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At Request of Billionaire ‘Friends,’ Trump Pulls Plug on Troop Deployment to San Francisco—For Now

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Original article by Stephen Prager republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Protesters hold signs during an anti-ICE protest outside of San Francisco City Hall on October 23, 2025 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

“Maybe other cities should try to convince a wealthy tech CEO or two to keep the president from siccing his agents on them,” quipped one writer.

After threatening for days to deploy troops to San Francisco, President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he would pull back for the moment, apparently after some of his billionaire “friends” in the city called him and asked him not to.

“The Federal Government was preparing to ‘surge’ San Francisco, California, on Saturday,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “But friends of mine who live in the area called last night to ask me not to go forward with the surge in that the Mayor, Daniel Lurie, was making substantial progress.”

Trump said he “spoke to Mayor Lurie last night and he asked, very nicely, that I give him a chance to see if he can turn it around. I told [Lurie], I think he is making a mistake, because we can do it much faster, and remove the criminals that the Law does not permit him to remove. I told him, ’It’s an easier process if we do it, faster, stronger, and safer but, let’s see how you do?‘”

In a separate post, Lurie affirmed that he had spoken with Trump. He said he told the president that “San Francisco is on the rise,” and that a military occupation would “hinder our recovery.”

Although Trump is walking back his troop threat, for now, US Customs and Border Protection agents still arrived in the Bay Area on Thursday as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants.

The Associated Press reported that “police used at least one flash-bang grenade to clear a handful of demonstrators from the entrance” of Coast Guard Island in Alameda, where the CBP agents will be based.

In addition to threatening San Francisco in recent days, Trump has sent National Guard troops to Los Angeles, California; Washington, DC; Portland, Oregon; and Chicago, Illinois—where a judge has halted the deployment.

Like virtually all of the cities where Trump has either surged or threatened to surge federalized troops, San Francisco has no crime wave to “turn around.” In fact, crime has been falling precipitously in the city. Homicides dropped by 35% during 2024 and hit a 60-year low this year, contradicting Trump’s assertions that the city is a “mess” and that people there lived in constant fear of being “mugged, murdered, robbed, raped, assaulted, or shot.”

Lurie said he agreed to help Trump go to war on this imaginary crime wave, and said he would welcome “would welcome continued partnerships with the FBI, DEA, ATF, and US attorney.”

Trump said he was persuaded to hold off on the surge of troops after he was called by two Silicon Valley billionaires, Marc Benioff and Jensen Huang, whom he called “great people.”

Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, was a longtime Democrat who quickly morphed into an outspoken Trump supporter after his victory in 2024. He was also an initial champion of Trump’s proposal to send troops to San Francisco, but later backed off and even apologized after facing criticism from local officials and former political allies.

Huang, the CEO of the computer tech company Nvidia, meanwhile, cut an unprecedented deal with Trump in August that allowed the company to sell computer chips in China if it handed 15% of the revenue from those sales to the federal government, which was described as a “shakedown” by one financial columnist.

Trump said that these two and some unspecified “others” called him, “saying that the future of San Francisco is great” and that “they want to give [Lurie’s efforts] a ’shot.‘”

“Therefore,” Trump said, “we will not surge San Francisco on Saturday.”

Hafiz Rashid, a writer for the New Republic, quipped that “maybe other cities should try to convince a wealthy tech CEO or two to keep the president from siccing his agents on them.”

Original article by Stephen Prager republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes' concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country's economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
Continue ReadingAt Request of Billionaire ‘Friends,’ Trump Pulls Plug on Troop Deployment to San Francisco—For Now

‘No kings’: America’s oldest political slogan is drawing millions out onto the streets

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Michael Nigro/Pacific Press via ZUMA Press Wire

Tom F. Wright, University of Sussex

Every few decades, Americans rediscover that their republic was built on a rejection – the rejection of being ruled by a monarch. Now, in one of the largest protest movements in many years, the phrase “No kings” is everywhere: on placards, online memes, and in chants aimed at a president who seems to want to rule rather than serve.

Yet the words are hardly new. They are the first note in the American political scale, the country’s founding slogan before it even had a flag.

Long before it echoed through the colonies, the slogan “No king but Jesus” rang out in the English civil war, where it was used to declare that divine authority, not royal prerogative, should rule the conscience.

When it crossed the Atlantic, colonial Americans inherited a phrase, a stance and an image that could turn theology into politics and rebellion into virtue.

As Thomas Paine put it in his 1776 pamphlet, Common Sense: “Of more worth is one honest man than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.” Republican speech was invented by rejecting monarchy.

When independence was achieved, America’s experiment rested on a paradox: it needed strong leadership but feared the aura of command. “No kings” was a self-diagnosis of a nervous republic. A way of keeping the charisma of a leader on a leash.

