“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
From June 28 through July 4, organizers from across the country will gather in the nation’s capital for Seven Days in D.C. — a weeklong series of civic engagement activities, public demonstrations, and cultural events designed to encourage direct participation in the democratic process during the lead-up to Independence Day.
The event will bring together activists, organizers, artists, comedians, musicians, and citizens for a coordinated week of lobbying, voter outreach, protest education, conversations with congressional candidates, and nightly performances across Washington D.C.Full Program
Come as you are. Meet your fellow travelers: organizers, activists, journalists, veterans, voters, and troublemakers from across all 50 states who came here to make noise and make history. Live music sets the tone for the week ahead. This is the gathering before the storm — come early, stay late, and introduce yourself to the person next to you.
Featuring music from Yaddiya, The Honest Politix and TOB.
Direct meetings with congressional offices, coordinated through FLARE — For Liberation And Resistance Everywhere.
Voter Outreach
On-the-ground voter outreach and registration drives across Washington throughout the week.
Protest Education
Workshops on organizing strategy, Know Your Rights, and civic action — skills that outlast the week.
Cultural Programming
Nightly performances — comedy, live music, guest speakers. Free and ticketed events all week.
Public Demonstrations
Sustained visibility actions throughout the city during one of Washington’s most watched weeks.
Community Building
Conversations with candidates and fellow organizers — strengthening the networks that make change possible.
“This is about showing up. Not just watching politics from a distance, but participating in it — meeting representatives, getting involved in voter outreach efforts, learning how organizing works, and being part of a larger civic community.”
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One of Washington’s most storied independent venues — thirty years of music, culture, and nights that don’t get forgotten.
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We Act Radio is an independent, progressive radio station and media production studio based in the historic Anacostia neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 2011 by local activist and playwright Kymone Freeman, it serves as a grassroots platform to amplify voices, stories, and political perspectives that are frequently ignored or marginalized by corporate media.Organizers
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Seven Days in D.C. is a grassroots civic engagement initiative bringing together organizers, artists, and citizens for a week of democratic participation, cultural programming, and public action in Washington, D.C. Organized in partnership with FLARE — For Liberation And Resistance Everywhere.
The 18th century was a wealth of knowledge, exploration and rapidly growing technology and expanding record-keeping made possible by advances in the printing press. In its determination to preserve the century of revolution, Gale initiated a revolution of its digitization of epic proportions to preserve these invaluable works in the largest archive of its kind. Now for the first time these high-quality digital copies of original 18th century manuscripts are available in print, making them highly accessible to libraries, undergraduate students, and independent scholars. Delve into what it was like to live during the eighteenth century by reading the first-hand accounts of everyday people, including city dwellers and farmers, businessmen and bankers, artisans and merchants, artists and their patrons, politicians and their constituents. Original texts make the American, French, and Industrial revolutions vividly contemporary.
[London] : printed by W. Adlard. re-printed and sold by the booksellers of London and Westminster, [1797?] 24p. ; 8°
Thomas Paine was an English-American political activist, author, political theorist and revolutionary. As the author of two highly influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution, he inspired the Patriots in 1776 to declare independence from Britain. His ideas reflected Enlightenment-era rhetoric of transnational human rights. He has been called “a corset maker by trade, a journalist by profession, and a propagandist by inclination”.
Born in Thetford, England, in the county of Norfolk, Paine emigrated to the British American colonies in 1774 with the help of Benjamin Franklin, arriving just in time to participate in the American Revolution. His principal contributions were the powerful, widely read pamphlet Common Sense (1776), the all-time best-selling American book that advocated colonial America’s independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain, and The American Crisis (1776–83), a pro-revolutionary pamphlet series. Common Sense was so influential that John Adams said, “Without the pen of the author of Common Sense, the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain.”
Paine lived in France for most of the 1790s, becoming deeply involved in the French Revolution. He wrote the Rights of Man (1791), in part a defence of the French Revolution against its critics. His attacks on British writer Edmund Burke led to a trial and conviction in absentia in 1792 for the crime of seditious libel. In 1792, despite not being able to speak French, he was elected to the French National Convention. The Girondists regarded him as an ally. Consequently, the Montagnards, especially Robespierre, regarded him as an enemy.
In December 1793, he was arrested and imprisoned in Paris, then released in 1794. He became notorious because of his pamphlet The Age of Reason (1793–94), in which he advocated deism, promoted reason and freethinking, and argued against institutionalized religion in general and Christian doctrine in particular. He also wrote the pamphlet Agrarian Justice (1795), discussing the origins of property, and introduced the concept of a guaranteed minimum income. In 1802, he returned to America where he died on June 8, 1809. Only six people attended his funeral as he had been ostracized for his ridicule of Christianity.
