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      Trump cancels plans to send federal troops to San Francisco for immigration crackdown

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      Donald Trump has canceled plans for a deployment of federal troops to San Francisco that had sparked widespread condemnation from California leaders and sent protesters flooding into the streets.The Bay Area region had been on edge after reports emerged on Wednesday that the Trump administration was poised to send more than 100 Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and other federal agents to the US Coast Guard base in Alameda, a city in the East Bay, as part of a large-scale immigration-enforcement plan.But on Thursday, the president said he would not move forward with a “surge” of federal forces in the area after speaking with the mayor, Daniel Lurie, and Silicon Valley leaders including Marc Benioff, the Salesforce CEO who recently apologized for saying Trump should send national guard troops, and Jensen Huang, the chief executive of Nvidia. Lurie said he spoke with the president on Wednesday night, and that Trump told him he would call off the deployment.“In that conversation, the president told me clearly that he was calling off any plans for a federal deployment in San Francisco. Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, reaffirmed that direction in our conversation this morning,” Lurie said in a statement.Trump confirmed the conversation on his Truth Social platform, saying: “I spoke to Mayor Lurie last night and he asked, very nicely, that I give him a chance to see if he can turn it around.”The operation had been expected to start as early as Thursday.The sudden reversal came as protesters had mobilized in anticipation of a surge in troops. Hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the US Coast Guard base in Alameda on an overcast Thursday morning, holding signs with slogans such as “No ICE or Troops in the Bay!” Police used flash-bang grenades to clear a handful of demonstrators from the entrance as CBP vehicles drove through.View image in fullscreenLater on Thursday morning, protesters were walking in a slow circle at the gates of the Coast Guard base. Many were carrying signs that read: “Protect our neighbors, protegemos nuestros vecinos.” There was at least one person dressed as Batman, and Marvin Gaye was blasting through a loudspeaker.Josh Aguirre, 39, had come to participate in his first ever protest. “It’s scary what’s going on right now, and we’ve got to just stand in solidarity,” said Aguirre, who had come, along with his dog, from East Oakland – a largely Latino and immigrant community.He found out that federal agents would be deployed to the Bay Area from his four-year-old daughter’s school administrators. “And the first thing I thought was the families that I know who bring their kids to school are going to be affected the most,” he said. “It’s important to show up for your community.”Raj, an educator who asked to be identified only by his first name, had come with his 10-year-old daughter. “In the Bay we’re involved … and our kids know what’s happening,” he said. “When federal troops come in here, they won’t just see what they think they’re gonna see, which are like violent agitators. They’re going to see entire communities come out with their kids, with their families, with their teens.”By Thursday afternoon, local leaders and organizers had gathered outside San Francisco’s city hall, where they grappled with the whiplash. It remained unclear whether Trump’s decision to pull back was focused only on San Francisco, or if other Bay Area cities such as Oakland would still be targeted.“At this time, we do not know which federal agencies are being called off. We don’t know if that’s the national guard. We don’t know if it’s ICE, if it’s border patrol,” said Jackie Fielder, the San Francisco city supervisor representing parts of the city’s Mission neighborhood.Fielder also criticized Benioff, Elon Musk and other tech leaders who had voiced support for a national guard deployment in the Bay Area. “I condemn every tech billionaire who supported this,” she said. “This city doesn’t belong to them.”Fielder and other organizers emphasized that even as the region awaits clarity on whether and where there will be a federal deployment, and the extent to which the administration plans to ramp up immigration enforcement in the city, local leaders are going to continue to mobilize rapid response networks, legal aid and other support systems for the residents most affected.“We don’t need to get ready because we’ve been ready,” Fielder said. “This is not a time for panic. It is a time for power across this area.”Trump had signaled for weeks that San Francisco could be the next Democratic city to face an administration crackdown. In an interview on Fox News on Sunday, the president claimed “unquestioned power” to deploy the national guard and argued that San Francisco residents want the military in their city.It was unclear if the national guard would have played a role in operations in the region. But state and local leaders on Wednesday had responded swiftly and strongly to the news of the CBP operations, and vowed to fight any potential deployment of the military.California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, called Trump’s moves “right out of the dictator’s handbook”.“He sends out masked men, he sends out border patrol, he sends out ICE, he creates anxiety and fear in the community so that he can lay claim to solving for that by sending in the [national] guard,” Newsom said in a video statement. “This is no different than the arsonist putting out the fire.”Lurie said earlier in the week that his city was prepared.“For months, we have been anticipating the possibility of some kind of federal deployment in our city,” he said.Oakland’s mayor, Barbara Lee, said: “Real public safety comes from Oakland-based solutions, not federal military occupation.”View image in fullscreenRob Bonta, California’s attorney general, vowed to “be in court within hours, if not minutes”, if there is a federal deployment, and the San Francisco city attorney, David Chiu, has promised the same.San Francisco’s district attorney, Brooke Jenkins, said she was ready to prosecute any federal agents who violated California law.San Francisco has been the latest major US city to face Trump’s threats. The administration has previously sent the military to Los Angeles and Chicago, and has tried to deploy troops in Portland. All deployments have faced legal challenges from local and state authorities.Trump in recent weeks argued that a federal operation in San Francisco was necessary to combat crime. “Every American deserves to live in a community where they’re not afraid of being mugged, murdered, robbed, raped, assaulted or shot” he said at an appearance on 16 October.Local leaders, including the city’s mayor and district attorney, have said crime in the city is under control, pointing to falling crime rates and growing police recruitment. The city’s homicide rate this year is expected to be the lowest since 1954, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.Community groups had readied themselves to support affected residents. Organizers have mobilized to stage a mass rally in the city, as well as vigils at local libraries.City supervisor Jackie Fielder told reporters last week she and her constituents in the Mission district had been bracing for this moment.“The moment that people stop going to work, when anyone Black or brown can’t freely walk outside without the fear of Trump’s federal agents racially profiling and arresting them, the moment when parents stop sending kids to school, become too afraid to go to the grocery store or doctor,” Fielder said. “What we have been preparing for in the Mission is essentially a shutdown the likes of which we haven’t seen since Covid.” More

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      Silly inflatable costumes are taking over anti-Trump protests. What are they actually saying? | Julia Carrie Wong

