Friday Homestead Dispatch
Week Number Twenty-One
Today’s post was cobbled together while relaxing on Donner Lake, California, all week, and a long day of flying home yesterday. Hope to see some of you tomorrow!
1.
Saturday, June 14, is a national No Kings Nationwide Day of Defiance. In Tucson, there are two events that you can participate in—hopefully both!
First, in the morning, will be the DEFEND DEMOCRACY NO KINGS DAY event in Reid Park. It will kickoff at 8am at the corner of Country Club and 22nd St., the southwest edge of Reid Park.
Then in the afternoon it’s the No Kings Motor March. All the details are in the links provided. This also kicks off at Reid Park, and Phin and Mitch suggest that to avoid as much congestion as possible at Reid Park (there are three lots there: Concert Place and Picnic Place entrances are on Country Club and the Lakeshore Drive entrance is on 22nd), we encourage you to consider parking at one of the staging areas identified on the more detailed map on the website. There will be no organizational meeting at Reid Park, just a place to park. Everyone parked in the staging areas and at Reid Park will leave at the same time: 3 pm. Just look at your watches. There are no lead cars, no starting gun, just go! We encourage all vehicles to make at least one complete loop of the route, returning where you started from and then dispersing.
At this point, there are MANY people making noise about the *rump administration, especially after troops being mobilized against U.S. citizens in Los Angeles earlier this week. The politicizing of the military against its own people is not acceptable, but that’s just one of many unethical and unjust reasons we are on the streets. And this should not only CONCERN left-leaning people, but every stripe of right-wing, libertarian-leaning folks, too.
Watch this remarkable conversation between Heather Cox Richardson and Pete Buttigieg to dive deeper into what this moment means for us all.
2.
After we march and drive on the 14th, we’re just getting started. As Simon Rosenberg writes, Job One for us this summer is fighting Trump’s ruinous economic agenda. We need to keep calling every day and demand our leaders vote down the reconciliation bill and roll back Trump’s terrible tariffs. This is the big, definitional battle of the summer and we need keep working it every day. Those of you in states with Republican Senators have a particularly important role to play.
In contacting those GOP representatives, the key talking points are 1) I am calling to urge you to vote against the reconciliation bill and to roll back Trump’s terrible and illegal tariffs, 2) demand they fight Trump’s illegal use of the National Guard and the military against its own citizens, 3) demand RFK hire back the vaccine advisory panel.
To gird your loins, and who doesn’t want that, read HCR’s report on new polls showing *rump’s policies are in the crapper. A new Quinnipiac poll of American registered voters shows that 38% of registered voters approve of the way Trump is handling his job as president; 54% disapprove. Voters aren’t keen on Trump’s appointees, either. Thirty-eight percent of voters approve of the way Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is handling his job; 53% disapprove. Thirty-seven percent of voters approve of the way Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is handling his job, while 46% disapprove. Thirty-eight percent approved of the work billionaire Elon Musk did, while 57% said it was either “not so good” or “poor.”
More voters disapprove than approve of Trump’s handling of immigration issues (43% approval to 54% disapproval), deportations (40% approval to 56% disapproval), the economy (40% approval to 56% disapproval), trade (38% approval to 57% disapproval), universities (37% approval to 54% disapproval), the Israel-Hamas conflict (35% approval to 52% disapproval), and the Russia-Ukraine war (34% approval to 57% disapproval).
Voters are opposed to the budget reconciliation bill the Republicans have dubbed the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” (and Democrats have called the “Big, Beautiful Betrayal”) by 53% to 27%. While the measure cuts almost $800 billion out of Medicaid over the next ten years, only 10% of registered voters believe the federal funding for Medicaid should decrease.
3.
Say what you will about Gov. Gavin Newsom, he’s fighting back. After White House border czar Tom Homan said “Those harboring illegal immigrants would face the law, and the Democratic governor of California is not excluded from that”, Newsom shot back, “Just get it over with, arrest me.”
Then, in an address delivered to nearly 40 million Californians and Americans nationwide, Governor Gavin Newsom condemned President Trump’s unlawful militarization of Los Angeles and warned that the President’s actions mark a dangerous inflection point for the nation.
In his Substack post We Are All Los Angeles, John Pavlovitz writes that This isn’t about Los Angeles. It’s not about the bluest of the blue states receiving the wrath of a vindictive Republican president. It’s not about an outspoken Democrat Governor being intentionally targeted by a leader who resents him. This is about the future of our Republic.
Los Angeles is a test by this corrupt Administration of how much illegality the American people will tolerate, how willing we will be to abide authoritarianism, how easily ordinary people will allow an arm of the government to be weaponized against us. It is a barometer of the intestinal fortitude of our citizenry.
This use of the military is already showing some pushback as the Guardian reports that California national guards troops and marines deployed to Los Angeles to help restore order after days of protest against the Trump administration have told friends and family members they are deeply unhappy about the assignment and worry their only meaningful role will be as pawns in a political battle they do not want to join.
“The sentiment across the board right now is that deploying military force against our own communities isn’t the kind of national security we signed up for,” said Sarah Streyder of the Secure Families Initiative, which represents the interests of military spouses, children and veterans.
And the misinformation emanating from the White House that LA is out of control and the city is in chaos is just not true. Jennifer Rubin of the Contrarian writes that in Los Angeles, however, multiple violent raids did not immediately trigger the sort of confrontation the White House longed to have. “To hear our national leaders tell it, Los Angeles is in chaos and our governor and mayor are out to lunch with the police, blissfully ignoring reality as the city burns,” Anita Chabria wrote last Sunday from the city. “The only problem, of course, is that Los Angeles is not in chaos on this particular sunny Sunday and the vast majority of Angelenos are just trying to enjoy the weekend without becoming a federal prisoner.”
