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Rising to take action can be a revolutionary act in the chaos of tyranny. Photo: DCMediaGroup

It’s easier than you think and more necessary than ever.

If you find yourself alarmed, furious and deeply anxious about the unraveling of our democracy, you are not alone.

Most everyone I know is horrified about this regime’s rampant abuse of power and the thoroughly incompetent leadership purporting to run the country.

Trump is defying the courts, Kristi Noem has no idea what the Constitution is about, Pam Bondi is thoroughly confused about the Epstein List, among other things, and JD Vance has proclaimed the Big Beautiful Bill as marking a new era of stability and prosperity for working families. The cruelty of this regime is unlike anything we have seen in our country’s history.

In reality, the ridiculous funding bill signed into law on July 4 will leave many Americans with no health coverage and no food security, all in the name of giving billionaires more money through tax cuts.

ICE is boldly kidnapping immigrants who have no criminal record and depriving them of their right to due process. Horrid concentration camps are housing illegally kidnapped people.

U.S. Government agencies continue to reel after the chainsaw massacre imposed by Musk’s DOGE. Universities are being targeted and losing billions in research funding due to what Trump believes is ideological indoctrination, and Trump is suing mainstream media whenever he gets his nose out of joint. Most recently he sued the Wall Street Journal for its report on the Epstein case.

You don’t need to look far to see the damage being done, so my question to you, to quote Bob Marley, is “Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?” And make no mistake, they are coming for all of us. No one is safe.
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed with all that is happening and the speed at which it is unfolding, but simply observing and commenting on it is not the answer, it’s not what’s going to save us. I am increasingly distraught by how many people who could do something are finding endless excuses not to.

It’s easy to make excuses: I’m too busy, it’s too hot, I have a job, I don’t like public speaking, I can’t draw well enough to make a sign, I’m not sure what to do, I’m afraid. WE ARE ALL AFRAID! Fear is not a remedy. It’s action we need. It’s time for us all to step outside our comfort zone and do something, anything, to keep democracy alive.

I have recently done so much that is way out of my comfort zone. For starters, I’m an introvert. Meeting people at protests, joining group calls, attending meetings – so not my style. But it helps that those I am meeting are good and just people wanting to make our country whole again. We are forging bonds and finding so much common ground as we join in protest, make signs together, brainstorm non-compliance ideas and share strategies. The core group at my local Tesla Takedown protests, people I had never seen before March, are the people who inspire me every day to do more, to be strong, and to step up. We are a community and we keep each other strong and hopeful.

I’m hanging ribbons around my neighborhood that say “Release the Disappeared” in Spanish and English. I bought a bucket of chalk and leave messages on public property (like sidewalks) letting neighbors know about our local Tesla Takedown and inviting them to join the resistance. I’ve visited the offices of House Representatives to pass out flyers and to discuss concerns. It’s amazing how easy it is to find your voice – and we all have one – when you care deeply about what’s happening around you.

I recently spoke at a county Board Meeting to encourage the Board to do more to protect our immigrant neighbors from ICE. I have signed up for training to be a court monitor at local immigration hearings, and I’m learning how to safely protect my neighbors from ICE. I join countless zoom calls, organized by grassroots organizations, where I learn about upcoming actions and how to make a difference.

One of the best calls I’ve been on this year was the first of three One Million Rising calls organized by Indivisible, held on July 16. Over 100,000 people joined that call to learn about next steps in saving our democracy. The organizers asked participants to sign a Gathering Pledge – they hoped to get 1,000 participants to host local meetings to bring others on board. Over 5,000 of us signed up on the spot – and I was one of them. Out of my comfort zone? Hell yes, but I am all in.

If ever there was a time to take action and to do things you aren’t used to doing, that time is now. I am guessing you will find, as I have, that it’s actually liberating to step outside your comfort zone and help resist tyranny. Taking action goes a long way to easing the anxiety of what we see happening around us, and by joining with others, you will find the hope you need to get through these troubling times. With hope, we can do anything.

The post Find Your Courage In This Chaos appeared first on DCMediaGroup.

A speaker rallies NASA workers to defend their role as a premier science and technology agency. Photo: John Zangas/ DCMediaGroup

Washington, DC—Scientists, engineers, and contractors working at NASA rallied near the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum recently, warning that budget cuts will end U.S. leadership in space exploration, scientific discovery, and technology development. They said that the fiscal year 2025 budget previously approved by Congress last year was being systematically and illegally cut by pressure from inside and outside the Agency, specifically from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) by its newly appointed interim leader Sean Duffy. These cuts take the form of canceled contracts that support programs, and extraordinary pressure is being placed on existing employees to take an early employment exit from the Agency.

Duffy has no science background and no experience in space exploration. He previously appeared as a cohost on Fox and Friends ‘The Bottom Line,’ and played a role on ‘The Real World’ reality TV show. He was tapped from the Department of Transportation to temporarily lead NASA after Trump dropped the planned appointment of Jared Isaacman. Isaacman is an associate of Elon Musk from SpaceX, but lost out on the position after a public squabble between Trump and Musk blew up on social media. Duffy led the FAA’s reduction in force of air traffic controllers during a period when the FAA recorded a sharp increase in air accidents, including the first airline accident in 16 years.

About 150 participated in the Save NASA rally at Eisenhower Park to both save and promote what NASA does to benefit the public. It was held on a symbolic date in U.S. space history, the 56th anniversary of Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon. It was on this date in 1969 that the U.S. safely landed the first humans on the moon in the Apollo 11 space vehicle named “The Eagle.” The landing site became widely known as “Tranquility Base” when the ship’s Captain, Neil Armstrong announced, “Tranquility base here…the Eagle has landed.” The astronauts landed The Eagle with less than 30 seconds of fuel left in its descent tanks.

The scientists and engineers at Eisenhower Park were not focusing on NASA’s glory and past achievement on that historic day 56 years ago. Perhaps in any other given year they should have been focused on it because such a momentous day of achievement deserves celebration of some kind. Instead, they were focused on what was to come of their embattled science Agency with the plans to cut 47% of its budget, which they say will devastate NASA.

NASA employees were there to tell the public that U.S. science discoveries would be lost due to many canceled projects and scientists and engineers being forced to leave the Agency. They urged the public to contact their representatives in Congress and ask them not to approve project defunding or the mass exodus of talent from NASA.

Many held hand-made signs and were observant of the constraints of their permit to remain within the boundaries of the small Eisenhower Park. A few assembled a large ‘Save NASA’ banner behind which they rallied. Some passed out stickers of the planets and provided cold water and energy bars in the searing heat. They beat drums and used noise makers to get the interest of tourists going in and out of the Air and Space Museum, the Smithsonian’s most popular museum in terms of annual visitors, though few tourists could hear them from across the street. The passing tourists remained oblivious to the coming fate of budget cuts awaiting one of the most successful agencies in terms of economic payback, in U.S. history.

A question remained unanswered by everyone at the rally: would NASA suffer the same fate as other shuttered agencies such as USAID, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Department of Education, and National Institutes of Health? Would NASA be shut down too, or rendered insignificant as other vital agencies have been, in the political interest of handing over public services to a few hand-picked corporations enviously eyeing their data and contracts?

NASA—Storied Accomplishments In Space

With the beginning of the Apollo missions in the early 1960s, the U.S. opened a new frontier in the quest for knowledge and understanding of the heavens. With it came the possibility that questions eluding star gazers for centuries might be uncovered. A new age dawned in which the answers could be found to the age-old questions of what is the purpose of human existence and what is mankind’s place in the heavens.

After U.S. Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took the first walk on the moon during their Apollo 11 mission, many of the country’s youth dreamed of doing the same thing one day. Ten other astronauts followed them onto the moon on successive missions. The missions carried three astronauts; two descended to the moon while one remained aloft in the command module 47 kilometers above them. Apollos 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17 each landed two men on the moon and successfully returned them to Earth.

Apollo 13 was the only planned moon landing mission that did not reach the lunar surface because of an oxygen tank explosion in space which almost caused the unimaginable deaths of its three astronauts in space. However, they returned successfully three days later because of the extraordinary skills of engineers and scientists who understood the ship’s capabilities and worked together to learn what had happened to the stricken Apollo and to find a workable solution and safely return the astronauts home. That itself may have been the most important mission of the Apollo series because it taught some hard-learned lessons about space travel: never take any system for granted, design independent backup systems, and know the ship’s capabilities inside and out.

The Apollo missions required the development of advanced technologies using primitive machinery compared to today’s standards. There were no super computers or calculators. Slide rules were still being used for complex calculations. A complete guidance computer had to be envisioned, designed, built, and tested, and this took humans to the boundary of knowledge and beyond, as applied physics had to be merged with existing materials knowledge to create its components. Software had to be written for it and there were no such things as microprocessors or integrated circuits. Scientists and engineers had to learn to convert the computer software code into instructions the physical computer could understand using an archaic process known as rope memory. It was a technique using thin wires to generate permanent bits of data. But NASA scientists and engineers figured out how to do it.

Scientists and engineers from across the country collaborated on individual components and then teams of design engineers made sure all the components worked together. A woman-led team wrote a daisy chain code to guide the Apollo mission to the moon and back. Margaret Hamilton was the first to coin the term “software engineer.”

Margaret Hamilton wrote the software that guided Apollo missions to the moon and back. The engineers and scientists at NASA embody her spirit in what they do. Photo: courtesy of NASA.

As the project gained publicity, many young people dreamed of becoming astronauts or becoming engineers and scientists. There would be many new missions as science and engineering progressed beyond Apollo. Skylab followed Apollo and the concept of a working laboratory in space came to fruition and paved the way for the International Space Station. Next came the Viking missions to Mars which beamed some of the first real-time images to Earth from Mars on July 20, 1976. These breakthroughs led to others and attracted a new generation of young minds with new ideas leading to space rovers on Mars in the last decades.

Then came the Voyager missions in 1977 sent to rendezvous with, photograph and explore the planets which appeared as specks in the most powerful earth-bound telescopes. Later, scientists and engineers repurposed the Voyager I and II spacecraft to explore beyond the solar system. They are the only two functional missions returning data from outside the influence of the “solar wind” and returning information about the cosmic flux, and NASA designed and built them.

As the Space Shuttle program came online in the early 1980s, NASA also began using the shuttle to launch technologically advanced platforms directly into space and ferry the large parts needed for in-space construction of the International Space Station (ISS), Then there were many Shuttle missions to ferry astronauts to the ISS once it came online in the 1990s; deliver weather and GPS satellites; deliver and position the Hubble Space Telescope into geosynchronous orbit; and complete some top-secret military projects, possibly involving “eye-in-the-sky” telescope platforms.

The benefits the U.S. has gained by investing in NASA missions has been more than three times its budget costs. A published report in Universe Space compiled figures showing that the 2023 budget of $26.4 billion dollars returned $75.6 billion dollars in economic returns even though there were private companies concurrently pursuing space exploration. There is not another Agency that creates such an economic return to the U.S. economy from tax dollars invested in public interests.

Many Ongoing Missions Will Be Discontinued

One speaker at the rally who gave his first name only as Lewis, compared the science cuts to a home invader selfishly removing the copper wire from a home everyone else shared just to cash it in for their own benefit. The metaphor resonated with the audience, particularly the engineers and scientists working on the projects facing personnel and funding cuts. He warned that the cuts are shortsighted and bound to end future U.S. discoveries.

Other countries such as China could fill this void and become the new leader in space discoveries. However, China has not typically shared its space achievements or technology advancements with other nations or even made them public like NASA has. The authorization to create NASA in 1958 stipulated that the information and science generated by public funding would be made public.

Nasa Workers Speak About The Budget Cuts

Julie Hoover, a contractor who works jointly with National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said, “A lot of changes are being made before the budget is passed and we’re losing a lot of intelligent people from the Agency before we find out what’s going to happen to the budget.” She added that her remarks were her own and not made on behalf of NASA.

Hoover added that the project she was working on involved satellite information that tracked weather measurements. “[We] provide data to weather forecasters so they can determine what’s going to happen with the weather in time to let the public know if a disaster is imminent.”

Vi Nguyen, an employee who works on a weather satellite program said she was concerned that projects were currently being defunded illegally. She described the advanced weather satellite program as essential because the “data goes to NOAA and NOAA sees hurricanes way ahead and informs the National Weather Service to alert the public.”

Dr. Casey McGrath, an employee who works at Goddard Space Flight Center as a postdoctoral research assistant, spoke not as a representative of NASA or his company, but as an individual, saying “The senior leadership is over-complying with foundational changes to the Agency. The changes that are happening now might undermine what Congress’s intentions are if they aren’t stopped immediately. Many of us are going to lose our jobs because NASA is trying to preemptively encourage as many people as possible to leave.”

Dr. McGrath warned that NASA leadership intended to completely cut Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) recruitment. This would decimate the future of NASA and its growth as an agency.

Scientists and Astronauts Respond To NASA Cuts With Resistance Letter

Over 280 scientists, including four astronauts, signed the Voyager Declaration Letter in dissent of the ongoing NASA science cuts on Saturday.

The letter reads, in part, “We commend the NASA personnel who have courageously spoken out in defense of scientific integrity, despite clear retaliation against other scientific agencies. Their actions reflect a deep commitment to truth, accountability, and the core mission of advancing knowledge for the benefit of all. We urge NASA leadership and the current administration to work closely with NASA staff to safeguard the Agency’s mission and values. NASA must not be used as a political instrument divorced from its foundational commitment to scientific exploration, discovery, and service to humanity.”

NASA contributions to civil society have benefited everyone living in one way or another. The list of life-saving technologies is quite remarkable. NASA Spinoffs has published a diagram which illustrates some of these innovations. They have returned $14 dollars of economic benefits for every tax dollar spent.

One may recall the fable of Jack and the Golden Goose. The children’s story has a moral about how an individual’s greed can lead to his own ruin, and it applies to the taking over of NASA. The reasons why a handful of wealthy individuals are taking NASA apart may not yet be fully apparent, but if it comes to pass, it is likely to benefit a few at the expense of the nation.

The post NASA Workers Say Defunding Agency Will Erase Future U.S. Science and Technology Gains appeared first on DCMediaGroup.

Tesla Takedown boycott line outside a Tesla showroom in Virginia. Photo: J. Zangas / DCMediaGroup

As I’ve posted previously, grassroots groups began organizing protests at a nearby Tesla dealership on Saturdays, Sundays and Tuesdays, starting in February. I have been attending since March, three times a week when possible. The protests started out small, and the ranks swelled to 80 or 90 protestors on weekends in April and May. Since then, although our numbers have dropped off a bit, we have a core group of protestors who show up regularly and have no interest in quitting.

