Protesting on No Kings Day Is Not Enough

Opposition of Many Kinds Is Needed

Don’t get me wrong. Opposition to the Trump agenda and actions in over 1000 places nationally on June 14, including 11 distinct events in our neck of the woods is a good thing. Recognition of the many segments and localities willing to be represented in a massive day of disapproval is necessary if we as a nation are to have a non-authoritarian government in the future.

We who resist the erosion of democracy along with the blatant corruption that characterizes the moment need to see each other to understand that a modicum of decency still exists and free ourselves from the chains of lies/misrepresentations/lack of context served up to us on a daily basis.

Sometimes mass protests are not enough. If you can, do more.

Some local activists have been showing up at the Federal Courthouse in downtown San Diego to document the cooperation between the US Department of Justice and Immigration and Customs Enforcement in arresting immigrants who show up for hearings. In many cases, the DOJ is asking for a dismissal of charges and when the individual involved leaves the courtroom, they are being taken into custody by federal agents.

(It’s important to note that the President’s Big Beautiful Budget bill passed by the House increases ICE’s budget for transportation and removal operations by 500%, from the current $721 million to $14.4 billion, along with allocating $45 billion for adult and family detention, enough to detain at least 100,000 people at a time.)

The ICE operation made local news yesterday as agents misidentified and handcuffed a man leaving court who then hyperventilated and collapsed in the hallway. He was released after his attorney intervened, asking to see a warrant. After leaving the courthouse he was evaluated by paramedics at the scene.

Via Inewsource:

• inewsource was in the hallway when agents took three people into custody and activists said another three were detained earlier in the day. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not immediately respond to a request for comment and it wasn’t clear what charges agents were using to make arrests.

• The scene outside the hallway was at times tense and chaotic. Attorneys demanded warrants from the federal agents handcuffing their clients while the agents insisted they had authority they needed to make arrests.

• Twice, federal agents warned those in the hallway that they would arrest anyone interfering or impeding them.

I’m not saying anyone should interfere with this entrapment and roundup program, but documenting the injustice and showing opposition in the spaces federal agents are operating in is a protected First Amendment activity. It would seem appropriate if the crowds (especially in the early morning hours) continued to grow, casting a light on an operation that’s both cruel and unusual.

Other opportunities to throw a little sand in the wheels of injustice will arise, and as a matter of personal conscience people should consider calling attention to these abuses.

On a national level, it looks like Democrats in Congress are going to rally behind Congresswoman LaMonica McIver, who was arrested after visiting a New Jersey detention center.

Via The Bulwark:

• “Every member of Congress should go visit within the next ten days a private detention center,” Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Illinois) told me, emphasizing the fact that lawmakers have the legal right to conduct oversight of detention centers. “We are not going to stand for this intimidation of members of Congress, and coming after members of Congress to intimidate them so they don’t do oversight.”¹

• Three House Democrats and a congressional aide confirmed that the plan is to increase Democratic visibility at detention centers. This plan has wide support and comes at the direction of various leaders of the sub-caucuses, including the “tri-caucus”—the Congressional Black Caucus, Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus—as well as the Congressional Progressive Caucus and others.

• “Congresswoman LaMonica McIver has my support and the charges brought against her by Donald Trump’s personal lawyers are bogus,” Hispanic Caucus chair Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) told The Bulwark.² “By statute, any member of Congress is lawfully allowed and permitted to show up at ICE facilities—without appointment—to conduct oversight. The charges against Congresswoman McIver are politically motivated and baseless, and we, as a Democratic caucus, will not be intimidated.”

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Meanwhile, there are other, ongoing political actions deserving of support and amplification.

On Coronado, veterans and allies will be rallying on June 6 (2pm, Spreckels Park) in support of those who are being fired by the federal government, along with the impending damage to healthcare for those who served in the military.

The rally will be dedicated to Army veteran John Pottridge, who passed away this month after years of battling cancer resulting from exposure to Agent Orange in the Vietnam War.

Coronado’s Rally for Veterans is being held in conjunction with the Unite for Veterans rally on the National Mall, dedicated to honoring veterans, military families, and their allies while advocating for the rights and benefits of veterans.

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Rep. Darrell Issa, if he cared enough to defend his affirmation of the President’s Big Beautiful Budget, can deflect observations about its impact on the most of us by saying (for instance) he didn’t vote for cuts to Medicaid, or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which will reduce their funding by a trillion dollars.

He voted for changing the standards and qualifying process of these programs. He voted for appropriations that run up a huge deficit, and will trigger the 2010 law requiring offsets that will cut Medicare by an estimated $500 billion. There isn’t legislative language specifically calling for cuts in these programs even though the budget bill will have that impact.

We all know that Issa and his ilk will avoid contact or dialogue with the people who will suffer under this abomination of a budget until he can’t. The regularity of people showing up for demonstrations at four locations within his district will eat away at his support provided that people keep showing up.

Here’s Michael Smolen in the Union-Tribune

• Regular protests against Issa are occurring again, largely focusing on the Trump agenda, particularly Medicaid cuts. But they’re in his new district, the heavily Republican, East County-based 48th, where Issa officially moved and then won in 2020.

• Issa would seem to be a safe bet next year to win the district, which at this stage is not considered competitive by either party.

• Nevertheless, the larger battle for the House in 2026 could hinge on how Issa and fellow Republicans voted on the Trump domestic policy bill.

At some point –as happened in his former district– I predict Issa will bolt, hoping that the level of corruption in DC is sufficient for him to pass through the Senate’s confirmation process.

