UC Berkeley students are encouraged to “Vote Yes on 50.” Kai Bloom | Staff
In late August, California lawmakers voted to initiate a Nov. 4 special election to pass Proposition 50. As mail-in voting opened earlier this month, student groups, advocates and the union workers at UC Berkeley are advocating for Prop. 50 and urging students to “VOTE YES.”
Prop. 50 would replace the district lines drawn by a state nonpartisan commission with new boundaries created by partisan lawmakers — allowing Democrats to win up to five more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, said Eric Schickler, the co-director of campus’s Institute of Governmental Studies, or IGS.
The five new seats could counteract the five seats that Texas lawmakers created and gained through unilateral redistricting by the state legislature earlier this year, Schickler added.NextStay
California lawmakers, in response, have positioned Prop. 50 as a defense against this Republican action and the President Donald Trump’s administration. However, in California, as opposed to Texas, voters will decide.
With the IGS, Schickler is working on polling registered voters in California on their plans for the special election. Schickler said the polling is “encouraging” for supporters of the proposition, but IGS will not have the results until the end of the month.
“The ability of Democrats to make this election about Trump gives an advantage,” Schickler said. “I wouldn’t make a prediction at this point. I want to see the final polls before doing that.”
For the past few weeks, student groups and workers’ unions across the UC system have begun to advocate for the proposition.
In an Instagram Reel, Cal Berkeley Democrats shared footage of a projection onto Sproul Hall that said “#Yes on 50, this November give Trump the finger” and “FDT” earlier this month. The student organization also posted infographics promoting the prop and passed out pins advocating for the measure.
Khalid Mahmood, an organizer with United Auto Workers 4811, the union representing 48,000 UC academic workers, said he has been working on talking to students about the proposition, making sure they have a plan to vote. Mahmood added that there are lots of organizations on other campuses in the state that are in a partnership with the California Labor Federation to “fight for shared priorities.”
“I think a lot of people are going to vote for this, not necessarily because they see an ad, but because somebody takes the time to have a conversation with them,” Mahmood said. “You can really connect to them peer to peer and say, ‘Hey, this is what I care about.’”
Mahmood said President Trump is attempting to maintain a permanent Republican majority in Congress, which Prop. 50 is attempting to combat. If the Republican Party maintains its majority, Mahmood said, increasing attacks against higher education may lead to significant changes to the university.
After talking to students, Mahmood said almost no one that he has talked to has expressed opposition to the special election measure.
“There’s this notion sometimes that politics can feel alienating or you can feel disconnected or that it’s just not worth participating in. I would kind of push back on those because all of us are dependent on the role the federal government plays in our day-to-day,” Mahmood said. “Prop. 50 is too important a moment to pass up.”
US Senate candidate Graham Platner is pictured during a campaign stop in Maine.
(Photo: Graham for Maine/Facebook)
“The reason anyone pretends to care about Platner’s tattoo and Reddit posts is because they think he’s coming after the rich. That’s it. That’s all it’s about.”
US Sen. Bernie Sanders was among the progressives voicing continued support for working-class Senate candidate Graham Platner as he faces a relentless onslaught of negative corporate media attention over his past online posts and a tattoo he says was a drunken mistake that has now been covered with fresh ink.
“He went through a dark period,” Sanders (I-Vt.), Platner’s most prominent supporter, said Tuesday. “He’s not the only one in America who has gone through a dark period. People go through that, he has apologized for the stupid remarks, the hurtful remarks that he made, and I’m confident that he’s going to run a great campaign and that he’s going to win.”
The firestorm began last week, when CNN published a story featuring deleted Reddit posts in which Platner—who is running to unseat Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine)—called himself a “communist,” castigated police, downplayed sexual assault in the military, and asked, “Why don’t black people tip?”
Platner, who launched his campaign in August with a fiery anti-oligarchy message, has addressed the resurfaced posts head-on, saying they reflect a period of his life in which he was angry, depressed, less knowledgeable, and disillusioned from eight years of service in the US military. Platner said he has since evolved personally and politically, recognizing today that many of his past comments were abhorrent.
“I don’t want people to judge me off the dumbest thing I said on the Internet 12 years ago,” the Senate hopeful, now 41, said in a statement regarding the Reddit posts, which he deleted ahead of his campaign launch. “I would like people to engage with who I am today.”
Allies of Platner, including US Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), came to his defense, accusing the Democratic Party establishment of trying to undermine him for the benefit of its preferred candidate in the race, Maine Gov. Janet Mills—who announced her bid for Collins’ Senate seat a day before the CNN story broke.
“I respect Platner’s journey and the man he is today. I reject the politics of personal destruction,” Khanna wrote on social media. “I stand by my endorsement. I won’t cower to the establishment.”
But with the ink hardly dry on news stories plumbing Platner’s social media history, the candidate is now facing fresh uproar over a chest tattoo he got 18 years ago in Croatia while “very inebriated” with fellow Marines.
On Platner’s account, the tattoo—which resembles Nazi iconography—was an ignorant mistake, not an expression of affinity for Nazism or antisemitism, of which he said he is a “lifelong opponent.” Platner has since had the tattoo covered with “some kind of Celtic knot with a dog on it,” he toldVanity Fair on Wednesday.
Platner discussed the tattoo at length in an interview on “Pod Save America,” saying he decided to address it publicly after he “got wind that in the opposition research, somebody was shopping the idea that I was a secret Nazi with a hidden Nazi tattoo.”
“We chose a terrifying-looking skull and crossbones off the wall because we were Marines and, you know, skulls and crossbones are a standard military thing,” he said.