We show up in the rain, we show up in intense humidity and heat. The only thing to stop us yet is thunder and lightning. We all chip in for the gear we need to keep going: one of our crew sourced a free canopy which we set up to provide shade. A lightweight camping table was provided to put out snacks and cold water which are regularly supplied by group members.

Several protestors bring cooling clothes to give us relief when the temperatures soar above 100. We have buttons (so many different buttons!) and flyers to hand out. We bring portable Bluetooth speakers so that we can enjoy the fabulous resistance playlists we have created, as well as dance music to keep us joyful as we wave our flags and display our signs. Bubble makers are often on hand to keep the mood upbeat. We have an abundance of signs and banners, and anyone who shows up without a sign is encouraged to borrow one. We even have wagons to cart all this gear from our cars, parked a few blocks away. As one organizer recently quipped: looks like we are here to stay! Yes, yes we are.

In the last month we have been getting lots of questions – both from within our group and from passersby – about the impact of our Tesla Takedowns and why we continue them. There are many good answers – here are a few.

DOGE: While Musk has distanced himself from Trump since the end of May, Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) continues to operate and has accumulated vast amounts of our personal and financial data from the IRS and Treasury Department. The chainsaw massacre of federal government offices led by Musk will have a lasting and dangerous impact on the many vital services provided by the U.S. government. USAID has been gutted, the CFPB is barely limping along, USIP has been dismantled (twice), and countless other agencies have been decimated due to extensive and unwarranted personnel cuts.

Conflicts of Interest: Musk used his role in DOGE to ensure protections for his lucrative contracts with the government: His companies Starlink, SpaceX, the Boring Company and most recently his Grok chatbot all benefitted as a result of Musk steering oversight away from the obvious conflicts of interest. Starlink has been installed in various government installations, SpaceX is not adhering to federal reporting protocols (including those which impact safety), and the Federal Railroad Administration is in talks to use Musk’s Boring Company on an Amtrak rail project. This egregious lack of oversight and rampant conflicts of interest will line Musk’s already full pockets and steer the competition away, often with ramifications for safety.

Community: We continue the protests to celebrate the strong, compassionate community we have formed over the months. It’s uplifting to know we are not alone in this fight, and, more importantly, we are learning from each other as we all bring our own history, stories, fears and concerns to the protests.

Joy: I will admit that I was confused the first time I heard one of the organizers encourage us to bring joy to the demonstrations. I asked myself how anyone could possibly find joy in this time of great upheaval and cruelty. Over the weeks and months, I have found that joy – it is the joy of knowing that we are not alone, that we will continue to fight, and that we respect and lift each other up. There is the joy of hearing hundreds of cars, buses and trucks honking at us, often for a prolonged time, and seeing countless drivers give us a thumbs up, flash us a peace sign, or raise a determined fist in the air. We are not alone, our numbers are great, the fight will continue unabated, and that alone is cause for joy. Those honks are like a dopamine hit, trust me.

Learning: We are learning from each other every single day: about the threats within our communities, where and how to speak up, how to make rain-proof signs, what wording is most effective, which Zoom calls to join, other protests to attend, where to park for the banner drops at local overpasses. We adjust our signs and flyers to meet the needs of a particular week’s news. We are all stepping out of our comfort zones in this time of need, and that is much easier to do when surrounded by compassionate people who support you and cheer you on.

I’m so grateful for my Tesla Takedown community. This group is a window into what compassion and diversity look like. We have each other’s backs, and we are fighting together to keep our communities safe, to keep each other safe, to let our neighbors know their rights, to help get out the vote and ultimately, to save our democracy. We know this is not a sprint – sadly, we are in this for the long haul. If you drive past us, be sure to give us a honk!

Tesla Takedowns are happening at a Tesla showroom near you. Go to https://www.teslatakedown.com/ to connect with those in your community or organize one of your own.

The post Tesla Takedown FAQs And Why We Aren’t Stopping Anytime Soon appeared first on DCMediaGroup.

Signs of authoritarianism on display outside a Tesla showroom. Photo: J. Zangas/ DCMediaGroup

Arlington, VA—If anything is true about Tesla Takedown Arlington activists, it’s that they’re not afraid to take on bullies. On Saturday, they went after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), slamming it for its illegal kidnapping policy and the state-created chaos the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is spreading across the country.

Several protestors brought signs written in Spanish “Chinga la Migra por Vida,” translating to F— ICE forever. This message connected with many dozens of Latino motorists passing the Arlington Tesla showroom on their way to and from weekend yard work, or various labor-intensive employments, judging by the tools and equipment they carried in their truck beds. Some may have been returning home to families or going shopping. And many gave a resounding thumbs up and lots of honks in approval of the new signage critical of ICE.

By the end of Saturday’s Tesla Takedown, everyone there knew how to pronounce the catchphrase and what it meant. Apparently it originated in Los Angeles, where ICE agents have been terrorizing immigrant communities and their workspaces for months.

The Tesla Takedown tapped a torrent of support from Latinos, which the boycott line had not expected and did not know existed. And yet, it was right at the curbside, passing them by these last five months outside the Arlington Tesla showroom.

By focusing on the ICE terror in their signage, the boycott line brought out some of the most damning examples of how this regime has effectively morphed more closely into a fascist regime. The Trump regime has funded ICE $75 billion for ICE operations over the next four years to supercharge ICE into a secret police force. Its roving patrols and seizures of individuals of a particular ethnicity, all while denying them due process, will give ICE powers beyond any police force in the U.S. The regime awarded ICE $45 billion for building concentration camps in which to hold them captive in deplorable conditions. In total, Trump’s bill allocated $165 billion for immigration enforcement, seizure, building encampments, border walls, and relocation to other countries.

Taken as a whole, ICE, which falls under control of DHS, is no different than the Gestapo secret police of early Nazi Germany. When the Gestapo began persecuting Jews in post-WWI Germany, it was a gradual progression of scapegoating Jews through myths and misinformation by the Nazi party. Nazis gradually stripped Jews of rights and banned them from serving in positions of power and from the armed forces. The Night of Broken Glass, or Kristallnacht, in which Jewish businesses, homes, and synagogues were looted and burned, lead to the rounding up of Jews in Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia once Nazis gained uncontested power in post-WWI Germany. The Nazis did this in part as a self-purported purification of their race but also, in part, out of economic envy. The Gestapo stripped Jews of their rights, dignity, religious practices and their citizenship. They separated Jewish families, removed them from society by crowding them into ghettos, then shipped them in boxcars to concentration camps.

ICE is orchestrating a similar scenario now by rounding up Latinos and other minorities under the fabrication that they are criminals, they are taking jobs from U.S. citizens, they are members of gangs, or they have come to the U.S. illegally. ICE roundups are so fragmented, misdirected, and disorganized, that they have even seized U.S. citizens who fit their arbitrary appearance standard for who appears to be a suspect. ICE has outpaced the Gestapo in that they have jumped right past nearly all the initial stages the Gestapo used to persecute Jews and have gone straight into roving patrol roundups. And ICE is implementing it at a much faster rate—attempting to seize 3,000 people a day. ICE bases its justifications for their arbitrary roundups on junk law and its grossly contorted interpretation of justice—just like the Nazis did.

U.S. District Judge Maame Frimpong of the Central District of California ruled as much when she issued a temporary restraining order late on Friday, July 11, against DHS Secretary Kristi Noam and the subordinates in her chain of command whom Noem tasked with implementing Trump’s orders. In her ruling, Judge Frimpong wrote that DHS and ICE:

—cannot conduct roving patrols to detain people based on race or ethnicity
—cannot deny people legal representation
—must honor the constitutional rights of all people, including immigrants, under the 4th and 5th Amendments of the Constitution
—cannot deny immigrants access to an attorney or the ability to seek representation
—must use warrants in all cases
—must provide those being held at a temporary ICE holding cell in LA access to phones to contact families and attorneys

Judge Frimpong further wrote that since Trump began his self-described “largest mass-deportation operation in history” on June 6, “federal law enforcement arrived in Los Angeles to participate [in] roving patrols to indiscriminately round up numerous individuals without reasonable suspicion and having done so, denied these individuals access to lawyers who could help them navigate the legal process they found themselves in. What the Federal Government would have this court believe—in the face of a mountain of evidence presented, is that none of this is actually happening.”

Defining ICE For What It Is: An Authoritarian’s Secret Police Force

Exposing how ICE has sharply increased roundups requires correct definitions delineating the parallels between ICE and the Nazi persecution of Jews from 1933 to 1945. Some are suggesting not to describe ICE as doing the same things the Gestapo did, because it dilutes the seriousness of the crimes against humanity for which the Nazi leaders were tried at Nuremberg. The Nazi party took time to ramp up its persecution of the Jews from the initial stripping of rights, to moving them to ghettos, to shipping them to internment camps, to the mass murder, and to the final chapter of the death marches. ICE just hasn’t reached that stage yet. But it could reach that stage and, based on the unrelenting speed with which it has coalesced and the whopping funds it is being provided, ICE may not be able to stop itself.

One reason ICE may be unable to stop itself is because this regime’s power lust and it’s demonstrated inability to hold itself accountable to both moral and legal standards. It has already revealed what it is capable of doing to elected officials and others operating within the prerogative of their government offices. The recent arrests of high profile officials opposed to their immigration policies are a warning of what is to come.

They include an FBI arrest of Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan for allegedly interfering with the seizure of an immigrant undergoing proceedings in her courtroom; the arrest New Jersey Representative LaMonica McIver for allegedly interfering with ICE operations when she was exercising her legal oversight of a private detention center to her district; and the ICE arrest of NYC Comptroller Brad Lander at a federal immigration courthouse in Manhattan, though he was later released. The ICE agents arrest and accuse citizens of assault, although video has confirmed they are clearly not assaulting ICE agents. These incidents demonstrate that ICE and DHS immigration actions are taking this country into the abyss of human rights abuses and stolen liberty, and it will be very difficult for us to claw our way back out. Once this becomes entrenched in practice, it will be easier for ICE to use their power to go after opponents and silence them too.

ICE is not a traditional police force, rather they operate as secret police, and by its actions, ICE is comparable to the Gestapo of the Nazi party. The agents executing the kidnappings are masked and hidden behind black face cloths and dressed as paramilitary forces dress. This is designed to instill terror in a specific ethnicity and economic class across the entire country.

Standard police forces have an elected chief, a sheriff, or a chief of police appointed by an elected mayor. As a federal agency, ICE has no defined jurisdictional zone; they don’t display or disclose names or badges to identify themselves and they do not arrive in marked vehicles representing their jurisdictional authority. They arrive in unmarked vehicles without license plates or painted logos, and they bring no warrants or charges with them to serve on specific individuals. They have operated with no grand jury impaneled by the state or locality to determine if the state’s charges are of sufficient evidence to warrant prosecution. ICE therefore operates with no definable code in a functioning republic where individual rights and liberties are respected and honored.

Detaining a person implies that people who are suspected of a crime are being afforded due process. ICE is not detaining people. ICE is violently hard-arresting people, and when they encounter resistance, throwing individuals to the ground, jumping on them and choking them. Video recordings made by concerned citizens offer proof of this. ICE is not showing warrants or evidence of any crime having taken place. They are disappearing people based on skin color and ethnicity alone.

ICE is not affording due process. The Latinos being kidnapped and disappeared are not given the opportunity to appear before a judge. They are not having any charges read to them and are not given an opportunity to respond as to their guilt or innocence. They are denied the opportunity to depose the charges against them as afforded by the 4th and 5th Amendments of the Constitution.

ICE internment facilities are actually concentration camps, not jails or prisons. Once silenced, ICE shuttles Latinos away in unmarked vans. Their whereabouts are unknown and they are housed in crowded temporary holding cells until they can be stolen away to be locked inside cages of mass camps in other states without anyone knowing where they are or how to contact them.

Conditions inside the concentration camps are inhumane. Inmates are being caged, according to State Congressman Maxwell Frost (FL-10), who gave a first-person account of what he saw on Saturday, July 12. “These people are being caged with 32 people per cage and only 3 toilets for a group of 32 grown men. Where they drink water comes from the toilet-spigot. The food portions are horrible. It was very warm and hot in the tent. I saw people sweating. People were yelling, ‘Help me, help me.’”

Up to this point, ICE has run unchallenged in cities across the U.S., confiscating people as if they were chattel and the U.S. were operating as a slave state rounding up its escaped slaves.

Will Accountability Come To ICE Leaders

The last thing anyone in the Nazi Party envisioned was that their final judgment day would come at the Nuremberg trials. The allies and Soviet Union convened an International Military Tribunal (IMT) to hold Nazi leaders accountable for war crimes, crimes against humanity, false imprisonment, and hate crimes. The trials began in 1945, almost immediately after WWII, and lasted two years. In all, 22 Nazi leadership survivors were accused of the concentration camp murders of millions of Jews. The defendants were afforded representation and translation of the words of their accusers into their native language. They were given an opportunity to respond to the charge, were presented with all the evidence used against them, and they were allowed to face their accusers. They were provided livable conditions during their trials.

None of those rounded up by ICE have been afforded any of these rights, and that in itself is an indictment against the ICE roving patrols and kidnappings and especially against those in its chain of command.

One of the arguments proposed as a defense by the accused Nazi criminals was that they were just following orders, but the argument did not bode well for them at their sentencing. Of the 22 defendants tried at Nuremberg, 12 were convicted and sentenced to hang, seven were sentenced to prison terms and three were acquitted.

ICE is not accused of the war crimes and organized mass murder that the Nazi party leaders committed. But the conditions ICE has created, false imprisonment, hate crimes, and deplorable camp conditions, could lead to the death of many innocent people. This is based on first-hand accounts of visiting officials from within the Everglades concentration camp.

The chain of command leaders at ICE will be held responsible for their treatment of the thousands they have seized and many thousands yet to be disappeared in their camps. Future generations will look harshly on what leaders did or failed to do to protect those who were held in subhuman conditions in the ICE camps. Following orders will not be a workable defense at their future trials. History will judge this American period harshly.

The post ICE Kidnappings Mirror World War II Germany; It Will Soon Be Difficult To Claw Our Way Back appeared first on DCMediaGroup.

Citizens protest ICE outside a Tesla showroom in Arlington, Virginia. Photo by J. Zangas/ DCMediaGroup

The Coming Storm: Secret Police and Concentration Camps are Here

The Big Horrible Bill was passed by both the House and Senate, and Trump signed it into law on July 4, an ironic date considering the devastation this bill will wreak on our democracy.