This is an accessible book that delineates how progressives and the progressive movement have created the American idea and ideals and forged the kind of country in which we want to live. It creates a platform from which to argue how progressives today are fighting to improve America, in contrast to how conservatives have always worked to defend the interests of elites. Each chapter will tell the reader a story focusing on different subjects, such as efforts to enact civil rights laws, social security, the middle class, how the idea of America changed the world, and why most of us can vote. Lux points out what he feels the Democrats have done wrong during the last decades and how the lessons of history can point to making positives changes. Lux shows how the progressives have been instrumental in creating big positive change moments, and argues that as a new administration takes office in 2009 the time will be ripe for a new big change moment,. He outlines how he believes progressive policies can be channeled to solves the big problems facing us today.
A man protests outside the Capitol in Washington, March 18, 2026, following a rally and press conference against the SAVE America Act. Credit: Bryan Dozier/NurPhoto via AP
Donald Trump has found a way to soothe Democratic fears that Republicans in Congress will continue to savage the poor, funnel money to the rich, and make the nation safe for corporate dominion. He’s effectively shut down Congress until it passes an unpassable bill.
Trump is demanding that the SAVE America Act—a voter suppression bill he thinks will save his hide in the midterms—reach his desk first before he’ll take care of any other congressional business. First it was Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the warrantless spying program that the intelligence hawks were poised to ram through again until Trump said SAVE had to be attached. Then a signing ceremony for the ROAD to Housing Act, a bipartisan agreement that passed with over 90 percent of Congress in both chambers, was abruptly canceled Wednesday because Trump asked for SAVE first. (That will likely become law anyway, as I’ll explain.)
Now this controlled burn is going to set fire to the last chance for Republicans to do anything else meaningful before the midterms. The SAVE Act has poisoned this process entirely, and there’s really no path for it to happen.
Remarkably enough, there are other potentially worthy bipartisan deals under discussion, for a $35 monthly co-pay for all insulin prescriptions and for child online safety rules, to name two. None of them will get done as long as this SAVE thing hangs over the proceedings.
Why is Trump destroying a Republican Congress’s ability to affirm his priorities? First, he really does think he can rig the elections in his favor and avoid accountability. But second and perhaps more important, Trump and his loyal sentry Russ Vought are running the government to their satisfaction without congressional input, defying legislative spending prerogatives and unilaterally budgeting government operations. So who cares if Congress can’t pass a law? Laws are not being followed anyway. The core of the constitutional system, Congress’s control of federal spending, has been effectively suspended.
WHAT IS THE SAVE AMERICA ACT? Its supporters claim it would simply make sure that only American citizens vote in federal elections. But that’s what the law already says now, and there are no reports of more than a tiny handful of violations in the last 30 years since it became a federal crime, and many of those were accidents. Stealing an election by convincing thousands of people to commit a felony in person is a highly implausible strategy.
Under the bill, all voter registration would have to be done in person with documentation like a passport, certified birth certificate with photo ID, or a naturalization certificate. A driver’s license alone wouldn’t count. This would be mandatory for any voter registration update, like after a move. Any married woman would have to certify their name change in order to register. Any rural voter would have to drive to their election office, which could be hundreds of miles. Low-income, minority, and student voters—plus even military members stationed overseas—would have trouble accessing the ballot. It would be a total mess.
And it isn’t going to become law. There aren’t anything close to 60 votes for it in the Senate, and there aren’t anything close to 50 Republican votes to overturn the filibuster that would lower that threshold. There may not even be 50 votes for SAVE if there were no filibuster; there were exactly 50 during a procedural vote earlier this month, and several of those votes are shaky if they actually meant the bill would pass. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has said that Trump is living in an “alternative universe” on the matter.
But some congressional Republicans populate the same universe, like Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and members of the House Freedom Caucus. They believe they can shut Congress down until it acts on SAVE. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) led a rebellion to sink the House’s work for the week, and the leadership had to cancel a vote yesterday. It was Luna’s idea to stop the housing bill signing until SAVE passes, and Trump dutifully agreed.
(Incidentally, there’s now a claim that House Speaker Mike Johnson didn’t present the bill to the president, so he can’t sign it. This is a bullshit cover story; the signing ceremony was abruptly killed—of course everything was put in place for that signing. Johnson is now pretending he didn’t present it—or just staying mum about it—to spare Trump the embarrassment from the Constitutional mandate that any unsigned bill becomes law after ten days. Nothing can be done in Washington if Trump doesn’t agree to it, therefore the lie.)