“At no point in this entire experience of my life did anybody ever once say, ‘Hey, you’re a Nazi,’” Platner added.
In the early stages of his campaign, Platner has spoken out forcefully against what he’s called the “right-wingpopulism” of figures like President Donald Trump, saying it “otherizes people” and wields bigotry as a tool to divide the working class while continuing to redistribute wealth to the oligarchs on top.
“I think we live in a world that is shaped by policy,” Platner toldMSNBC‘s Chris Hayes last month. “I don’t think it has to be like this. All the outcomes we have are the outcomes of policy decisions that we choose to enforce or not enforce.”
“And when you start asking, well, like what other questions you’d have to ask to get the outcomes we have currently, the answer starts to mostly look like we’re just figuring out how to steal as much money and time from working people and give it to the ultra-wealthy,” he continued. “And that’s pretty much where I’ve landed.”
Platner has also been highly critical of the Democratic establishment, condemning the party’s support for Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza and failure to sufficiently counter the fascistic Trump administration.
“Nothing pisses me off more than getting a fundraising text from Democrats talking about how they’re fighting fascism,” he wrote on social media in August, shortly after launching his campaign. “It’s such bullshit. We’re not idiots. Everyone knows most of them aren’t doing jack shit right now to fight back.”
“This is a crucial moment for the Democratic Party. If they decide that normal people with some small skeletons in their closet (or inked on their chest) are not welcome, they are finished.”
Some argued the fierceness of the backlash against Platner stems from the anti-oligarchy messaging that he’s made central to his campaign.
“The reason anyone pretends to care about Platner’s tattoo and Reddit posts is because they think he’s coming after the rich. That’s it. That’s all it’s about,” wrote Matt Stoller, author of the anti-monopoly newsletter, BIG. “They hate populists because we actually believe in equality and that terrifies them.”
Others voiced concern about the possible chilling effect that attacks on Platner could have on future progressive political candidates, particularly if he’s forced out of the race.
“Censorious, hall monitor liberalism that refuses to accept growth in people—unless you’re a corporate centrist and all is forgiven, just ask [Andrew] Cuomo supporters—is far more of a threat to the Democratic Party’s chances in the future than anything dug up on Graham Platner,” wrote Emma Vigeland, co-host of the progressive political talk show “Majority Report.”
Drop Site’s Ryan Grim similarly argued that “this is a crucial moment for the Democratic Party.”
“If they decide that normal people with some small skeletons in their closet (or inked on their chest) are not welcome, they are finished,” Grim wrote. “Because they’ve tried the other way and it didn’t work.”
Platner has signaled that he has no intention of exiting the race, tellingSemafor that his campaign has $400,000 in recurring monthly donations—a figure that he said did not dip following the resurfacing of his old Reddit posts.
This story has been updated to reflect that Matt Stoller wrote his social media post in his personal capacity.
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
The gross and fascistic political theater of the Trump administration continues, and as we’ve been warned over the course of the last week, San Francisco is now squarely in Trump’s sights. We’ve been waiting for the shoe to drop, and it is now coming in the form of a Chronicle exclusive about some kind of new immigration operation set for tomorrow (Thursday, October 23), in which around 100 federal agents have been dispatched to Coast Guard Base Alameda.
The paper’s anonymous source says that the operation includes agents from US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) — so, we might be looking at another piece of theater akin to the one that happened in early July in Los Angeles’ MacArthur Park. In that entirely pointless “operation,” the National Guard stood guard around the park while a contingent of Border Patrol agents rode through the park — which is in a heavily Latino neighborhood — on horseback.
Gregory Bovino, a CBP chief in Southern California and a clear Trump ally, led that operation, and gave an ominous statement to a strategically placed Fox News crew that day, saying, “Better get used to us now, cause this is going to be normal very soon.”
That military-style action was central to the case brought by the state of California against the administration about the illegality of using federal agents for local enforcement. An appeal of that case, in which a district court ruled against Trump and his goons, was being heard by a Ninth Circuit panel in Los Angeles today.
Meanwhile, as CNN reports, a group of 26 former governors filed a brief today with the Ninth Circuit asking the court to rehear the case concerning the National Guard deployment in Portland, which was decided in a 2-1 decision in favor of the Trump administration earlier this week. The appeals court has the option of rehearing the case en banc, which would mean a hearing by the chief judge of the court and 10 other randomly selected active judges. The two judges who ruled in favor of the Trump administration were both Trump appointees, while a dissenting opinion was filed by an appointee of President Bill Clinton.
Also today, Governor Gavin Newsom announced he was deploying the National Guard in California on a humanitarian effort, to support local food banks amid a potential hunger crisis during the federal government shutdown.
The Chronicle’s report on Thursday’s operation is short on details, however one correction that was already made could be telling: An earlier version of the report indicated that ICE agents would be involved, but that detail has since been removed.
KTVU says that it spoke with Congresswoman Lateefah Simon who confirmed that federal agents are bing deployed here.
U.S. Border Patrol and protesters clash after a raid was conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement near a Home Depot on June 7, 2025 in Paramount, California. Around 30 agents wearing tactical gear were stationed near a Home Depot in Paramount and faced off against protesters, south of downtown Los Angeles. (Photo by Apu Gomes/Getty Images)
The appearance of CBP agents in military gear in Los Angeles in early June provoked a reaction from protesters there. And even though an active protest is not ongoing in San Francisco, the very presence of federal agents could poke the bear, so to speak, and that is almost certainly what the Trump administration is hoping for.