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      There was little reason to imagine that the inflatable frogs would become an actual thing. Protests at the ICE detention center in Portland, Oregon, in recent months have reflected the city’s penchant for whimsy and weirdness, and tactics such as naked bike riding, organized public knitting and “ICE fishing” with doughnuts have largely remained a local affair.But when a federal agent in riot gear ran up behind a protester wearing an inflatable frog costume and sprayed a chemical agent directly into his costume’s air vent with all the casual menace of an exterminator, the inflatable frog went viral. “I’ve definitely had spicier tamales,” the 24-year-old protester, Seth Todd, told the Oregonian, cementing the frog’s status as a leftist folk hero.Soon, activists had launched “Operation Inflation” to equip Portland protesters with an entire menagerie of inflatable animal suits, and the costumes began appearing at other protest hotspots, including the ICE detention center near Chicago where police have deployed teargas, pepper balls and batons against protesters in recent weeks. By the time millions of Americans took to the streets in last weekend’s No Kings marches, inflatable costumes were ubiquitous.“I obviously started a movement of people showing up looking ridiculous, which is the exact point,” Todd said. “To show how the narrative that is being pushed [that] we are violent extremists is completely ridiculous.”View image in fullscreenMove over pussy hats. Step aside safety pins. The resistance 2.0 has a new visual language, and this time it’s polyester, battery-powered and full of hot air. The colorful costumes lent a festive air to the No Kings protests and offered an implicit rebuke to the Trump administration’s attempt to smear his political opponents as violent terrorists.“Frivolity and absurdity are kryptonite to authoritarians who project the stern father archetype to their followers,” wrote author Gary Shteyngart in a New York Times op-ed celebrating the profusion of playful and joyful imagery at Saturday’s marches. “Once the pants are lowered and the undies of the despot are glimpsed, there is no point of return.”It’s a lovely idea, but nine months into the second Trump administration, it’s hard to argue that Americans have yet to catch sight of the president’s dirty laundry. Kryptonite, like the emperor’s new clothes, is just a fairytale. As Americans seek to harness the energy of No Kings and direct it toward building an effective opposition to Trump’s authoritarian agenda, it’s worth considering what the inflatable costumes are actually saying.Street protest movements have many aims and many outcomes, but one of the most important is the production of imagery that conveys a message and outlasts the event itself. Activists are keenly aware of symbolism and optics – they aren’t called “demonstrations” for nothing – and often work to imbue protest aesthetics with their particular ideological and ethical commitments.Nonviolent resistance movements tend to adopt aesthetics that emphasize the inherent dignity and humble humanity of their members. From the Sunday best donned by marchers in the US civil rights movement to the simple dhoti worn by Gandhi and the modest white dress shirt and black slacks of the Tiananmen Square Tank Man, aesthetic choices by peaceful protesters are an effective way of manufacturing imagery that, by contrast, illustrates the sadism and brutality of an oppressive state.The rejection of respectability politics by subsequent generations of Black liberation activists in the US – from the Black Panther party to Black Lives Matter – reflected not just an aesthetic but also an ideological shift. The Panthers were not seeking equality within a white supremacist system, but a revolution of the system itself; their signature berets, black leather jackets and firearms asserted their militancy and tied them visually to other leftwing revolutionary movements around the world.View image in fullscreenRebel clowning or “tactical frivolity” represents a another aesthetic tradition of protest, one that deploys humor and buffoonery to pierce the aura of invincibility relied on by despots and dictators. From Charlie Chaplin’s lampooning of Adolf Hitler in the 1940 film The Great Dictator to the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army (Circa) protests against globalization and capitalism in the early 2000s, clowning has a storied history within leftwing and antifascist resistance movements.“The clown puts their absurd body in the way of the harm of others. It is politically more expensive to club a clown!” wrote performance artist LM Bogad in a 2020 essay about his experience with Circa. Confrontations between clowns and riot police create what Bogad calls “irresistible images” – “images that are so compelling that our ideological opponents cannot help but reproduce them even though they undermine their worldview and support ours”.Portland’s inflatable frogs fit squarely into this tradition, co-opting and subverting the aesthetic of intentional cruelty that has been so assiduously cultivated by the second Trump administration. Maga’s exaggeratedly sculpted faces and glorification of human misery convey the underlying ethos of the Trumpist worldview: beauty is pain, and pain beauty. When Donald Trump conjures up a false image of Portland as “war-ravaged” and “under siege” by antifa “terrorists”, he asks his supporters to embrace the cleansing power of state violence. But when federal agents and riot cops are forced to carry out their attacks on inflatable cartoon characters rather than figures clad in the all-black uniform of recent iterations of antifascist activism, government forces are enlisted in the project of debunking their own lies.But there is a difference between facing down a riot cop outside an ICE detention center, and dancing in the streets during a permitted march on a sunny Saturday morning. When a Vietnam war protester placed flowers down the barrels of rifles wielded by military police at the 1967 march on the Pentagon, or when anti-occupation activists clucked like chickens before IDF soldiers in the West Bank, they clowned in the face of real danger. Without the implicit threat of state violence, without the bravery of offering up a comically unprotected body as a target for real violence, tactical frivolity can devolve into little more than entertainment.View image in fullscreenThere are very good reasons to hold family-friendly protests away from the threat of riot cops, but different contexts require different tactics; what is ridiculously effective in front of an ICE detention center can end up looking just a bit ridiculous when there is no danger in the frame.Already, one mainstream media outlet has published an affiliate link-laden article promoting cheap inflatable costumes on Amazon: “You too can join in on the movement today with this steeply discounted inflatable elephant costume that’s less than $20 – a record-low price, according to Amazon.” Similarly, the aesthetics of the flower power movement were adopted and commodified by the fashion industry over and over again, losing political potency along the way. The revolution may well end up being televised, but it is sure as hell not going to arrive in a cardboard box with free shipping from Amazon Prime.It is also worth keeping in mind that Trump is not a straightforward “stern father” autocrat. While some of his rhetoric and actions invoke violence and terror against disfavored groups, he has also played the role of his own court jester, to great effect. His disinhibited remarks and frequent buffoonery are doing their own work to disarm and discredit his opponents, who have often struggled to convince the broader public of the seriousness of the threat he poses. So while tactical frivolity certainly has the power to deflate the menace of the Department of Homeland Security’s anti-immigrant security apparatus, it is not clear that it has much to offer when confronting Trump directly. After the No Kings protests, the president posted an AI-generated video of himself dumping shit on protesters; it’s impossible to make him look like more of a clown than he already is.Finally, remember that clowning is a fundamentally de-escalatory tactic. When activists turn rifles into vases and riot cops into zookeepers, they are interrupting the cycle of escalating tension that can turn protests into dangerous confrontations. We absolutely need to de-escalate the violence that is being aimed at immigrants and other disfavored communities by Trump, ICE, DHS and the national guard – but it’s not clear to me that de-escalation is the right tactic for nationwide, popular protests. The Democratic party leadership has overwhelmingly failed to operate as an actual opposition party since Trump’s re-election; they don’t need to calm down, but to wake up.So please, wear your inflatable frog costume if you plan to use your body to obstruct the workings of Trump’s violent deportation machine: in addition to provoking irresistible images, it might help protect you against teargas and pepper spray. But let us be strategic about deploying tactical frivolity against Trumpism. When millions of people take to the streets to demand that our leaders and institutions stop capitulating, the message should not be mistaken for anything other than deadly serious. More

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      Letitia James asks New Yorkers to share footage of ICE after Chinatown raid

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      The New York state attorney general, Letitia James, rolled out a “Federal Action Reporting Portal” form urging New York residents to share photos and videos of federal immigration enforcement action across the state, just one day after a high-profile ICE raid rattled Manhattan’s Chinatown and prompted hundreds to come out in protest.“Every New Yorker has the right to live without fear or intimidation,” James wrote in a statement announcing the portal.“If you witnessed and documented ICE activity yesterday, I urge you to share that footage with my office. We are committed to reviewing these reports and assessing any violations of law.”The form offers spaces to submit images and video footage of the raid, as well as a place to indicate location information. Before submitting, users must check a box that indicates that “the Attorney General may use any documents, photographs, or videos I provided in a public document, including in a legal proceeding or public report or statement.”The Guardian has contacted James’s office for more information.The Chinatown raid, which onlookers say involved more than 50 federal agents, took place in a well-known area of Manhattan where counterfeit handbags, accessories, jewelry and other goods are sold daily en masse – often to tourists.Videos of Tuesday’s raid show multiple masked and armed federal agents zip-tying and detaining a man, and shoving away onlookers. Throngs of New Yorkers followed the agents through the streets and down the sidewalks. An armored military vehicle was also seen rolling through the city streets.Outrage over the ICE raid quickly spread – all three mayoral candidates condemned the raid, as did Governor Kathy Hochul.“Once again, the Trump administration chooses authoritarian theatrics that create fear, not safety. It must stop,” mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani wrote on X.New York City immigrant rights groups spoke out as well.“ICE descended on Manhattan’s Chinatown with military-style vehicles, masked agents and riot gear to target street vendors trying to make a living. This operation had nothing to do with public safety and everything to do with terrorizing immigrant families and communities,” said Murad Awawdeh, president of the New York Immigrant Coalition.ICE raids have been cropping up increasingly in New York and around the country this year.A 16 October raid in midtown Manhattan was the first known raid on a migrant shelter of the current Trump administration. Protests against ICE are ubiquitous as are allegations of violence and inhumane treatment.Most recently, a letter submitted by the ACLU and other civil rights groups alleged medical neglect of pregnant women in ICE facilities. More