That allergy to grandeur shaped the early republic. In the 1790s when John Adams proposed that the president be addressed as “His Highness”, he was swiftly mocked as “His Rotundity”. The laughter mattered. It expressed the conviction that democracy could not survive reverence.

By the 1830s, this suspicion of pomp had become visual. Critics of the seventh president, Andrew Jackson, issued a famous broadside “King Andrew the First” showing him crowned and trampling the constitution. It wasn’t just partisan art – it was an act of democratic hygiene.

Image from cover of 1864 pamphlet depicting Abraham Lincoln as a king.
Abraham LIncoln depicted as a king in 1864. Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection

A generation later, Abraham Lincoln faced the same charge. During the American civil war, a notorious 1864 pamphlet Abraham Africanus I accused him of seeking to become a “hereditary ruler of the United States”. His sweeping wartime powers fed old fears that emergency rule would harden into monarchy.

Sometimes, the charge is justified. When Puck magazine in 1904 depicted Theodore Roosevelt crowning himself Louis XIV (or perhaps Napoleon), it captured the public’s mixture of thrill and alarm at his trust-busting, canal-building, imperial swagger. Citizens wanted vitality in office, but not vanity.

Image from cocver of American Spectgator 2014 showing a caricature of Barack Obama crowning himself king.
How the American Spectator depicted Barack Obama in 2014. American Spectator

Other times, the imagery seemed to speak more to American paternal longings. Take images of Dwight Eisenhower as “King Ike” in the 1950s, a genial ruler among smiling courtiers, soothing cold war nerves.

In our own century, the crown returns in sharper form. The American Spectator’s 2014 cover, “The Good King Barack” showed Obama beaming beneath a red velvet crown.

When Donald Trump triumphed in 2016, crown memes returned as America’s simplest moral shorthand for power that has gone too far.

It fell to his successor Joe Biden to officially declare, in response to the July 2024 Supreme Court ruling that Trump was not immune from prosecution: “This nation was founded on the principle that there are no kings in America.”

Why the crown keeps returning

The crown is both insult and safety valve at once. It’s an instantly legible piece of political folk art reminding citizens that authority is temporary, fallible and – like its wearer – mortal.

When protesters revive “No kings”, they aren’t just quoting the revolution. They’re translating an older language of civic republican virtue into an accent everyone can understand. No person above the law, no office above criticism, no citizen beneath respect.

The slogan reawakens the moral reflex that freedom depends on vigilance, and that dignity belongs to the governed as much as the governors.

And here’s the irony: both parties were founded on that same cry. Democrats and Republicans trace their roots to the anti-monarchical Democratic-Republicans of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, who defined their movement against the spectre of kingly power. That party later fractured, giving rise to both modern traditions.

In that sense, “No kings” was the nation’s first party platform, the point of agreement from which every later disagreement grew.

Can it still work?

In today’s fractured America, “No kings” offers something rare: a language of protest that feels constitutional rather than ideological. It has the potential to speak to conservatives alarmed by executive overreach, to progressives wary of authoritarian drift, and to independents nostalgic for civic balance.

That gives it unusual rhetorical strength. Unlike most modern slogans – “Drill baby, drill”, “Make America great again” (Maga), or “Defund the police” – it doesn’t divide, it recalls a principle. “No kings” reminds Americans that what unites them is the rejection of tyranny.

The phrase also appeals to exhaustion as much as outrage. After years of political spectacle, “No kings” gestures toward humility, order and self-restraint: the virtues both parties claim to miss.

The movement may go nowhere. But if this moment does turn out to be an inflection point, it is a fitting way to frame it.

To chant “No kings” now is not nostalgia but muscle memory. That is how a republic tests its pulse: by mocking grandeur, refusing awe and rediscovering equality in the act of saying no.

Tom F. Wright, Reader in Rhetoric, University of Sussex

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes' concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country's economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
Continue Reading‘No kings’: America’s oldest political slogan is drawing millions out onto the streets

‘Another Unlawful Extrajudicial Killing’ as Trump Expands Boat-Bombing Spree to Pacific

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Original article by Brad Reed republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

A boat in the Pacific Ocean targeted for military strike by the Trump administration on October 21, 2025. (Image: Screen shot via Pete Hegseth/X)

“This is illegal and endangers America,” said one critic of Trump’s boat-bombing campaign.

The Trump administration launched another military strike on a purported drug trafficking boat on Tuesday night, and for the first time expanded its campaign of extrajudicial killing to the Pacific Ocean.

In a social media post, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed that President Donald Trump had authorized “a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel being operated by a designated terrorist organization and conducting narco-trafficking in the Eastern Pacific.” Hegseth also said that the strike killed two passengers who were aboard the vessel.