In response to the Chronicle’s report about Thursday’s operation, Newsom tweeted, “California has seen enough. President Trump and Stephen Miller’s authoritarian playbook is coming for another of our cities, and violence and vandalism are exactly what they’re looking for to invoke chaos. Help keep yourself and your communities safe. Remain peaceful.”
The City of Alameda has put out a statement, saying that its police will not be involved in the federal operation, and urging caution when protesting.
“Everyone has the right to peacefully protest, but we urge people to avoid direct interaction with federal law enforcement,” the city said.
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie held an emergency press conference Wednesday afternoon to address the matter, saying, “If federal officials come to incite chaos on the streets of San Francisco, the way to support our communities, and keep everyone in our city safe, is to make our voices heard peacefully. Violence and destruction will only open the door to a more aggressive response, and that puts our communities at greater risk.”
Lurie added, “This federal administration wants to divide us. But we know San Francisco is strongest when we come together to stand up for each other and our values. … I’ve got your back, let’s have each other’s back and keep out city safe. We got this.”
Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee has put out a statement, saying, “Oakland remains a proud sanctuary city committed to standing with our immigrant families, and we are actively monitoring this situation and are in touch with our state and federal delegation. We will notify our community with as much information as possible about any federal deployment. Real public safety comes from Oakland-based solutions, not federal military occupation.”
The Coast Guard has confirmed to the Chronicle that their base will be used as a “place of operations” for CBP, and a spokesperson says that “Through a whole of government approach, we are leveraging our unique authorities and capabilities to detect, deter, and interdict illegal aliens, narco-terrorists, and individuals intent on terrorism or other hostile activity before they reach our border.”
On Sunday, President Trump tripled down on his threats to invade San Francisco or otherwise “go to San Francisco” as he put it, adding, “Don’t forget I can use the Insurrection Act… And that’s unquestioned power. I choose not to, but I’m met constantly by fake politicians, politicians that think that they — you know, it’s not a part of the radical left movement to have safety. … These cities have to be safe.”
Possibly based on his hearing about Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff’s comments last week about welcoming the National Guard in SF, Trump has now twice said that “they want us in San Francisco,” which has prompted a chorus of responses from local leaders saying “Oh hell no we don’t.”
And while Trump’s threats about the National Guard have generally been about fighting crime, this operation on Thursday appears to be focused on immigration.
On Wednesday, the US military struck a purported drug boat in international waters in the Pacific — the first such operation in the Pacific, after multiple similar strikes on small boats in the Caribbean. The boat was reportedly traveling along a known drug-trade route, in waters off the coast of Colombia.
Update: Mayor Lurie says he received assurances on Wednesday night and Thursday morning that President Trump had “called off” any federal deployment in San Francisco, however this leaves open the possibility that the deployment will be confined to the East Bay.
This is a developing story, and has already been updated throughout.
Top image: U.S. Border Patrol and protesters clash after a raid was conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement near a Home Depot on June 7, 2025 in Paramount, California. Around 30 agents wearing tactical gear were stationed near a Home Depot in Paramount and faced off against protesters, south of downtown Los Angeles. (Photo by Apu Gomes/Getty Images)
Experts warn federal immigration agents have more latitude to be aggressive and destructive than troops — with fewer avenues for the city to push back
by Joe Eskenazi October 22, 2025 (MissionLocal.org)
ICE agents make an arrest in downtown San Francisco on Aug. 20, 2025. Photo by Zenobia Lloyd.
A bevy of Customs and Border Protection agents is heading to the Bay Area as soon as Thursday, a deployment that would be a realization of San Francisco leaders’ most pressing fears.
Numerous city officials told Mission Local the arrival of immigration agents is more serious and potentially destructive than the threatened incursion of armed National Guard troops.
CBP — or, for that matter, Immigration and Customs Enforcement — can deploy more rapidly and via a more streamlined procedure, and municipalities have fewer tools with which to push back. And federal law enforcement can engage in more aggressive and damaging behaviors than National Guardsmen once within cities.
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Mayor Daniel Lurie signed an executive directive today focusing on preparations for federal incursions into San Francisco.
“Immigration officials are deployed to use aggressive enforcement tactics that instill fear so people don’t feel safe going about their daily lives,” he said this afternoon at a hastily arranged 2 p.m. press conference.
“These tactics are designed to incite backlash, chaos, and violence, which are then used as an excuse to deploy military personnel. They are intentionally creating a dangerous situation in the name of public safety.”
The pending influx of more than 100 agents from CPB and other federal agencies imminently arriving at Alameda’s Coast Guard base was first reported today by the San Francisco Chronicle.
Unlike the National Guard, CBP agents or ICE do not require complex steps to be deployed in numbers or with great speed. Once on the ground, they have far more leeway to make arrests or detain people.
The deployment of National Guard troops, meanwhile, is permissible only via circumscribed procedures that can be contested in court. San Francisco and California officials have vowed to legally fight the ordering of any National Guard troops to the city.
As such, the preoccupation with the National Guard, experts say, may have been a bit myopic.
ICE agents in downtown San Francisco on Aug. 20, 2025. Photo by Zenobia Lloyd.
“A lot of our discussion has focused on the National Guard. But it has long been my thought that these ICE deployments are in some ways more problematic and consequential — and much more immediate,” said Chris Mirasola, a law professor at the University of Houston.
Mirasola was a former Defense Department attorney under both Presidents Trump and Joseph Biden, focusing primarily on military deployments.
“Do I think it’s incredibly consequential that the National Guard and military is broadly deployed in the United States, and is that corrosive in ways that are distinct from law-enforcement deployments? Yes,” Mirasola continued. “But at the same time, the actual harm to communities is coming from ICE and federal law deployments.”
