Author: sauer@technologists.com

curated citations to news sources

Statement by Fmr. Defense Secretary General James Mattis on Trump’s Use of Marines as Unconstitutional

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We must reject any thinking of our cities as a “battlespace” that our uniformed military is called upon to “dominate.” At home, we should use our military only when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state governors. Militarizing our response, as we witnessed in Washington, D.C., sets up a conflict — a false conflict — between the military and civilian society. It erodes the moral ground that ensures a trusted bond between men and women in uniform and the society they are sworn to protect, and of which they themselves are a part. Keeping public order rests with civilian state and local leaders who best understand their communities and are answerable to them.
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Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people — does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences…

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curated news excerpts & source links

NoKings.org: On June 14th, we rise up.

Find an event near you

Upcoming Calls & Trainings

• No Kings Host Update Call – Wednesday, June 11th 7:30PM ET
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curated citations to news sources

Los Angeles Times: What really happened outside the Paramount Home Depot? The reality on the ground vs. the rhetoric

It began as another Saturday morning at the Home Depot in Paramount, a working class, predominantly Latino suburb south of downtown Los Angeles.

Typically, the store that is nestled along the Los Angeles River bed would be filled with weekend warriors tackling home improvements, workers collecting supplies and immigrants in search of work.

But that morning, border patrol agents were spotted across the street from the Home Depot, gathering around 9 a.m. Word quickly spread on social media. Passersby honked their horns. Soon, protesters arrived. Home Depot eventually closed.
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curated citations to news sources

Atlantic: For Trump, This Is a Dress Rehearsal

Ordering the National Guard to deploy in Los Angeles is a warning of what to expect when his hold on power is threatened.
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The state, counties, and cities of California employ more than 75,000 uniformed law-enforcement personnel with arrest powers. The Los Angeles Police Department alone numbers nearly 9,000 uniformed officers. They can surely handle some dozens of agitators throwing rocks, shooting fireworks, and impeding vehicular traffic.

If and when those 75,000 uniformed personnel feel overmatched by the agitators, California can request federal help of its own volition. When California has asked for needed federal help—during the wildfires earlier this year, for example—Trump has begrudged that help and played politics with it. Trump is now forcing help that the city and state do not need and do not want, not to restore law but to assert his personal dominance over the normal procedures to enforce the law.

But if the Trump-Hegseth threats have little purpose as law enforcement, they signify great purpose as political strategy. Since Trump’s reelection, close observers of his presidency have feared a specific sequence of events that could play out ahead of midterm voting in 2026…
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curated citations to news sources

AP: Immigration authorities extend activity in Los Angeles area amid street protests

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Border Patrol personnel in riot gear and gas masks stood guard outside an industrial park in the city of Paramount, deploying tear gas as bystanders and protesters gathered on medians and across the street, some jeering at authorities while recording the events on smartphones.
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Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said the activity was meant to “sow terror” in the nation’s second-largest city.

In a statement on Saturday, ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons chided Bass for the city’s response to protests.
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curated citations to news sources

Bulwark: Why Is Trump Trying to Fire This Museum Director?

If he succeeds, it could put the whole Smithsonian under his thumb.
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So far, Sajet, a 60-year-old Dutch art historian with a long career in American and Australian art museums who became the National Portrait Gallery’s first female director in 2013, is reportedly still at her desk. The gallery’s website still lists her as director, and its press releases give no inkling of any turmoil at the museum.
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…But much of the right-wing criticism directed at Sajet is far more ideological and intolerant than any of the offenses imputed to her—particularly considering that those offenses include an entirely accurate label for a portrait of Donald Trump.
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curated citations to news sources

Slate: Why the Supreme Court Decision Protecting a “Majority” Plaintiff Was Really a Win for Civil Rights

Some Supreme Court cases are not difficult because of the legal questions; they are difficult because of the narratives that test them.

Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services, in which the Supreme Court correctly struck down a judge-made rule that imposed a higher burden of proof on discrimination plaintiffs from so-called majority groups, is one of those cases. The court, in a unanimous opinion written by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, was right to remind us that Title VII speaks to individuals, not demographics. And it was right to do so at a moment when the meaning of civil rights law is being contested from every direction.

The plaintiff in Ames was a straight woman passed over for a promotion in favor of a lesbian colleague and later replaced by a gay man. Courts below applied a special evidentiary hurdle to her claim, because of her status as a heterosexual woman. That rule wasn’t in the statute. It wasn’t in the case law. It was invented to screen out claims that judges instinctively distrust.
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But Title VII is a different tool. It does not directly allocate future opportunities. It adjudicates harm. It asks whether this person, in this workplace, was treated differently because of a protected trait. And that inquiry must remain universal, not because all forms of discrimination are historically equal—they are not—but because justice must be.
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curated citations to news sources

Dispatch: There Is No Deep State

If MAGA Republicans understood the nuts and bolts of the CIA, they wouldn’t see conspiracies so easily.

It’s become gospel in much of the American right that a liberal “deep state” exists, forming an alternate government that works against Donald Trump and the Republican Party. “Either the deep state destroys America,” Trump declared during his first major rally of his last campaign, “or we destroy the deep state.” This supposed pernicious matrix is spread throughout the press and the federal bureaucracies, though most dangerously embedded in the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the rest of the Justice Department.
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curated citations to news sources

[site access disrupted after May 28 Austin storms/power/Internet outages]

WSJ: Elon Musk Calls Trump Megabill a ‘Disgusting Abomination’

Billionaire sides with GOP critics who say measure doesn’t cut spending enough

Former White House cost-cutting czar Elon Musk called President Trump’s “big, beautiful” tax and spending package a “disgusting abomination,” stepping up his criticism just as the Senate is trying to quickly pass the measure and get it signed into law by July 4.

“Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it,” said Musk, in comments on his X social-media platform. Musk, who left the administration last week, called the package a “massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill.”
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curated citations to news sources

[site access disrupted after May 28 Austin storms/power/Internet outages]

Dispatch: How Kindness Became Criminalized

Three years ago, the city of Tempe, Arizona, was celebrating Austin Davis as a hero. It even gave him an award for his charitable work, which included driving the city’s homeless people to addiction or mental health services and putting on Sunday picnics, where he shared food with those who were hungry. Last summer, he was jailed for the same work.

In 2023, the city began requiring Davis’ group, AZ Hugs, to obtain “special events” permits to host public picnics. Even though Davis didn’t think the law applied to him, he tried to get one. But the city said he wasn’t qualified because he had continued these picnics while his application was pending.

Undeterred, Davis continued to share food, taking care to clean up after each event. Equally undeterred, Tempe police began citing him each time. After multiple charges, threats of serious fines, and even spending a night in jail, Davis finally relented. He accepted a plea deal that prohibited him from entering public parks or any other areas where homeless people gathered.
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