Ruth Ben-Ghiat wrote last week that "The real problem, for the Trump regime in the making, is that Americans are turning out in large numbers to defend the vulnerable by exercising their right to free assembly and protest. Authoritarianism depends on breaking the horizontal bonds of solidarity and empathy that lead people to risk their safety to protest injustices against others. The massive and exaggerated deployment of state security personnel and the display of arms and uniforms is designed to frighten people into hiding. There is nothing stronger than solidarity shown publicly, which is why the state responds with outsized threat and violent acts."
Even actor and activist Peter Coyote penned a short piece worth a read: I’m watching the Los Angeles reaction to ICE raids with trepidation and regret. Three years ago I taught a class at Harvard on the “theater of protest”— designed to help people understand why so many protests turn out to be Republican campaign videos working directly against the interests of the original protest.
A protest is an invitation to a better world. It’s a ceremony. No one accepts a ceremonial invitation when they’re being screamed at. More important you have to know who the real audience of the protest is. The audience is NEVER the police, the politicians, the Board of supervisors, The Congress,etc. The audience is always the American people, who are trying to decide who they can trust; who will not embarrass them. If you win them, you win power at the box office And power to make positive change. Everything else is a waste. There are a few ways to get there.
Number 1 let women organize the event. They’re more collaborative. They’re more inclusive, and they don’t generally bring the undertones of violence men do. Number 2 appoint monitors, give them yellow, vests and whistles. At the first sign of violence, they blow the whistles and the real protester sit down. Let the police take out their aggression on the anarchists and the provocateurs trying to discredit the movement. Number 3 dress like you’re going to church. It’s hard to be painted as a hoodlum When you’re dressed in clean Presentable clothes. They don’t have to be fancy they just signal the respect for the occasion that you want to transmit to the audience. Number 4, make your protest silent. Demonstrate your discipline to the American people.Let signs do the talking. Number 5 go home at night. In the dark, you can’t tell the cops from the killers. Come back at Dawn fresh and rested. I have great fear that Trump’s staging with the National Guard and maybe the Marines is designed to clash with anarchists who are playing into his hands and offering him the opportunity to declare an insurrection.
I agree with much his thoughts but I also think that the audience addressed SHOULD include our representatives. Their minds need to be changed as well as the voters.
And speaking of representatives, yesterday at a press conference for Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem in Los Angeles, Noem’s security assaulted Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA), dragged him into the hallway, forced him to the floor, and handcuffed him as he tried to ask the secretary a question. The Department of Homeland Security said Padilla “chose disrespectful political theater and interrupted a live news conference” and claimed that he “lunged” toward the secretary.
Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) answered: “This is a lie. We all saw the video. The Senator clearly identified himself, and he did not ‘lunge’ toward anyone.” She added: “If these miserable propagandists will lie to you about roughing up a U.S. Senator in a room full of reporters, what won't they lie to you about?”
And it’s just as important to understand what Noem was saying before interrupted by Padilla: "We are not going away. We are staying here to liberate this city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into the city."
In other words, the Trump administration is vowing to get rid of the democratically elected government of California by using military force. That threat is the definition of a coup. It suggests MAGA considers any political victory but their own to be illegitimate and considers themselves justified in removing those governmental officials with violence: a continuation of the attempt of January 6, 2021, to overturn the results of a presidential election.
Jamie Raskin (D-MD) responded to the Padilla bullying by standing in front of the Capital and saying, “We have no kings here, we have no queens here, we have no emperors, we have no dictators, we have no despots, and we have no serfs and no slaves and no subjects, and none of us is a subject to Donald Trump. None of us is a subject to Mike Johnson. We are all citizens, those of us who aspire and attain to public office are nothing but the servants of the people. And the minute that somebody in public office thinks that they're a king, they're a queen, they're an emperor, they're a dictator, that is time for the people to evict, eject, reject, impeach, try, convict, and start all over again, because the most important words of our Constitution are the three first words of the Constitution: ‘We the people.’”
And lastly, Lee Papa wrote You're going to see the protesters blamed, but there is only one person who caused all this, all of it, all this shit that's fucking up our lives, and it's Donald Trump. He could end this by stopping his deranged mission to bleach the United States white. But I think the chaos is his Viagra and he's not gonna stop until he fucks us all.
Onward!
4.
Gina Ortiz Jones, a Progressive, is Elected San Antonio’s Mayor over Gov. Greg Abbott’s stooge, Rolando Pablos. She’s the first openly gay leader of the seventh-largest city in the country.
5.
The symbolism of the flotilla that contained activists from several countries was to make noise and call attention to the horror show in Gaza. Some of the activists are still detained in Israel but Greta Thunberg agreed to deportation saying, “Why would I want to stay in an Israeli prison more than necessary?” She also called on supporters to ask their governments “to demand not only humanitarian aid being let into Gaza but most importantly an end to the occupation and an end to the systemic oppression and violence that Palestinians are facing on an everyday basis.”
6.
Walton family heiress Christy Walton, one of the richest women in America, has joined a small group of billionaires speaking out against President Donald Trump.
The 76-year-old Walton, who is worth an estimated $19.3 billion according to Forbes, paid to take out a full-page advertisement in The New York Times on Sunday calling on readers to “mobilize” on Saturday, June 14.
And now…