Mirasola’s statements echo those Mission Local heard from a number of city officials. Far from the mere shock-and-awe visuals of armed combat troops on the streets of a major American city, federal law-enforcement agents like those with ICE and CBP can make arrests and, per the term “law enforcement,” enforce the law.
That included an immigration raid earlier this month in which federal immigration agents rappelled into a Chicago apartment building out of Black Hawk helicopters, set off flash-bang grenades and rounded up largely Black and Latino tenants, holding many in zip-tie cuffs for hours.
While ICE operates throughout the nation, CBP operates within a 100-mile zone of a border. Chicago, however, is considered within that zone because the Great Lakes are navigable from Canada by boat. San Francisco, a coastal city, sits on the nation’s western border.
Dozens of those detained in the Chicago raid were U.S. citizens, including children.
Mayor Daniel Lurie today emphasized that the city is ‘prepared’ for an influx of immigration agents to San Francisco
“The degree of leeway ICE has under its statutory authority is much broader than the National Guard out of pretty exceptional circumstances,” Mirasola says. “That reinforces why it is important to be focusing on ICE deployments.”
And there is less that cities can do about such deployments.
“Broadly speaking, the supremacy clause permits the federal government to carry out federal law enforcement,” Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, toldMission Local yesterday. This applies “even in places where local government does not want them.”
Mirasola adds that litigation has successfully targeted federal law-enforcement operations regarding whether immigration agents are complying with the Fourth Amendment, which prevents unreasonable searches and seizures. But these suits come after agents have been deployed, aggressively interacted with the community and purportedly violated people’s rights, he said.
BREAKING: Donald Trump is sending federal agents to San Francisco.
Local officials emphasized that there are far more municipal and state law-enforcement officers than federal ones, and it’s paramount their duties not be commingled.
“The theory behind sanctuary law is that when you prevent local and state law-enforcement from being co-opted, you severely limit how many people can be harmed by ICE,” said Angela Chan on Tuesday. She is the chief assistant attorney at the San Francisco Public Defender’s office and a specialist in sanctuary law.
“As of October 2025, they do not have enough ICE agents to terrorize every blue city.”
Additional reporting by Abigail Vân Neely and Xueer Lu.
We’re more than halfway there!
We’ve raised 2/3 of our $300,000 goal to cover immigration for the next three years of Trump’s term! More than 500 of you have stepped up since September — an incredibly feat of community support.
We are humbled. We still have a bit to go: Donate below if you want to keep Mission Local in the courts, reporting on ICE’s actions in San Francisco.about:blank
Managing Editor/Columnist. Joe was born in San Francisco, raised in the Bay Area, and attended U.C. Berkeley. He never left.
“Your humble narrator” was a writer and columnist for SF Weekly from 2007 to 2015, and a senior editor at San Francisco Magazine from 2015 to 2017. You may also have read his work in the Guardian (U.S. and U.K.); San Francisco Public Press; San Francisco Chronicle; San Francisco Examiner; Dallas Morning News; and elsewhere.
He resides in the Excelsior with his wife and three (!) kids, 4.3 miles from his birthplace and 5,474 from hers.
The Northern California branch of the Society of Professional Journalists named Eskenazi the 2019 Journalist of the Year.More by Joe Eskenazi
KTVU FOX 2 San Francisco Oct 22, 2025 San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said his main priority is keeping San Franciscans safe during a large-scale federal immigration operation headed to the Bay Area.
Protective presence at immigration court – join us between 8am – 4:30pm for the whole day or part of the day, whatever you can make! Protective presence has been maintained at 100 Montgomery in San Francisco starting in July, dramatically reducing the number of abductions from the courtroom.
Come, be ready to flyer, be loud, and stand up to ICE! People stepping up to take direct action is the most effective way keep us and our immigrant neighbors safe, so please join us! Orientation can occur on-site and varying risk tolerances welcome! Just show up and go to the welcome table to see how you can best jump in.
2. Friday, 9:00am, LAST OPPORTUNITY: Rally + Public Comment for the Golden Gate 26!
Golden Gate Bridge Welcome Center SF
This public comment is THE FINAL OPPORTUNITY to demand the Golden Gate Bridge District Board drop their unprecedented $162,554 claim that punishes protest. Your presence and voice can shape the outcome and set the precedent: restitution should never be weaponized against dissent.
– Join the Signal thread: bit.ly/926Comment – Public Comment Toolkit (with logistics + sample script): bit.ly/GG26toolkit – East Bay rides: bit.ly/PublicCommentRideshare
Can’t attend in person? Submit your public comment by email (due 10/23 @ 5 PM): districtsecretary@goldengate.org, AND call-in at 9:45am on 10/24
Show up. Speak out. Stand with the GG26.
We refuse to let six-figure restitution become the price of protest. Update: The restitution hearing (originally scheduled for 10/31) has been postponed until November 7. Additional information will be provided next week.
3. Friday, 10:30am – 12:30pm, Protest as Israeli Consulate
Israeli Consulate 456 Montgomery St. SF
israeli consulate NOT welcome in the Bay Area
Come and join Noisemakers Against Genocide (NAG) and autonomous activists in letting the israeli consulate know that they are NOT welcome in SF Bay Area!
Bring noisemakers, drums, banners, whistles, horns and flags to make a proper ruckus!
4. Friday, 4:00pm, Rally at SFLC to Demand Labor Boycott of Israel & Against War on Venezuela
San Francisco Labor Council\ 1188 Franklin St. SF
OCTOBER 24th National Day of ACTION at AFL-CIO HQs & SF Labor Council Demanding a Labor Boycott Against The Genocide in Palestine and Against its “Solidarity Center” policies of intervention in Venezuela.