The effort inside Congress to mirror Trump’s demands will close the House; just like when the House closed for weeks because Johnson didn’t want to allow a vote to release the Epstein files, it’s closed again because of SAVE. Johnson is attempting to bargain with the alternate-universe crowd by saying he will put SAVE in a third reconciliation bill, which has been in the planning stages for weeks.
The idea was to add $350 billion for the Pentagon—much of it to cover the disastrous war in Iran—to match Trump’s target of $1.5 trillion in military funding, and to add so-called “anti-fraud” measures to offset the cost. Tax cuts are likely too, you know, because it’s a Republican bill.
But House moderates are wary of agreeing to even more heavy cuts, doubling down on the unpopular Big Beautiful Bill approach that has devastated the poor so billionaires can get richer. The Senate doesn’t want to deal with a third reconciliation bill at all, because it would require another “vote-a-rama” opportunity where Democrats can force tough votes on issues that matter to the election. And the SAVE Act, which has no primary budgetary component, wouldn’t survive the reconciliation process anyway.
Trump’s demand for SAVE, then, dooms the only party-line vehicle available, and could doom his Pentagon budget plan. The White House has asked for an emergency $87 billion supplemental to cover war costs and agricultural aid , but that comes on the heels of bipartisan majorities in both houses voting to end the Iran war; its unpopularity means a spending bill effectively approving it is a heavy lift. And even though Trump’s administration asked for the supplemental, his zeal for SAVE, the subject of a contentious Senate Republican caucus lunch with the president on Wednesday, would surely get in the way of signing that bill into law as well, if it can even get through.
YET PART OF ME WONDERS whether Russ Vought is quietly whispering in Trump’s ear about the SAVE Act so he can continue his work of commandeering the budget process from the branch of government that’s supposed to have the constitutional authority for it.
Just this week, ProPublica reported that the Trump administration is violating specific appropriations guidelines for foreign aid. Despite clearly stating where money was supposed to go and for what purpose, Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, just isn’t doing it. Vought and Trump have also asserted the power to cancel any grant that doesn’t meet with the president’s agenda.
Last week, at a confirmation hearing for Hal Duncan to become Vought’s top deputy, the nominee refused to commit to avoiding “pocket rescissions” at the end of this fiscal year. Last year, Trump canceled $4.9 billion in foreign aid through a rescission message less than 45 days before the end of the fiscal year. There are rules in place for Congress to deal with rescissions, but if the fiscal year ends before the 45-day window they have to do that, Vought has decreed that they can just cancel the funding unilaterally. The Supreme Court blessed that last year, and Duncan was signaling that the administration will just keep doing it.
Federal judges keep telling Trump that he’s unlawfully canceling programs and violating Congress’s power of the purse. But that hasn’t stopped Trump and Vought from unilaterally dictating spending decisions, sometimes with the Supreme Court assisting down the road, in a way that simply transfers the power of the purse by extra-constitutional means.
Congress has the tools to fight back; they’ve threatened to freeze Pete Hegseth’s travel budget if he doesn’t give them more details about the Caribbean boat strikes. But if Congress is functionally inert, they won’t have much say in the matter. So shutting down Congress has a dual purpose: It gives Trump room to yell about the SAVE Act, but it also makes it easier to defy Congress’s wishes on appropriations and take over the budget process.
Trump can be a doddering, conspiracy-addled fool and still have people burrowed in his deep state who are strategic. That’s what’s going on.
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David Dayen is the executive editor of The American Prospect. He is the author of Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power and Chain of Title: How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street’s Great Foreclosure Fraud. He co-hosts the podcast Organized Money with Matt Stoller. He can be reached on Signal at ddayen.90. More by David Dayen
The conservatives in San Francisco used to blame Chesa Boudin for pretty much everything that went wrong in the city. Boudin, of course, was the district attorney who took a reform approach to criminal justice—and just happened to take office in the midst of a global pandemic. Then-Mayor London Breed blamed Boudin for creating a lawless city. The newspapers and TV stations blamed him for every single crime that anyone ever committed.
Most of it was nonsense; crime patterns shifted in the pandemic, and the cops basically stopped making arrests because they wanted Boudin, who dared to charge killer cops with murder, to fail and lose office.
Dean Preston did more to create affordable housing than all of the free-market champions.
But the mythology took over the media narrative, and spread nationwide.
Now some of the same groups, led by the Chron, have a new target for everything that’s going wrong in the city: Former Sup. Dean Preston and the Democratic Socialists of America.
In a remarkably inaccurate editorial June 20, the Chron insisted that “progressives,” Preston, and DSA are destroying the middle class by pushing for more affordable housing, not just high-end housing, at a time when tech IPOs are about to create thousands more very rich people in the city.
We need aggressive housing production at every income level, including luxury housing.