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Locally, it’s hard to avoid speculation that the Trump administration’s hacking away at the staffing and budgets for federal agencies could have had a role to play in the crash of a Cessna jet in the Tierrasanta neighborhood as it attempted a landing at the Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport in heavy fog.

According to a report in Times of San Diego, the crash killed six people, injured eight, and damaged 10 homes, along with multiple vehicles, forcing evacuations along several blocks.

• The jet crashed at about 3:45 a.m. on approach to the municipal airport. NTSB investigator Elliott Simpson said that the plane struck power lines about two miles southeast of the airport, then collided with a house. Plane fragments were found beneath the powerlines.

• Residents were in the house that was initially impacted, and neighbors helped them out, officials said.

• The crash ignited a large fire at a two-story house, along with several vehicles. Over 100 firefighters converged on the area and by 7:45 a.m., most of the blazes had been extinguished except for one stubborn vehicle fire.

KPBS has reported that the Automated Surface Observing Station (ASOS) that airport stopped transmitting weather observations a couple of days before the crash. Although the reports are from within the realm of the National Weather Service, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is responsible for maintaining and operating the Montgomery Field Automated Surface Observing Station.

KPBS:

• ASOS “plays a crucial role in aviation safety at various airports,” according to NWS. The systems are supposed to operate “around the clock, updating observations every minute, 24/7, all year long.”

• “If the ASOS is unpredictable or not working, then you increase the hazard of operating," said Thomas Anthony, director of the University of Southern California’s Aviation Safety & Security Program. "The hazard is substantially greater, especially when there are low ceilings (from fog)."

On Wednesday, a letter was signed by the heads of American Airlines, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines, JetBlue Airways, Alaska Airlines, Atlas Air, trade group Airlines for America along with senior executives at FedEx and UPS urging Congress to approve billions of dollars in funding to modernize the United States' aging air traffic control system, saying it is "failing Americans."

Via Reuters:

• The Federal Aviation Administration's air traffic control network's woes have been years in the making. But a rush of high-profile mishaps, near-misses and a deadly January crash involving an American Airlines regional jet caused public alarm and prompted new calls for action.

• In a joint letter, the airline executives cited recent failures involving Newark Airport and said the FAA's technology "is wildly out of date."

• "Aviation remains the safest mode of transportation in the U.S., but for it to remain so, serious upgrades need to happen now," said the letter, citing a 2023 independent review that raised safety concerns.

Obviously the Congress can’t go back in time and fix this overall problem, but the equipment failure is symptomatic of how the FAA is being run under Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, whose qualifications included no management experience, bragging about as a Congressman he’d voted against the Affordable Care Act more than 50 times, and serving as a weekend host on Fox News.

Although the 400 FAA employees axed by Musk’s DOGE crew have been returned to their positions, nearly 3000 other employees have signed up for the “deferred resignation program,” which allows staff to go on paid leave through September and end government employment at that time.

As the Trump administration’s actions are impacting people and institutions all over the US, it is necessary and important to push back on as many levels as possible. Keep your eyes and ears open for opportunities to support resistance to authoritarianism and restoration of our Democracy.

Did Trump punish EU over Greenland minerals deal? Via The Economic Times

• Greenland, a resource-rich autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, recently issued a 30-year mining permit to a Danish-French consortium, effectively sidelining U.S. interests in the Arctic region. The license allows Greenland Anorthosite Mining (GAM) to extract anorthosite—a white rock rich in aluminum, micro silica, and calcium—intended for export to the fiberglass industry.

• According to Newsweek, the permit was granted to GAM, a company backed by the French Jean Boulle Group and real estate investment firms from Denmark and Greenland.

• The decision comes as a blow to Trump, who had previously expressed public interest in acquiring Greenland, citing its strategic location and abundance of natural resources, including rare minerals, oil, and natural gas. Many analysts interpreted the EU-Greenland deal as a diplomatic snub, potentially fueling Trump’s aggressive

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Not So Fast, Kristi Noem by Jay Kuo at the Status Kuo

• DHS announced it took action because it disagrees with how Harvard runs its curricula and self-governs its campus. Let’s stop for a moment and consider how extraordinary and un-American that very idea is. The government is actively intruding upon the decision-making of a private educational institution and throwing its weight around to force conformity to its own agenda.

• Sounds pretty communist to me. (Every accusation is a confession: This is an administration that urges anti-consumerism to protect the state, threatens price controls on private industry, and demands academic adherence to official propaganda.)

• Let’s also recall what the government specifically demanded. It wanted the university to condemn particular ideologies; to audit and then restructure the administration, faculty and student body to promote “viewpoint diversity”; to disband certain student organizations; and to report or refuse admission to students with certain disfavored political views.

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Inside the ‘strangest terrorist movement the US has ever seen’ by Josie Ensor at The Sunday Times

• Such reflection on human existence has been happening in the darker reaches of the internet for years. But last weekend, the philosophy took on real-world consequences when one of the promortalist movement’s followers bombed a fertility clinic in Palm Springs, killing himself and leaving four injured.

• The FBI described the blast — powerful enough to damage buildings several streets away — as “probably the largest bombing scene that we’ve had in southern California”.

• The suspect, Guy Bartkus, explained his motive in a manifesto published on his website promortalism.com, saying he did it because he was angry at his own existence. “I’m anti-life,” he wrote. “And IVF is kind of the epitome of pro-life ideology. Basically it just comes down to I’m angry that I exist and that, you know, nobody got my consent to bring me here.”