The Labor for Palestine National Network has supported the call by Amazon organizer & union activist Chris Smalls and other labor unions and unionists for National protests at AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington DC on October 24, 2025 to demand that the AFL-CIO support a labor boycott of all military cargo to Israel and to stand publicly against the genocide by the US supported Israeli regime, a local action is taking place in San Francisco.
After decades of US sponsored terrorism against Latin America in coups including AFL-CIO-sponsored projects through the “Solidarity Center & attacks against Venezuela, the AFL-CIO is still not Calling for an END to US War plans for Venezuela.
On No Kings Day in Chicago, Brandon Johnson called for a national general strike against the fascist attacks on the workers, immigrants and people in Chicago and around the country. This is the kind of action that is needed to fight fascism and also stop the genocide in Gaza and the imminent invasion of Venezuela.
Sponsors: UPTE Members for Palestine, UFCLP, L4P, RWFi
We do not consent to Trump and his billionaire allies taking a chainsaw to our government and our economy for their benefit! San Francisco is a sanctuary city and We the People need to defend the values that make it so. Let’s stand united and oppose the endless assaults on our communities, our civil rights, the rule of law, and our democracy.
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 and call out the Trump/MAGA regime as a community. Plus, it’s fun! Think of it as our democracy corner—a place for you to voice your opinion, hang out with like-minded fellow protesters, and experience a cathartic moment together.
What you can do: • If you’ve got signs, flags, cardboard cutouts, or any protest visuals you want to make, bring ’em! We also have spare signs to lend. • If you have whistles, drums, cowbells, or other noisemakers, bring ’em! • Musicians are welcome and encouraged. Sing the song of democracy! • Many of our regular protesters are part of local activist groups who are happy to chat with anyone who wants to pair their indignation with direct action beyond street protest.
When the Trump administration sent the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles, poor and working Angelenos of all backgrounds organized mass demonstrations and stepped up efforts to resist ICE’s kidnapping of immigrant workers and their families.
Learn from an LA activist about ways to organize a united community defense. Hear how labor, social justice, and neighborhood groups are standing up to ICE. Discuss what is ultimately needed to beat back these attacks.
Speaker: Yolanda Alaniz
Los Angeles socialist feminist defender of immigrant rights, anti-racist and anti-fascist organizer, author of Viva la Raza: A History of Chicano Identity and Resistance
9. Sunday, 2:00pm – 4:00pm, Report Back From the West Bank 2025
Medicine For Nightmares Bookstore\ 3036 24th St. SF
A group of Bay Area-based activists will discuss their experiences volunteering with an organization in the West Bank, Palestine.
Since Oct. 7th, 2023, the zionist state has increased their settlements, stealing land, and making the lives of Palestinians harder with movement restrictions, settler violence, and daily harassment.
Volunteers offer a “protective presence” to spend time in endangered Palestinian areas, with a hope that the international presence could deter zionist attacks.
10. Sunday, 7:00pm – 9:00pm, Panel Discussion: What Everyone Should Know About Resisting State Repression
First Unitarian Church – Oakland 685 14th St. Oakland
**Donations on a $5-20 sliding scale, no one turned away for lack of funds.
VIRTUAL OPTION: Will be livestreaming and recording the event. Please RSVP and you’d get the link closer to the event. RSVP:https://bit.ly/ResistStateRepression
The panel will feature journalist and author Will Potter, Meg Calaw with the League of Filipino Students, civil rights and criminal defense attorney John Viola and other panelists TBA.
President Trump has designated the anti-fascist movement as a terrorist organization. While, in fact, it’s an opportunity for his administration to target and destroy a broader network of left and progressive groups. We’re living in challenging times with crises around war in the Middle East, renewed McCarthyist attacks on free speech, corporate domination of everyday life, escalating climate disasters and, now, a fascist takeover of our government.
As Will Potter has said, “The intention is to capitalize on this to crack down on their opponents and to consolidate authoritarian power.”
We’re also living in a time where large numbers of people have taken to the streets to confront those responsible for these crises. Today’s state repression is aimed to eliminate that opposition.
This panel will explore the ongoing conflict between democratic resistance movements and state repression and lessons that we can use to push back against this authoritarian takeover.
Panelist Bios//
Will Potter is an award-winning investigative journalist and TED Senior Fellow who exposes political repression and the erosion of civil liberties. His reporting and commentary have appeared in The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, and Rolling Stone. He is the author of “Green is the New Red” and his new book is “Little Red Barns: Hiding The Truth, From Farm To Fable.”
Meg Kalaw is an organizer with Gabriela Berkeley, a local organization of Filipina women that fights for genuine liberation and national democracy in the Philippines. Currently, Gab Berkeley is waging the Chevron Out of the Philippines campaign, to expose the corporate plunder that multinational corporations like Chevron enact in the Philippines and the particular impacts on peasant and indigenous women and children. Meg is also the regional coordinator of the International League of People’s Struggles NorCal, a regional alliance of anti-imperialist organizations in the Bay Area who are united under fighting state repression and promoting international solidarity.
John Viola is a Bay Area civil rights and criminal defense attorney.
Other Panelists TBA.
Host: Co-sponsored by Green and Red Podcast, Diablo Rising Tide, XR SF Bay, Oil and Gas Action Network and Bay Resistance.