A lot of people don’t like this argument; many progressives, for example, push 100% affordable or nothing. But where exactly do they think these Anthropic guys are going to live?
When a company goes public, employees cash out. Bidding wars for homes accelerate. Neighborhoods once considered merely expensive become unreachable. Landlords see opportunity. Longtime residents feel the ground shift beneath them.
The failure to recognize the importance of building housing supply at multiple price points has gotten us into the mess we’re in now.
As UC Davis professor and housing law expert Chris Elmendorf told us, the economic gains of previous tech booms were unequally distributed in part because more people couldn’t afford to live in San Francisco to participate in the boom.
“That was the traditional pattern of how things worked from 1776 to 1975,” he said. “There would be an economic boom, people would move there, there was a general trend toward wage convergence … that’s not happening anymore.”
In fact, the opposite is clearly true: The tax laws that allow such great wealth are the main cause of the housing crisis.
The Chron never mentions income taxes, but insists that repealing Prop. I, the increase in transfer taxes on very high end properties, which Sup. Bilal Mahmood has proposed, would get more new projects going:
Elmendorf agreed. “Any developer will tell you that the transfer tax is the single most important problem in the city.” Of all the things the city is doing to incentivize new housing, he argued, this would have been the most helpful.
This is just silly. I have heard many developers discuss the housing crisis in numerous public hearings, and they all say the same thing: No new projects make economic sense right now for three reasons: The cost of building materials, which have more than doubled since the pandemic; the cost of labor (in a city where all this tech money forces higher prices for skilled workers to survive) and the demands of investors for high returns in an era of high interest rates.
The transfer tax has not stopped some 50,000 units that are already approved, shovel ready, and already owned by the developer (no new transfer taxes, they bought the land years ago, in most cases before Prop. I) from moving forward.
From the Chron:
Yet Mahmood’s proposal has been shelved — at least for now. Critics on the left saw it as an unnecessary concession to developers, with former Democratic Socialist Supervisor Dean Preston proposing a countermeasure to sandbag the effort. The Democratic Socialists claim they “will fight to protect the interests of San Francisco’s working class,” but it’s unclear how killing a proposal that was projected to decrease housing costs is going to do that. Instead, the politicization of housing will simply hurt those at the bottom of the economic ladder the most.
The transfer-tax increase initiated by Prop. I only affects those who sell property for $10 million or more: corporate landlords, billionaires, and, increasingly, private-equity firms. The same billionaires and corporations that have benefited from tax reductions under the federal One Big Beautiful Bill Act would get a further tax sweetener if Prop. I were repealed.
But this isn’t just knee-jerk tax avoidance. It’s an attempt to nullify a competing vision of the city before it gains momentum. If San Francisco successfully builds social housing at scale, rents will finally come down as a result. That would be good news for everyone — except this tiny group of extremely wealthy investors, who much prefer the current situation in which they alone dictate how much new housing is built and what it costs to live there.
On social media, I keep seeing the same old line: The “left,” people like Preston, have blocked all new housing, creating this crisis. That’s just factually wrong: Preston did more to create housing—non-market housing—than any private developers did in his time on the board. He and his progressive colleagues rarely voted against market-rate housing.
(The most famous example of progressives “blocking” housing was the project at 469 Stevenson, which would have been a gentrification time bomb in a low-income Soma neighborhood. The supes didn’t “block” the project, they asked for a more detailed environmental impact report. The project was never going to go forward anyway; the developer didn’t even own the land, and admitted that there was no financing in place to acquire it. That vote was 8-3, with moderates like Myrna Melgar joining the progressives in demanding a better EIR. Two years later, the project was approved again; it remains an empty parking lot).
More important, the progressives weren’t running the city; London Breed, a moderate who loved developers, was in charge. It’s not her fault that she was in office during a global pandemic, but it’s not the progressives’ fault that housing construction stalled.
I don’t know where the “guys” (yeah, the Chron seems to admit that most of these new rich folks will be young men) are going to live. I do know that I didn’t ask to have the new AI hub in my city, and neither did most San Franciscans. Pegging the city’s “recovery” on a handful of speculative ventures creating what Jane Jacobs called “cataclysmic money” might not have been such a great idea.
(Jacobs, from The Death and Life of Great American Cities: “The forms in which money is used must be converted to instruments of regeneration—from instruments buying violent cataclysms to instruments buying continued, gradual, complex and gradual change.”)
If the IPOs go the way SpaceX seems to be going, maybe they’ll do what the first wave of dot-com boomers did: Leave the city with their companies in ruins, and move back into their parents’ basements.
That will not be Dean Preston’s fault.