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      Protests erupt in New York City after Ice raids Chinatown over ‘counterfeit goods’

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      Hundreds showed up to protests that broke out in New York City on Tuesday evening after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) raids related to “selling counterfeit goods” were conducted in the Chinatown neighborhood earlier in the day and resulted in an unknown number of people being detained.Hours after federal agents descended on lower Manhattan, demonstrators were seen assembling near the 26 Federal Plaza Immigration Building where they believed detainees were taken. Many shouted chants including “Ice out of New York” and “No Ice, no KKK, no fascist USA.”Videos of the raid show multiple masked and armed federal agents zip-tying and detaining a man, and shoving away onlookers. Throngs of New Yorkers followed the agents through the streets and down the sidewalks. An armored military vehicle was also seen rolling through the city streets.“Is this worth the paycheck? Selling your soul?” one woman can be heard shouting at agents.The raid, which onlookers say involved more than 50 federal agents, took place in a well-known area of Manhattan where counterfeit handbags, accessories, jewelry and other goods are sold daily en masse – often to tourists.It was unclear how many people were detained in the raid, but a witness told the New York Daily News that he saw at least seven individuals taken into custody.The Department of Homeland Security told the New York Times that the operation was “focused on criminal activity relating to selling counterfeit goods”. Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for DHS, said the operation was led by the Ice agency, the FBI, US border patrol and others.The Guardian has contacted the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for comment.Murad Awawdeh, vice-president of advocacy at the New York Immigration Coalition, condemned the raid to reporters on Tuesday night and said that between 15 and 40 vendors were arrested. Awawdeh also noted that least two locals were taken into custody for protesting and blocking Ice’s efforts.“You don’t see these scenes in democracy. You see them in fascist regimes,” Awawdeh told a crowd. “We need to continue to stand up and fight back.”Local city council member Christopher Marte told the City that he too was alarmed by the agents’ conduct.“The amount of weapons that they had on the street pointed at bystanders, something I’ve never seen in my life,” he said.The NYPD distanced itself from the raids, tweeting that it had “no involvement in the federal operation that took place on Canal street this afternoon”. However, onlookers noted that NYPD riot cops appeared to arrest several people protesting the Ice raid.Eric Adams, New York City’s mayor, quote-tweeted the NYPD’s missive and emphasized: “New York City does not cooperate with federal law enforcement on civil deportations, in accordance with our local laws.”“While we gather details about the situation, New Yorkers should know that we have no involvement. Our administration has been clear that undocumented New Yorkers trying to pursue their American Dreams should not be the target of law enforcement, and resources should instead be focused on violent criminals,” he wrote.New York City mayoral candidates Zohran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo shared similar notes of criticism, with Mamdani calling the raid “aggressive and reckless” and Cuomo calling it “more about fear than justice, more about politics than safety”.Both men – and Kathy Hochul, New York governor – took aim at Donald Trump directly.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“[Donald Trump] claims he’s targeting the ‘worst of the worst.’ Today his agents used batons and pepper spray on street vendors and bystanders on Canal Street. You don’t make New York safer by attacking New Yorkers,” Hochul wrote.“Once again, the Trump administration chooses authoritarian theatrics that create fear, not safety. It must stop,” wrote Mamdani.“Today’s ICE raid in Chinatown was an abuse of federal power by the Trump administration,” wrote Cuomo.New York City councilmember Shahana Hanif also condemned the Ice raids in a press conference, saying that politicians across the city and the state were resolutely opposed to Ice raids.“We are against Ice’s blatantly violent tactics. Hordes of Ice agents showing up is unacceptable, immoral, unjust,” Hanif said.Ice raids with masked agents and have become commonplace in immigrant enclaves across the country as have protests against them. Protests against Ice have brought federal crackdowns to cities including Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland.Tuesday’s Chinatown raid is not the first in the New York City area in recent weeks. A 16 October raid in midtown Manhattan was the first known raid on a migrant shelter of the current Trump administration.Notably, many Ice raids have come with documented violence. Ice has used extreme force in Chicago including pepper balling a priest, pepper-balling the inside of a journalist’s car, and body-slamming a US congressional candidate.In New York, an Ice agent was “relieved of his duties” after body-slamming a woman to the ground in an immigration court house, but was reportedly back on the job shortly thereafter.Immigrants with no criminal record are now the largest group in Ice detention, and the agency has detained at least 170 US citizens in 2025. More

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      The US refugee program changed my life. Trump’s possible overhaul would be disastrous | Bahati Kanyamanza

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      Last week, leaked documents from the Trump administration reportedly revealed plans to gut the US refugee program, not only capping refugee resettlement at a record low of 7,500, but also transforming it from a life-saving humanitarian system into one that favors white South Africans and Europeans over the world’s most vulnerable people. As a refugee who found safety and belonging in this country, I broke into a sweat reading the news. Memories of my own journey rushed back, now mixed with a deeper fear that racism and exclusion are not just social undercurrents, but official policy.I was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo and fled war at 14, spending nearly two decades in a refugee camp in Uganda before finally being resettled in the United States. Here, I reunited with my family, built a new life, and became a citizen. My story is one of patience, resilience and gratitude for a country that gave me safety and the chance to rebuild my life and give back.Despite these troubling political developments, I still love my country and wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. Historically, generosity, welcoming and caring for people fleeing violence, war and persecution have been America’s core values. Refugees and immigrants like me have benefited from these values when we were welcomed into this nation, and passed them on to our children. Since 1975 a total of 3.7 million refugees have been resettled in the United States. Refugees and immigrants are our neighbors and community members. We provide essential services in hospitals caring for people, in the military defending and protecting our nation, in restaurants, hotels and airports, and as workers on farms feeding the American people. We build houses and construct roads and highways so we can all safely make it home to our families. These services make everyone’s daily lives better while driving our nation’s socio-economic development.The current administration conveniently ignores this. This week’s reports unfortunately fit into the pattern we’ve seen as Donald Trump looks to fundamentally upend our refugee systems. The president suspended the United States Refugee Admission Program (USRAP) on his first day in office, leaving 120,000 refugees who were conditionally approved to travel to the US in limbo, and froze funding to refugee agencies providing critical services. The International Refugee Assistance Project is currently engaged in a class-action lawsuit challenging this suspension in the case Pacito v Trump.In May, the Trump administration prioritized the admission of Afrikaners despite the suspension of USRAP, showing preference for one group instead of others, some of whom have been waiting a decade or more.The administration alleges that part of its rationale for doing all of this is an unfounded claim that refugees place a burden on local communities. Yet, between 2005 and 2019, refugees contributed nearly $124bn more in state and local revenuecombined than they received in services. During the same period, refugees paid $581bn in federal, state and local taxes. A majority of Americans recognize the great effect of their neighbors and want to continue welcoming them, and more than 300 elected officials from across the country have vocalized bipartisan support to uphold and strengthen refugee resettlement.Through USRAP, refugees like me are thoroughly vetted for years before we are allowed to travel to the US. USRAP is the most successful and celebrated refugee resettlement program, but now its future remains uncertain. Despite broad public support across the country for traditional resettlement, the Trump administration appears to be deciding who is worthy of safety based on the color of their skin and their political views. This is deeply alarming and betrays America’s deepest values. As someone who found hope and belonging here, I know that our greatness has never come from exclusion. It comes from compassion, courage and the belief that every person deserves a chance to rebuild their life in safety.We must hold our elected leaders accountable for keeping their promises and passing policies that support and care for all who call America home. This includes protecting refugees and immigrants who give so much to our communities and implementing humane policies to address immigration without harming people seeking safety. That is true leadership.