Much of the conversation around the bill has been about the horrific cuts to Medicaid and SNAP that will go into effect after the midterms, resulting in millions losing healthcare and far too many children facing food insecurity. Additionally, hospitals, especially those in rural areas, will be forced to close, requiring residents in those areas to travel great distances for care, including any emergent needs. At least one hospital has already been forced to close due to the financial hardships starting to face many states.

Of more immediate concern, however, is the alarming amount of funding this bill allocates to ICE: a stunning $170 billion is dedicated to immigration enforcement over the next four years, of which $45 billion is earmarked for ICE detention space. These vast sums will enable a rapid escalation of the horrific scenes we have witnessed playing out in a number of cities across the country, in which masked, armed goons without badges or judicial warrants are grabbing innocent immigrants off the streets, often with undue force. We need to call them what they are: Secret Police. ICE is preying upon those who show up to their court appointments in addition to trolling immigrant neighborhoods and raiding businesses where immigrants are employed. Families are being pried apart, and upstanding members of our community are being illegally targeted. Many immigrants are afraid to be out in public, go to the grocery store, or visit their place of worship.

ICE agents, whose ranks will swell to an alarming number with this new infusion of funding, are shockingly brazen in their quest to detain as many immigrants as possible in response to quotas issued by Trump. Since the Inauguration in January, more than 39,000 people have been arrested, and, according to federal data, over 80% of these detainees have no criminal record. Many of the immigrants who have been arrested are in the U.S. legally, and once they are captured, their future is uncertain, as they are removed to detention centers out of the area and likely out of the country. They are not being deported – that word does not do justice to reality. They are being disappeared. Often, their families do not know their whereabouts and are unable to be in contact with them.

The detention centers being utilized by ICE are nothing more than concentration camps, and Alligator Auschwitz in Florida, where squalid conditions are reported, is a perfect example of the inhumane conditions in which harmless immigrants will find themselves. Trump’s flippant remarks about detainees who try to escape being eaten by alligators underscore the cruelty being dealt to immigrants who have committed no crime and who have been illegally seized from their families and their communities.

Anti-ICE protests are growing as communities are increasingly shocked by the cruel disappearance of non-violent immigrants. At the same time, the tactics ICE agents are employing are growing more vicious and occasionally ensnare members of Congress and even a judge seeking to defend the innocent targets. The scenes playing out daily in citizen-captured videos of these ICE arrests are shocking, difficult to watch, and in complete violation of the Constitution.

Make no mistake, the cruel tactics and disappearances that we have seen at the hands of ICE will grow exponentially in the coming months. Communities have been organizing to inform immigrants of their rights, to witness the disappearances, and to prevent ICE agents from making arrests on private property. While these actions have been bold and courageous, they alone will not be enough to stop the newly emboldened ICE or to prevent the continued dismantling of our vibrant immigrant communities.

It is up to us to respond to this dangerous escalation of ICE. We must protect the immigrants in our communities who bring such vitality and economic support to our nation. The time is now, and the need is real.

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An unknown person displays the flag near the National Archives in Washington DC on July 4. Photo: Susan Douglas

Washington DC—Reflections on July 4, 2025.

After the very disappointing but not unexpected passage of the big, ridiculous bill on July 3, I was in little mood to celebrate the 4th of July. Our democracy is being dismantled, and what we see before us is unmistakably fascism. The suffering this bill will bring to millions of people is not what our country stands for, and funding ICE with billions of additional dollars will only rush pain and terror to innocent people.

Instead of celebrating with fireworks or watching the parade in DC, I attended a group reading of the Declaration of Independence. It was originally slated to take place in front of the National Archives, home to the original, signed copy of the Declaration. The organizers had to move the location across the street, next to the Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden, due to crowds, the parade, and a previously scheduled event at the Archives. There were about 30 or 40 of us gathered.

As I stood and listened to a number of people taking turns, with a bullhorn/microphone, to read each paragraph of the Declaration with solemnity and conviction, I had to fight hard to hear these important words, as they were being drowned out by the passing parade. Marching bands, people yelling, and all the commotion that comes with a big city parade proved to be more powerful than the readers and the message of freedom that they sought to share as a reminder of what our country fought so hard for nearly 250 years ago when we declared we would not be ruled by a tyrannical king.

Watching the scene unfold, I realized that drowning out the reading of the Declaration of Independence provided a metaphor for this very moment in time. Millions of people are voicing their dissent, their outrage, and their refusal to accept fascism in the U.S., but is it loud enough? Are our voices making a difference?

We must prevent this regime from drowning us out. We must be louder, bolder, and stronger than those we seek to defeat. We cannot, we must not, let the noise around us be louder than our message.

Grab your signs, and if you don’t have any, make one. My favorite is “Oh Hell No”, a multi-purpose outrage that applies to everything being done to dismantle our democracy. Choose the topic(s) that matter most to you: protecting immigrants, crushing ICE, SCOTUS caving to tyranny, No Kings, etc. Join a banner brigade on an overpass near you. Join any rallies in your area. Be active in helping to get out the vote. The mid-term elections are going to be absolutely critical in helping us eliminate tyranny and repair the damage done. Most importantly, stay informed through independent media channels that bring accurate and timely reporting.

Whatever you do, however you show up in this fight to save our democracy and resist tyranny, make sure your voice can be heard above the relentless din of those who seek to control us. It’s up to us now.

You may follow Susan Douglas on Substack here.

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Signs of Fascism laid out at Tesla Takedown. Photo: J. Zangas/ DCMG

Arlington, VA— For over five months on consecutive weekends and Tuesdays, the Tesla Takedown boycott line has been taking on Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, diminishing his wealth in terms of Tesla stock value, exposing his illegal Doge takedown of federal government agencies, and the firing of tens of thousands of federal civil servants.

The Tesla Takedown of Musk is credited with creating friction between Trump and Musk and they have been successful beyond expectations.

Meanwhile, in March and April, Trump gave Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) permission to begin illegal kidnappings of green card holders. Then a wave of so-called ICE agents—no one could actually tell who they were or if they were legitimate because they covered their faces and car license plates—began forcefully taking people out of their communities and work spaces. During these raids, ICE also swept up American citizens—children born on U.S. soil—with these kidnappings. Like Lara C., these victims were brown-skinned or Muslim but not White, and they were being taken by the thousands to places unknown, and families, loved ones, and attorneys often could not determine where they were.

The idea to challenge the regime’s rapid goose step toward authoritarianism came to Lara C., a participant of Tesla Takedowns, as she watched the trickle of ICE agents snatching brown-skinned people grow to a rush and then explode into a torrent. In fear, she began carrying copies of her birth certificate proving where she was born and that she was a U.S. citizen. It, too, could certainly happen to her she thought, simply because she was brown.

Habeas Corpus—‘you should have the body’

A bedrock of liberty is the right to know what charges are being made against an individual and to be able to appear in a public court to have those charges read and explained. We understand it in modern terms as due process. The Founding Fathers specifically wrote this into the Constitution right up at the top in Article I, Section 9. One might say it was a very important aspect of liberty because King George III had an unfair inclination to disappear people who disagreed with him into indefinite detention in the Tower of London without any charges, explanation, or recourse.

Article I, Section 9 reads, “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”

What ICE has been doing and continues to do is deny the liberty of Habeas Corpus to thousands, Supreme Court rulings notwithstanding. It remains one of the most basic rights provided in the Constitution. On the issue of birthright citizenship, on which the Supreme Court recently ruled in Trump’s favor on the issue of whether or not District Courts could grant class standing of suits against the government for any citizens born in the U.S. to immigrants, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson published a blistering dissent against the conservative Court majority to grant Trump’s request. “I have no doubt that, if judges must allow the executive to act unlawfully in some circumstances, as the court concludes today, executive lawlessness will flourish, and from there, it is not difficult to predict how this all ends. Eventually, executive power will become completely uncontainable, and our beloved constitutional republic will be no more,” she wrote.

Lara thought about how wrong it was that a handful of people could authorize kidnappings of so many, without due process, at the whims of the President, and just like King George III did, deny them rights to appearance before a judge to hear the charges against them, be afforded a trial, and have an opportunity to challenge those charges before legal proceedings. She knew that these bedrock principles and rights were wrongfully being swept away.

Lara wondered what she could do to educate others about the injustice of growing ICE actions against innocent people. She thought of making street signs to educate others and those passing by the Tesla Takedowns about the elements of fascism. The societal conditions that she saw materializing around her certainly weren’t anything normal.

She quoted Nelson Mandela as the impetus for helping her come up with her idea to fight back against fascism: “Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.”

ICE—The Dream Team Fit For A Dictator

ICE went into hyperdrive and blew through its budget within months of its new authorization to round up green card holders. Congress recently allocated more than a 265% increase in its spending bill—more money for new detainment camps and for ICE agents—more than the budgets for the FBI, Bureau of Prisons, the DEA combined; and more than the U.S. Marine Corps.

With the passage of the Big Ugly Bill aka HR1, it was time for Lara to say out loud what fascism is so there could be no confusion or ambiguity about what was happening in the U.S. She and others from We of Action (WofA) and Third Act created the messaging on signs with 17 characteristics of a fascist regime. They attached H wire stakes to each sign and set them about 20 feet apart at the Tesla Takedown action. Now the drivers passing Tesla would have something to think about:

1. Combining Church and State
2. Human Rights Violations
3. Eliminating Due Process
4. Attacking Free Press
5. Disinformation, Lies, and Propaganda
6. Militarized Police
7. Corporate Profits over Workers
8. Assault on Academia and Arts
9. Attacking Political Opposition
10. Unqualified Political Appointments
11. Blaming Immigrants for Problems
12. Using Fear and Violence
13. Legalized Gender Discrimination
14. Racism
15. Persecution of Minorities
16. Centralized Power (Dictator)
17. Anti-Science

The Trump culture embodies all of these indicators. There are multiple instances of how they have ticked the characteristics in every case.

Fascism Its Indicators and Characteristics

It’s difficult to actually define what fascism is and tell when a elected government becomes authoritarian and then has crossed over the line to meet the definition of fascism. Fascism is a hybrid of authoritarianism. Different social justice groups have published a varying number of character traits to define what fascism is.

Fascism Fighters lists 22 indicators of what Fascism is and assigns Trump as meeting all 22 of the characteristics on its website.

—Use of enemy as a scapegoat and distraction
—Anti-minority / chauvinistic
—Call for a national rebirth
—Extreme nationalism
—Use of violence
—Aggressive militarism
—Cult of personality
—Anti-intellectualism and cultural repression
—Advancement of propaganda through a controlled mass media
—Authoritarian tendencies and aspirations
—Imperialistic ambitions
—Mass mobilization
—Elimination of human rights to prioritize the state
—Religion and government are intertwined
—Promotion of corporate power / Suppression of labor power
—Obsession with law and order
—Youth indoctrination
—Cronyism and corruption
—Demand of unwavering loyalty
—Fraudulent elections
—Desire for economic self-sufficiency
—“Work makes you free”

The Political Science Blog characterizes Fascism with 10 major indicators:

1. Opposition to Marxism
2. Opposition to Political and Cultural Liberalism
3. Glorification of the State
4. Extreme Nationalism
5. Imperialism
6. Opposition to Parliamentary Democracy
7. Totalitarian Ambition
8. Millitary Values
9. Acceptance of Racism
10. Economic Policies that are conservative
11. Mass Mobilisation
12. Education as Character Building

In each of these definitions, within 5 months, Trump and his group of cabinet-appointed enforcers has quickly corralled the republic into a fascist regime.

Hope Is Not Lost—The People Are Mobilizing

All across the country people are mobilizing to fight this political scourge. There are many actions planned for the coming weeks and months. Today’s action outside the Arlington Tesla showroom is but one of many Tesla showroom protests.

The historian vlogger, Heather Cox Richardson said in her video series posted on July 3, Letters From An American, that the passage of the budget bill was a major setback but she also championed the diversity, resources, and capacity of people of the resistance. She urged people to get involved because “if we don’t step up, each day is going to get harder and harder.” Harriet Tubman said, “ The only way out is through.” These are not the times we chose but we must do what we must because we don’t have a choice.

One last point Richardson made was that a few days ago “we just got the support of a whole lot of people who didn’t realize they were part of the resistance.”

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NASA Scientists and Engineers protest outside their headquarters building in Washington DC. Photo: John Zangas/ DCMediaGroup

Washington, DC—Something almost as strange as the discovery of dark matter itself happened outside the NASA headquarters building in Washington, DC on Monday morning. NASA scientists, engineers, technicians, and supporters protested ongoing government cutbacks outside their headquarters office in Washington, DC. They wanted to make the public aware of the impact that ongoing budget cuts and the spending bill would have on the U.S. space agency.

At 7 a.m., as civil servants were beginning their workday, dozens began arriving and stood for three hours with protest signs to tell the public they would no longer remain quiet about the budget cuts. One of the spokespersons of the group said the budget cuts are already being implemented despite Congress not having yet approved them.

The proposed budget cuts will reduce NASA staff by 25%, shut dozens of near earth, deep space, and earth research programs, both ongoing and in the planning stages at the space agency. The reductions in force would reduce staffing to 1960 levels at a time when NASA plans to begin its return to the moon with the Artemis lunar human project, while at the same time jump-starting its plans for human travel to Mars. These cuts would almost certainly lead to serious safety issues for those who embark on those missions, argued several authors who wrote a stinging analysis of the fiscal year 2026 budget cuts.

Almost all of those assembled declined to speak on the record about their disapproval and sense of betrayal over the cuts for fear of retribution. But scientists and engineers are typically some of the most unobtrusive and matter-of-fact thinking folks one is likely to meet, and to see them out on the street in front of their headquarters protesting the elected government leaders as well as the pressure coming from the White House through Doge, is striking.

There was plenty of evidence outside the NASA headquarters that there is already a struggle over what projects would be cut, as cuts are already underway as evidenced by the signs and faces of the scientists and engineers gathered on the sidewalk. NASA Acting Administrator Janet Petro has bent to White House pressure before Congressional approval of the spending bill, and more cuts are likely to come for many of them, according to one of the speakers.

The NASA civil servants’ experience has been a story repeated throughout government since February, when the so-called Department of Government Efficiency’s (Doge) scorched-earth policies first began at the Office of Personnel Management. Although a recent internal riff played out on social media between the Trump and Musk duo, Doge is still operating in agencies across the federal government. Doge personnel are still behind the pressure scheme to cull civil servants from the ranks of virtually every department and agency, except Immigration and Customs Enforcement and a few other police agencies.

Comparatively, the budget bill has allocated an unprecedented increase of 265% to the current annual Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention budget, according to a report from the American Immigration Council. ICE will get $29.9 billion in funding for enforcement and deportation operations, increasing ICE’s annual budget three-fold. The budget will allocate $46.6 billion on border wall construction, a policy already proven to be a failure. These allocations blow past NASA’s annual budget, and produce no benefits to society, according to the teport.