48 Hills welcomes comments in the form of letters to the editor, which you can submit here. We also invite you to join the conversation on our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Tim Redmond has been a political and investigative reporter in San Francisco for more than 30 years. He spent much of that time as executive editor of the Bay Guardian. He is the founder of 48hills.
An election worker processes mail-in ballots during California’s state primary election in the City of Industry on June 2, 2026.
(Photo by Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)
“The court rightly recognized that the president and the executive branch lack both the legal authority and the capacity to compile a complete and accurate list of US citizens or eligible voters in every state.”
On the heels of a federal judge in the District of Massachusetts siding with Democratic state attorneys general who challenged President Donald Trump’s executive order requiring Americans to show proof of citizenship when registering to vote, another judge in the same district on Thursday blocked key portions of a second Trump order attacking US elections.
In the latest decision, District Judge Indira Talwani struck down Section 2, which orders the US Department of Homeland Security to create “confirmed citizen lists” of eligible voters, as well as Section 3, which directs the US Postal Service to create rules to limit the mailing of ballots to voters not included on its own lists.
“The Constitution does not grant the president any specific powers over elections. Broadly, the Constitution vests the president with ‘executive power’ and commands him to ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed,’” wrote Talwani, an appointee of former President Barack Obama. “Sections 2 and 3… are legally void as they are ultra vires and unconstitutionally violate the separation of powers.”
The judge also struck down Section 5, which requires the US Deparment of Justicee and all other executive agencies “with relevant authority” to “take all lawful steps to deter and address noncompliance with federal law,” plus mandates that states and localities “preserve, for a five-year-period, all records and materials—excluding ballots cast—evidencing participation in any federal election (e.g., ballot envelopes, regardless of carriers).” She found that this portion of the order “is merely precatory.”
Several state attorneys general were involved in both of this week’s cases, including New York Democrat Letitia James, who called Thursday’s decision a “major victory” as well as a “critical step in defending the foundation of our democracy and protecting the sacred right to vote.”
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California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Thursday also cheered the back-to-back wins against the Republican president.
“Just yesterday, President Trump’s first elections-related Executive Order was blocked. Now, his second elections-related executive Order has suffered the same fate, and rightfully so. As the federal judge wrote in today’s decision, ‘The Constitution does not grant the president any specific powers over elections.’ Those powers are reserved to the states and Congress,” Bonta said. “Democracy doesn’t work on its own—it requires constant vigilance. And that’s what my fellow attorneys general and I will continue to provide.”
The AGs weren’t alone in challenging Trump’s order. The Association of Americans Resident Overseas, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, League of Women Voters, LWV of Massachusetts, OCA – Asian Pacific American Advocates, and US Vote Foundation also filed suit, represented by the national and Massachusetts arms of the ACLU as well as Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Brennan Center for Justice, Legal Defense Fund, and LatinoJustice PRLDEF.
The attorneys and plaintiffs in that case said in a joint statement that as Thursday’s decision “makes clear, President Trump’s executive order from March 2026 attempting to seize control of elections is unconstitutional and dangerous.”
“This ruling is a critical step in preserving free and fair elections,” they said. “The court rightly recognized that the president and the executive branch lack both the legal authority and the capacity to compile a complete and accurate list of US citizens or eligible voters in every state. The ruling also rightly recognizes that the US Postal Service has no authority to limit the distribution of mail ballots.”
“The court has yet to rule on our request to block the executive order’s provisions on mail voting on behalf of a nonpartisan coalition of voting rights groups,” they noted. “The same reasoning underpinning today’s decision should hold in our case. President Trump’s unlawful executive order violates the separation of powers, threatens the integrity of our elections, and must be enjoined from taking effect in the upcoming primary and midterm elections.”
Meanwhile, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson signaled the administration will continue the fight, telling multiple media outlets that “President Trump is committed to ensuring that Americans have full confidence in the administration of our elections. The president’s executive order lawfully protects our elections, and we are confident that we will ultimately prevail in its implementation.”
Jackson also reiterated the administration’s support for the proposed Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, saying that “President Trump has also urged Congress to pass the SAVE America Act and other legislative proposals that would establish a uniform standard of photo ID for voting, prohibit no-excuse mail-in voting, and end the practice of ballot harvesting to secure our elections for generations to come.”
Trump on Wednesday canceled his planned signing ceremony for the bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act “until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT, which I consider to be a National Emergency.”
In response, US Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) summarized: “Congress overwhelmingly passed a housing bill to bring down costs. But Trump just threw a tantrum. He’s refusing to sign bipartisan legislation to make housing more affordable in a bizarre effort to try to rig the elections.”