Tesla Dealership –SF 999 Van Ness (Corner of O’Farrell) SF
No Monarchs Monday (the butterflies are ok). Join us to stand up for democracy, civil liberties, and the planet, and against the fascist/authoritarian Trump Regime! Bring a sign if you have one. This is a peaceful protest.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker emerita of the U.S. House of Representatives, refuses to be distracted.
As questions about Pelosi’s political future ceaselessly circle her, she’s adamant that her mind remains first and foremost fixated on one election — and it isn’t in 2026.
Pelosi joined labor leaders Saturday to put her political muscle behind the campaign for Proposition 50 — a statewide redistricting measure that its Democratic proponents say is a counter to Republican gerrymandering in states such as Texas — which will be decided by voters on Nov. 4.
Saturday’s get-out-the-vote effort for Prop. 50 coincided with the No Kings protests, in which millions of Americans were expected to demonstrate in cities throughout the nation — including San Francisco — against President Donald Trump and his administration’s policies.
Pelosi told The Examiner on Saturday that she won’t announce whether she’ll seek another term in 2026 until Prop. 50 is settled.
Her advocacy for Prop. 50 — a measure framed by Democrats as a fight to protect democracy — comes days after Trump floated the idea of sending the National Guard into San Francisco. She’s opting not to engage with the threat beyond a terse statement in opposition. Instead, she is calling out Republican-led cuts to health care and the Democratic Party’s efforts to retake control of the House of Representatives in 2026.
The Examiner sat down with Pelosi on Saturday to discuss Prop. 50, Trump and her own 2026 plans. This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Have you decided whether or not you’re going to run in 2026? And if you haven’t decided yet, when will you make an announcement? I won’t make any announcement until we get through November 4th. That is everything to us.
Here’s the thing. We must win the House. If you talk about ‘no kings,’ we must win the House to put a stop to this. We won’t be able to get many things done, but we’ll be able to stop a lot of the poison that he’s putting there, and the best antidote to poison is to win the election.
There’s a lot riding on this because this is the path to our winning the House. We will win the House regardless, but winning it big, and we want to win Nov. 4 big.
Even if the Voting Rights Act is gutted? [The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday in Louisiana v. Callais, a case that challenges the constitutionality of Section 2 of the act.] If that happens, that would be so shameful for our country, and it’s such a departure.
[In 2006] we wrote the Voting Rights Act [extension] in our office, minority leader with the Black Caucus … I walked down the steps with Senator [Bill] Frist, who was majority leader at that time, in celebration. George Bush signed it. And what did these guys do? Years later they diminish Section 2.
This is really so un-American. It’s a shame what happened to the Supreme Court under this guy. Our founders could foresee a rogue president. They couldn’t foresee a rogue Senate and a rogue court.
I’m working very closely with labor to fund and to organize the outside mobilization. They have been fabulous in all of this, and also the governor with massive resources that we need, but he’s really led the way on that. I just helped him a bit, but my focus had been more on the funding for the get-out-the-vote [effort].
Can you walk me through those early days when this was first being formed? It wasn’t that long ago that they started in Texas. If they didn’t do that, we wouldn’t have done that. We weren’t planning this, no. We don’t like midterm, mid-decade redistricting.
The central opposition now is that “two wrongs don’t make a right.” If you’re out knocking on a door, how do you explain to somebody that, in this case, two wrongs do make a right? Well, it isn’t about two wrongs making a right. It isn’t about two wrongs. That’s a talking point for the Republicans, but that ain’t what the fact is. They committed a wrong, we’re in self-defense, and that’s what this is — self-defense.
Do you think if somebody comes to punch you in the face and you punch them back, that’s two wrongs?
I don’t know. I’m a coward. I’ve never gotten into a fistfight. This is not “two wrongs.” This is self-defense and democracy.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff apologized for calling for National Guard policing in San Francisco after criticism from politicians and a longtime ally’s rejection
The City joined a group of more than 40 localities pleading with the Supreme Court to stop president
Do you feel like the message is resonating? Are you confident heading into November? I’m confident we will win, but I want to win big. I want to win big. The support is there, we just have to get it out. That’s the whole thing about all this, is you can convince everybody, but unless they’re voting, you’ve only had a conversation. Get out that vote. Own the ground.
We touched on it a little bit, but can you articulate for me why it’s so important that Democrats have the majority in the House after 2026? More now than ever. Elections were elections. You get the results, you live with that. You compromise on this and that. But in this case, our democracy is at stake.
The current leadership of the House — Congress, even, but just talking about the House — has shredded the Constitution when it comes to the separation of power as being the exquisite beauty of our Constitution. Separation of power … that is central to not having a king.
That’s the genius of our founders. They didn’t want a king. Separation of power.
You’ve focused on preserving healthcare. How important is it to you to negotiate that as part of a path out of the [federal government] shutdown? What is the best approach out of a shutdown? What we’re doing here is about health care, but we were talking about separation of powers, saving our democracy, free and fair elections, rule of law, independent judiciary — remember that? — freedom of the press, all of those things — they’re all at stake in this election.
You save democracy and the Constitution at the kitchen table — taking down prices, not allowing cost of health care to go up, to address the issues that relate to the cost of living for America’s working families.
So from the standpoint of health care … When we passed [the Affordable Care Act] it was -6% in popularity. You know what it is now? 30-something to 60-something [percent] in favor of the Affordable Care Act.
So they’re messing with something that is right there at the kitchen table. It’s about their health, people’s health. It’s also about their financial health, because they’re gonna be getting notices now that say your healthcare is going to go up either double or triple — thousands of dollars difference that people just can’t afford. So from a standpoint of the health and financial health of the American people, this is a fight we must win. But from a standpoint of what it means politically? We fully intend to win the house. We’re going to win it anyway. This November 4 gives us a boost.