NASA’s FY 2026 budget is only 0.3 % of entire U.S. discretionary spending, according to the 2026 NASA budget report.

The 70 or so NASA civil servants protesting on Monday still managed to lighten the sidewalk mood with an inflatable Pikachu dancing and waving at the passing traffic. Many drivers honked their approval as they drove past the protesters on their way to work. Some of the signs were couched in humor as well: “We don’t Even Know What Dark Matter Is Yet,” and “Stopping Climate Change Is Our Moonshot,” and “In Science We Trust.”

Marshall Finch, a contractor who spoke as an individual and stressed that he was not speaking on behalf of any government agency, said the cuts were already happening “because contractors were already being laid off while civil servants were given a deferred resignation offer.” He added that civil servants were “facing unusual pressure” to “strongly consider taking the resignation [offer] by the leadership.”

Monica Gorman, Lead Organizer, Goddard Engineers, Scientists, and Technicians Association (IFPTE Local 29) said, “In all these attacks, they’ve attacking science at NASA, NOAA, and in the Department of Health and Human Services. They’re attacking scientists and engineers and federal workers across the whole government.” She urged everyone to get involved by speaking to those they know to join and get involved in the fight against these attacks. “This is the biggest fight of our lives and we are all in it together in solidarity,” she said.

Budget for FY 2026 Will Break NASA

The proposed cuts at NASA will discard billions in taxpayer investments in deep space and near earth probes, helio (sun) projects, planetary exploration, and associated project equipment already operating in space. Terminating these programs is certain to end the U.S. standing as a leader in space exploration and technology development, which NASA has provided the nation and the world since its inception in 1958. It will mean that $12 billion already spent on existing space programs will be discarded, according to a published report.

The president’s discretionary budget request for 2026 contains a 26% reduction in funding for NASA as compared to 2025. It reduces NASA funding to $18.8 billion from $24.8 billion, the smallest NASA funding allocation since 1961, eight years before the U.S. put a human on the moon, and less than three years after NASA was created. It is the largest cut in terms of percentage of funding since NASA’s inception.

This means that many programs will be cut, including existing space programs, future space programs already under development, and outreach programs for high school and college students. Programs centered on earth studies to predict weather and advance the understanding of how the climate emergency impacts crop yields and weather will also see severe cuts. Many future programs that have received funding and are still in development are slated to be eliminated altogether, meaning that funding already allocated and spent on those projects will be wasted.

“We have seen the President’s budget request. If it is passed by Congress, then that will include cuts to satellites and probes already doing science in outer space,” said Finch.

A published story in The Space Review concluded that Trump’s NASA budget was “deeply flawed,” and summed it up with three words, “unprecedented, unstrategic, and wasteful.” The report further criticized the cuts for it’s deprivation of vital resource investment on the heels of the Artemis moon program and future plan to take humans to Mars, a time when funding should be increased, not decreased for those projects.

NASA STEM Programs Supporting Youth Intellectual Development Will Be Cut

A mother of one of the civil servants presently working at NASA spoke on behalf of her son, who always dreamed of working at NASA. “His job at NASA was like a dream come true. Like a lot of other NASA employees, his job is on the line. By defunding science and research, by defunding NASA, we are taking away our kids dreams and futures,” she said.

Another NASA employee who did not give their name said, “This administration said that NASA has no place doing engagement and outreach with learning. It’s critical for NASA to engage so we can inspire the next generation of scientists, engineers, and professionals so NASA can solve the big problems like climate change and getting to Mars.”

One might argue conversely that if the same policy were applied to the Department of Defense, which incidentally spends tens of millions of dollars annually on advertising and recruitment outreach, the DoD would suffer the same fate as will certainly happen as the result of RIFs of NASA civil servants and RIFs at other agencies.

NASA Inspired Generations Towards Science

There are many stories about how NASA created synergy around interest in science and technology because NASA developed a grassroots interest and sense of pride in arcane subjects. NASA scientists and engineers showed others what could be. If one could dream something, then why not strive to make it come to be? Such was the idea presented by President John Kennedy in 1962 when he said “We chose to go to the moon,” before an audience at Rice University Stadium. The dream to walk on the moon took flight at that very moment. It came to be on July 19, 1969, just seven years later.

But it was not getting to the moon and walking on it that was the payoff. It was the impact of the technology development and advancement, scientific achievements and undertakings by civil servants dedicating themselves to novel ideas that propelled the country and the world forward.

Great advancements were achieved in computer hardware, software and interface with equipment as the result of NASA funding for development and applications, using existing science and understanding of materials.

The concept of ‘software engineering’ and the ‘software engineer’ came into the lexicon of science speak as the result of a software coder, a woman named Margaret Hamilton, whose team began writing the computer code in 1965 to help Apollo missions successfully reach the moon. She also developed the concept of programming code for a real-time recovery of a computer failure so it could self-reset its system when its code failed to properly calculate its position (known as an exception). She thought of the idea when her daughter was with her watching a simulation test run by astronauts practicing for a mission. In her curiosity, her daughter’s hand flipped one of the switches controlling the guidance system. Hamilton thought to herself, what if this happened in space? There would be no recovery. Thus her daughter was the impetus for creating a recoverable software solution.

This process saved the Apollo 11 crew from having to abort its moon landing when certain unplanned conditions overloaded the lunar module Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) with a “1202 alarm.” The ability of the AGC to reset its own code in real time with no adverse consequence to the lunar module orientation it was controlling, was a revolutionary advancement in computer science. The concept of computer code reset is one example of the many accomplishments—too many to note here—made by NASA scientists and engineers.

Some Of NASA’s Extraordinary Achievements

NASA innovation has transformed life as we know it. Its progress has resulted in technology development that has and will continue to benefit the public. NASA has listed the most recent product development of its technologies since 1976, and these are presented on a NASA website named Spinoff.

The NASA website notes, “When Congress created NASA, it mandated the agency disseminate its innovations as widely possible. To that end, the Technology Transfer Program was created in 1964, and it has functioned under various names ever since, making it NASA’s longest continuously-operated mission.”

The ability of NASA to lead in space exploration and achievement was made possible by the diligence of its civil servants and contractors. Some of its noteworthy achievements include:

The Apollo program which successfully landed four teams of two astronauts on the moon and successfully returned them to Earth between 1969 and 1972. Apollo 13, a mission which almost resulted in losing three astronauts in space, demonstrated that NASA was capable of rewriting the manual of a mission from the ground and returning a stricken spacecraft to Earth. It rewrote the process for redundancy and safety on space travel. Since 1972, no human has returned to the moon.

The Voyager inter-planetary space program, consisting of spacecraft Voyager I and II which were launched in 1977, is credited with being the first interstellar probes to exit the influence of the sun’s solar flux and leave the solar system in 2012. These missions continue returning data about the cosmic flux to Earth for scientific study. Voyager I has a gold-plated record attached to it with recorded music and greetings in languages from across the Earth.

Voyager Mission design layout c. 1977. The Voyager I and II deep space missions are continuing to provide vital data 48 years from their launch and decades beyond their expected end of mission date. Image courtesy of NASA

The Perseverance Mars rover explorer landed on Mars in 2021 and included a payload of an operational laboratory, multiple cameras, sample tubes for later collection, and an autonomous, independent, unmanned autonomous vehicle helicopter, capable of flight in the thin atmosphere using its own computer guidance software program. The miniature helicopter named Ingenuity was self-charging, weighed about 4 pounds and flew 72 missions before a computer miscalculation resulted in a hard landing, it proved so successful that its mission was extended several times over. It was the first vehicle to independently fly on a planet other than Earth. On its underside was attached a small piece of cloth from the wing of the Wright brothers’ Flyer aircraft flown at Kitty Hawk in 1903.

Deep Cuts to NASA Are A Setback To Space Exploration And Technological Advances

The budget cuts to NASA would decimate not only scientific research and discoveries in space, it would have a significant impact on technological developments on Earth, according to a published report by Northeastern University. The extent of the budget cuts at NASA “[C]ould end up costing the U.S. more in the long run,” said Jacqueline McCleary, an assistant professor of physics at Northeastern University. McCleary said that decommissioning programs already underway creates additional costs. The programs cannot just be turned off.

The programs NASA has undertaken and completed have resulted in industries that have benefited everyone. GPS and cellular phones and communications are a few of the examples of how NASA has provided global benefits.

Jonathan Tuttle, a supporter of NASA, its scientists and engineers, summarized what was at stake: “Looking up to the stars and wondering what they are is something our ancestors have done ever since we gathered around campfires long before history began. NASA’s legacy is that it delivers the dream of flight to all of us. The warlords and petty tyrants don’t own the stars. We own the stars!”

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Reverend William Barber III led Moral Monday protest in Washington DC which resulted in the arrest of several dozen clergy. Photo: John Zangas / DCMediaGroup

Washington DC—William Barber III led scores of clergy in a Moral Monday action with a walk to the Supreme Court in opposition to the spending bill presently being considered in the Senate. He warned Congress that they would be inextricably tied to “policy murder” if they passed their “morally corrupt” budget bill poised to be voted on within days, if not hours.

The towering civil rights leader was dressed in jet black, reflecting the solemnity of the moment, except for his vestment, gold and brown, with black and white cloth. As he spoke from the Supreme Court sidewalk, a single vocalist sang “Walk With Me, Lord.”

He led scores of clergy from many churches across the country in a procession carrying 50 life-size cardboard coffins with placards attached to each showing the number of people who would be victims of the loss of Medicare benefits in each of the 50 States. The estimated number of deaths from loss of Medicare were projected to be 51,000 in the first year alone. The coffins also showed the numbers of people from each state that would lose Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. Each coffin also bore a sign stating, “This coffin represents policy murder.”

“There’s something evil when you’ve got power and you’ve got free healthcare simply because you got elected to office but then you want to block the people from having healthcare,” said the Reverend, ripping Congress for its “greed” and “wickedness.”

Barber further blasted NC Senator Tom Tillis, who yesterday came out in opposition to the budget bill when he said, in effect, his party was “making a “mistake” by supporting the bill. Barber spoke with conviction when he told the audience, “This is not a mistake. This is policy violence. This is policy murder. That’s why we brought these caskets today.”

Reverend Barber pointed out that Congress already knew there would be a projected 51,000 deaths in the first year alone due to the Medicaid cuts, and since Congress already knew that, their goal to enact the bill, could not, by definition, be a mistake.

“The reason it is evil and wicked and mean and bad is because it is all rooted in money and the love of money.” He repeated the Biblical precept “The love of money…,” and a woman nearby him finished “…is the root of all evil.”

He urged the media to stop repeating Trump’s talking points because Trump was calling press conferences “to distract us anytime the news is talking about what is really going on.”

Barber also urged media to not call the bill by the name given it by Trump. “It’s not a ‘beautiful bill’, it’s a big, ugly, damnable, dangerous, deadly, destructive bill,” he said.

It was clear that Reverend Barber had moral sway over the many hundreds assembled at the rally. As he spoke, their rapt attention to his words, plain but powerful as they were, provided a sort of soothing calmness to the audience, despite the oppressive heat and the dangerous moment of social injustice hanging before them.

After several speakers gave testimonials of what losing healthcare and SNAP benefits would do to their families, Reverend Barber led dozens of clergy towards the U.S. Capitol in an act of defiance and against police orders to not proceed onto Capitol grounds.

U.S. Capitol police began to swarm around the slowly marching group of clergy as they neared the entrance to Capitol grounds. The protesters laid the coffins on First Street in an even row and lined up in prayer. The group of about 50 were given three warnings from Capitol police over a bullhorn. Police then arrested them.

Reverend Barber was not arrested. He remained on the sidewalk and spoke to the remaining group of supporters, telling them that other protesters were then inside the Capitol Rotunda and protesting the bill at that very moment. They, too, were arrested. Barber remained on the sidewalk for a time singing with those assembled there before leaving to return to a nearby church to get out of the heat.

The budget bill, as “damnable and dangerous” as it is to the working class and citizens dependent upon benefits, extends far beyond that in scope and destruction of the ‘New Deal” and liberal socity envisioned by Franklin Rosevelt. The extent of the damage it may cause to democratic institutions may not be known for some time, as amendments and changes to the bill were still ongoing in the last week. What is becoming clear is what this bill collectively represents:  the greatest transfer of wealth from the middle class to the billionaire class, in the history of the United States.

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U.S. Department of State Photo: John Zangas/ DCMediaGroup

Washington DC—Former employees of the Department of State assembled outside the diplomatic headquarters on Friday, warning that reductions in force (RIFs) under Marco Rubio will imperil, if not fundamentally eliminate, U.S. diplomatic capabilities abroad. The assembled group was unmistakably striking in that it included active federal employees and federal employees already RIFed, as well as federal employees from other agencies already affected.

Outside the Harry S. Truman State Department building, lines of metal barriers and special police blocked access to the diplomatic headquarters, although it was clear that the limited number of those assembled posed no threat to the offices. Several groups of supporters held signs and banners. Federal workers from other agencies such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Department of Education, agencies which have been virtually eliminated, also spoke at the rally.

Just hours after the federal workers rallied, it was expected that about 2,000 diplomats and their support teams from 132 different departments would soon be issued termination notices. The RIFs at the Department of State were a part of wider government agency RIFs ordered under Executive Order on February 11, 2025, and implemented under the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (Doge). The American Federation of Government Employees, the AFL-CIO, and other unions filed suit to stop the mass firings and on May 9, 2025, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston of the U.S. District Court of Northern California issued a temporary restraining order to halt the firings. The case is presently on appeal to the Supreme Court awaiting a final ruling which is expected any day and will more likely than not, result in the RIFs being carried out.

Speaker: U.S. State Department Will “Lose Credibility As A Supporter of Democracy”

On the sidewalk, a mist began to fall as speakers tore into Secretary Marco Rubio for his hypocrisy in what they described would become a critical flexion point for ending U.S. support of democratic governance in countries abroad who rely on U.S. diplomatic support.

Caroline X, a federal employee presently working at the Department of State said she expected to be let go within the next few days, and warned the RIFs would cause the U.S. to “lose its credibility as a supporter of democracy and as a global leader.” Caroline X wished not to give their full name or indicate what projects she worked on. She also said that in addition to eliminating many vital programs supporting vulnerable democratic governments, the RIFs create a “vacuum which will eventually be filled by countries like China and Russia.”

Caroline X also slammed the management of the RIFs, saying that “The way it’s being done is so haphazard and chaotic. It’s showing the world that no one is in charge, and no one knows what the hell they’re doing. Right now, we don’t even know who is in charge at the Department of State, Secretary Rubio or Doge or someone else.”

