts of water, release toxins into the soil, create noise, cause runaway fires should their battery storage ignite, and despoil the loamy, farm-checkered land. They echoed the concerns of small towns across the country whose councils are banning these facilities, viewing them as symbols of techno-colonialism.
Officials at the High-Speed Rail Authority see it differently. After the Trump administration yanked $4 billion in federal funding, California was left on its own to lay 171 miles of track from Merced to Bakersfield, then extend it north to the Bay Area, and south to Los Angeles, at a cost of $126 billion. The agency’s only option, according to CEO Ian Choudri, is to monetize every asset associated with the nascent rail network, from land along the right-of-way to surplus electricity to fiber-optic connections. Developers of “hyperscale” data centers are a perfect market for these resources, and many of them are eyeing the rural hinterlands where high-speed rail is currently under construction.
“We do have a corridor that will have fiber connectivity, renewable power and clean power available,” Choudri said during the June 1 board meeting. “We heard that some of these hyperscalers are actually having active discussions in the Central Valley about their intent to provide data centers.”
Choudri told the Chronicle that he had heard of one such discussion underway between officials in Kern County and a prospective data center developer, though he was not directly involved in the conversation. (Representatives of Kern County did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment.)
To pave the way for potential leases of land, fiber or electric transmission along the corridor, the rail authority has signed a co-development agreement with a consortium of infrastructure investors. They would act as a kind of intermediary for the rail line, helping match assets in the rail right-of-way with companies that would pay to use them. Within a few months Choudri expects to finalize a second agreement with another group of investors, this one focused on generating revenue from the solar arrays, wind farms, substations or batteries that will power the trains. The deals represent a strategic response to a harsh economic reality. Transit can only earn so much from the fare box. For high-speed rail to be self-sufficient, every piece of the system must be treated as possible income.
People involved in the megaproject hope these public-private transactions will get the Merced-Bakersfield portion in service by 2033, enabling a quick expansion to Gilroy so the full San Francisco-Los Angeles railway could open seven years later. That timeline would be welcome news for Gov. Gavin Newsom, who needs to show progress toward California’s most ambitious transportation dream should he decide to run for president. Choudri, meanwhile, has offered a practical rationale for courting the private sector. Once the track and stations are built, state law requires high-speed rail to fund its own operations. Data centers could supply a financial lifeline. Project insiders believe, moreover, that if tech companies have a vested interest in high-speed rail, they could help boost its political support.
“This is where AI in Silicon Valley is going,” Choudri said in an interview. “We just need to be mindful that if they’re doing something in the Central Valley, and they need some support services from us, we are going to put that on the table for our investors.”
Still, at least one observer acknowledged Newsom’s fragile position. Always an evangelist for innovation and new mobility, the governor now has to display “serious policy chops” if he’s making a bid for the White House, said David McCuan, a political science professor at Sonoma State University.
“He has a time frame that’s measured in months” to get the project under control, McCuan said. “And that means he has to embrace the latest, greatest, most divisive devil in politics, which is data centers.”
Steve Kawa, the new High-Speed Rail Authority board chair who served as Newsom’s chief of staff when the governor was mayor of San Francisco, said adamantly that the authority is “not proposing to build or operate data centers,” even though data centers built by others could be part of its commercial strategy.
“Let me be clear,” Kawa wrote in a statement, “the first and only priority is building out a world class high-speed rail system in California. All the work of the Authority is done in service of that goal.”
The challenge for the rail authority is winning over cities that wanted trains, not tech infrastructure. Madera Mayor Cecilia Gallegos insisted her city would reject any plans for data centers because of their heavy water consumption. A spokesperson for Bakersfield said city leaders had not heard information about “proposals to lease land” for data centers around the high-speed rail corridor.
Article continues below this aMerced Mayor Matthew Serratto recalled a hearing vague rumor that data centers might rise on the outskirts of Merced County. He mistrusts them for many of the reasons his constituents cited, including the scarcity of water and strain on the grid. Serratto noted, further, that Central Valley residents do not want outside forces “dictating” land-use decisions in the region.
“Ian’s got big ideas,” Serratto said, referring to Choudri. “He’s very plugged in with the Silicon Valley types. He’s a move-fast, visionary kind of guy, and he wants this project to pay for itself.”
Serratto managed a dry laugh.
“But really,” he said, “just build the train, dude.”