      Bahati Kanyamanza is a former refugee who spent about 25 years in a Ugandan refugee camp and as a refugee in the US before he became a naturalized US citizen. He is the global partnerships director at the International Refugee Assistance Project More

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      ‘We are on a dangerous path’: Oregon attorney general slams decision allowing Trump to send troops to Portland – live

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      The Oregon attorney general, Dan Rayfield, has issued a statement following the ruling from the ninth circuit court of appeals, which lifted the temporary restraining order blocking the deployment of the state’s national guard.He said that if the ruling is allowed to stand, it would give Donald Trump “unilateral power to put Oregon soldiers on our streets with almost no justification”.“We are on a dangerous path in America,” he added.The three-judge panel was split in their decision, with Clinton-appointee Susan Graber dissenting from her colleagues. Rayfield added:
      Oregon joins Judge Graber in urging the full Ninth Circuit to ‘act swiftly’ en banc ‘to vacate the majority’s order before the illegal deployment of troops under false pretenses can occur.’ And, like her, we ‘ask those who are watching this case unfold to retain faith in our judicial system for just a little while longer’.
      In a court-ordered disclosure filed on Monday, the US interior department revealed that it plans “to abolish 2,050 positions”, including sweeping cuts to the Bureau of Land Management, and smaller numbers at the Fish and Wildlife Service, US Geological Survey and other agencies. Among the positions slated for elimination are Bureau of Reclamation workers who provide maintenance for the Hoover Dam.The declaration, with a detailed appendix of positions to be cut from Rachel Borra, the interior department’s chief human capital officer, was submitted to comply with an order issued by the US district court for the northern district of California in a lawsuit brought by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and four other national unions that represent federal workers at risk of losing their jobs.The planned layoffs are paused for now by a temporary restraining order that US District court judge Susan Illston expanded during an emergency hearing on Friday.As our colleague Anna Betts reports, construction crews started demolishing part of the East Wing of the White House to make way for Donald Trump’s planned ballroom on Monday.The Washington Post on obtained and published a photo of the demolition activity, showing construction in progress and parts of the exterior ripped down.A Daily Mail reporter shared video of the demolition on social media.Read the full story here:Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the House Democratic minority, just called on Republicans to negotiate an end to the government shutdown by citing Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Maga Republican from Georgia.“The Republican health care crisis, as Marjorie Taylor Greene has repeatedly indicated, is real,” Jeffries told reporters. “And it’s having devastating impacts that are becoming increasingly apparent to the American people. In Idaho, 100,000 Americans are at risk of losing their health care if the Affordable Care Act tax credits expire, because it will become unaffordable for them.”He went on to cite examples in other states where some people are “finding out that their health insurance premiums are about to increase by more than $2,000 per month.”A growing share of Americans believe religion is gaining influence and society – and view its expanding role positively, a new report by the PEW research center has found. It comes as the Trump administration has sought to fuse conservative Christian values and governance, especially in the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk. In just one year, the share of US adults who believe religion is gaining influence in American society has increased sharply. While still a minority view, 31% say religion is on the rise — up from just 18% a year earlier, in February 2024 – the highest figure recorded in 15 years.Meanwhile, the percentage who say religion is losing influence dropped from 80% to 68%.According to the PEW survey, these changing perceptions of religion suggest a broader shift in a country that was rapidly secularizing. Nearly 6 in 10 Americans (59%) now express a positive view of religion’s influence in public life, either because they see its rising power as a good thing, or view its decline as a bad thing. Only 20% express negative views, while the rest remain neutral or uncertain.Notably, the shift is not confined to one party or demographic. Both Republicans and Democrats, as well as nearly all major religious groups and age brackets, have become more likely to say religion is gaining ground — and more likely to feel their religious beliefs conflict with mainstream American culture. That sense of cultural conflict is now a majority view, with 58% of US adults reporting at least some tension between their beliefs and broader society.Finally, while views on religious truth vary, nearly half of Americans (48%) say many religions may be true — more than double the share (26%) who say only one religion is true.Pew’s findings suggest a significant cultural shift unfolding under an administration that has explicitly championed Christian conservatism as a governing ethos.It is perhaps significant that Susan Graber, the lone dissenting voice on the three-judge federal appeals court panel that just permitted Donald Trump to deploy federal troops to Portland, Oregon, in the only one of the three to be based in Portland.Graber, a former law school classmate of Bill and Hillary Clinton who was nominated to the federal bench by Clinton while serving on the Oregon supreme court, wrote a scathing dissent to the majority ruling, which lifts a lower-court order that had temporarily blocked Trump from sending in troops to what he falsely claims is a “war-ravaged” city.The other two judges on the panel, both nominated by Trump during his first term, are based in Arizona and Idaho.Graber said in an interview in 2012, that “it was kind of love at first sight with Portland” for her when she first moved to the city to work as a law clerk.In her dissent, she urged the full appeals court to reverse the decision by the panel, writing that there was “no legal or factual justification supported the order to federalize and deploy the Oregon National Guard”.She continued: “Given Portland protesters’ well-known penchant for wearing chicken suits, inflatable frog costumes, or nothing at all when expressing their disagreement with the methods employed by ICE, observers may be tempted to view the majority’s ruling, which accepts the government’s characterization of Portland as a war zone, as merely absurd. But today’s decision is not merely absurd. It erodes core constitutional principles, including sovereign States’ control over their States’ militias and the people’s First Amendment rights to assemble and to object to the government’s policies and actions.”The judge added: “The majority’s order abdicates our judicial responsibility, permitting the President to invoke emergency authority in a situation far divorced from an enumerated emergency.”Graber concluded:“We have come to expect a dose of political theater in the political branches, drama designed to rally the base or to rile or intimidate political opponents. We also may expect there a measure of bending – sometimes breaking – the truth. By design of the Founders, the judicial branch stands apart. We rule on facts, not on supposition or conjecture, and certainly not on fabrication or propaganda. I urge my colleagues on this court to act swiftly to vacate the majority’s order before the illegal deployment of troops under false pretenses can occur. Above all, I ask those who are watching this case unfold to retain faith in our judicial system for just a little longer.”The Oregon attorney general, Dan Rayfield, has issued a statement following the ruling from the ninth circuit court of appeals, which lifted the temporary restraining order blocking the deployment of the state’s national guard.He said that if the ruling is allowed to stand, it would give Donald Trump “unilateral power to put Oregon soldiers on our streets with almost no justification”.“We are on a dangerous path in America,” he added.The three-judge panel was split in their decision, with Clinton-appointee Susan Graber dissenting from her colleagues. Rayfield added:
      Oregon joins Judge Graber in urging the full Ninth Circuit to ‘act swiftly’ en banc ‘to vacate the majority’s order before the illegal deployment of troops under false pretenses can occur.’ And, like her, we ‘ask those who are watching this case unfold to retain faith in our judicial system for just a little while longer’.