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
By Susan Slusser, Staff Writer Updated June 25, 2026 (SFChronicle.com)
Gift Article
Larry Baer, Giants president and CEO, said the team “could have handled things better this year, for sure” in the wake of the Pride Night public-relations debacle.Lea Suzuki/S.F. Chronicle
Nearly two weeks into the San Francisco Giants’ Pride Night public-relations nightmare, team president and CEO Larry Baer at last said something.
Fans, especially those in the LGBTQ community, had been upset at the lack of response by team officials after three pitchers wrote Bible verses on their Pride hat and another chose not to wear it on June 12. Baer’s brief comments Thursday on the team’s flagship radio station provided some acknowledgement that the LGBTQ community remains important to the club.
“Before we get going with the interview I just wanted to say a couple of things to you and our fans and speak from the heart as somebody who has been involved with this ownership group from day one,” Baer said on KNBR. “This ownership group has been really involved in supporting the LGBTQ community — it’s strong and unwavering for over 30 years now, I can’t believe it’s been 30 years.
“I know we’ve heard from many fans, and I know there are deep feelings about the events of Pride Night this year. We know it. We’ve heard. We’re listening. Just some context here — over those 30-plus years it’s a North Star here to create an experience at our ballpark for all fans, starting at Candlestick and Oracle Park. The experience is welcoming to all fans. That has not changed. … That will not change. Our park should be a place where everyone feels welcome, respected, and valued. I just want to make that really clear. We take pride in being industry leaders in that effort with the LGBTQ community.”
Baer cited the team’s Until There’s a Cure Day, the first of its kind in pro sports that started in 1994 during the AIDS epidemic; the team still holds the event, with the next falling on Aug. 10. He noted that the Giants are one of two teams (with the Dodgers) to wear Pride hats.
The team’s silence after Landen Roupp, Ryan Walker and JT Brubaker wore a Bible verse and Sam Hentges declined to wear the Pride hat was a major disappointment to many fans. The Giants received floods of complaints, many of them also shared with the Chronicle and other media outlets, after failing to address the issue with more than a statement. Tuesday, president of baseball operations Buster Posey addressed the media but declined to talk about the Pride Night concerns and repeatedly deflected questions about the topic.
It’s unclear why the Giants did not send Baer, Posey’s boss, to handle those duties then; Thursday, he swapped in for Posey, who’d been scheduled to appear on KNBR.
“Yes, we’ve learned a lot in the last 11 days,” Baer said. “Yes, we could have handled things better this year, for sure. We’re absolutely committed to continuing our conversations with members of the LGBTQ+ community going forward, and that’s where we are as an organization. I think a lot of our community partners who we’ve worked with through those years, decades, know that, and I just wanted to deliver that message to the fans and move on and talk about some other things.”
There is good reason to believe that the Giants are concerned about the Department of Justice’s threats to investigate Major League Baseball for denying the pitchers’ freedom of religious expression after MLB issued a statement saying that players are not allowed to write anything of any kind on their hats. No fines were issued, however, and the players have said they do not believe they were discriminated against.
Fans who flooded the Giants with complaints since Pride Day received a reply from Baer on Thursday that reiterated the message he delivered on KNBR.
“To our fans,” the emailed message began, “Thank you for taking the time to reach out. I’ve heard from so many of you and I know there are deep feelings surrounding the events of Pride Night. On a night we gathered to celebrate inclusiveness and belonging, we understand that for many, it did not feel that way.”
After mentioning Until There’s a Cure Day and the Pride hats, the letter concluded, “Over the past two weeks, we have learned a great deal and recognize there were things we could have handled better. We have already begun conversations with members of the LGBTQ+ community and are committed to learning from this moment.
“Thank you again for reaching out and caring deeply about our community and our team.”
George Stockton, CA 06/26/260
He does deserve some blame. But everything starts at the top of the business pyramid and flows downward. The SF Giants are nothing more than a real estate business masquerading as a baseball franchise today. There’s no record of post-season success now for a decade, but the boys at the top of the food chain are busy acquiring properties all over SF. The Giants now are a 2nd Division Franchise with a 2nd Division team.
Tom San Mateo, CA 06/25/260
This is all a load of crap. Giants fans are interested in wins and losses, and presently, there are more losses than wins. This is all a distraction for ensuring that we have the right players on the field. The Giants organization has struggled with this lately. Certainly an improvement to the bullpen would be a good start, especially after recent games, including today’s. The Giants organization needs to focus on improving the product on the field, period.
Axel San Francisco, CA 06/25/260
Love Buster but wondering if he is in over his head. A fabulous player and team leader does not always mean a great leader in management. Still think the Giants are more concerned with their $$$ rather than truly making this right.