Vice President JD Vance stunned observers on Thursday with some of the bluntest criticism issued to Israel by a US presidential administration in recent memory as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues his attempts to sabotage peace with Iran.
Noting the indignance and defiance of Netanyahu and his cabinet in response to the memorandum of understanding signed this week by Trump—which calls on Israel to withdraw from Lebanon and end its ethnic cleansing campaign there—Vance said Israel’s leaders were in the midst of a “weird panic” and “freakout” during a New York Times interview on Thursday.
It comes on the heels of Trump’s own criticism of Israel’s tactics in Lebanon earlier this week, describing its bombing of an apartment building—one of countless attacks on civilian infrastructure—as “vicious” and “too much,” before claiming that “without me, there would be no Israel.”
Vance went even further later on Thursday during a press conference at the White House, reminding Israel’s leaders that they’ve made their country an international pariah.
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“My message to them would be twofold. No. 1: Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time,” Vance said. “If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world.”
In a style reminiscent of his infamous Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last year, he later took Israel’s leaders to task over what he described as ingratitude for America’s support, which has included roughly $4 billion in military assistance each year and even more since Israel began its genocidal military campaign against Gaza in 2023 in response to Hamas’ October 7 attacks.
The weapons Israel uses, Vance stressed, “have been built by American hands and paid for by American tax dollars.” He added, “The problem for Israel is not Donald J. Trump and anybody in Israel who thinks their biggest problem is the president of the United States needs to wake up and smell the reality of the situation that the country is in.”
In a marked shift from earlier this year, when the administration had cosigned Israel’s attacks on Lebanon even at the cost of ceasefire negotiations, Vance on Thursday called on Israel to “respect this peace process” and called Israel’s attacks on civilians “unacceptable.”
Just as observers have been bewildered by Trump’s sudden acknowledgment of Iran’s rights to possess ballistic missiles and to pursue nuclear energy, many were similarly caught off guard by Vance’s abrupt acknowledgment of truths about Israel that have been apparent to most of the world for years.
JD Vance is not changing the conversation about Israel in the US. He is changing the entire paradigm:
He is reminding the Israelis that they are alone and – though he doesn't use this word – much disliked internationally. Israel should not undermine the only strong friend they… pic.twitter.com/ZnqVTjve9R
“JD Vance is not changing the conversation about Israel in the US. He is changing the entire paradigm,” said Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. “He is reminding the Israelis that they are alone and—though he doesn’t use this word—much disliked internationally. Israel should not undermine the only strong friend they have left.”
Washington Post columnist Shadi Hamid agreed that it was “probably the toughest public criticism offered by a US administration towards Israel in my lifetime,” adding that “we’ll see if it gets translated into action or if it’s just rhetoric, but it’s still much more than the Biden administration could ever manage.”
The naked cynicism of the flip-flop was apparent to many, given the Trump administration’s slavish deference to Israel up to the point that it became political poison.
College students who have said similar things to Vance about Israel’s killing of civilians have found themselves facing deportation, while International Criminal Court officials who have attempted to hold Israeli officials criminally liable for war crimes have found themselves sanctioned by the US.
That is to say nothing of Trump’s willingness to follow Netanyahu’s lead into a disastrous and unpopular war with Iran despite warnings from his own cabinet that he was being manipulated.
“It would be nice if they had this posture from January 2025,” journalist Zaid Jilani said of Vance’s comments on Thursday. “Might have helped save Trump’s presidency.”
Alexander Langlois, a contributing fellow at the anti-interventionist think tank Defense Priorities, described it as a deeply calculated maneuver to simultaneously show Israel who is boss in front of a nation growing wary of its influence while also reiterating America’s support.
“Vance is drawing a line. The White House is absolutely trying to use its power and influence to get not only Republicans, but Israel, in line,” he said.
Still, despite doubts, it was hard to overstate the gravity of the shift underway, at least rhetorically.
“It could all lead to nothing, or worse—a joint US-Israel resumption of the war,” said journalist Glenn Greenwald. “But there hasn’t been a week where American leaders have spoken so sternly, clearly, truthfully and decisively about Israel since… well, perhaps ever.”
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1. Thursday, 4:00pm – 6:00pm, Tell Target to Stand Up To ICE! Metreon Target: 789 Mission Street. Meet on the sidewalk by the Mission Street entrance. SF
Tell Target: We will boycott until they Stand Up To ICE!