      A three-judge panel on the ninth circuit court of appeals has ruled that the Trump administration can deploy the national guard to Portland, Oregon. They lifted a lower court judge’s decision that blocked the president from federalizing and sending roughly 200 troops to the city to guard federal buildings, as largely small and peaceful protests took place in recent weeks outside an immigration facility in the city.

      Donald Trump welcomed Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese to the White House, signing a rare earth minerals deal as trade tensions with China escalate. The pair just signed a rare earths agreement which opens up Australia’s vast mineral resources. Albanese added that the deal was an “eight and a half billion dollar pipeline” to supply critical rare earths to the US. Meanwhile, Trump doubled down on his threat of imposing a 157% tariff on Chinese imports if both nations can’t reach a trade deal. This, after Beijing announced they were tightening exports of rare earth minerals. “We have a tremendous power, and that’s the power of tariff, and I think that China will come to the table and make a very fair deal,” the president added.

      Donald Trump said he didn’t think Ukraine would win back land that was captured by Russia during the war. “They could still win it,” Trump remarked during his meeting with Australian Prime Minster Anthony Albanese. “I don’t think they will. They could still win it. I never said they would win it. Anything can happen. You know, war is a very strange thing.” Trump’s seeming skepticism of a Ukrainian victory came several days after a meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, during which he appeared more keen on negotiating a peace agreement than supplying the nation with Tomahawk cruise missiles.

      The president has said that Hamas is “going to behave” or will face severe repercussions. While taking questions from reporters today, Trump said that Hamas are “going to be nice, and if they’re not, we’re going to go and we’re going to eradicate them”. This comes after Israel launched waves of deadly airstrikes on Sunday and cut off all aid into Gaza “until further notice” after a reported attack by Hamas, in escalations that marked the most serious threat so far to the fragile ceasefire in the devastated territory.

      The government shutdown entered its 20th day, with little end in sight. The House remains out of session, as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle blame the other party for the impasse on Capitol Hill. Earlier, White House economic adviser said that shutdown would “likely” end this week after the No Kings protests took place across the country. The Senate will vote, for the 11th time, on a House-passed funding bill to reopen the government at 5:30pm ET.
      A three-judge panel on the ninth circuit court of appeals has ruled that the Trump administration can deploy the national guard to Portland, Oregon.They lifted a lower court judge’s decision that blocked the president from federalizing and sending roughly 200 troops to the city to guard federal buildings, as largely small and peaceful protests took place in recent weeks outside an immigration facility in the city.Per that last post, it’s worth putting that in the context of Greene’s decision to buck the Republican party line in recent months.My colleagues David Smith and George Chidi, have been reporting on the Georgia’s congresswoman’s “streak of independence” on issues ranging from healthcare to Gaza to the Jeffrey Epstein files. They report that Greene has broken ranks with Republicans and won unlikely fans among Democrats, stirring speculation about her motives – and future ambitions.David and George write that the lawmaker, who was once “one of Donald Trump’s most loyal foot soldiers” has stopped short of directly criticising the president himself and has so far avoided incurring his wrath. “But her willingness to dissent is all the more remarkable under a president who notoriously prizes loyalty and punishes critics,” they note.You can read more of their reporting below.Marjorie Taylor Greene, a representative of Georgia, on Monday morning criticized Mike Johnson’s strategy to keep the House shuttered for weeks, calling on the lower chamber to return to session immediately.“The House should be in session working,” Greene wrote on X. “We should be finishing appropriations. Our committees should be working. We should be passing bills that make President Trump’s executive orders permanent. I have no respect for the decision to refuse to work.”The callout from Greene, who is aligned with the right flank of her party, is a noticeable crack in support for Johnson’s hardline approach from the GOP over an extended congressional recess. Since 19 September, when members last cast votes, the chamber has not been conducting legislative business, although members have staged press conferences.According to Politico, House speaker Mike Johnson spoke with the president earlier, and will be at the White House at 4pm as Donald Trump welcomes the Louisiana State University (LSU) baseball champions.Also present will be the athletes from LSU Shreveport, the city where Johnson was born and raised. Part of his congressional district also includes the city.in BogotáColombia has recalled its ambassador to Washington amid a furious war of words between the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, and Donald Trump over deadly US strikes on boats in the Caribbean.The row took a sharp turn this weekend when Petro accused the US of “murdering” a Colombian fisher in an attack on a vessel in its territorial waters. Petro and his administration said the mid-September strike was a “direct threat to national sovereignty” and that the victim was a “lifelong fisherman” and a “humble human being”.In response, Trump, who has claimed such attacks are designed to stop drug-smuggling to the US, called Petro an “illegal drug dealer” and vowed to end aid payments to Colombia, one of the largest recipients of US counter-narcotics assistance. He also ordered Petro to “close up” drug cultivation sites, saying if not “the United States will close them up for him, and it won’t be done nicely”. Speaking onboard Air Force One, Trump added that he would announce new tariffs on Colombian goods.Colombia’s interior minister, Armando Benedetti, said the remarks were a “threat of invasion or military action against Colombia”. Petro said that Colombia’s five-decade conflict stemmed from “cocaine consumption in the United States” and claimed American contributions had been “meagre and null in recent years”.Texas Republican congressman Chip Roy suggested using the “nuclear option” to end the shutdown that would avoid Senate filibuster requirements which mandate a 60-vote majority to reopen the US government, The Hill reports.“We need to be taking a look at the 60-vote threshold. We really do,” Roy said on Monday.Top Republican senators used this tactic to avoid needing Democrats’ support to confirm a host of Trump nominees in September. South Dakota Republican Senator John Thune, the Senate majority leader, said he would not do this to achieve a continuing resolution that would reopen the government, per the Hill.“At a minimum, why don’t we take a look at it for [continuing resolutions]?” Roy reportedly said. “Why don’t we just say, look, I mean, we have a 50-vote threshold for the budget, we have a 50-vote threshold for reconciliation, why shouldn’t we have a 50-vote threshold to be able to fund the government?”Republicans have supported this 60-vote benchmark when Democrats hold the majority. Thune has said that maintaining the filibuster is among his leading priorities, the Hill reported.“I think Republicans ought to take a long, hard look at the 60-vote threshold, because I think we’re just being beholden to a broken system right now,” Roy also said.Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has expressed concern about eliminating this threshold.”I would be deeply concerned if the Democrats had a bare majority in the Senate right now, Marxist ideology taking over the Democrat party,” Johnson reportedly said earlier this month. “Do I want them to have no safegaurds and no stumbling blocks or hurdles at all in the way of turning us into a communist country? I don’t think that’s a great idea.”While the US Senate is poised to vote – for the 11th time – on a House-approved bill that would reopen the government this afternoon, Americans could face still more shutdown-related travel delays if funding efforts fail.US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on Monday that travelers might see more disruptions because air traffic controllers are not getting paid during the shutdown.Air traffic controllers are deemed “excepted” staffers, meaning they still work during shutdowns, but receive back pay when the government reopens and funding resumes, CBS News explains.“They got a partial paycheck a week ago Tuesday. Their next paycheck comes a week from Tuesday, and in that paycheck there will be no dollars. They don’t get paid,” Duffy said in a Fox and Friends interview.“I think what you might see is more disruptions in travel as more of them look to say, how do I bridge the gap between the check that’s not coming and putting food on my table?” CBS noted him saying. “And we have heard they are taking Uber jobs. They are doing DoorDash, they are figuring out ways to keep their families afloat … And, again, a lot of them are paycheck to paycheck.”Donald Trump on Monday doubled down on his threat of imposing a 157% tariff on Chinese imports if both nations can’t reach a trade deal.“We have a tremendous power, and that’s the power of tariff, and I think that China will come to the table and make a very fair deal, because if they don’t, they’re going to be paying us 157% in tariffs,” Trump told reporters during his sit-down with Australian Prime Minster Anthony Albanese.Trump, who claimed that “China has treated us with great respect” not afforded to prior administrations, said that if a deal weren’t brokered, “I’m putting on an additional 100%” on 1 November.Trump and China’s president, Xi Jinping, are expected to meet in several weeks to discuss trade.Trump’s reiteration of this tariff threat comes just several days after he admitted that a 157% tax is unfeasible.“It’s not sustainable, but that’s what the number is,” Trump said in an interview with Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo. “It’s probably not, you know, it could stand. But they forced me to do that.”Donald Trump said he didn’t think Ukraine would win back land that was captured by Russia during the war.“They could still win it,” Trump remarked during his meeting with Australian Prime Minster Anthony Albanese. “I don’t think they will. They could still win it. I never said they would win it. Anything can happen. You know, war is a very strange thing.”Trump’s seeming skepticism of a Ukrainian victory came several days after a meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, during which he appeared more keen on negotiating a peace agreement than supplying the nation with Tomahawk cruise missiles.Trump told Ukraine and Russia to “stop the war immediately”.The comments mark yet another shift in Trump’s position on Ukraine’s chances in the years-long conflict. Trump said in September that he believed Ukraine could regain all territory seized by Russia.During Trump’s presidential campaign in 2024, and early this year, Trump said that Ukraine would have to give up territories seized by Russia to stop the war, The Associated Press notes.The president has said that Hamas is “going to behave” or will face severe repercussions.“They’re going to be nice, and if they’re not, we’re going to go and we’re going to eradicate them,” Trump added.This comes after Israel launched waves of deadly airstrikes on Sunday and cut off all aid into Gaza “until further notice” after a reported attack by Hamas, in escalations that marked the most serious threat so far to the fragile ceasefire in the devastated territory.“Hamas has been very violent, but they don’t have the backing of Iran any more. They don’t have the backing of really anybody any more. They have to be good, and if they’re not good, they’ll be eradicated,” Trump said in the Cabinet Room at the White House. More

