curated news excerpts & source links

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Newsweek: Walmart Faces MAGA Boycott After Heiress Funds ‘No Kings’ Ad

Waging Nonviolence: Timely lessons for keeping people safe in the streets

Jennifer Rubin: Trump won’t stop with California

Americans must reject Trump’s police state.

NY Times: Texas Governor Will Deploy National Guard to Immigration Protests

Governor Newsom: A ONCE GREAT AMERICAN CITY HAS BEEN OCCUPIED!

• KETV: Map and figures: What to know about the Los Angeles immigration protests

  
  
  
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• Time: Why Waymo’s Self-Driving Cars Became a Target of Protesters in Los Angeles

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  The Wall Street Journal reported that part of the reason the cars were vandalized was to obstruct traffic—a traditional, albeit controversial, protest tactic.

  Some social media users have suggested that self-driving vehicles in particular have become a new target because they are seen by protesters as “part of the police surveillance state.”

  Waymo’s cars are equipped with cameras that provide a 360-degree view of their surroundings, a tool that has been tapped by law enforcement, according to reports.

  Independent tech news site 404 Media reported in April that the Los Angeles Police Department obtained footage from a Waymo driverless car to use as part of an investigation into an unrelated hit-and-run.

  And Bloomberg reported in 2023 that police have increasingly relied on self-driving cars and their cameras for video evidence. Chris Gilliard, a fellow at the Social Science Research Council, told Bloomberg that self-driving vehicles are “essentially surveillance cameras on wheels,” …
  (Time more…)

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• Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – June 10, 2025

  Today President Donald J. Trump made it clear that the provocations he and his administration are escalating in Los Angeles and now elsewhere are using the issue of immigration to suppress dissent entirely.

  In the Oval Office today, Trump said of the military parade scheduled for this Saturday: “If there’s any protester wants to come out, they will be met with very big force…. For those people that want to protest, they’re going to be met with very big force.”

  His statement comes after the administration instituted aggressive immigration sweeps in Los Angeles during which Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) met the few hundred protesters with violence.

  Then, over the protests of both Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass and California governor Gavin Newsom, Trump federalized 4,000 members of California’s National Guard and ordered 700 Marines to Los Angeles. He and his advisors have repeatedly threatened to arrest anyone who does not cooperate with ICE, including Mayor Bass and Governor Newsom.

  Trump has said he based his decision to federalize the National Guard on his insistence that Los Angeles is staggering under violent riots, but in fact the protests are largely peaceful and local officials maintain they can handle the situation.
  (Heather Cox Richardson more…)

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• Atlantic: Trump’s Gross Misuse of the National Guard

  The 1992 deployment in Los Angeles proved that troops operate best on the streets when the state is in charge.
  

  
  
  
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• John Pavlovitz: Hey MAGAs, the Crisis in L.A. is Your Fault

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• Democracy Docket: Judge Denies California’s Request for Immediate Block on Trump’s Use of Military in Los Angeles

  Lisa Needham: Trump’s ludicrously sloppy legal rationale for occupying LA

  It’s blatantly illegal. But he’s not about to let laws get in his way.
  …
  Digging into questions like “can Trump federalize the California National Guard because heavily-armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers picked a fight with a few hundred random Californians outside of Home Depot and lost?” is not a thing we should have to do, because the answer is no. The issue is that Trump just does these things anyway and justifies them with incoherent explanations that read as if an especially vicious badger memorized fragments of the Constitution and the US Code.

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• Daily Express: Devastating Ukraine strike 1,000km inside Russia wipes out Putin’s elite drone base

  Business Insider: Ukraine’s defense industry says the fight against Russia has shown it that the West’s approach to weapons is all wrong

  • The West is approaching weaponry the wrong way when thinking about major conflicts, a Ukrainian industry rep said.
  • Countries need a lot of pretty good weapons instead of only a handful of excellent ones.
  • It’s a warning that industry officials, experts, and some European defense ministers have echoed.

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• Newsweek: Why Are So Many Children Getting Long COVID?

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• Fast Company: How these hot pink chairs became a symbol of the L.A. protests

  The architecture firm Rios designed the street furniture for Gloria Molina Grand Park to have “endless configurations.” They never could have imagined it would be used as a shield.
  

  
  
  
  (Fast Company more…)

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• Reuters: Morning Bid: So, it’s a framework for a deal, maybe?

  So, apparently, they have the concept of a plan for a proposal on a framework for a deal to break the latest U.S.-China trade impasse. Which was only needed because President Trump sent that tweet claiming Beijing had broken the old deal.

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• Alternet: Trump’s feeble stumbling this week is exactly what Americans need to see

  The best thing that California Governor Gavin Newsom did—certainly the best thing in the past few months, as his political posturing has been out of sync—was to tell Donald Trump this week to come and arrest him.

  Faced with threats by Tom Homan, the so-called border czar, regarding Newsom’s rightful outrage of Trump federalizing California’s National Guard without Newsom’s request amid protests over immigration raids, Newsom made it clear he’s not afraid. He called Trump an “authoritarian” and said he was “unhinged.” He called him a ‘liar and said he should “grow up.”

  The response from the administration, thrown off guard, was muddled—and caused Trump to overplay further, which is always unpopular.

  Homan defensively backtracked—and then backtracked again. Trump, after Homan’s first backtrack, said, Homan “should” arrest Newsom. When a reporter asked what Newsom should be arrested for, Trump said, “for being elected” as governor.

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• Mirror: Donald Trump makes huge World War I blunder in fiery speech as LA riots rage

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• Independent: Trump to restore Confederate generals like Robert E. Lee to military bases

  President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he is restoring the names of Confederate traitors who fought to keep Black people enslaved to American military bases across the country despite Congress mandating their removal in a law enacted over his veto five years ago.

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