Join us to say: Until Target acts to protect its workers and guests from ICE, we will not shop at Target! We will hold signs, hand out flyers, and explain why we must all boycott Target until they Stand Up To ICE. Bring a sign if you have one.
2. Friday, 10:30am – 12:30pm, Demo at Israeli Consulate
Israeli Consulate – SF 456 Montgomery St. SF
The terrorist apartheid colony is daily murdering, kidnapping, torturing and dispossessing people in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon. Come and show the zionist entity that the Bay Area is sick of all their crimes.‼
Bring drums, noisemakers, banners and flags to make a proper ruckus. FREE PALESTINE FREE LEBANON
This Friday June 19th /esté viernes 19 de junio Juneteenth ! Last survival poetry workshop at HOMEfulness Yelamu (SF) 3390 Cesar Chavez st nr mission At 12 noon With yummy free , healthy lunch at the sliding scale cafe ! @poormagazine
4. Saturday, 12Noon – 4:00pm, Public Memorial: Nellie Wong – ¡Presente!
Oakland High School, Multi-Purpose Room, Oakland CA
Entrance & Parking Lot: Put “51 Home Place E” in your GPS
Public transportation: The 18 Montclair AC Transit bus goes very close to Oakland HS from 13th & Broadway (near 12th St Oakland BART).
The stop at Park Blvd and 28th St is a 2 minute walk from the school.
Public Memorial: Nellie Wong ¡Presente! 1934-2026
Please join us in honoring the life of Nellie Wong, Asian American socialist feminist trailblazer. A celebrated working class poet, fierce labor movement fighter, and revolutionary role model to generations, Nellie’s life was a vibrant tribute to the joy of collective struggle in creating a new world.
5. Saturday, 6:00pm – 8:00pm, Film Showing: The Seed of the Sacred Fig, directed by Mohammad Rasoulof
Revolution Books 2444 Durant Avenue Berkeley
The Seed of the Sacred Fig was filmed secretly in Iran. A lawyer named Iman, a staunch believer in the oppressive and patriarchal Islamic Republic, has just gotten a promotion which gives him authority over defendants’ life and death. But he must rubber stamp judgments without looking at the evidence. As he confronts his new role, Iran’s streets are filled with the Women Life Freedom movement. His own daughters are riveted on the protests – what to believe? The official government lies, or the reality they see out their window?
Mohammed Rasoulof is an influential Iranian filmmaker known for his thought-provoking and politically charged cinema. He has faced constant threats and persecution from the Iranian government.
In 2024, The Seed of the Sacred Fig was nominated at the Cannes Film Festival for the Palm D’Or. Days before the screening of the film, the Islamic Republic of Iran sentenced him to 8 years in prison, whipping, and a fine because of his films and political activism. Rasoulof fled on foot to Germany where he now lives in exile.
Our screening is dedicated to the people of Iran, as they face the onslaught of war by the US and Israel and at the same time have been living under and struggling against the repressive Islamic Republic.
6. Sunday, 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.
Monday, June 22
7. Monday, 9:00am, Sentencing of AI Protester: Wynd Kaufman
Monday, June 22 – 26, Haiti TPS Week of Action June 22nd-26th
Did you know the Supreme Court Is Deciding the Fate of 350,000 Haitians currently living in the US under Temporary Protected Status?
What is TPS? TPS allows foreign nationals from designated countries to live and work in the United States temporarily due to unsafe conditions in their home countries, such as ongoing armed conflict or an environmental disaster that would prevent them from returning home safely.
Now, Trump – with openly racist animosity towards Haitians – wants to end TPS for Haiti and 16 other countries. It was to have ended on February 3rd, but has been in the courts on appeal and is now before the Supreme Court which is expected to rule by the beginning of July.
At the same time, on April 16th the House passed HR 1689 which would extend TPS for Haitians for three years. The bill is now in the Senate.
What You Can Do:
· Join Haiti Action Committee in bannering “TPS 4 Haitian & All Refugees: NO RACIST DEPORTATIONS.” Week of Action June 22nd-26th. Post photos of your banners to social media and send them to us at action.haiti@gmail.com
· Call your Senators to urge them to vote yes on H.R. 1689’s accompanying Senate bill.
· Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121
· After the Supreme Court ruling, demonstrate (or celebrate) at 4:30pm day of [if the decision is announced before noon PDT] or day after [if announced later] at the SF Federal Building, 7th & Mission, San Francisco
· “Haiti and the Crisis in the Caribbean!” Join us for an educational evening affirming solidarity with Haiti and all peoples confronted by US empire’s cruelty, greed and deadly aggression. Featuring speakers on Haiti, Cuba and Puerto Rico. Thursday, July 16th, 7pm at 518 Valencia in SF. Donation $10-20, no one turned away.
8. Wednesday, 12Noon – 1:00pm, Rally at SF City Hall, Bayview-Hunters Point Calls for Mass Mobilization Over Shipyard
SF City Hall (Steps) 1 Dr. Carleton Goodlett Pl SF
CALL TO ACTION
Bayview-Hunters Point Community Calls for Mass Mobilization at San Francisco Hall Over Radioactive Contamination, Environmental Racism, and the Future Hunters Point
Issued by the Marie Harrison Community Foundation and Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice
San Francisco stands at a moral crossroads.
For decades, the people of Bayview-Hunters Point have lived in the shadow of one of the most contaminated former military sites in the United States: the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard Superfund Site. Generations of residents have been forced to live, work, raise children, and struggle for survival amid radioactive and toxic contamination associated with the Shipyard, industrial facilities, diesel corridors, hazardous waste sites, and cumulative environmental exposure.
These dangers are not confined to the past.
Recent discoveries of additional radiological materials at Hunters Point, combined with longstanding concerns about cleanup fraud, delayed disclosures, unresolved contamination, and aggressive redevelopment pressure, have intensified community demands for truth, accountability, and justice. For Bayview-Hunters Point residents, this crisis is not about one isolated incident. It is about the cumulative burden of decades of exposure to environmental hazards, documented disparities in asthma and respiratory illness, adverse birth outcomes, economic hardship, and the repeated devaluing of Black, Brown, low-income, and working-class lives in District 10.
The Marie Harrison Community Foundation and Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice are calling on concerned residents, public health advocates, scientists, labor leaders, students, faith communities, environmental organizations, civil rights groups, and community allies across San Francisco and beyond to stand with Bayview-Hunters Point in a united public demonstration for environmental justice.
DEMANDS
1. Health Reparations for Impacted Residents
Residents who have lived, worked, gone to school, and raised families in the shadow of contamination deserve recognition, resources, and meaningful remedies for the health, emotional, and economic harms inflicted over generations. Justice requires more than acknowledgment. It requires repair.
2. Independent, Community-Supervised Retesting of the Entire Shipyard and Impacted Areas
The Hunters Point Naval Shipyard and adjacent impacted areas must undergo comprehensive retesting under full community supervision. This process must include independent technical review, split-sample testing, transparent public reporting, and unrestricted oversight by trusted community representatives.
3. Public Funding for Independent Community Experts With Full Site Access
The City, State, and federal government must provide funding so community organizations can hire independent technical experts of their own choosing. Those experts must be granted full and unrestricted access to the Superfund site, the right to review records, the ability to obtain split samples, and the authority to collect independent samples. The community must not be forced to rely solely on agencies or contractors whose credibility has already been called into question.
4. Cleanup to the Highest Protective Standards for Residential Safety
The community demands cleanup standards that truly protect present and future generations, including removal of contamination wherever technically feasible. Simply capping contaminated areas, especially near the shoreline, is unacceptable given serious concerns about sea-level rise, groundwater intrusion, erosion, and climate-related risks.
5. No Transfer or Development of Contaminated Land
The City and County of San Francisco must reject the transfer, approval, or development of any parcel from the Shipyard unless it can be independently verified as safe and free from contamination that could threaten public health. Hazardous materials that cannot be safely treated onsite must be removed and disposed of at properly permitted facilities.
6. Long-Term Health Monitoring and Community Investment
The people of Bayview-Hunters Point deserve comprehensive long-term health monitoring, expanded healthcare access, environmental health research, pollution prevention investments, workforce development, and permanent community-led oversight mechanisms to ensure that future generations are never again placed in harm’s way.
This is not a call against development. This is a call for truth. This is a call for science. This is a call for transparency. And above all, this is a call for environmental justice.
The East Bay is rising up to stop a proposed coal terminal that would blanket our communities in toxic dust. Come learn how you can fight coal at this community meeting. We’ll catch you up on our decade-long campaign opposing a proposed coal terminal in West Oakland. We’ll share updates on the campaign, and brainstorm ways to take action in small groups. The coal terminal would bring mile-long coal trains along the East Bay shoreline, from Martinez to Oakland, sending toxic coal dust through our communities. This coal terminal is everyone’s problem–and it’ll take all of us to stop it. Learn more about the campaign at nocoal.org.
