Third No Kings Day Announced for March 28
This week, the “No Kings” coalition launched a nationwide “Eyes on ICE” training program
The dispatch from Indivisible in my Inbox this morning announced that the coalition responsible for the largest mass demonstrations in recent US history had settled on a date for the much-anticipated No Kings Day: Saturday, March 28.
They’re planning for demonstrations large and small throughout the country. October’s No Kings Day saw 2700 events. The flagship event will be in Minneapolis, which has become a national symbol for opposition to Trump’s immigration crackdown in the wake of the killing of two U.S. citizens by federal immigration agents.
While the last weekend in March may seem like a long time away, given the national reaction to ICE murders of activists in Minnesota, the weeks-long buildup reflects a deliberate shift toward sustained organizing and protection for demonstrators rather than rapid mobilization alone.
The message remains the same: a powerful statement that political power in the United States belongs to its people, “not to kings.”
As every community targeted by ICE and the Border Patrol has shown, everyday citizens have opted to step out of their routines to prove they refuse to cower in the face of Trump’s cruelty.
The current regime is hoping to get past public disgust with the horrifying displays of inhumanity by shuffling the faces appearing in the media and promising to investigate the shootings. Immigration authorities are doubling down on barbarous behavior aimed at discouraging opposition.
On Tuesday in Minneapolis, cameo clad troops fired tear gas next to a preschool. In Arizona, protesters standing in line along a thoroughfare were pepper sprayed by a car of agents. It’s clear that the programs of random kidnappings and suppression of people exercising their First Amendment rights are intensifying, even as Republicans are showing signs of disarray in Washington.
I have to wonder about the relevancy of media accounts portraying White House factions jockeying for Presidential attention. The underlying racism and need to assert aggressiveness will remain in place, regardless.
The administration is facing a January 31 deadline to keep the government funded, as even wishy-washy centrist politicians are demanding change.
In San Diego, Congressional representatives Scott Peters, Sara Jacobs, Mike Levin and Juan Vargas backed the effort to force reforms before passing the budget. They called for passage of Peters’ Stop Excessive Force in Immigration Act, which would ban agents from using tear gas, flash-bangs and masks and would require that they wear always-on body cameras. Like nearly all substantive legislation not supporting the President’s agenda, this bill for this session of Congress won’t be worth the paper it’s printed on.
Meanwhile, House Freedom Caucus leaders sent a letter to President Trump Tuesday urging him to “ensure the Department of Homeland Security is fully funded along with all remaining appropriations bills — and not allow Democrats to strip its funding out to pass other appropriations separately.”
Democratic skittishness about emphasizing immigration over economic concerns can be put to rest, at least for the time being. President Trump’s declarations about the wonderfulness of the economy landed with a thud in Iowa on Tuesday, and today’s gameshow-style giveaway of $1000 Trump baby bonds isn’t going to thrill the masses, given that surveys show a teeny slice of the electorate even knows about the program.
A 1,500-person survey circulating on Capitol Hill and conducted over the weekend found strong public support (58%) among likely midterm voters for reining ICE in. There are bipartisan majorities of voters who oppose ICE’s lawless tactics, including detaining U.S. citizens (73%), entering people’s homes without warrants (79%), and failing to wear clearly identifying uniforms (70%).
We can count on political drama in Washington interspersed with images of a defunded city government unable to get snowplows deployed.
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Individuals in the Trump administration privately acknowledge that they’ve lost an important public relations battle on immigration enforcement. And while rumors fly about who’s in charge, there is agreement that the next steps for the government will include efforts to make an example of people daring to oppose ICE.
Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) will concentrate on investigating the slain Alex Pretti, in hope of maintaining doubt about whether or not the man they shot in the back was a domestic terrorist.
Today Jeff Winter and Priscilla Alvarez of CNN broke the story that ICE agents have been collecting the personal information of protesters in Minneapolis. They reported that officials asked federal agents sent to Minneapolis to “capture all images, license plates, identifications, and general information on hotels, agitators, protestors, etc., so we can capture it all in one consolidated form.” A form titled “intel collection non-arrests” enabled agents to fill in protesters’ personal information.
This information supports the statement of Trump’s “border czar”—a fancy term for an advisor—Tom Homan on the Fox News Channel earlier this month. “[W]e’re going to create a database where those people that are arrested for interference, impeding and assault, we’re going to make them famous,” Homan said. “We’re going to put their face on TV. We’re going to let their employers, in their neighborhoods, in their schools, know who these people are.”