She listed several of the many programs that would be cut because funding and support staff would be eliminated: combating disease, fostering diplomacy, accessing the internet, combating disinformation, programs that empower people around the world, and programs that encourage multiple religions to coexist. These are but a few of the many factors vital to functional democracies abroad.

Federal workers must speak out about RIF impacts and lost services

Gabriel O’Malley, an enforcement attorney who worked at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said “Now is the time for federal employees to come out of the shadows that we’ve been working in and talk to the public about the work we do.”

He explained that federal workers “are under attack by a coordinated effort of disinformation, untruths, and outright lies” coming from the Trump White House “with a unity of purpose to demonize us and make the American public think we are wasteful, lazy, and useless when the opposite is the truth.”

He also said that by speaking out about what they do, federal workers were making sure that people understand what services would be lost and what negative impacts it would have on the public.

He also urged federal workers to support each other across agencies at other rallies and actions.

U.S. Department of State RIFs and program cuts “Will Make U.S. Less Safe, Less Strong, and Less Prosperous”

A statement issued by Save U.S. Diplomacy, a group of foreign affairs experts and citizens, was read during the rally. It reads, in part:

“It appears Secretary of State Marco Rubio is moving forward with firing thousands of State Department employees and eliminating 132 offices. This irresponsible move comes at a time of war in the Middle East and in Ukraine, and spreading instability across much of world; when American adversaries are taking advantage of the administration’s chaotic retreat from diplomacy and soft power. The State Department employees targeted work to prevent conflict, stabilize fragile states, defend democracy, protect human rights, combat disease, end famine, promote free speech and internet freedom…the Trump administration is signaling that it plans to eliminate these functions without thought, conscience, or understanding of the consequences. These firings will make America less safe, less strong, and less prosperous.”

Harvard Kennedy School Report Proposal Ignored or Reversed

In 2020, the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School, published a report arguing that the U.S. was not prepared for the coming diplomatic challenges it would face in the next decade. Its executive summary reads, “The United States Foreign Service is confronting one of the most profound crises in its long and proud history. At a time of pandemic, recession, and mounting global challenges, our nation’s career diplomats find themselves without the support, funding, training, and leadership they need to represent the American people effectively overseas and in Washington, D.C.”

The report proposed that the State Department undertake 10 major initiatives to upgrade its structure, modernize and train its diplomatic corps’ competencies, and strengthen its field operations. Some of these include:

—Congress should pass a new Foreign Service Act to reshape the Service for the decades ahead and set the highest standards for diplomatic readiness, expertise, and leadership.

—Direct a relentless focus on diversity as a first-order strategic priority. Diversity is an essential element of producing high performance. America’s diplomats should be representative of the American people, their values, and their aspirations.

—Strengthen the professionalization of our diplomats through a vastly expanded career-long program of education and training that focuses on mastery of substantive foreign policy issues, diplomatic expertise, and leadership.

—Initiate a wholesale overhaul of the personnel system to make it more modern, flexible, transparent, and strategically oriented to future challenges and workforce needs.

—Seek legislative authorization and funding for a Diplomatic Reserve Corps, like the military, with annual training requirements and activation commitments. This will create a surge capacity in the event of a national emergency or international crisis and open opportunities for citizens with special skills to support American diplomacy.

—Create a stronger and more nonpartisan Foreign Service by expanding the number of ambassadorial and senior Washington assignments for career professionals.

Of the 10 recommendations proposed, the State Department is effectively reversing all of the Harvard Kennedy School proposals under Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

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An art installation at the U.S. Capitol attracted scores of admirers in a short period on Friday, June 27. Photo: J. Zangas/ DCMediaGroup

Washington DC—An anonymous artist has set up untitled installation art near the U.S. Capitol revealing their interpretation of the state of the U.S. presidency. The prop consists of a golden gilded television, a golden gilded eagle atop it with its wings spread, and golden laurel, resting on a grey column. A plaque is attached to the column with a raised quotation from the White House itself: “In the United States of America you have the right to display your so-called “Art” no matter how ugly it is.”

The TV screen projects a muted short television show consisting of a series of poorly edited clips depicting an oddly cumbersome Trump dancing at various events. A cut-away to a short clip of Trump and Jeffery Epstein at a party in the early 1990s is also included, but poorly spliced into the clip. The Trump-Epstein clip is made to jump in part from frame to frame like an early nickelodeon out of sequence with itself.

The Epstein reference is significant in that it references the dregs of a lawful society. Trump was depicted having a good time at a party with Epstein and Epstein was later imprisoned waiting trial on charges of sex trafficking of minors. His partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, was later convicted and sentenced for sex trafficking minors.

The short silent film is significant in that it is the only authentic part of the installation. The viewer sees Trump as he really is and who he hangs out with, and the picture show is the antithesis of statesmanship.

The setting of the installation requires the viewer to watch the TV show with the U.S. Capitol in the background. The Trump presidency exists with the consent of those in power within the legislature; though he has been twice impeached on sufficient grounds to remove him during his first presidency, he was not removed from office. And he was reelected.

In a short span of 15 minutes on a Friday afternoon, dozens of people came by to gawk and photograph the golden monstrosity, in spite of a misty rain falling. The installation drew countless curiosity seekers to it and caused conversations among strangers with similar worries and concerns. It exposed truth from underneath a thin golden veneer.

A rather large and aggressive man sat in a chair nearby admonishing anyone who touched the installation. He scolded one viewer for touching the column to see if it was real stone, yelling out, “How would you like it if someone thumped you in your head?” It wasn’t clear if he was actually a part of the installation.

The message of the prop is clearly a direct criticism of the Trump White House, its gaudy retrofit of the Oval Office with its golden artifacts all throughout, its triumphant ascendancy to the seat of power of a world power, and its inability to see itself in the reality which others see it.

Why display clips of Trump on television?

Television was discontinued decades ago as digital communications came online, rendering analog television signals obsolete and forcing television antennas to come down. Laurel is usually depicted as green, symbolizing vitality and youth. To preserve it one would need to gild it. As a gilded artifact, it too is a metaphor of something that is long past its prime.

The ancients, the Roman and Chinese, were master guilders and ornamented their tombs and monuments with gold leaf or gilded them with precious metal alloys. This prop is in effect entirely gilded, and at that, overdone and gaudy. It is saying there is nothing new to see here. This has been tried before.

The golden gilded eagle, normally a symbol of power and majesty, is in reality also a criticism of the Trump White House. The eagle was placed at the top of Nazi Germany buildings and in its parliament. It was often used as an ornament for kings and royalty. The Romans used it to symbolize power.

The inscription on the base of the column was a quote by a White House spokesperson in response to another article installation depicting a crushed head of the Statue of Liberty with a golden thumbs-up hand. It was installed in the same place in response to the President’s military parade held on June 15, two weeks ago. In the days it was displayed, it was photographed by thousands. Another installation before it depicted an oak desk with a pile of crap on it—a criticism of the January 6 2021 coup plotters who have all been pardoned.

Finally, the art installation rests on a grey column. There are no memorials or official buildings of the three branches of government supported with grey columns. The Supreme Court, U.S. Capitol, and White House; and the Lincoln, Jefferson, and Washington monuments, are all made with white marble. The color of the stone is significant in that it does not fit with the traditional architecture of Washington DC, nor with the grandeur of the pre-gilded Oval Office

The installation has all the hallmarks and elements of a Banksy production, but it could not be determined for sure who created the installment or assembled the prop. Previous Banksy art has been unauthorized painted silhouettes left abandoned in major metropolitan spaces. Many of Banksy’s works were installations inspired by political events or social injustices.

Whoever created this installation has hit a satirical grand slam in the protest art realm with the real imagery and unedited words of the occupants of the golden gilded White House.

 

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Three friends joined grassroots protests at Tesla Takedown. Photo: John Zangas / DCMediaGroup

Washington DC—If the “No Kings Day” mass mobilization proved anything, it was that many Americans are very unhappy about Trump’s policies and his ICE roundups of migrants and green card holders across the country. Millions came out last Saturday in towns and cities across the country to take part in over 2,000 non-violent civic actions in opposition to his policies. Estimates placed the number of participants at between five and 11 million.

A multitude of civic actions significantly exceeded the “Hands Off” mobilization seen in cities on April 5, when an estimated several million took part in that event. In the DC-MD-VA region, No Kings Day included scores of Visibility Brigades banner drops coordinated by 1000s across Virginia. In Maryland, the group Rise Up also coordinated bridge banner drops. A 5-mile hands across Arlington demonstration drew thousands. The Tesla Takedowns continued in many locations across the region for their 19th consecutive week. On the day before No Kings Day, veterans groups protested in Washington, DC, and many took over and occupied the U.S. Capitol steps, where nearly 60 were arrested.

The Tesla Takedown boycott line this week was fresh off last week’s’ No Kings Day protests and still managed to draw healthy numbers.

On its 20th Tesla Takedown, the Arlington group, spearheaded by the grassroots organization Third Act, Northern Virginia, recognized Juneteenth as its theme. Organizers read out a list of quotes by civil rights leaders of bygone eras and the boycott line responded “Juneteenth.” Another speaker called out a list of issues Americans wanted resolved and the boycott line resounded their support.

Many have found a niche to support the weekly Tesla Takedowns in Arlington, which continue to draw increasing support from motorists each week who honk or give a thumbs up in support as they pass. One participant brought buttons which the line handed out to motorists; another brought snacks and drinks to share, while others brought ice, a wagon of signs, music and speakers to dance to, an awning for shade, and chalk. But everyone brought spirit and joy to encourage each other from succumbing to fear and hopelessness caused by the national trauma this authoritarian regime is wreaking in communities across the country.

One Third Act organizer, Lawrence MacDonald, said that he believed the sustained Tesla Takedowns created space for others to organize actions with their own theme. He added that the success of Tesla Takedowns helped the launch of other actions like the We Of Action (WofA) Bridge Brigades and the Hands Across Arlington action, organized by Indivisible and WofA. Both actions have drawn in 1000’s of participants to community safe-spaces expressing their displeasure with the rising authoritarian oppression across the country.

Tesla Takedowns Play A Role In Fractured Regime

A psychologist and podcaster specializing in the examination of political figures and the intersection of progressive politics, philosophical insights, and mental health, recently published his analysis of the Trump regime. In his published monologue, Dr. Russell Razzaque proposed that there is increasing weakness in Trump’s ability to reach a state of absolute control over American society. Absolute control is necessary for authoritarian regimes to flourish.

Dr. Razzaque first began publishing discussions of how Trump’s mental health impacted his behavior in politics, governance, and national policy after the January Inauguration. His findings give resistance fighters much to hope for—as long as they persist in their actions and continue developing a variety of strategies along nonviolent methods.

Dr. Razzaque points out that authoritarian regimes depend on three major avenues to consolidate power. He compared the power dynamics of an authoritarian regime to a three-legged stool requiring each leg to firmly remain in place for it to continue to stand and maintain its power and control. There are signs everywhere that the authoritarian stool is becoming wobblier. It is unable to fully support Trump’s objectives of absolute power and control over the population. But is it on the verge of collapse?

According to Razzaque, an authoritarian regime must accomplish and maintain three main objectives:

1) It must sufficiently suppress the people to acquiesce, make them afraid to resist, protest, or engage in protest against the regime,

2) The regime must have the ability to control the military to do what is required of them from the regime, and

3) The regime must hold firm and stay united and not have any fractures whatsoever.

Intimidation Tactics Against Citizens Falter

The first main goal of an authoritarian regime (the first leg of the stool) is to cause the population to acquiesce through suppression and fear. It must convince the population not to turn out to protest or engage in activism. It does this by creating false crises by which to declare emergencies. It arrests those who do not obey its emergency constraint. But the Trump regime is failing in this task because organizing and protests are expanding significantly and have been growing in leaps and bounds since February. And this is occurring while the arms of Trump’s apparatus curtail liberty, detain dissenters, and disappear vulnerable members of the community.

Tesla Takedowns continue unabated since mid-February. Even though Elon Musk has dropped out of the public view, Tesla Takedown boycott lines have not stopped their weekly protests. They are not fooled by Musk’s absence in the public sphere because the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) continues to wreak havoc with federal agencies and departments across the government, including the Department of Defense. (By the way, it must be agonizing for Musk’s ego to be sidelined and not be able to capture the world’s attention he once enjoyed, because narcissistic personalities thrive on being noticed to build their image.)

Tesla Takedowns have created space for others to get involved since early February, when the protests started, as hundreds of federal workers began staging protests outside their agencies, and as DOGE first began its takeover of federal agencies, firing workers and stealing information from databases.

Federal workers aren’t going away either. They have been continuing to protest outside agencies such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Health and Human Services. On Tuesday a group of fired Federal employees plan a rally at the Hart Senate Office Building.

The Presidents Day protests organized by 50501 in mid-February drew hundreds of thousands across the country. The Hands Off protests on April 5 drew several million, and the No Kings Day nationwide protests drew between five and 11 million participants. Clearly, organizers and activists are not afraid of being on the streets or showing up in big numbers. And the increasing numbers reflect reduced control over the population.

The ICE roundups of migrants and immigrant holders of green cards are another example of Trump’s slipping control over civil society. The roundups are drawing increasing resistance as communities shed their fear and confront ICE agents and begin to challenge them in the streets. At first the immigrant communities cowered in fear of the illegal kidnappings and disappearances, but now communities are mobilizing and rising up when agents show up.

A delegation of clergy showed up at immigration court hearings according to a published report in Times of San Diego, and ICE agents quickly left the courthouse. “On
World Refugee Day, masked immigration agents weren’t leaning against the off-white walls, waiting to grab people. They scattered Friday after seeing a clergy delegation led by Bishop-elect Michael Pham,” according to the published report.

Guerrilla journalist videos published on social media platform Bluesky show instances of enraged communities taunting, chasing, and even running ICE agents out of hotels, shopping centers, and housing developments. This is a far different scenario, and one which no one could have imagined in April, from when ICE agents began raiding businesses, restaurants, and immigration courts to increase their deportation numbers.

Keeping Generals In Line—AKA Herding Cats

The military birthday parade for Trump was a $45 million flop. A published report leaked inside information that “Trump reamed out Hegseth” over the empty bleachers, unsynchronized marching soldiers, and the poor turnout of tens of thousands of viewers instead of the anticipated quarter million. The parade equipment allocated by generals included vintage squeaky tanks and drones hand-carried by out-of-step troops. It was a far cry from the “menacing” machine Trump wanted for his birthday. “It didn’t send the message that he apparently wanted, which is that he was the commander- in-chief of this menacing enterprise,” according to the Daily Beast.