Rep. Ro Khanna has become the first member of the US Congress to sign a “peace pledge” promising to swear off funds from the Israel lobby and block US support for countries that violate human rights.
The pledge was created by the political action committee Citizens Against AIPACCorruption, which runs the widely shared “AIPAC Tracker”social media campaign that names and shames politicians who receive support from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and other pro-Israel groups that have spent tens of millions in recent election cycles to influence members of Congress.
Lawmakers who sign the pledge agree not to take money from AIPAC or pro-Israel lobbying groups and promise to make campaign finance reform a key priority.
Acknowledging the consensus among human rights organizations that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza, signatories also commit to taking actions in Congress to oppose US military and diplomatic support for Israel or any other nation whose military commits gross human rights violations.
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Signatories also agree to support First Amendment protections for speech critical of Israel as well as efforts to use financial pressure against the country, like the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which members of Congress have sought to criminalize.
🚨 Rep. Ro Khanna is the first member of Congress to sign Track AIPAC's PEACE Pledge.
PEACE stands for Pledge to Enforce American Law, Counter Foreign Influence, and End War Crimes.
In a video in which he signed the pledge on Wednesday, Khanna (D-Calif.) described its commitments as “pretty common sense.”
“It means that we shouldn’t be sending our tax [money] for foreign wars overseas, we should be spending it here at home,” he said. “And it says we shouldn’t be taking money from AIPAC or all of its affiliate PACs or bundled money from those organizations, and that we have to recognize the genocide that took place in Gaza.”
He said, “I’m going to be signing this pledge, and I hope others will follow.”
The push for lawmakers to sign the pledge comes as support for Israel has plummeted to historic lows, especially among Democratic voters in the wake of the Gaza genocide, its accelerating ethnic cleansing campaigns in the illegally occupied West Bank and southern Lebanon, and its role in pressuring the Trump administration to launch and continue a devastating war against Iran.
Voters increasingly view AIPAC as having undue influence over American lawmakers, and many Democrats—including longtime supporters of Israel—have seen the writing on the wall and become vocal critics of the lobby.
Khanna is one of them, having previously accepted money from the liberal Zionist group J Street and voted to fund Israel’s Iron Dome in 2021 and in favor of a resolution conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism in the wake of October 7, 2023.
Cory Archibald, the co-founder of Track AIPAC, said the goal of the pledge is to give these politicians an opportunity to transform themselves on the issue while also forcing them to put their votes where their mouths are.
“While we have created a very successful pressure campaign to highlight and expose the extent of the influence of AIPAC and their allies on our lawmakers,” she said Wednesday on the Breaking Points podcast, “we also have a responsibility as an organization to give people a bridge to get on the right side of history and to reflect that their policy positions have changed and to chart a new course.”
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Protest sign reading, “Minnesota Shut It Down!” at an anti-ICE protest in downtown Minneapolis, MN on January 30, 2026. Photo credit: Fibonacci Blue / Flickr (CC BY 4.0)
To better understand how ICE terrorizes US communities, it’s important to know how it affects children when they see masked goons round up people on the streets, leaving care-giving adults in fear. Our recent series documented just that.
According to the FBI’s definition, by carrying out “violent, criminal acts” to “further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences, such as those of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature,” ICE is the best-funded domestic terrorist organization in the United States.
Now, if you argue that this definition stems from the previous administration, here is another one from Donald Trump’s first term in office.
It says that domestic terrorism involves “acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States.” That certainly applies, even though ICE agents routinely get a pass for committing all manner of crimes against the civilian population of the United States.
And we’re not just talking about the Americans who were directly killed or injured but also the immigrants who died in custody or through negligence.
The key is that these acts are defined as intended to “intimidate or coerce a civilian population,” and there is no doubt that this is what’s happening.
To be fair, there is a problem with using the Trump administration’s own domestic terrorism definition. That’s because it also states that those dangerous acts are intended to “influence the policy of government by intimidation or coercion” or “affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping.”
While there is plenty of kidnapping going on, and the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis at the beginning of the year might be viewed as assassinations, ICE is not trying to influence the policy of government by intimidation or coercion; it is carrying it out by using those tactics.