One could argue that kitchen-table issues and the rising cost of living were major reasons why Trump won reelection. How do Democrats better control those rising costs of living? Well, the difference is between lies and truth. He didn’t do anything … He had one goal — tax breaks for the richest people in America. That was his goal when he was president the first time, and [he] didn’t accomplish anything except tax breaks for the rich, adding $2 trillion to the national debt. This time it’s $4 trillion to the national debt to give even a bigger boost to the richest people in corporate America. That’s why they go up there and kiss his butt.
This is life or death. I will say this in relationship to my crudeness. Being a mom, my whole purpose in even being in politics is the children, for the children, for the children, for the children. Donald Trump is the worst president America’s children have ever had, whether it’s their health, their education, the economic security of their working families, a clean safe environment — including gun safety — in which they can thrive in a world of peace in which they can reach their fulfillment. Forget it all.
The worst, the worst, exceeding anybody in terms of being the worst president of the United States for children. So that’s part of my fight too.
That’s who we are. That’s what we’re there to do, to lower the cost of living for them by starting out by not increasing their health-care costs, which is what he is doing, and not engaging in unexplainable tariffs that will add to the cost of living just because he feels like throwing his substantial weight around — literally and figuratively. Again, this is who we are. This is for working families.
What we’re doing with our labor mobilization is about swing voters in swing districts with working families. This is for them to call the shots.
It’s No Kings day. This week there’s been talk about Trump sending the National Guard to manage things in San Francisco. You put out a fairly terse statement yesterday, and it reminded me of your response to the Presidio, Alcatraz. Reject my premise, [but] it seems like you’re not really willing to engage in a prolonged tit-for-tat, rhetorical back-and-forth on these issues. That may be so. I mean, your interpretation may be how you see things. However, the reason we didn’t take his bait on these things is health care, Medicare, Medicaid — that is what is essential to America’s working families.
He’s a notion monger. He throws out notions. He doesn’t even really understand what they are.
But tell that to Chicago. It was more than just a threat or a notion in Chicago. He ought not to even think about coming to San Francisco. Everybody knows that’s a tit-for-tat with him. But when he throws his things out, he wants us to divert our attention from the kitchen table. That’s what he wants us to do, but we’re not doing that.
No, we’re talking about the rising cost of health care because your members have decided in favor of the wealthiest people in America instead of America’s working families. Give them a tax break, really? Really?
[It’s] not that I don’t want to engage with him. I’ve probably engaged him more than almost anybody, in my history of it all … you’re not gonna divert attention away from what is important to America’s working families.
Tens of thousands of people marched in San Francisco Saturday for the second national “No Kings” protest, making it one of the largest — and most artistic — in recent years to focus collective scorn on the Trump Administration.
The scene blended activism and spectacle.
Marchers carried signs reading “Hands Off Our Democracy,” “No Troops in Our Streets,” “Vaccines Save Lives” and in a South Park reference, “Trump Is F—ing Satan.” Someone inflated a cartoonish crown labeled “King Me Not.” At the Civic Center stage, folk icon Joan Baez led the crowd in singing “Gracias a la Vida,” while Angela Davis roused the crowd to political engagement.
Youth in tie-dye marched alongside union contingents from National Nurses United, bearing placards: “Democracy Is Not for Sale.” Several sign featured images of Donald Trump with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell to underscore the public groundswell for accountability.
The demonstration began at the Embarcadero around 2 p.m., proceeding down Market Street and winding up at a soundstage set up outside City Hall.
It was San Francisco at its most righteous and lighthearted: Costumed (and some naked) marchers, dogs in strollers, cardboard crowns and inflatable dinosaurs. A handful of city police officers sat near side streets, looking down at their phones while scrolling newsfeeds about the rally they were supposedly monitoring. The crowd, organizers say, remained peaceful.
But the protest also had a sharper edge: Earlier in the week, President Donald Trump reaffirmed his intention to deploy federal troops or the National Guard to San Francisco, asserting he had “unquestioned power” to do so under the Insurrection Act. City and state officials scoffed: California Attorney General Rob Bonta warned the move would be unlawful without an actual insurrection, and San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said guard troops would not solve the city’s drug- and homelessness-related problems.
The “No Kings” movement is drawing big numbers and bigger political stakes. Organizers said the rally drew between 101,000 and 144,000 people, noting that was the count they had submitted to the Crowd Counting Consortium at Harvard. It was one of thousands of coordinated gatherings across the country.
According to data journalist G. Elliott Morris and the independent newsroom The Xylom, national turnout is estimated at about 5 million, with an upper bound near 6.5 million — making this one of the largest single-day protest events in U.S. history.
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San Francisco’s protest melded serious political organizing (many trying to raise the public profile of state Proposition 50, the voting district map reform to counteract Texas Republicans’ mid-cycle redistricting) with local culture (clown outfits, drum circles, irreverent signs with X-rated images), echoing the city’s history of spirited dissent. Despite talk of authoritarian putsches and troop deployments, the actual enforcement presence on the streets was minimal, belying the federal rhetoric.
Photos by Jason Winshell / San Francisco Public Press
Angela Davis, political activist, author and scholar, addressed the crowd at the “No Kings” rally in Civic Center on Oct. 18, 2025, emphasizing civil liberties and the importance of standing up against oppression.
Below: The crowd assembles for a march down Market Street. Credit: Dan Dunn Aerial Photography for Indivisible SF.