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      Troops on the streets, Ice thuggery – and prices still climbing: welcome to Trump’s ‘golden age’ | Steven Greenhouse

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      In his inauguration speech last January, Donald Trump bombastically declared: “The golden age of America begins right now.” Our braggadocious president has stuck to that theme ever since, telling the United National general assembly in late September: “This is indeed the golden age of America.”With the federal government shut down for more than two weeks, the nation more polarized than at any time since the civil war, political violence growing and the job market slowing, it doesn’t feel remotely like a golden age, unless one focuses on Trump’s Louis XIV-like effort to gild as many things as possible in the Oval Office.Decoration spree aside, it in no way feels like a golden age when Trump sends the national guard into Los Angeles and Chicago to fight “the enemy within” or when he says the governor of Illinois and mayor of Chicago should be in jail for opposing his plans to deploy troops to Chicago. I doubt that the 27 Chicago police officers who were accidentally teargassed by Ice agents think it’s a golden age and ditto for the growing number of US citizens Ice has arrested.Nor does the US seem like the shining city upon a hill when Ice agents slam a 79-year-old US citizen to the ground in Los Angeles. Nor when Trump’s Department of Homeland Security posts thuggish videos of stormtrooper-like Ice agents – videos that seem more like Germany in the 1930s than any golden vision of the US as it approaches its 250th birthday.Only a huckster would boast of a golden age when his public approval ratings are deep underwater. According to a CBS/YouGov poll in early October, 58% of the US public disapproves of Trump’s performance, while 42% approve. Another poll found that 62% of Americans believe the country is heading in the wrong direction.As part of his golden vision, Trump promised good times for working-class Americans, but 74% of the US public says the economy is in poor or fair condition and nearly two-thirds oppose his signature policy of tariffs and more tariffs. In a big thumbs down for Trump, 53% of the public says his policies are making the economy worse.Candidate Trump promised that prices would begin falling on his first day back as president, but prices have continued to climb since he returned to office, partly because of the tariffs he’s imposed. What’s more, Trump’s tariff mania has created so much economic uncertainty that job growth has slowed hugely under Trump compared with under Joe Biden. According to Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, there was “essentially no job growth” in September.Trump promised blue-collar Americans he would increase manufacturing and the number of factory jobs, but factory activity has declined for seven straight months, and factory employment has fallen since April, too. There’s nothing golden about any of that.Showing Americans’ increased pessimism under Trump, a Wall Street Journal-Norc poll found in September that the share of Americans who say they have a good chance of improving their standard of living has fallen to just 25%, a record low in surveys taken since 1987.The 10 million Americans who will lose health coverage because of Trump’s One Big (Not So) Beautiful Bill Act probably don’t consider this a golden age. Likewise with the 22 million Americans whose health insurance premiums will double on average, often soaring by thousands of dollars, unless Trump and congressional Republicans extend subsidies for the Affordable Care Act.Scientists complain that Trump is singlehandedly ending America’s golden age of scientific research with his deep, myopic cuts – cuts that could end US leadership in medicine and other vital fields of research. At the same time, Robert F Kennedy Jr is undermining trust in vaccines, with the US seeing the highest number of measles cases since Bill Clinton was in office and signed a law establishing free universal vaccinations for children.It seems like anything but a golden age for justice when the Department of Justice indicts the former FBI director James Comey and the New York state attorney general Letitia James after Trump in effect ordered prosecutors to get them (or get fired). Nor does one feel golden about the attorney general Pam Bondi not only stonewalling a Senate hearing (especially when asked about Trump’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein), but insulting several senators – she called Adam Schiff of California a “failed lawyer”. In the same crude vein, a White House spokesperson slimed the Illinois governor, JB Pritzker, calling him “an incompetent slob”. It doesn’t look like transparency or civility are part of Trump’s golden age.Trump can’t possibly feel golden about an August poll that found that nearly two-thirds of Americans believe he is corrupt, with 45% viewing him as “very corrupt”.When Trump spoke at the UN in September, the assembled diplomats must have thought it was a dark age for US diplomacy, not a golden one, when Trump berated them by saying: “Your countries are going to hell.” The next day, Britain’s Daily Mirror ran a front-page photo of Trump with the headline: “DERANGED – World’s Most Powerful Man-Baby.”In his inauguration speech, Trump said: “From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world.” But people from many countries are giving low marks to second-term Trump. When Pew asked residents of various countries whether they have confidence that Trump will do the right thing in world affairs, in Canada 77% of respondents said they had no confidence, while 22% had confidence. In Mexico, 91% had no confidence. In Germany 81% had no confidence, while 18% had confidence. In the UK, 62% had no confidence to 37% who had confidence.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSince Trump returned to office, many countries’ views of the US have soured substantially and not just because they’re livid about Trump’s tariff war. It’s harder than ever to view the US as a bulwark of democracy and freedom, considering that Trump has embraced Vladimir Putin, deployed troops to major cities, declared war on leading universities, dispatched masked agents to make mass arrests, and pushed to indict his political enemies. In Mexico, the favorability rating of the US has plummeted 32 percentage points since 2024, to just 29%, while in Canada, it has fallen 20 points to just 34% favorable. In Sweden, the US’s favorability rating is down 28 points to 19%, and in Germany it’s down 16 points, to 33%.I’m sure that many rightwing, “don’t tread on me” Americans don’t see this as a golden age. I can’t imagine they like seeing masked agents snatching people off the streets or Black Hawk helicopters descending on apartment buildings or Ice agents bashing in doors and windows. That’s not what freedom looks like.Even the country music star Zach Bryan – a navy veteran who calls himself “confused” politically – is complaining, with a new song saying Ice “is going to come bust down your door” and “the middle finger’s rising, and it won’t stop showing/ Got some bad news / The fading of the red, white and blue.”Trump, the salesman and showman, always feels the need to boast – to brag that things are the best ever under him. But his high disapproval ratings at home and abroad suggest many people think he is ushering in a dark age – an age of disinformation and division, of suppressing critics and indicting enemies, of taking one authoritarian, anti-democratic action after another.For a lucky few, it is a golden age. For the craftsmen hired to gild Trump’s Oval Office and his humongous new ballroom, it’s certainly a golden payday. As they grow ever richer, the country’s billionaires are no doubt basking in this new gilded age as Trump slashes their taxes, strips away regulations and steers deals to his buddies (like Larry Ellison, the world’s second-richest person). And Trump no doubt thinks it is a golden age for himself as he grabs ever more power, dominates the headlines, enriches himself further and decorates the White House with ever more gold.But to millions of us it feels like the opposite of a golden age as Trump takes a wrecking ball to truth, democracy and the rule of law. In declaring that it is a golden age, Trump is like the fraudster who says: “I have some wonderful, shiny gold I’ll sell you for $4,000 an ounce.” But in truth it’s just worthless fool’s gold.No one should be fooled by Trump’s delusional boasts.