Which is why Republicans in Congress just gave ICE and US Customs and Border Patrol another $70 billion through the end of Trump’s term to limit the Democrats’ ability to curb the power of these lawless agencies if they manage to win the midterms.
So, by definition, the president’s immigrant hunters are engaging in a form of domestic terrorism; it just happens to be government-sponsored, which means that nobody is getting prosecuted for any of it — at least not for the next couple of years.
However, it is important to remember that there are different kinds of terror.
Today, we don’t want to talk about the specific crimes that masked federal thugs are committing to intimidate regular Americans and immigrants — the ones we primarily know about because brave patriots have recorded them.
We also don’t want to talk about the atrocities being committed behind closed doors in detention centers, or the neglect suffered by those kept there.
We don’t want to talk about citizens being wrongfully whisked away.
Instead, we want to talk about the kind of terror that one of our interns reported on in a four-part series documenting the impact that “Operation Metro Surge” had on students in Minnesota at the start of this year.
We are doing this for two reasons: The first is that we are very proud of our Mentor Apprenticeship Program and the work that the young reporters do when they come to us to learn about journalism. The second is to remind people that this government terror reaches far beyond the immigrants who now live in fear for themselves and loved ones, or the protesters who are roughed up, followed, held at gunpoint, or arrested.
In talking to students, teachers, a superintendent and a child psychologist, what our intern found is that living in a state resembling an occupation by an outside force was extremely traumatizing for many of these children.
And we don’t just mean the dozens of kids who were detained or their friends and family members.
This trauma also extends to students who were familiar with the places where Good and Pretti were killed by government agents, or who got to know the smell of tear gas.
Teachers told stories of younger children being frozen in fear when ICE was nearby and others who were puzzled about not hearing Spanish being spoken in the hallways of their schools anymore.
These kids don’t view their own government as a positive force in their lives. Instead, they experienced it as an army of masked and weapon-wielding goons trying to intimidate them and their communities — similar to what they learned about foreign dictatorships in their world history classes.
Or, as one of the students interviewed for the series said, “It feels like we’re advocating for and fighting for the exact same things that generations before us have been fighting for.”
We urge readers to read the entire series — not only because it is important but also because it ultimately inspires hope.
What our reporter found is that many students in Minneapolis, along with their teachers and school administrators, took action to stand up to the brutality of the Trump administration.
They marched in sub-zero temperatures, carried whistles to alert their peers to the local presence of ICE, shared tips of how to behave when confronted by government agents, and, in general, were there for each other.
Perhaps most importantly, they realized that even an overwhelming government force that seems intent on intimidating their communities is not all-powerful.
Because, in the end, the people of Minneapolis, through protests and recording ICE’s misdeeds and efforts to terrorize them, built up enough pressure to force the administration to scale down Operation Metro Surge.
It wasn’t a perfect victory because there has been precious little accountability on the ground and in Washington, DC, for those crimes. ICE is still getting a blank check, and its terror campaign has moved on to new targets — less visible, because of the backlash.
Still, in the end, the students and adults covered in the series didn’t just learn a valuable lesson, they also taught one to everybody else: Nothing is inevitable – and resistance is not futile.
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.
Democrats in Georgia are celebrating as Republicans in the state abandoned efforts to redraw congressional maps that would have taken effect in 2028.
Eight Georgia Republicans, including Speaker of the House Jon Burns, sent a letter to Gov. Brian Kemp on Wednesday informing him that they would not be going through with his request to enact redistricting ahead of the 2028 election cycle.
“Changes to Georgia’s maps should take place only when members of the General Assembly and citizens have been given ample opportunity to gather the facts, provide input, and engage in meaningful discussion,” the letter states. “For this reason, we will not be taking up congressional or legislative redistricting for the 2028 election cycle during this special session.”
However, there is still a chance that Georgia Republicans could ram through new maps later this year. According to Democracy Docket, Kemp “could still call another special session later this year—and if Republicans lose the midterms, they could try to lock in a 2028 advantage by passing new maps before Kemp leaves office next year.”
Democrats in the state nonetheless celebrated Republicans’ decision to shelve Kemp’s redistricting plan.
In a joint statement, Georgia Senate Minority Leader Harold Jones II and House Minority Leader Carolyn Hugley called on supporters to celebrate “a monumental civil rights victory.”