Naomi San Francisco, CA 06/25/260
Don’t the Giants have a first rate PR guru to advise them and write talking points? When Buster refused to address the Pride debacle with reporters, he came off as a weirdo. It was not cute. He reminded me of an indulged child who takes himself too seriously. Does he understand what the job is? Maybe he should be demoted and replace Vitello? This situation is so bizarro, what a dramatic downfall for the team.
Susan Slusser has worked at the San Francisco Chronicle since 1996. She has covered the Giants full-time since 2021, and previously covered the A’s full-time from 1999 to 2021.
Slusser’s book about the A’s, “100 Things A’s Fans Need to Know and Do Before They Die,” came out in 2014 and she and A’s radio announcer Ken Korach released a new book, “If These Walls Could Talk, Tales from the Oakland A’s Dugout, Locker Room and Press Box,” in 2019. She is also a correspondent for the MLB Network.
Slusser is the only woman to serve as the BBWAA president in the organization’s 116-year history and is on the Baseball Hall of Fame’s Eras ballot committee. She was the California Sportswriter of the Year in 2017 along with Chronicle columnist Ann Killion and was honored for her work as a beat reporter by the Associated Press Sports Editors in 2020 and 2025.
On Election Day, while I was working as a Poll Site Manager for the Onondaga County Board of Elections in Syracuse, I had a pretty unsettling run-in with federal agents over something I posted on social media. It’s the kind of situation that makes you stop and think about free speech and how far government authority can go. Honestly, it shook me, and I don’t think it’s something that should just be brushed off.
Earlier that day, I got a voicemail saying they were trying to reach me. I called back, but they were pretty vague—just mentioned something about a post from January. Since I was in the middle of my shift and couldn’t leave the polling site, I told them where I was. Later on, two ICE agents showed up while I was working as a Poll Site Manager for the Onondaga County BOE. They said who they were and handed me a warning notice about an Instagram post, claiming I had doxxed an ICE agent. I don’t agree with that at all. They asked me to sign the document, and I decided not to. The whole thing was recorded on multiple devices, and local media has already picked it up.
It just doesn’t sit right with me. The whole situation raises a lot of questions about free speech, government overreach, and how election workers are treated while they’re doing their jobs. At this point, I’m trying to figure out what my options are, so I’m looking for a civil rights attorney who can help me understand what steps I should take next. Legal help like this adds up fast. Even just getting advice and having someone review everything can be expensive, and if it turns into something bigger, the costs only go up from there.
Funds raised will go toward hiring a civil rights or constitutional law attorney, covering court fees and other legal expenses if needed, getting transcripts, records, and other important documents, and preserving and organizing evidence. Any extra funds will only be used for costs directly related to this situation.
I’m asking for your support to help me defend my civil liberties and ensure that election workers are treated fairly. Your help will make a real difference as I navigate this challenging situation.
brabantstraat Sep 20, 2017 PBS Frontline “Sick around the World” 2008, an enlightening documentary about different approaches to health care in 5 countries. They each have their pros and cons, described in this evenhanded report, but they all appear to be superior to the US system in the important ways. Uploaded as a public service. More here: • Healthcare Around the World
OpenAI — headquartered at 1455-1515 3rd St. in Mission Bay — is one of the firms that has made San Francisco the center of the artificial-intelligence world.Craig Lee/The Examiner
In San Francisco, the artificial-intelligence boom still has a remarkably clean public image. It looks like office towers refilling, restaurants getting lunch traffic again, young engineers moving into Mission Bay and city leaders building political careers on the narrative of recovery.
Across the rest of the country, it looks very different: Data centers the size of small towns; new substations, diesel generators and gas turbines; water issues; noise complaints; backroom deals; and local residents once again being told that the national interest requires them to absorb the costs.
As the global center of AI, San Francisco can no longer pretend these are separate stories.
For years, our city has wanted to be seen simultaneously as a climate leader and technology capital. It’s always been a difficult balance, but the AI boom is making it impossible to avoid choosing which should take priority.
OpenAI, a San Francisco-based company, is on track to lease a 10-gigawatt, 100% fossil-fuel-powered data center in Ohio. If completed, it would release as much greenhouse gas as nine average coal plants and increase total U.S. emissions by 0.5% each year.
That’s just one project. The International Energy Agency estimates the AI industry will dump 320 million metric tons of carbon pollution into the air by 2030 — the equivalent of putting tens of millions of new gas-powered cars on the road each year.
And it’s not just carbon emissions. Across the country, data centers used to train and run models for local companies such as Anthropic, Meta and OpenAI are draining millions of gallons of drinking water daily, spiking utility bills, slowing water pressure to a trickle and even turning tap water brown.
The AI boom is turning rivers, aquifers and wildlife habitat into collateral damage — more development, more noise, more water consumption, all to power Bay Area products sold as frictionless and inevitable.