      Steven Greenhouse is a journalist and author, focusing on labor and the workplace, as well as economic and legal issues More

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      No Kings protesters on their hopes for resistance movement against Trump: ‘If we lose momentum, we lose the fight’

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      Saturday’s No Kings protests brought millions to the streets across all 50 states in the latest demonstration against Donald Trump’s administration amid a government shutdown. But many protesters are already strategizing about what to do next.Some said continuing protests were a sign of vibrant civil resistance against the administration’s heavy-handed policies, which have challenged legal and constitutional norms in the US. They also discussed economic boycotts and strikes.Others were concerned it would take more Americans feeling direct impact to catalyze change. “I think we have to see the demise before it can turn around, sadly, but we’re here to make sure that doesn’t happen,” said Eric Stone, a 35-year-old from Oklahoma who attended the protest in Washington DC.Guardian reporters covered protests in Atlanta, Washington DC, Chicago and Los Angeles and asked attendees why they showed up, what they are hoping to see from the resistance movement, and whether the Democratic party was an effective opposition party. Here is what they said:Washington DCMary PhillipsA Native American originally from the Omaha tribe in Nebraska and Pueblo of Laguna in New Mexico who now lives in Washington DCView image in fullscreen“I think there are brilliant minds who are here today who know what bad legislation, bad policies, can do to our entire country, and what the future looks like if we continue down, not able to stop what’s happening and proceeding. These are all people from different walks of life, different skills and and levels of masteries in their own disciplines.“I believe the [leaders] who are vocal are definitely making waves and doing what they’re supposed to do, but I think there are others who are still on the fence. [There are] key issues that we need them to be 100% towards democracy, and it feels like they’re not. It feels like they are sticking to the old rules. But we have all set a set of new rules right now and they need to look at what those rules are to make up their decisions in their backrooms. And then speak on the floor what those are, what we are fighting on the streets.“So No Kings, I think, is the pinnacle of what we’re so close to right now, having a king. Once martial law goes into place, we would be under that threat, and we don’t know what the end of it looks like really, other than changing the constitution, which I think is easier done than we thought ever could be. This movement may turn into more than No Kings. It may turn into saving lives, period – saving our life, saving our freedom to be United States citizens because anybody right now can be told you’re not a citizen any more.”Laura BuckwaldNo Kings protesterView image in fullscreen“People are waking up because right now, it’s affecting people immediately in their day-to-day lives. It’s affecting our health insurance. It’s affecting our ability to just live our lives as we choose to live them. The government is trying to tell us how to run our lives, and that’s just not acceptable in the United States. As far as leadership is concerned, we’ve been disappointed on the leaders that we should have, particularly in Congress, and we’re hoping that this gives them the courage to stand up. We’re proud of what they’re doing now right now, not opening up the government until we have proper healthcare covered. But they need to do a lot more doing that, so I hope they do.“Just yesterday, I got a notice from my health insurance company about my premiums going up – they’re almost doubling. They put straight out that they are not going to cover any healthcare that is for transition purposes, so our transgender Americans will not have coverage under the plan that I have. That is totally unacceptable. I teach young people and I’ve encountered trans youth, and they have told me that without this healthcare, it makes some of them want to commit suicide.“I think [what Republicans have done has] been despicable. They have cut so many programs just so that they can give tax breaks to rich people, make billionaires trillionaires … Our taxes aren’t going to go down. We’re not going to see any benefit from it and we’re going to have the same taxes, if not more, and we’re going to have less in benefits that we have paid for. This is a tyrannical regime in office right now and they need to resign. They can’t handle the job. They’re incompetent and they’re mean. They’re cruel to people in the United States and that is anti-American. It is un-Christian and it’s unacceptable.”Mike ReidA former Republican from Maryland who switched parties during Bill Clinton’s administration. He said he hasn’t voted for Trump in any electionsView image in fullscreenReid was holding up a sign of the founding fathers with “No Kings” on it.“It’s actually my wife’s idea, but these were the original No Kings gang and they’re the ones who first had said ‘no kings in America.’ And then on the back we have the original Bill of Rights, which has the part about freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of religion and the right of people to peaceably assemble. So we and the people here are standing up for what America is supposed to be … We’re the ones who represent what real America is. Those rightwingers and the White House and Congress – they are betraying everything this country was supposed to be about, and that’s why people, common people, have to stand up.“I think that some Democratic governors like Gavin Newsom [in] California and JB Pritzker in Illinois are doing very well. They’re standing up. And I mean, there is a limit to what they can do with the bloc, they’re totally out of power right now. But state government, Democratic state governors, some of them are standing up – not all unfortunately, but some of them.“I grew up in a Republican family. I was Republican up until about 20-some years ago, back when the party was about limited government, fiscal responsibility, individual rights. They have betrayed all of that. And the party that today calls themselves Republicans – they’re not Republicans, they’re fascists, and they’re betraying my great-great-grandfather who served in the Union army in the civil war.”Eric Stone, 35Identifies as an independent and said most of his family are Republican Trump supportersView image in fullscreen“My family is Maga; my family is Trump supporters. I grew up in a small town where they didn’t want a dictatorship. They didn’t want people who were disrespectful to women. They didn’t want people who were racist and all these hateful things. And yet here they are supporting and cheering on this man like they want him to be the second coming of God. And now that I’m out here protesting this, it’s like … everybody in that circle drank the Kool-Aid. “I got people losing their jobs [around me because of the shutdown]. They’re scared that they can’t pay their bills. They’re stressing … and they’re everyday people who work their jobs and work for this country to keep it running. And we’re going to tell them they shouldn’t be paid for, what for? “I support what they stand for. For the most part, you’re not going to agree with everybody on everything. However, I feel like Democrats, they don’t have, for a lack of better terms, the balls – they’re too weak, because we always end up in this situation. The Democrats just want to talk for long hours and go on TV and do these events, which is beautiful … It’s powerful. However, you have access to that building right there. We’re standing right next to the Capitol building. Go do something about it.”Shawn SkellyFormer assistant secretary of defense for readiness in the Biden-Harris administration (only the second-ever out trans person to hold a Senate-confirmed position) and the co-founder of Out in National Security. She was a speaker at the rallyView image in fullscreen“The United States military is made up of people from every background, from every part of the country, to include immigrants and to include LGBTQ people. [Trump officials have] decided that you can’t allow transgender service members to serve. [These members have] been in command of units flying aircraft. They are high-end engineers. They are small unit leaders. None of them have blown up or failed or been drummed out of service because of the fact that they’re transgender. Each and every one of our 2.1 million service members are American heroes in their own way. You can’t have people in that institution while you’re trying to make trans people the enemy and the reason for oppression in that way.