“Republicans thought they could get away with drawing racist, rigged maps without a fight,” they said. “Today, thanks to the people showing up and showing out, we won. Racist, rigged maps are dead for now.”
Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) praised the work of activists who protested against the redistricting plan earlier in the day, putting pressure on Republicans to drop it.
“Hours after I visited the State Capitol with thousands of Georgians, Georgia House Republicans announced they are backing down from gerrymandering our maps, potentially giving them two extra seats,” wrote Warnock.
“John Lewis never backed down from getting into good trouble and I won’t either,” he added, referring to the late civil rights icon and Democratic member of Congress.
Trump last year sparked an unprecedented mid-decade redistricting battle when he pushed Texas to redraw its congressional map to gain extra Republican seats, and GOP-led states including North Carolina, Missouri, and Florida have since followed suit.
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Republicans have gotten away with it four times now, in a big way. Each time it was because Democrats didn’t realize — until it was too late — the crimes the GOP was willing to perpetrate just to seize and hold power.
This time, for the first time since 1968, it may be different.
In August of 1968, President Lyndon Johnson and Vice President Hubert Humphrey negotiated an end to the Vietnam War with both the North and South Vietnamese. Humphrey was running against Richard Nixon for president in that year’s election and planned to announce the deal in September or early October. He was running ahead and would’ve easily won the presidency with the peace deal.
Unfortunately, Nixon learned of the deal. His people reached out to the corrupt South Vietnamese administration and promised them riches if they’d refuse to go to Paris and sign the peace deal as planned. The FBI had been wiretapping the South Vietnamese and intercepted one of the conversations and handed it over to LBJ.
President Johnson called Everett Dirksen, the head of the Senate Republicans, and pointed out that Nixon was trying to “commit treason.” Dirksen agreed and promised that he’d reach out to Nixon to try to stop it. He failed, and Nixon went ahead and sabotaged the peace deal, leading to another ~24,000 American and ~400,000+ Vietnamese deaths before Jerry Ford ended the war in 1975.
Johnson told Dirksen that he didn’t want Americans to know that Nixon was committing treason to become president because he was afraid it’d shatter our faith in the American system; Dirksen agreed, and the secret went to their graves, only to be revealed to the public 25 years later when the LBJ library published the audiotapes of their conversations.
If Democrats had known, they could have shown up in the streets and stopped Nixon, but LBJ didn’t think there was enough time (he was probably right; Nixon would have just denied it and claimed it was a political hit job, fake news). So Nixon became president and, with his appointments of justices Harry Blackmun and Lewis Powell to the Supreme Court making it majority Republican for the first time since the 1930s, changed the course of American history.
Then it happened again.
In November, 1979, Iranian “students” took the US Embassy and its staff hostage. Two months later, Abolhassan Bani-Sadr was elected prime minister of Iran on a platform of “release the hostages and normalize relations with the United States.” President Jimmy Carter reached out to Bani-Sadr and the two of them began the process of organizing the release of the hostages.
As Bani-Sadr later told The Christian Science Monitor after he fled to America, that year Ronald Reagan was running against Carter for the White House and his campaign reached out to the mullahs, who were the real power base in Iran, and offered them a deal. They had all this US-manufactured military hardware the Shah had bought and they desperately needed spare parts and compatible missiles; Reagan would help cement the power of the radical new regime by selling them the weaponry they needed if they’d just help him become president by hanging onto the hostages until after the election.
Carter and Bani-Sadr knew the mullahs had suddenly turned against releasing the hostages but didn’t learn until 1981 that it was because the Reagan campaign had committed treason to humiliate Carter and win the 1980 election. Reagan became president, illegally sold the Iranians weapons for the next five years (Iran/Contra), and used the money to illegally fund neofascists in Central America. He then declared war on unions, cut taxes on the morbidly rich, cut education funding, and flipped us out of the New Deal that had built the American middle class, leading straight to today’s widespread poverty and oligarchy.
The hostages were released by the mullahs on January 20, 1981 when Reagan put his hand on the bible to be sworn into office — to the minute — by way of sealing the deal.
If Democrats had known before the election, they could have shown up in the streets and stopped Reagan, but nobody learned even the rough details for a year, and it wasn’t until former Texas Lt. Governor Ben Barnes made his confession to The New York Times in 2023 that we finally got solid confirmation from an American source. Reagan’s treason and 1980 election theft, then 43 years in the past, became a one-day story.