For that, Trump lit up Hegseth with a tongue-lashing, according to presidential biographer Michael Wolff.

DCMediaGroup photo comparisons reflect that there were far more people attending the April 5 “Hands Off” rally against Trump’s policy agenda than there were in the stands viewing the military parade.

The reason for this comes down to the present state of generalship in the armed forces. Many experienced generals have been relieved of duty based on diversity, ethnicity, and inclusion (DEI) reductions carried out by Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth.

Hegseth has also forfeited a significant component of leadership. Trust and confidence in him from his subordinate senior leaders at the Pentagon has flatlined in the wake of Hegseth’s Signalgate Chat scandal. Chief Editor Jeffrery Goldberg of the Atlantic revealed he was mistakenly included in a chat thread of released classified information related to real-time U.S. military attacks on Yemen. The fallout over his bombshell first-witness report damaged the reputation of the Office of Secretary of Defense (OSD). Hegseth’s integrity was called into question during a meeting at the Senate Arms Committee. Further, the OSD is having trouble finding qualified personnel to staff its critical functions in the wake of the public ridicule Hegseth received. The Signalgate story lingers in military circles like an eagle with a broken wing and it drags down the ship of the Department of Defense like an anchor on the sea floor. As long as Pete Hegseth remains, he will be seen like a crack in the armor of respect for the U.S. military.

Generals and their subordinates engaged in “malicious noncompliance” in planning and carrying out the parade, according to Dr. Razzaque. They did what was required and no more. This is a sign that Trump has rickety loyalty at best among his generals, who, in turn, mistrust Secretary of Defense Hegseth.

Internally Divided Authoritarian Regimes Fold

There are many outward signs that the internal dynamics of the Trump regime are as fractured as a fracked coal mine.

The GOP senators so far cannot agree on Trump’s spending bill because it will eliminate so much social support from their constituents. Red states are heavily dependent on Medicare coverage and SNAP benefits, and these are major priorities slated to be cut under the spending “Big Beautiful Bill” also known as HR1. Veterans’ benefits will also be hammered.

Steve Bannon, once a major Trump supporter and former White House Chief of Staff, has stood up to Elon Musk and Trump over Musk’s plan to hire foreign workers on H-1B visas. He has also challenged Trump over the recent attack on Iran. Tucker Carlson, also once a big Trump supporter, is firmly against another war in the Middle East. He lambasted Senator Ted Cruz over his support of an attack on Iran, during a multi-hour interview.

The public social media meltdown between Elon Musk and Trump on the afternoon of June 5 was the crack that calved the iceberg.

In a series of tweets on X and Truth Social, the dueling narcissists chopped each other to bits. It began with Musk’s criticism of Trump’s spending bill as being too expensive and wasteful. Musk also criticized Trump’s tariffs. Trump said he would have won the state of Pennsylvania without Musk’s help. Musk argued Trump would not have won without his help. It escalated further as the day wore on. Trump threatened to cancel Musk’s government contracts and Musk tweeted he was canceling the Dragon Crew Spacecraft project, the only space vehicle capable of carrying astronauts to the International Space Station. He also called for Trump’s third impeachment and alleged Trump’s name was in the Epstein files and that was why they were not released. Trump called Musk “crazy” and implied he was a drug addict. He also said he was selling his Tesla.

The dramatic irony is that Tesla Takedowns have won the golden grail of activism: getting the President to say what they had been saying since the first day of the Tesla Takedowns: sell your Tesla.

The volley died a semi-quiet death as cooler heads prevailed in the days to follow, but the fireworks of that day left much damage to the Musk-Trump presidency. The damage lingers.

There were other tiffs, such as public insults of Peter Navaro at the hands of Elon Musk. These public fireworks demonstrate that the Trump regime is really not marching to the beat of a single drum. It’s in disarray and, as more opposition rises to oppose it, it will undertake more drastic measures to force people to acquiesce to its demands. However, by continuing to resist Trump’s regime and in supporting each other and allies in different campaigns, the people can and will grow more formidable.

A Harvard study of social movements and opposition to authoritarian regimes determined it takes 3.5% of a population to effectively change the direction of such regimes. The ‘3.5 Percent Rule’ study found “Nonviolent protests are twice as likely to succeed as armed conflicts – and those engaging a threshold of 3.5% of the population have never failed to bring about change.” No Kings Day came close to or exceeded that number, with many millions showing up. The key is the people must remain committed and courageous enough to persist.

Trump has always wanted to be respected and worshipped like a king. He wants recognition and has expressed a desire to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Who knows, when it is all said and done, it may be American protesters who win the Noble Peace Prize, not Trump.

 

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Veterans rush U.S. Capitol Steps and stage symbolic sit-in over deployment of active military to LA Streets. Screen grab: Iron Snowflake

Washington DC—Nearly 100 Veterans and a few supporters jumped over police barriers, pushed past Capitol Police lines, and took over the U.S. Capitol steps for about an hour on Friday. Video provided by journalist Iron Snowflake depicts the moment the group of Veterans surprised U.S. Capitol Police when they rushed over the metal fences and overwhelmed them. Capitol Police quickly called reinforcements but it was too late.

The action was partly in response to the President’s Military Parade which was to be held Saturday. The deployment of active duty troops in Los Angeles streets in the wake of ICE raids across Los Angeles was another reason for the action. The action was also in response to increasing wait times for Veterans benefits due to staffing and medical doctor reductions at VA healthcare locations across the country.

The U.S Capitol building video also shows police attempting to hard-arrest several of the Veterans as they ran towards the Capitol steps. One Veteran in his 80s, who is a Vietnam Era Veteran, was also arrested and placed in zip-ties. His walker was left behind as Capitol police escorted him away.

Veterans unfurled a giant 50 foot banner reading “Veterans Say Military Off Our Streets” as they sat on the steps. They also held smaller signs reading “Money For People Not Parades,” and “Benefits Not Bullshit.”

All the Veterans were later released after posting a fine and forfeiting their trial for trespassing on Federal property. None of the Veterans attempted to enter the U.S. Capitol proper.

On January 6, 2021, the same U.S. Capitol police force allowed several thousand far-right insurrectionists to break through windows, trespass through hallways and doors, and force their way into the House and Senate chambers. This occurred while the House was already in session to certify the State’s votes for the Presidential election that year as provided in the Constitution. None of the attempted coup participants were arrested that day, although one was shot and killed while attempting to break into the Democratic leadership office. U.S. Capitol police allowed all the insurrectionists to leave without arrest. After President Biden took office, FBI and DoJ investigations identified the insurrectionists involved and arrested, charged, and referred them to trial. Trump pardoned them.

The arrest of the Veterans on Saturday was comparatively much more in line with how U.S. Capitol Police normally enforce law when civilians push past their lines and onto the Capitol steps.

Dave Otto, one of those who observed and took part in the civil disobedience, wrote about why the Veterans were there in a blog post he titled ‘The Line We Chose To Cross.’ He compared the justice of the veterans’ civil disobedience to the injustice of the right-wing participants of the January 6, 2021 coup attempt.

“No one came to battle the Capitol Police, smear shit on the walls, or hang the Vice President. That was never the point. This wasn’t about theatrics or confrontation for its own sake. It was about bearing witness—to a future worth fighting for,” he wrote.

The banner and signs bespoke the obvious reasons for the civil disobedience. Veterans Benefits are being delayed because all throughout the Department of Veterans Affairs, doctors and staff are being cut. Veterans are also concerned about the Presidential activation of National Guard troops onto Los Angeles streets for an emergency created by the President’s own deployment of ICE there. ICE is rounding up thousands of migrants and green card holders and the central cause of chaos in cities throughout the U.S.

Veterans are also alarmed at the deployment of active military to conduct local law enforcement as a result of the ICE caused chaos. California Governor Gavin Newsome has filed suit over the activation of the Army National Guard without his authorization.

Otto described the Veterans group itself was diverse as the country should be, ”There were Cold War vets among us. Vietnam vets, an old fellow in a red shirt with a Ho Chi Minh quote on the back. Gulf War veterans and seasoned peace activists who knew this rhythm well. Those from the post-9/11 wars—it was something newer, something rawer. The war stories the younger vets carry are still hot to the touch.”

Veterans Action Warns Of Things To Come

Several hundred active duty Marines were deployed from Camp Pendleton to Downtown Los Angeles last week in response to protests, in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, a statue signed into law in 1878, limiting the deployment of U.S. military forces on U.S. soil for domestic police enforcement.

According to a published report, the Marines reportedly detained an Army Veteran attempting to seek treatment at the Department of Veterans Affairs Healthcare Center which is inside the Federal building they were guarding.

On Monday, a published story in the Guardian reported that benefits can be denied based on several discriminatory factors such as political affiliation, marital status, or sexual orientation. According to the report an Executive Order authorized the change to Veterans benefits accession.

Denial of Veterans based on political affiliations, marriage status, or sexual orientation is likely to be challenged in Court by Veterans Service Organizations.

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A Visibility Brigade banner over Route 50 in Northern Virginia was one of over 50 bridges bespectacled with ‘No Kings Day’ messages. Photo: John Zangas/DCMediaGroup

Northern Virginia—Over 50 bridges staffed by thousands of volunteers on Saturday for a day-long action upstaged Trump’s birthday parade by raining messages unfit for a king. The Visibility Brigades targeted freeway overpasses in the nation’s capital focused on rejecting his Red Square styled military parade. Tanks, Humvees, and armored vehicles tore up DC streets, with Helicopter flyovers, at a cost to taxpayers of over 45 million dollars.

The actions were carefully planned by We of Action (WofA) and coordinated over several months to reach thousands driving into Washington DC to watch the military display. After months of planning and rehearsals at bridges across Northern Virginia organizers felt they were onto something big which could reach 10s of thousands. Many others joined in by bringing their hand-made signs, flags, their spirit and zeal to support the national ‘No Kings Day’ protests. The action was not anti-Army or anti-Veteran but anti-King.

Other groups and individuals also took part in the multi-bridge action but were not available for comment as of publication. A similar action planned by Rise Up also took place in Maryland. The actions were part of a nationwide resistance campaign which has been growing in size and ferocity as the regime continues rolling out its post-constitutional policies.

Hundreds of passing motorists signified their approval by honking their horns as they passed. At one of the bridges a passing woman stopped to join them after seeing the banner. He young daughter brought a small piece of paper with a hand written note and she joined the banner line.

One of the operational volunteers said that these were unprecedented times which called for a significant and unique response. “This regime does not know how to govern so it tries to dictate,” said Lara C, a person speaking on behalf of the WofA Visibility Brigades. “There’s a little thing called the U.S. Constitution where there are three co-equal branches of government and there are no kings,” she said.

The local actions were a demonstration of the ability of grassroots groups and local citizens to coordinate complex, regionally distributed actions of scale. The organizers brainstormed over a series of in-person and online meetings to build the signage and plan the action. There were no incidents or arrests reported and organizers appraised local city officials of the actions before they occurred.

Although June 14 also falls on the U.S. Army 250th anniversary, there was no mistake that this military display was intended to steal the Army Birthday’s thunder from its Service-members and channel it to one man. He was after-all scheduled to be seated in an observation kiosk while the Army passed in review to honor him. No president has ever done this before on their birthday in the nation’s capital.

Lara C. pointed out that Visibility Brigades has also been showing up on area bridges since May for other significant events such as ICE raids and roundups, Medicaid and SNAP cuts, and Veterans healthcare. The Visibility Brigades had not coordinated as much a mass messaging event as it did today for No Kings Day.

Minnesota Senator Assassination Stirred Safely Concerns But Citizens Showed Up Anyway

The action went off as scheduled despite heightened security concerns over the assassination of one Minnesota State Senator and attempted assassination of another earlier on Saturday. Several bridge captains said they were on heightened alert but aside from the disappearance of banner letters from one of the bridges, there were no reports of incidents at any of the bridges.

Editor note: This story was amended to reflect more accurate Visibility Brigade participatory numbers as well as parade costs.

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“Veterans Benefits Not Parades”

Washington DC—Local grassroots groups have been rehearsing their measured response to Trump’s Stalinesque military ruck march slated for June 14. The military parade will tear up DC streets with Army tank squadrons, heavy military trucks, and Humvee vehicles, but the grassroots groups will be nowhere near it. Anyone traveling to Washington DC will get the first read on the people’s resistance messages along nearly every major highway bridge as they travel to watch the $54 million boondoggle.

The groups themselves will not be showing up to protest the military parade because they decided not to give Trump additional attention unlike the mainstream media. Attention is what he craves according to one of the organizers and spinning up any more energy for the military spectacle would only benefit him. So, they brainstormed ways to effectively undercut it with visibility brigades. The idea struck them as perfect for reaching 1000s several times a week to spread public consciousness of how chaotic and hurtful this regime is.

Some of the groups have already rehearsed the visibility brigades and driven under the bridges themselves so they know the messages will be visible from a distance with concise, impactful messages to the motorists passing by. DCMediaGroup joined them during one of their regular actions and many of the passing motorists honked frequently with approval.

According to organizers the message is to support the military Veterans but let them know many oppose Red Square sequels of tanks and armaments for a dictator in the U.S. capital. Another aim is to let those know who oppose it that there are many that believe it is inappropriate to celebrate a president’s birthday as if he were a king with a personal army. The organizers are not making a statement against the Army, they’re making a statement against this regime’s latest budget bill, which has yet to pass the Senate. If passed, the bill will hurt Veterans, Seniors on Medicare, families relying on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and the disabled who cannot work.

It will be the first time a president has ever held a military spectacle to celebrate their own birthday in the nation’s capital.

Organizers Built A Grassroots Organization Letter by Letter, Bridge by Bridge

Micaela Pond, Founder of We of Action (WofA), said “We started out as five on one bridge and quickly grew to 18 in a short time.” She described that they were being strategic about their messaging. She also said the group “was not anti-military but pro-democracy.” WofA began by calling itself “Women of Action” but changed the name to better reflect their more general demographic.

Pond also said that when you’re getting so many honks of approval “it’s like an elixir for your soul.” She remarked that a sister group “Rise Up” has also taken up the bridge banner action and will also drop banners throughout Maryland bridges on June 14. “We are here to save democracy—we don’t want kings,” she said.

Pond described how they assembled large 3-foot black background foam boards and affixed giant white letters they cut out from white foam boards. Each board had to be purchased with members own money. They held banner building parties to get ready.

Another WofA member, Christopher Adair, who is a law student and in his early 20s, helps WofA with their communications. He wanted to get more youth interested in civic engagement after the 2024 election disaster. He turned his shock and disappointment in the presidential election into action. He said that their first meeting drew hundreds of young voters out, and although his interest is fighting poverty, the Visibility Brigade was something that drew so much interest he was energized by it. He speaks passionately about what he has done working with WofA.