San Francisco residents should be deeply uncomfortable with our role in this project. We have spent decades defending this city from bad-faith attacks by people who hate San Francisco because it is gay, liberal, immigrant, artistic, unruly or unwilling to apologize for itself.
Those attacks are dishonest, and they usually say more about the attackers than they do about The City. But if millions of people around the country come to resent San Francisco because companies based here are raising their utility bills, draining their water, polluting their air and reshaping their communities without consent, they will be right.
And if those same companies go public at fantasy valuations, make thousands of San Franciscans rich on paper, and then get folded into the pension funds and retirement accounts of ordinary Americans, the backlash will not stop at Wall Street when the bubble pops. People will know where the bubble was built — and they will hate us for that, too.
If San Franciscans and our elected leaders overwhelmingly embrace the AI boom because it fills office space, boosts high-end real estate, funds startups and makes downtown feel alive again, we are saying The City’s recovery matters more than the consequences of the industry driving it.
Mezzo-soprano Nikola Printz said that performing for the LGBTQ community is a form of empowerment, even resistance
We are saying a company can be part of our local comeback while creating national harm, so long as that harm happens out of sight: Not in our backyard.
It doesn’t have to be this way. San Francisco should become the first major American city to insist that AI companies headquartered here fully account for the infrastructure they use everywhere else.
Any AI company seeking city contracts, public partnerships, tax preferences or a mayoral Instagram promo video should be required to publicly disclose the full environmental cost of its operations: data-center capacity, water use, emissions footprint, electrical-grid effects and community-benefit agreements.
Anthropic leased its headquarters building at 500 Howard Street in September 2023.Craig Lee/The Examiner
The City should pass legislation banning AI tools from companies that use unpermitted power generation, hide infrastructure effects or shift costs onto residential ratepayers. Supervisors should hold hearings not only on how AI will affect city services, but on how San Francisco-based companies are affecting communities far beyond city limits.
Pension funds, universities, philanthropies, sports teams and local institutions could follow suit and ask the same questions before investing in or partnering with these firms, too.
None of this is anti-business. For too long, San Francisco has acted as though asking its most powerful industries to meet basic public standards will send them running. We’ve always had higher tax rates than Miami or Austin, Texas, but AI companies came here because they crave what this city has: world-class talent, capital, universities, political legitimacy, cultural relevance and the mythology of building the future.
We should stop negotiating like we have no leverage, and start demanding that local businesses — even ones worth $1 trillion — actually live up to San Francisco’s professed values.
People across the country are revolting against the true cost of the AI boom. They’re feeling the pain in their utility bills, backyards, kitchen sinks and communities. San Francisco can either keep pretending that it has nothing to do with us, or we can stand up and hold these companies accountable to the values of the city that built them.
If we do, we can prove that being the capital of AI does not have to mean being the capital of extraction. If we do not, people will remember where this boom was built — and they will be right to blame us.
Michael Redmond is a San Francisco-based writer and communications strategist. He has a Master of Engineering from the University of Michigan and is a graduate of the Science, Technology and Public Policy Program at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.
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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 →
Seven Days in D.C. (June 28 – July 4) Seven Days in D.C. About Schedule Support Donate Volunteer Merch Auction Washington, D.C. June 28 – July 4, 2026 View the ScheduleTicketsDonateVolunteer A Week of Democracy in Action From June 28 through July 4, organizers from across the country will gather... Continue reading →
Big news: Our Pride Breakfast speaker lineup is coming together. We’re honored to welcome Xavier Becerra, former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, former California Attorney General, and the Democratic nominee for Governor of California, as a keynote speaker at the 29th Annual Alice Pride Breakfast. Throughout his career,... 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 →
Seven Days in D.C. (June 28 – July 4) Seven Days in D.C. About Schedule Support Donate Volunteer Merch Auction Washington, D.C. June 28 – July 4, 2026 View the ScheduleTicketsDonateVolunteer A Week of Democracy in Action From June 28 through July 4, organizers from across the country will gather... 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 →
Seven Days in D.C. (June 28 – July 4) Seven Days in D.C. About Schedule Support Donate Volunteer Merch Auction Washington, D.C. June 28 – July 4, 2026 View the ScheduleTicketsDonateVolunteer A Week of Democracy in Action From June 28 through July 4, organizers from across the country will gather... Continue reading →
Seven Days in D.C. (June 28 – July 4) Seven Days in D.C. About Schedule Support Donate Volunteer Merch Auction Washington, D.C. June 28 – July 4, 2026 View the ScheduleTicketsDonateVolunteer A Week of Democracy in Action From June 28 through July 4, organizers from across the country will gather... 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 →
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