Category: Election

KPBS / April 7, 2025

At least five UC San Diego students had their F-1 visas “suddenly” revoked by the federal government, and a sixth student was allegedly detained at the border, denied entry and deported, Chancellor Pradeep Khosla said over the weekend.

Khosla said the university received the notification “without warning,” and that the federal government has not explained the reasons behind the terminations. The students have been notified and the school is working directly with them to provide support, he said.

By Michael Moore / Substack / April 8, 2025

This weekend, MILLIONS OF PEOPLE took to the streets of America to protest Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and what this administration of dangerous idiots, creepy billionaires and outright white supremacist fascists are doing to this country.

MILLIONS OF PEOPLE! There were 1,500 registered protests and hundreds more that just sprung up spontaneously in places where nothing had been planned but people said… “F*ck it! Let’s just go down to the courthouse!”

You would think this would be front page news. This would be blasting every 20 minutes of “Breaking News” and “This Just In!” and “Happening Now in the Situation Room!”

But, according to CNN, it was “scores of people” and USA Today said it was “tens of thousands” which was at least more than FOX News which said it was just “thousands of people.”

They refused to believe that MILLIONS of everyday Americans left their homes and packed tens of thousands of streets — even though they knew in advance there were over 600,000 people who had already RSVP’d to rallies nationwide weeks before the protests even started! And if you’ve ever met any Lefties and Independents and Traditional Non Voters… we don’t sign up for ANYTHING. For every 1 person who RSVP’d there were at least 8 who said, “Dude, I’ll just show up, why do I have to RSVP? This isn’t a bridal shower!”

The election for the San Diego City Council is over a year and a half away, but already candidates are jostling for position for the District 2 race. Because current councilmember Jen Campbell is termed out, there won’t be an incumbent for new candidates to run against.

Those who’ve already declared — or near to declaring — are the following:

• Andrea Schlageter has been head of the OB Planning Board for years and also heads up the city-wide City Planners Committee;
• Point Loma neighborhood leader Mandy Havlik; she ran for the seat in 2022 and is involved in the Point Loma- OB Democratic Club; Havlik focused on maintaining the city’s 30-foot coastal height limit for development and fighting proposals for higher-density housing she argued would damage the character of beach communities;

Here are numerous photos of Saturday’s massive “Hands Off” protest in downtown San Diego. They’re from Byron Morton and Igor Goldkind in no particular order. There were so many great original signs brought by San Diegans that many of the photos focus on them.

Thousands of San Diegans rallied today, Saturday, April 5th, in downtown at the Civil Center Plaza. The massive crowd of perhaps 10,000 marched through downtown to the US Federal Building.

by Ernie McCray

As I read it,
the 25^th Amendment of the Constitution
says, to put it in a layman’s term,
that if the president,
when it comes to
discharging
the powers and duties
that the job requires of him,
is lacking,
then that president can be sent packing,
which should get us to asking
why we haven’t let our president go
on his non-merry way
since there is no one on earth
who could be more inefficient
at leading a nation
than the one we’ve got,

Rallies in Encinitas and Oceanside

On Saturday, April 5th, San Diegans and Americans across the country are taking to the streets to fight back with a clear message: Hands off!

Here in San Diego, we’re rallying at the San Diego Civic Center Plaza — next to City Hall — at  12 noon. Location: 1200 Third Ave, San Diego, CA 92101

About this event

Donald Trump and Elon Musk think this country belongs to them. San Diego is fighting back!

They’re taking everything they can get their hands on—our health care, our data, our jobs, our services—and daring the world to stop them. This is a crisis, and the time to act is now.

This mass mobilization day is our message to the world that we do not consent to the destruction of our government and our economy for the benefit of Trump and his billionaire allies. Alongside Americans across the country, we are marching, rallying, and protesting to demand a stop the chaos and build an opposition movement against the looting of our country.

Parallels and pushbacks from national and local politics — Comments on Ready, Set, Grow San Diego, City of San Diego

By Anne S. Fege, Urban and Community Forester / March 27, 2025 

The first 60 days of this Administration have diminished and dismantled equity, science, and respect, and there are parallels to the local “Ready, Set, Grow San Diego” (RSG) project.   Even as the $10 million urban forestry grant will contribute modestly to climate action, it could have gained so much more in community engagement and equity. Seeing and hearing the national impacts in these 60 days now shows me great parallels. I will continue offering suggestions and advising community groups and I will not be silent, afraid, or withdrawn.

Diminished equity. 

• As this Administration attempts to “erase DEI,” I am reminded that “climate equity” was approved and celebrated by the Mayor and Council, yet this RSG grant falls short in several ways.

Pro-democracy critics warn the presidential directive “represents a significant overreach of executive power and poses a direct threat to the fundamental right to vote.”

By Jon Queally / Common Dreams / Mar 26, 2025

Voting rights groups and pro-democracy advocates responded with uproar after President Donald Trump on Tuesday evening issued what they warn amounts to a far-reaching “authoritarian power grab” in the form of an “unlawful” executive order that would restrict voter access nationwide and punish states that make it easier for citizens to have their political preferences registered at the ballot box.

The official executive order—under the Orwellian header “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections”—would do the very opposite, warn critics, by making it more difficult for tens of millions of eligible U.S. citizens to cast their ballots in state and national elections.

The order, said Brett Edkins, managing director for policy and political affairs with the progressive advocacy group Stand Up America, “is a blatant effort to usurp state and congressional authority over our elections and stop millions of American citizens from voting.”

“This is a blatant attack on democracy.” —Lisa Gilbert, Public Citizen

By Lisa Rein and Hannah Natanson / The Washington Post — Reader Supported News / March 25, 2025

A flood of cuts led by Elon Musk has sent the agency into chaos as a new commissioner prepares to take charge.

The Social Security Administration website crashed four times in 10 days this month, blocking millions of retirees and disabled Americans from logging in to their online accounts because the servers were overloaded. In the field, office managers have resorted to answering phones at the front desk as receptionists because so many employees have been pushed out. But the agency no longer has a system to monitor customers’ experience with these services, because that office was eliminated as part of the cost-cutting efforts led by Elon Musk.

And the phones keep ringing. And ringing.

The federal agency that delivers $1.5 trillion a year in earned benefits to 73 million retired workers, their survivors and poor and disabled Americans is engulfed in crisis — further undermining its ability to provide reliable and quick service to vulnerable customers, according to internal documents and more than two dozen current and former agency employees and officials, customers and others who interact with Social Security.

It’s been totally underplayed by local media, but last week on Friday, March 14, the United States Geological Survey sent out an alert for a magnitude 4.6 earthquake in the Salton Sea area.

The USGS report included details about the epicenter, the depth and how widespread the impact was.

The problem is that it never happened and the earthquake report was pulled down from the agency’s website.

USGS Public Affairs Specialist Paul Laustsen conceded the earthquake never occurred. He said:

“The message was sent in error during a system testing. There was no earthquake of that magnitude at that time or at that depth. We are still looking into what happened. This is definitely a rare occurrence.”

By David Helvarg / Los Angeles Times Guest Opinion / March 11, 2025

Last month, close to 1,000 National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration workers, including weather forecasters, were fired. The Trump administration has now told agency leaders to fire another 1,000 people. Along with 300 resignations to date this will approach 20% of its workforce.

The White House’s Department of Government Efficiency also informed NOAA that its lease on the Center for Weather and Climate Prediction in College Park, Md., will soon be canceled. The center is essential in creating accurate computer models for everything from the next severe weather front to hit farmers in the Midwest to the long-term costs of extreme weather events linked to climate change.