Lara C, one of the operational volunteers for the Visibility Brigades, found out about the group WofA while at a Tesla Takedown boycott line. She is a first generation Latina with a strong sense of social and moral justice.

She read off the 17 different messages the bridge banners will display from a spreadsheet she helped create. One bridge banner will read “No Kings,” another will read “Defend Rights Not Rulers.” She confirms there will be a lengthy presence at the bridges and shifts of teams will staff them. There is much planning and coordinating logistics with the bridge captains which has taken months to plan and organize.

One of the keys to succeeding is the modular and interchangeable styled lettering and placement along the different bridges. Having many letters means messaging can be refocused and reused. Every detail was carefully considered to make it work. She takes pride in her part. There are many others involved also. There are many parts to play. Her roll is key and she is thorough.

Aside from all that and perhaps the most important underlying reason for her being at the bridges, is her worry that the ICE roundups could target her personally as well as her friends because of their ethnicity. So she joined the banner drop actions because it felt to her like it was an effective action and it also felt empowering. She believes it will be making an important statement against the many ongoing unconstitutional actions and outright lies coming from this regime.

“Then They Came For A Union Leader” was rehearsed in Northern Virginia as a statement to the unlawful arrest and detention of David Huerta, the president of SEIU California, who was arrested by ICE during protests against immigration raids in Los Angeles. Photo: WofA

She repeated a quote from Gavin Newsom as her motivation to be out on the bridges, “The most important office is the office of the citizen.” She adopts it and repeats it as her own because it reminds her of what’s at stake as more democratic guardrails disappear every day.

She also admitted to printing several copies of her birth certificate and laminating them to wear around her neck because she was so disturbed about the ICE roundups playing out across the country. She is an American citizen but deeply mistrusts those involved in the unlawful ICE roundups, detentions, and removals to other countries without due process.

She says she is “mourning her country” and she wants her “country to work for everyone.” “Right now it’s working only for the elites and billionaires and the President’s Cabinet who are not even experts in their fields,” she says. “Doge is a landfill of white mediocrity,” she adds.

Editor’s note: Changes were made to clarify the name of the action to reflect ‘Visibility Brigades.’

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Arlington, VA—-On World Pride Day the Tesla Takedown boycott line spun resistance twirling rainbow parasols, wearing rainbow lei necklaces, and dancing to a resistance line-up of music over two synchronized speakers. If not for the commitment of the core team of rotating organizers and the continued zeal of the line, it’s likely the most successful corporate brand takedown in terms of diminished Tesla stock value and brand damage, would have fizzled out months ago. But it lives because the organizers and citizens persist.

The Pride theme was promised and delivered in lively color—as members of DC’s own grassroots collective Rainbow Defense Coalition joined forces with grassroots organizers of Third Act to bring the boycott back to Tesla on South Glebe Road for its 18th consecutive weekend. And the boycott line is not close to getting monotonous as evidenced in the weekly video report below.

A member of Rainbow Defense Coalition dressed up as ‘Rainbow Spartacus’ with a giant “Honk” sign over their head to draw in the passing motorists. And honk they did. The noise was at times deafening. For those who opened car windows, several passed out some of Bob’s coveted hand-made protest buttons and urged them to join the fight against an elected party gone rogue-fascist all over democracy. Some drivers promised to join the Tesla Takedown next week.

The Tesla Takedown in Arlington has the strategic advantage of a nearby traffic light periodically stopping motorists and giving the line an opportunity to do community outreach about why they are there. Many drivers already understand and pass by with a thumbs up blowing their horns. Their 10-second horn blows may be the only act of resistance they commit to in this country’s period of peril. But there are still drivers who have yet to understand what is at stake. So the brief reaching out provides an opportunity to inform them with short message flyers and resistance buttons.

The Tesla Takedown boycott line danced in the heat decked out in rainbow radiance under a billowing white-cloud sky in a party-like atmosphere but it was no time to celebrate. The heat was almost overwhelming and the tensions across the country are leading to a moment of truth about when and where citizens will confront the State directly. Also the George Soros checks didn’t come in the mail; at least that’s what everyone there reported.

Tesla Takedowns Fueled by Continued National Events which Energize Resistance

All over the country realization set in that the country crossed the Rubicon into fascism as the ICE round ups went into high gear, disappearing thousands without due process, and taking them to undisclosed locations. Citizens in LA, NYC and Minneapolis, began confronting ICE and local police. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the California Army National Guard to active duty. But such orders usually take days to carry out. Hegseth also threatened to deploy the Marines stationed at Camp Pendleton to LA streets, to which California Governor Gavin Newsome responded, “This is deranged behavior.”

Federalizing Army National Guard Troops without coordination with the States’ Governors, the highest ranking person authorized in the State to carry out such an act, is one thing, but placing active duty Marines on the streets to confront citizens exercising First Amendment rights is in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act,an 1897 law limiting the Federal Government’s authority to use Federal troops to enforce domestic laws and statutes.

ICE Roundups Across Country Trigger Protests And Cascade To Tesla Takedowns

If there remained any doubt that a functioning democracy had already died here then anyone still doubting it had missed their 10th grade high school history class covering this part of history and the historic context of the ICE raids now ongoing in their communities.

Anne Frank wrote in her diary on January 13, 1943, as she observed from her window from the attic above the street, issuing a warning to the future, “Terrible things are happening. Poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart. Men. women, and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared.” The date may as well have been June 7, 2025.

The ICE arrests and disappearances of 1000s every week are a trigger to escalating street confrontations and are building towards something more likely than not that will spark more serious unrest. The current confrontations are driving the Tesla Takedowns to continue as well.

The public meltdown of the bromance between Trump and Musk early in the week seems like ancient history compared to the ICE mass arrests. But it has also kept Musk in a negative news light with an edge of hilarity. It also tanked Tesla stock value by 14% in one day.

The Trump Regime Won’t Stop Once The Migrants Are All Disappeared

The Tesla Takedowns have every reason to continue for those who want to resist Trump and Musk but aren’t so much into police lines, concussion grenades, rubber bullets, and tear gas. But one could also argue that those seeing terrible things happen to their family members, as Anne Frank wrote, watching the men, women, and children disappear at the hands of ICE, without due process or a day in court, didn’t just pick up decide to confront ICE. ICE sought them out. The regime called ICE under the supposition that brown people were criminals but also, in defiance of the Constitution, it didn’t allow them Habeas Corpus, or the opportunity to defend themselves to prove otherwise in court, because if they were in fact criminals the regime would have published the offenses in a court of law.

This fledgling regime could find any reason it wanted to go after other groups of people like citizen protesters defying it. It could easily go after those in the Tesla Takedowns or the bridge banner drops or journalists or the minorities so far spared. It just needs to find an excuse to do it. Eventually an authoritarian regime goes after anyone or anything that doesn’t conform or attacks anything it perceives is in its way.

The post Tesla Takedown Gives Nod To Gay Pride appeared first on DCMediaGroup.

A rainbow sign reading “Love is Love,” was attached to the metal fence erected around Dupont Circle.

Washington DC—

Saturday Morning Update:

The $200,000 metal fence barricading Dupont Circle, Wash DC, site of the annual #WorldPride gala, is being removed due to “public safety” yet another example of the Trump regime backtracking from its flawed policies. On Saturday morning, National Park Service ordered its contractor to remove it less than one day after it had erected it. The removal followed intense advocacy by local groups such as Free DC Project, local ANC representatives, and many others.

Friday Afternoon:

The National Park Service set up 8-foot metal fences and gates blocking entrances to Dupont Circle Park on Friday beginning at 4 am. Dupont Circle Park is the site of the annual Gay Pride celebrations which are to begin Saturday, June 7. The National Park Service police were nearby supervising the contractor who was reportedly paid $200,000 to put up the metal fencing and gates. The same contractor will be installing the metal fencing and gates for the Trump birthday military parade on June 14, next week.

Pride organizers were caught off-guard by the last minute development. The contractor was nearly finished setting up the last gate as of Friday afternoon, entirely blocking off access to the Park, one day before the World Pride Celebrations were to begin.

As word of the barricade spread, a group of bikers mobilized and rode around the circle. They chanted “Take down the fence!” and shook cowbells while they rode. Others took photos of the fencing which also blocked the sidewalk circling the park.

Dupont Circle Park is in a trendy section of Washington DC, and is overseen by the National Park Service, which falls under the responsibility of the Department of Interior, a branch of the Federal Government. The central part of the park is a white marble Memorial to Rear Admiral Samuel Francis Dupont, surrounded by a white marble fountains.

It was 50 years ago this week that Gay Pride held its first celebration outside a bookstore named “Lambda Rising” which was then the symbolic greek letter of for gay-friendly establishments. In 1975 about 2000 attended the celebration. By 2010 over 250,000 took part in June weekend celebrations which eventually became known as Pride month.

During the last half-century, the park has seen multiple generations of the LGBTQIA community celebrating their orientation at its water fountains, the gathering point after the annual Gay Pride Parade. And in that time it has grown to a national event. But this June it was planned to be an unfettered international event, until the authoritarian forces began oppressing minority groups, such as migrants, trans military service-members, and muslims from 14 countries.

A few rainbow pinwheels managed to remain inside the metal gates, and were spinning in the wind, likely put up earlier in the week before the contractor began installing the fence. The pinwheels remained inside the fence as of Friday night but it was unlikely that there would be any Pride celebration inside Dupont Circle park this year.

In past years the park has been the scene of a massive collective of convergent humanity celebrating its early 1970s birthright of freedom of expression, of oppressed people come out, to be as they are, without fear or shame.

The metal gated fence is an exact replica of the metal fencing put up outside the White House during the 2020-21 National protests in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by Mineapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin.

In June 2020, thousands rejected the fence and turned it into a protest statement and public referendum on police violence across the country. A 24-hours grassroots protest grew out of the movement for Black Lives Matter. Thousands left photos, signs and banners attached to the fence, turning it into a protesting zone and later, a shrine, lasting until Trump was ousted six months later.

One rainbow sign had been attached to the Dupont Circle Park fence by 5 pm, reading “Love Is Love,” but more were expected to be attached to the fence as the weekend wore on.

The post Dupont Circle Barricaded On Eve Of World Pride Gala appeared first on DCMediaGroup.

The Pentagon. Photo from files: ©️ DCMediaGroup

Editor’s note about the author:  Lex King is a Department of Defense employee, who was involved in multiple diversity groups and cultural celebrations. They are writing under a pen name to avoid retaliation. Their views are their own and not the Department of Defense.

First, they grounded the Tuskegee Airmen. Then, they silenced the Code Talkers.

They swatted the WASPs, sold the Enola Gay for scrap metal, and chiseled away one of the men at the center of the Marine Corps Memorial.

For someone so concerned about lethality, the only things Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth seems interested in attacking are multicultural potlucks. Thus far, he’s banned military academies from using affirmative action, ordered defense agencies to review their libraries for ‘woke’ books, and kicked openly trans service members from the ranks. Not to mention, the Department’s digital content refresh, which scrubbed any material promoting DEI from official websites and social media accounts.

Unfortunately, Hegseth has repeatedly failed to clearly define what he considers DEI, and in the rush to comply, agencies erased some of America’s most distinguished service members…all while repeating the importance of “meritocracy.” The Red Tails are remembered for their role in racial equality, but they’re also remembered as one of the most successful bomber escort squadrons of World War II. They should be the prime example of meritocracy. Instead, they were briefly wiped from course curriculum of Air training programs.

Those mishaps expose Hegseth’s true motive. He believes in meritocracy—as long as the meritorious individuals are straight white men. Anyone else isn’t an example, but a threat.

Hegseth and fellow members of Trump’s cabinet painted diversity programs as divisive and wasteful. That extended to observance months, like Hispanic Heritage Month and Pride Month, which Hegseth canceled in the inflammatory memo, “Identity Months Dead at DoD.” Some components took it a step further; a leaked memo from the Pentagon’s intelligence agency also canceled events related to two federal holidays: MLK Jr. Day and Juneteenth. This memo release was reported in the New York Times and by AP.

Federal holidays are established in law by Congress. They all go through the same voting process and have the same status, yet as we near Memorial Day, a telling trend is unfolding. If observance months and federal holidays were truly a fiscal responsibility issue as claimed, then all 11 federal holidays would be treated the same. No social media posts. No workforce emails. No guest speakers, or celebrations, or other commemorations.

Yet on May 23, DoD published an article on their news page, “Patriotic Military Events Planned for Memorial Day Weekend at Coca-Cola 600 Race.” The very same type of article that had been commonplace for Juneteenth, before it was banned.

To be clear, I don’t believe the Department is inherently wrong for recognizing Memorial Day. They absolutely should, just as they should afford equal treatment to all 11 federal holidays. Hosting a Memorial Day event while banning MLK Jr. Day and Juneteenth, when all three days share the exact same designation, is treating the events differently based solely on “DEI.”

What do Juneteenth and MLK Jr. Day have in common? The advancement of civil rights, the reflection on past wrongdoings, and the celebration of Black culture. Let’s cut through the smoke and mirrors. These holidays were targeted due to racial prejudice. Three events, all with the same status in U.S law, received different treatment due to a protected characteristic—textbook discrimination. It may not violate the letter of equal opportunity law, since it’s aimed at an activity and not a person, but it certainly violates the spirit of it, and it leaves a dark shadow hanging over the 2025 Memorial Day observances.

In previous years, hallowed, sacred days like Memorial Day were spent in quiet reflection, humility, and gratitude. They felt heavy with the weight of sacrifice. This year, it’s heavy with something else: Tension.

When Arlington National Cemetery scraped diversity-related content from its website, it seemed like even our most venerated veterans were under attack once again. At the very same cemetery, one can stand—as I have many times—outside the amphitheater and watch the Changing of the Guard ceremony. Sentinels from the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment have guarded the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier every minute of every day since 1937. They even remained at their posts when black smoke poured from the Pentagon on 9/11. It’s one of the most prestigious assignments in the U.S. military, yet Sentinels don’t wear a rank. That way, they never outrank the individuals entombed.

Hegseth clearly knows the importance of the Tomb of the Unknown. He’s participated in wreath layings there before. But here’s what he seems to be missing: the Sentinels don’t know the names of the Unknowns. They don’t know their stories. They certainly don’t know what they looked like, and it doesn’t matter. Their devotion to the memorial remains steadfast, regardless of these details.

None of us know the Unknown’s heritage, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. Right now, maybe that’s a good thing.

After all, if their lives don’t align with Hegseth’s distorted view of a meritocracy, how far would he go to make the Unknowns truly, completely, unknown?