“There should never be a shutdown, frankly, and that it’s lasted this long is the fault of the [Republican] party, the political party that has all the levers of power right now … and a very willing supreme court to let them do pretty much what they want to do, pending appeal. This is democracy in action right here. This is our constitution and our civil rights in action. It’s about ‘we the people’. As Lincoln said in the Gettysburg Address, it’s government of the people, by the people, for the people. This is America at its best.” Los Angeles, CaliforniaGinny Eschbach, 72Turned out on Saturday for her 42nd protest since Trump’s inauguration. She wore a SpongeBob SquarePants costume to be ‘whimsical’View image in fullscreen“I have felt that the movement needed a face for a long time, someone to rally the troops, who we respect and admire. But who is that? I do not know.” She suggested it might possibly be a figure like Barack Obama. “There’s all these groups and these protests all coalesce, but I’m afraid it’s too fragmented. There needs to be one movement.”“This is not a joke,” she said of Republicans’ resistance to negotiate with Democrats over the expiration of Affordable Care Act subsidies. “If they defund people’s health insurance by not continuing the subsidies, it’s gonna be a mess. Even if they got that through, our healthcare is being so eroded by cutting science funding. There’s already reports of rural hospitals closing down. This is just going to spread through the country. It’s going to be a nightmare.”Eschbach said she will definitely continue to protest – sometimes she will attend two to three a weekend. She is currently canvassing to help pass Proposition 50 in California, part of the plan to counter Texas’s gerrymandered maps. “I’ll just carry on,” she said. “I write postcards, I go to protests, I talk to people.  I’ll do whatever I can.”Talia Guppy, 46Social worker in Los AngelesView image in fullscreenGuppy comes from a long tradition of social justice activism – her parents marched with Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers. “The least I can do is be out here,” she said.Among the leaders stepping forward, Guppy mentioned her state’s governor, Democrat Gavin Newsom, who is widely expected to run for president in 2028. She credited the governor with going “head to head and toe to toe” with the president. “Sometimes we have to fight fire with fire,” she said. “We can’t always take the easy road.”Guppy said she has many friends who are federal workers and have told her they want Democrats to keep fighting to preserve access to affordable healthcare and to constrain the Trump administration. “I’ve been protesting since the first big raid on June 6,” she said, and vowed to continue. “We’ve been doing as much as we can anytime that we can because it has to continue. If we lose the momentum, then we lose the fight.”Taylor G, 55 No Kings protesterHe said some people have stepped up to try to check Trump – the unions, certain universities and among Los Angeles’s entertainment industry, including Jane Fonda.  But he said he has been disappointed so far by the lack of response from the “dotcom” companies, such as Facebook and other tech giants. “All of those companies just seem to be going along with it because it’s good for their business,” he said. “People have to get way out of their comfort zones,” he added, suggesting the left-leaning movement needed more leaders willing to venture into less friendly territory and try to persuade people who may not be ideologically aligned with Democrats. “Even though we might not agree on everything, we could agree that what’s going on in the country is not good,” he said.  He added that he has friends who have left the country because of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. He approved of the Democrats’ hardball approach to the government shutdown and would absolutely be willing to walk off the job. “I think that we need to do a lot more like what they do in Europe, a general strike, meaning everybody walks out, not just Democrats,” he said. Chicago, IllinoisOscar Gonzalez, 28From the west side of the cityView image in fullscreen“My parents are immigrants. I love them to death. 
I want Chicago to be a safe city. I want America to be a great nation for everybody. No human’s illegal, so I’m here to embody that and show everybody that we have all the power to make change.“We need a Cesar Chavez, Malcolm X, Martin Luther [King], we need somebody to embody. Fred Hampton, you know, we’re in Chicago.”Abel Mebratu, 43From Rogers Park, a neighborhood in ChicagoView image in fullscreenMebratu was carrying a sign depicting Silverio Villegas-González, who was killed by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (Ice) last month. “[I’m here] giving a voice to a voiceless man that has been taken from us – unfairly and unlawfully – and his kids need justice. “I’m originally from Ethiopia and I consider myself a Chicagoan. We have values that we share and when our values are attacked, we come together. We’re led by our values and what we stand for and what we want to pass on for our next generation.” Lindsay Weinberg, 43No Kings protesterView image in fullscreenWeinberg held a sign referencing her great-grandmother, who died in the Holocaust.“It’s really personal to me when I hear people getting grabbed off the streets and taken away … I mean, many, many victims of the Holocaust don’t know what happened to their relatives, but I happen to know that [my great-grandmother’s] bones are in a mass grave … that’s important history for people to remember.“People are getting disappeared. 
People are hiding. People are being murdered. People are being wounded. 
People are experiencing trauma. It’s escalating.”Atlanta, GeorgiaGeoff Sumner, 68A retired military veteran from Stone Mountain, GeorgiaView image in fullscreen“There don’t seem to be any [leaders of the resistance] at the moment, so we’re it. Right now we got nobody. Where are they? [Chuck] Schumer-crats? Hakeem [Jeffries]? We got nobody.”Sumner doesn’t agree with what the Democrats are doing regarding the shutdown. “We don’t need to negotiate with fascists … You want our votes? Stop all this fascism. Stop all this arresting people in the street … It’s a hell of a lot more than healthcare, ain’t it?”“We gotta get the Trump regime out – all of them out. We gotta do it fast before they consolidate whatever they’re doing … How far should we go? That’s up to every individual. But I think people in America are in denial or they don’t know how bad it’s fixing to get.”Jake Riley, 44Project manager from AtlantaView image in fullscreen“I would say AOC, first of all, she would be a leader if I had to pick somebody. She would probably be up there. But as far as the protesters and on-the-ground people? I think it’s better if it’s more of a loose alliance of people. I don’t really think we have a leader structure.“After the rally, we have to get [everyone] running for every office imaginable. There’s lots of contests that go unchallenged.”Joshua Wilson, 22Multimedia producer from Lawrenceville, GeorgiaView image in fullscreen“I work with a lot of government officials at my job as clients. With the shutdown happening, I’ve been getting less work … and less work. Recently my boss politely told me, ‘Hey, you know, if you don’t want to come to work’ … I can just stay home on certain days because of it. I do think Democrats are doing the right thing, but granted it does affect me and affect me in a big way. So I’m willing to risk my paycheck for doing what’s right.“I feel like this [protest] is actually something. We should be joining organisations, reading up, getting educated and knowledgeable about the situation, or at least listening to outlets. You know, at least trying to join the community.” More