The object for Homan, etc., is to build a case for criminalizing activism. Already the proclamation to classify opposition as domestic terrorism exists. The FBI has opened an investigation into the Signal chats that activists use to follow ICE agents.
The government faces an uphill battle in winning over (or neutralizing) the public, and we should expect “shocking” exposés from influencers that graduate to elements of the Rudolph Murdoch empire.
In addition to planning for offensive actions (ala protests) resistance organizers are going to engage in defensive measures.
This week, the “No Kings” coalition launched a nationwide “Eyes on ICE” training program, a virtual initiative designed to teach people how to exercise their rights and safely monitor federal enforcement actions. The first session drew more than 200,000 viewers, according to organizers, and additional training is scheduled for the weeks leading up to the protests, including another on Feb. 5.
Via the Associated Press story featuring Indivisible’s Mike Levin:
The big protest days are headline-grabbing moments, but Levin said groups like his are determined to keep up steady trainings and intermediate-level organizing in hopes of growing sustainable resistance to the Trump administration’s actions.
“This isn’t about Democrats versus Republicans. This is about do we have a democracy at all, and what are we going to tell our kids and our grandkids about what we did in this moment?” Levin said. “I think that demands the kind of persistent engagement. ”
Locally, the multitude of groups in San Diego expressing resistance to the Trump administration will be rolling out their ideas and aspirations in the coming days.
On Thursdays, I publish a comprehensive list of resistance activities in San Diego County. There are dozens of ongoing programs, protests, and planning groups in the county, and the fastest way to get involved is to just show up.
In a pickup truck, Trump regime hauls off exhibits to erase documentation of enslaved people by Meteor Blades at Daily Kos
As previously reported, the Trump team is also scrutinizing several Smithsonian museums — including the National Museum of African American History and Culture — for portraying America too honestly. The aim is not balance, but obedience.
Trump’s vision for the Park Service includes an ousting of all programs and references to diversity, equity, and inclusion. This applies to plaques and explanatory signage in the parks as well as exhibits. Thus did we have the ludicrous removal of all transgender references at Stonewall National Monument in New York City, famous for a 1960s gay rights protest that came about partly because of police mistreatment of several transgender people.
In addition to installing Trump-approved histories in federal facilities, National Parks Traveler reported that the Department of Interior sent a Nov. 25 memo ordering NPS staff to conduct a December review of all “retail items” for sale at park stores, whether run by the government or concessionaires. This, it said, is to ensure nothing being sold is out of compliance with the Trump administration’s executive orders on DEI and gender. Material that violates the rules should be removed immediately, the memo stated. That includes books. Censorship by memo rather than bonfire.
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South Carolina measles outbreak reaches 789 cases, surpassing Texas by Erika Edwards at NBC News
The South Carolina milestone comes as the U.S. teeters toward losing its measles elimination status. That could occur as soon as this fall if it’s determined that the virus originated from a single source and continued to circulate for a full year.
In a call with reporters on Jan. 20, the new principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Ralph Abraham, appeared to shrug off the matter.
“It’s just the cost of doing business, with our borders being somewhat porous,” Abraham said. “We have these communities that choose to be unvaccinated. That’s their personal freedom.”
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Weekend winter storm that battered eastern U.S. was supercharged by climate change by Andrea Thompson at Scientific American
Some of the hardest hit places saw more than two feet of snowfall, while up to an inch of ice from freezing rain shut down roads and cut power throughout the Southeast. No doubt, this storm was big. It was always going to pack a punch—but it dumped more frozen precipitation than it would have if the storm had occurred decades earlier. It may seem paradoxical that a warming climate could mean heavier snowfalls, but hotter, albeit still below freezing, temperatures are nonetheless a recipe for more snow.
That’s because for every one degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming, the atmosphere can hold about 7 percent more moisture. And this storm happened in an atmosphere that has become up to five degrees C (nine degrees F) warmer than it was in past decades, according to the research organization ClimaMeter, which produced the new analysis. That means that this storm had up to 20 percent more precipitation than it would have if there was no human-caused warming.
Some regions of the U.S. could see more snow for a time as the planet’s temperature rises—particularly those places prone to lake-effect snow, because bodies of water take longer to freeze over in winter.