 

The post The Myth of Meritocracy: Diversity will Never Die appeared first on DCMediaGroup.

Three friends of many years join the Tesla Takedown. Photo: John Zangas/DCMediaGroup

Arlington, Va—As the weekly Saturday boycott line began winding down, Lawrence MacDonald read a list of issues over a bullhorn to about 50 who were compelled to return to week 17 of the Arlington Tesla Takedown. “Medicaid! he shouted, “Hands Off!” the group responded. “Social Security!” “Hands off!” they repeated. “Due process!…” He continued down his mental list of the many government agencies, services, and rights already hacked to pieces by Musk’s so called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and after each one they respond as if dutifully bound, “Hands off!” When he ran out of issues others shouted their reasons for being there. This went on for a while.

In the street behind them, passing motorists continued honking and partially drowning out their replies. A truck blasted its airhorn drowning them out altogether for a few moments. Someone cheered back, “Woooo Hoooo!” This delayed MacDonald’s closing comments further but gave an opening for others to speak.

With the passing months, the motorists have gotten much more into the mix of people dancing with joy, waving and cheering, reading the signs and their weekly Tesla Takedown boycott message outside the showroom on South Glebe Road. Many motorists seem to expect them to be there and have laid the sauce on thick with honking and thumbs up, sometimes disturbing the residents nearby.

Recently a resident came out to ask them to keep the noise down because he had guests to visit and lived right across from the Tesla. Someone from the boycott line threaded their response between polite and rude that the country was facing an authoritarian takeover and a little disruption while they were fighting it in the streets wasn’t going to do him or his guests any longterm harm such as this regime would do him. He left flustered. The Tesla Takedowns have continued.

Another tall muscular man they call Gus, took the bullhorn next and had something important to tell them. He had been watching youtube videos of Serbia protests. He compared the Tesla Takedowns to the actions long-standing protests in Serbia where its citizens are fighting the populist government of President Aleksandar Vucic and its crackdown on students and university professors opposing his strong arm dismantle of democratic freedoms. “Those folks out there are just relentless. They’re making a difference by getting out there every day. They’re persevering and that’s what its all about,” he said.

He also said this Telsa Takedown had the most honks of any location he had been to. He urged them to keep coming and get more to join by passing out flyers inviting others to join.

Others were doing more than their part aside from showing up. They brought friends with them. One lady in her 70s brought two friends in her age group, their long grey hair belying their age. Others much younger stood just up the line from them. It was their first time at a Tesla Takedown.

A man who runs a fulfillment business brought eight bags of his pin-up buttons which he said makes by hand, offering them free to anyone who wanted them. They cost him 50 cents a piece but he brings hundreds which are given to motorists who stop to say thanks. Bob, as they refer to him, wears his baseball cap with the buttons neatly displayed around its brim. “Have you tried my newest button edition?” he asked. It depicts a cartoon image of clown-like Trump dressed in an orange crown and a red X over his face.

Others have printed hand flyers and bumper stickers for anyone who stoped and opened their window to accept them. One of the stickers depicted a coiled snake and reads, ‘They’re Already Treading on You, Sweetie’ a poke to the Libertarians who pass by to join the line.

Tesla Takedowns Met Their Objectives

Much has come as a result of the Tesla Takedown boycott lines. They are continuing far longer than anyone imagined they would and they have been far more influential on the downfall of Tesla brand and its corporate reputation than anyone imagined they would be.

A published report in Electrek, a news and site that tracks and analyzes the transition from fossil-fuel transport to electric transport, reported a large Danish Construction Company Tschening, is returning its entire fleet of Tesla electric vehicles over Musk’s political association with Trump. The company CEO stated his company did not want to be “associated with the values and political direction that currently accompany the Tesla brand,” according to the report.

Tesla sales are down sharply globally even though the global demand and market for electric vehicles is growing as many begin to transition from fossil fuels to electric sources for their transportation.

A published report in Carscoops said Tesla sales for the month of February dropped 76% in Germany, 72% in Australia, and 66% in the European Union. China reported a 50% drop in sales during this period.

ElecTrek reported Tesla sales in the U.S. were down sharply even by its own standards; a drop of 15%, with a “record of inventory not seen in years.” The report further indicated that the reason sales were off so much was due to “brand damage” during the first quarter .

A story in TC said that Tesla’s attorneys had filed a warning with the Securities and Exchange Exchange Commission in April that “negative perceptions resulting from the protests, along with the broader criticism of the company, “may harm our brand and our business (including sales) and make it more difficult to raise additional funds if needed.”

And a story published in Truthout, told of how Tesla EV company saw a 71% drop in profit since the beginning of 2025 in part due to the onset of Tesla Takedown protests outside its showrooms.

In the Bulwark on Substack, Johnathan V. Mask wrote, “The anti-Tesla movement is one of the most successful cases of social coordination in American history. In the span of six months the Tesla brand has been made radioactive.“

Tesla Takedown Purpose is Evolving

But many are coming to realize a key fact about the Tesla Takedowns which has slowly come into focus over the past two months. They are about much more than attempting to damage Elon Musk’s reputation and separate him from his money. It was easy in the early days for boycotters to say that when all this began. When Musk’s DOGE government interlopers forced themselves past security protocols, accessed the information held in the Federal arm of government, and removed Federal workers, the issues spurring the boycott lines were straightforward. Now things are different. They’re more complicated.

In the balance of this failing democracy hangs the liberty and rights of individuals weighed against the increasing wealth of the ultra rich like Musk. Taking down Tesla’s brand by handfuls of citizens resisting Musk and his DOGE team was their initial response. But now their purpose has morphed.

This Doge intrusion into and removal of government data, and illegal shutdown of many government services, terrible as it was, seems diminished in many ways compared to what is happening now.

The Tesla Takedowns are in fact evolving and their purpose is becoming even more important. This is because the last liberal guardrail of checks and balances of power standing is the Judiciary branch itself and it is imperiled as it is beginning to fail to hold the Trump regime to account.

Bedrock constitutional rights such as Habeas Corpus, the rights of U.S. Citizens to have public due process—to appear in court—to know their charges, to understand why they are being detained, and to be provided legal defense, are being denied to migrants and citizens alike. These are bedrock principles of the U.S. Constitution. This is happening to migrants workers and students as well who have green cards and are well on their way to citizenship.

Birthright citizenship rights are also being swept aside by the Trump regime with its growing hunger for power. And the regime is now ignoring or gaslighting many rulings of U.S. District Court Judges and even the Supreme Court on these issues. This threatens to sweep aside Judicial power altogether.

The bedrock ruling of the 1803 SCOTUS ruling in Marbury v. Madison, established that the Supreme Court was vested with the power and the final say of interpreting the constitutionality of law. Trump said he did not know if he was required to uphold the constitution, even though he twice took such an oath to do so on January 20, 2017 and on January 20, 2025.

The talk at the Tesla Takedown boycott line reflects a growing sense of unease that there’s much more at stake at the boycott lines than just Musk, his EV sales, and Tesla stock values. The boycott line is beginning to accept that they will be among those in the last guardrail checking the Trump regime power takeover in the U.S. government

The people are the last guardrail of power balance in any democratic government. What they decide to do about it will be the next chapter written in this country’s history.

The post Citizens Persist at Tesla Takedowns; Pace For Long Race Hard Road appeared first on DCMediaGroup.

Chester an affectionate mascot has joined the Tesla Takedown boycott line. Photo: J. Zangas/DCMG

Arlington, VA—The DC Maryland and Virginia community refuses to stop their weekly stands outside Elon Musk’s Tesla Electric Vehicle Company showrooms. Their efforts to cast the car company in an unfavorable light has succeeded far beyond their initial hopes in February when handfuls of them first stood in cold weather with their hand made signs and their will.

Their boycott lines have catapulted from social media and into the mainstream media talkshows. They have affected Tesla sales, damaged its stock value, by spreading their boycott message across the country. Their boycott message has also spread internationally to the European Union and to Australia.

They showed up again on Saturday and Sunday this weekend for the “sweet sixteenth” week. One man brought his dog, they affectionately named Chester, who is in his sixth week of coming to the Tesla Takedowns. He gets plenty of pets and has assumed his place as a mainstay. Another person who barely escaped an oppressive regime with their parents has brought their son, an early 20-something youth just out of college and exposed to resistance for the first time. Someone brought their child to the boycott line. Others bring food, water, snacks and sign-making materials. Another has brought protest buttons they made to distribute to passing motorists. Someone else brought flyers to encourage others to join the boycott line.

They are driven in part by escalating incidents of harassment from the regime and its acolytes against resisters. Judges, law firms, universities, Federal agencies and the leadership, and institutions that have stood up against Trump have become targets of retribution. This has destabilized democratic institutions hut has also fueled the resistance of the boycott lines to continue their repeated Tesla showroom protests.

They are also compelled by a sense of justice and compassion for others who are suffering from the abuse of power by this regime. The Trump regime wants to break institutions by force, demoralize the vulnerable by abusing them, and instill fear by creating chaos where the rule of law previously guided social order. The Tesla Takedowns are much more than anything else about ordinary citizens with no other connection other than their humanity, fighting for a just society. So they show up with zeal, find humor and express bonafide joy, and encourage others to keep going.

Three political scientists wrote in a New York Times op ed that the US had “Crossed the line into competitive authoritarianism.” But to the boycott lines the evidence of an inexorable march to full-blown fascist state was plainly visible months ago. It’s just that the mainstream media cannot acknowledge it or refuses to waken to this fact.

The odd collection of ordinary citizens come from most every walk of life—Boomers, Millennials, X-Gens, and Zoomers have all shown up—and here and there members of the late Silent generation have joined the boycott lines. Because they remember life in the world when Hitler lived and nearly brought the world destruction to Europe, The Middle East, and Asia.

Tesla Takedowns offer them a few hours to share their thoughts and vent about what is happening to their government and communities. They look forward to seeing each other and sharing ideas about what to do next. They network about other grassroots groups taking actions elsewhere. Some of these groups represent organic community resistance just like the Tesla Takedowns. Some of them have come to the afternoon Tesla Takedown at Arlington after first having gone to another action elsewhere earlier it the day. And it takes a toll on them physically and emotionally. They feel they have no choice but to keep fighting because there’s so much at stake. To quit now means to accept defeat.

All around the country there are similar actions taking place led by citizens just like them. They see the posts, photos, and videos on social media. It also fuels their fire to keep going. Locally there are other groups doing much of what they are doing, just in different ways. It drives them like a locomotive.

There’s a group linking up during rush hour to hang banners and signs from bridges with messages the passing drivers understand. “No Kings,” is hung from I-395, “Moms Say Save Medicaid And Snap,” hangs over Route 50, “Honk,” reads yet another. They are composed of giant interchangeable block lettered signs strung together like giant billboard signs and held in place by bungee cords. And they play their part in some way—even if the only act of resistance that the passing motorists do that week is to honk at a sign in approval. Seeing others taking a stand is something they’re going to remember later in the week and perhaps they’ll join in to hang signs from the bridges. The organizers say this is how their numbers have grown by hundreds since February.

Another group stands in for Drag Queen Story Hour to provide a citizen-led neighborhood watch against trouble from religious extremists and Proud Boy groups that have previously harassed the Drag Queens and families who were attending the readings. These groups also meet weekly.

Yet another group has been protesting outside the El Salvador Embassy in downtown Washington DC over that country’s illegal incarceration of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Abrego is a green card holder, married to an American citizen, and in the process of gaining his US citizenship. Yet he was still disappeared by ICE without due process, flown to El Salvador, and locked up in dungeon conditions at CECOT, a notorious concentration camp.

A group is gathering at the court house in Maryland protesting against the arrest of migrants without given due process, held indefinitely without habeas corpus, as constitutionally required. And these are not one off cases—there are many of these cases winding through the courts, perhaps 1000s, no one knows for sure because ICE is not releasing information about where they are or who they are.. There have also been several children born in the U.S. to migrants and by constitutional authority ought to and should be deemed American citizens, yet they have been arrested by ICE too.

So these issues compel the weekend Tesla Takedowns and the other weekly actions to continue because there are so many issues created by this regime. And the issues are getting more blatant as the regime gets more desperate with its diminishing support percentages based on polling.

The Tesla Takedowns serve as a way for the citizens to find stable ground and organize themselves to ready for worsening conditions likely to come as the regime continues its assault on what is left of individual rights and democratic institutions.

But much more importantly, the boycott lines are being acknowledged as having a devastating effect on the bromance between two of the world’s most famous narcissists, Trump and Musk.

According to Sherrilyn Iffyl, a civil rights attorney, writing in her substack blog, “the bromance” between Trump and Musk, “is over.” She further writes that their “rift was caused, it appears, by some combination of Elon’s arrogance…Trump’s recognition that Elon’s unpopularity was potentially dragging down his poll numbers…[and] the press questioning whether Elon was serving in fact as a shadow president – an affront to Trump’s massive ego.”

Iffyl notes in particular that the Tesla Takedowns have taken hold and fanned the flames of regret among jTrump and his cabinet that Musk was welcomed as an integral part.

“Most of all the #TeslaTakedown protests were particularly effective. Trump likes a winner and the death of Tesla as a marquee brand as a result of these wide-ranging protests made Elon toxic for Trump. Springing up organically in communities throughout the country, these overwhelmingly non-violent protests outside Tesla dealerships were populated by midwestern grandmas, middle-aged men and women on the coasts, college students, Gen Zs, and suburban Moms and Dads across the country. Even more powerfully, the protests took on an international dimension, with Tesla Takedown protests extending to Europe and Australia.

“The protests have been so far reaching and sustained that Musk’s ego would not allow him to believe that people can hate him that much. His insistence that protesters must have been paid to participate in demonstrations is a testament to the cluelessness of a man who would think it was hilarious to brandish a chainsaw while giggling manically in glee at how effectively he has slashed and burned the jobs that form the livelihood for of the American workforce. Yes, Elon, people who need their jobs to survive, who want medicine, believe in science, support equal rights and justice, and most of all want to believe that when they are too old or ill to work, their country will not consign them to destitution and homelessness with no health care, really do hate you that much,” she wrote.

Tesla protesters often joke among themselves about whether or not anyone has received their weekly Soros checks but so far no one has come forward with one. They joke that they still hold out hope for their compensation. The reality is that there will never be remuneration.

Someone has to pay for the gas and the supplies, the wear and tear on the cars getting them from point to point. It’s costs are out of pocket for everyone involved. There’s no funding and no funds to draw from. Nothing is free. And time on the line means other life priorities get pushed aside. Its the price they willingly pay for a chance to hasten this regime’s downfall to the dustbin of history.

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