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Jason Winshell is a photojournalist and investigative reporter. The current focus of his reporting is AI and technology policy. His prior four-decade career as software engineer informs his reporting. In 2010, his photography was nominated by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s SECA award, which recognizes the work of emerging artists in the Bay Area. His photo essay book, “Street,” documents every day life in San Francisco through 45 color photographs shot on the city’s streets.More by Jason Winshell
Michael Stoll is senior editor and co-founder of the San Francisco Public Press. Formerly executive director, he has also been a reporter and freelance writer for local and national outlets, including the San Francisco Examiner and the Philadelphia Inquirer. He has taught journalism at two Bay Area universities, and researched media ethics at Stanford.More by Michael Stoll
by Randy Shaw on October 20, 2025 (BeyondChron.org)
Marc Benioff
Marc Benioff’s urging Trump to send the National Guard to San Francisco overlooked a key fact: Governor Newsom sent the National Guard to the city in 2023 and it failed to reduce drug activities. The National Guard supposedly provided strategic assistance but did not arrest dealers. Nor did it protect sidewalks as many hoped.
Newsom acted after touring the Tenderloin and hearing people’s complaints (JJ Smith’s video of Newsom’s tour went viral). The mayor supported Newsom’s action. In contrast, Trump’s planned use of the National Guard is opposed by city leaders, including Mayor Lurie and District Attorney Jenkins.
Trump’s misuse of the National Guard has nothing to do with increasing public safety. In fact, it was reported last week that “a video the White House circulated to portray Chicago as violent and chaotic used footage of drug busts, arrests and deportation raids in Florida, Texas, South Carolina and Nebraska.”
If public safety were really the goal, troops would be sent to the many red states with higher crime rates than Democratic-run cities, including San Francisco.
Trump’s misuse of the National Guard was well known to Benioff. The Salesforce head now bears responsibility for the National Guard’s harassment of hard working San Francisco residents should troops arrive. His subsequent retraction of his call came far too late and is unlikely to impact Trump’s thinking (it does show the power of resistance).
National Guard in SF
COVID dramatically expanded sidewalk drug activities in the Tenderloin. Many of us urged the city to find additional resources to protect the neighborhood I wrote a lot of stories about this and urged Governor Newsom to send in the National Guard and other outside help. When it happened I wrote, “Many of us were elated by the news. We had worked hard to convince Newsom that the SFPD could not close drug markets on its own and our efforts finally paid off.”
I described the impact of the National Guard soon after it arrived. (“Has CHP and National Guard Reduced SF Drug Dealing?, May 16, 2023). The California Highway Patrol made a huge, positive difference. A positive impact that continues to this day. Sidewalk drug activities in the Tenderloin were much worse before the CHP arrived in 2023.
The National Guard offered “logistical help.” It was never clear what it was doing to reduce drug activities. At the time few thought of the National Guard as an occupying political force. They were typically used to address floods, fires and other natural emergencies.
Fears that the National Guard would be shooting at Tenderloin residents in a modern version of what happened at Kent State were misplaced. Also misplaced was my belief that the National Guard could make a meaningful difference.
Why San Francisco?
Cities targeted by Trump’s use of the National Guard—-Chicago, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Washington D.C.—all have black mayors and large black or Latino populations. San Francisco doesn’t fit this pattern. That’s why I’ve assumed Trump was more likely to send troops to Oakland.
But Trump likes attention. And he knows that sending troops to San Francisco will bring a high-profile response. That’s probably why he also tried to send troops to Portland, which has a white mayor and few blacks or Latinos. A federal judge blocked that move but today the Ninth Circuit ruled that Trump can deploy the Oregon National Guard to guard an ICE facility in Portland. Texas National Guard troops remained blocked.
The same legal response could block troops from arriving in San Francisco. But we can’t take anything for granted. The Supreme Court could give Trump power to send troops to any cities he wants; that’s the likely ruling if a case reaches them.
The Big Picture
National Guard missions in Democratic cities gets a lot of media. Deservedly so. But what about Trump’s defunding congressionally approved spending in Democratic cities? Or claims by his team that those protesting at No Kings events are antifa agents who hate America?
Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s press secretary, said last week that “The Democratic Party’s main constituency is made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens and violent criminals.” J.D. Vance sought “to downplay the revelation that leaders of a group called the Young Republicans exchanged hundreds of racist, sexist text messages – including one in which rape was called ‘epic’, and another in which someone wrote ‘I love Hitler – as youthful indiscretions.” The ages of 8 of the 11 heard on the tape ranged from 24-35.
These are even more troubling signs that the United States is now under authoritarian control. It’s the historic triumph of the Confederacy, whose racist values Trump espouses.
That’s the racist agenda underlying Benioff’s call for the National Guard to come to San Francisco. And subsequent to Benioff’s call it was learned that on August 26 Salesforce offered its help to expedite hiring for Trump’s vicious and racist ICE mass deportation strategy.
I haven’t heard Salesforce withdrawing that offer.
That’s a reputation killer in Benioff’s longtime home city of San Francisco.
I thought he was a better man that that. So did longtime Benioff ally, Ron Conway, who said “It saddens me immensely to say that with your recent comments, and failure to understand their impact, I now barely recognize the person I have so long admired.”
Sadly, Benioff is not alone. Many once well respected people and companies have chosen to align with or avoid challenging Trump’s plans to be a dictator.
<I>Randy Shaw is the Editor of Beyond Chron and the Director of San Francisco’s Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which publishes Beyond Chron. Shaw’s new book is the revised and updated, The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco. His prior books include Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America. The Activist’s Handbook: Winning Social Change in the 21st Century, and Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century.
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