And then it happened again.
In 2000, Bill Clinton’s Vice President, Al Gore, was running against Texas Governor George W. Bush and the election was such a squeaker that it all came down to one state: Florida. Which was then run by George’s brother, Governor Jeb Bush.
Jeb ordered his Secretary of State (and the Florida head of George Bush for President) Katherine Harris to obtain a list of mostly-Black and Hispanic felons from George’s Texas penal system and run it against the Florida voter roll. The result was at least 10,000 — and by some estimates as many as 70,000 — mostly Black voters purged from the Florida voter list and unable to vote.
As a result, George W. Bush won Florida — and the presidency — by 537 votes. George’s father’s appointee to the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas (whose wife was taking interviews for positions in George’s White House), was the deciding vote on the US Supreme Court to ignore/violate the 10th Amendment and stop the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court (which would have revealed how Jeb/Harris had rigged the election).
If Democrats had known at the time, they could have shown up in the streets and stopped Bush, but nobody learned even the rough details of the GOP election rigging for several months when BBC reporter Greg Palast broke the story to an international audience and, a year later, a recount done by a group of newspapers found that Gore would, indeed, have won the recount.
All of which brings us to today.
Trump is openly trying to rig this fall’s election, as multiple mainstream outlets have documented. He’s put “election deniers” willing to commit crimes against democracy into critical positions, crippled the two offices in the Executive branch responsible for election integrity, ordered the Post Office to refuse to carry ballots in Democratic-run states with mail-in voting, is positioning ICE agents to intimidate voters, launched a national gerrymandering campaign, and has a handful of other threatened sleazy actions.
Republicans want to outlaw married women voting if they haven’t gone before a judge to change their last names (the SAVE Act), and Trump is trying to build a national voter database — in defiance of the Constitution — so he can help Red states with Blue cities purge their Democratic voters.
Unlike with Nixon, Reagan, or Bush, however, this time we know. We can see this coming. They’re doing much of it right out in the open. And that’s a huge advantage that we all must prepare for.
If it’s true that Trump became president in 2016, as Robert Mueller’s investigation found, because of major help from Putin, then the last legitimately elected Republican president who didn’t commit or at least flirt with treason was Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961).
By coincidence, he was also the last Republican president to reject the influence of America’s oligarchs and instead kept the top 90% income tax rate on oligarchs and actually worked to increase union membership and expand Social Security.
So, get ready. We know in advance at least some of the dirty tricks they’re going to try to pull. Musk and Zuck spinning their social media outlets; Fox, CBS, and CNN under oligarch’s thumbs; ICE disruption; seized ballots; corrupted mail; and now realistic, highly deceptive AI-generated Republican deepfakes are already appearing in the Texas senatorial election.
It’s going to get worse — these guys are now legitimately afraid of suffering the same fate as Nixon’s Attorney General John Mitchell (who went to prison) — but, once again, this time we can see it coming.
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 →
Milk/Alice Pride Happy Hour and Dance Party Date: Saturday, June 20 Time: 4-9 PM Location: Lookout, 3600 16th Street, SF. Details: Join us at Lookout for the queerest Happy Hour Dance Party- curated by Milk’s very own ✨Marie ✨, the genius behind some of San Francisco’s most unforgettable dance floors. Expect hot beats, cute... 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 →
This event is on Sunday June 21st from 4pm-6pm. You’re invited to join us in person as we break down last week’s Election results. Join the League of Pissed Off Voters for a panel on Sunday, June 21st, from 4pm – 6pm. We’ll look at some maps and try to answer questions... 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, June 23 Time: 5-7 PM Location and Zoom Link: 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 BIPOC Caucus Meeting Date: Tuesday, June 23 Time: 7-8:30 PM Location and Zoom 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... Continue reading →
One Million Rising: Strategic Non-Cooperation to Fight Authoritarianism Virtual Event · Hosted by No Kings Time Wednesdays 8 – 9:30pm EDT Location Virtual event Join from anywhere About this event Across the country, authoritarian forces are getting bolder and more dangerous. Trump and his allies are not hiding their agenda: mass deportations,... Continue reading →
Meeting Agenda June 24, 2026 The San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee will meet on Wednesday, June 24, 2026 at 6:30 pm at Milton Marks Auditorium, 455 Golden Gate Ave, San Francisco, CA 94102. A security screening will be required to enter the building. Members of the public can live... Continue reading →