This marks at least the eighth time the US military has attacked a purported drug-trafficking boat, although the previous seven strikes took place in the Caribbean. Collectively, the strikes have killed at least 34 people.

In the wake of the latest boat attack, many Trump critics once again slammed the administration for carrying out what they described as acts of murder.

Conor Friedersdorf, a staff writer at The Atlantic, described the attack as “another unlawful extrajudicial killing of a boat our military could have stopped and investigated.”

Friedersdorf also emphasized that these killings would be unlawful even if the people on the boats were involved in narcotics trafficking.

“Even when convicted drug smugglers go to court, they don’t get the death penalty,” he wrote. “This is immoral.”

Kenneth Roth, former executive director for Human Rights Watch, tore apart the administration’s legal argument for treating alleged drug smuggling as an act of war by a hostile foreign power.

“Trump’s rationale for his repeated murders at sea don’t hold water,” he wrote in a post on X. “There is no ‘self-defense’ because no one is attacking the United States. There is no ’armed conflict’ because there are no hostilities approaching a war.”

Jill Wine-Banks, former Watergate prosecutor and US general counsel of the Army, warned in a post on Bluesky about the dangers of further widening Trump’s bombing campaign.

“He must be stopped,” she wrote. “This is illegal and endangers America.”

Journalist Mark Jacob said he was highly skeptical that the administration was carrying out these attacks to stop the flow of drugs into the US.

“The Trump regime lies all the time,” he wrote on Bluesky. “A more likely explanation for these attacks is US imperialism: Trump wants to overthrow Maduro in Venezuela (with vast oil reserves) and intimidate Colombia (which criticized previous attacks).”

Colombian President Gustavo Petro this past weekend said that the Trump administration had “committed a murder” after one of its boat attacks killed a Colombian citizen named Alejandro Carranza, who had been out on a fishing trip when the US military attacked his boat.

Trump responded by baselessly calling Petro “an illegal drug leader strongly encouraging the massive production of drugs,” while also levying new tariffs against Colombia.

Original article by Brad Reed republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn't bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Continue Reading‘Another Unlawful Extrajudicial Killing’ as Trump Expands Boat-Bombing Spree to Pacific

‘Right Out of the Dictator’s Handbook’: Trump Sends Immigration Agents to San Francisco

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Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

People hold signs as they rally outside the Phillip Burton Federal Building to support immigrant and activist Guillermo Medina Reyes before a deportation hearing on July 15, 2025, in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Lea Suzuki/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

Accusing the president of sending in agents to cause “anxiety,” so he can then deploy the National Guard, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said, “This is no different than the arsonist putting out the fire.”

President Donald Trump’s assault on immigrants in Democrat-led cities continued Wednesday with confirmation from the US Coast Guard that its base in Alameda, California is preparing to host 100 federal agents—whose looming arrival is seen as “a likely precursor” to the Republican deploying National Guard troops to San Francisco.

The San Francisco Chronicle initially reported that agents from Customs and Border Protection (CBP)—an agency in the US Department of Homeland Security—were headed to the Bay Area, citing a source who spoke on the condition of anonymity. A spokesperson from the Coast Guard, also part of DHS, then confirmed that the base would serve as a “place of operations.”

“This support of DHS agencies continues the Coast Guard’s operations to control, secure, and defend US borders and maritime approaches,” the spokesperson said in a statement to multiple local media outlets. “Through a whole-of-government approach, we are leveraging our unique authorities and capabilities to detect, deter, and interdict illegal aliens, narco-terrorists, and individuals intent on terrorism or other hostile activity before they reach our border.”

As KQED pointed out Wednesday, the region has already seen increased immigration enforcement in recent months:

Since May, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and CBP officials have been escalating operations throughout the Bay Area, moving to have undocumented immigrants’ asylum cases dismissed and arresting them outside of courtrooms and ICE field offices.

More than 2,000 people were arrested in San Francisco’s “Area of Responsibility” between January and July 2025, according to Mission Local.

The reporting on the federal agents due to start arriving in the Bay Area on Thursday followed various threats from Trump to send National Guard soldiers into San Francisco, as he has with Los Angeles, California; Washington, DC; Portland, Oregon; and Chicago, Illinois. The president and Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee have also collaborated to deploy National Guard troops in Memphis.

A federal judge has blocked the National Guard deployment in Illinois—where ICE’s Operation Midway Blitz is ongoing—but the Trump administration has appealed to the US Supreme Court. Citing two unnamed officials, CBS News‘ Camilo Montoya-Galvez reported on social media Wednesday that Border Patrol’s Gregory Bovino, who has led immigration raids in Chicago and Los Angeles, “is expected to be involved in the operation” in the Bay Area.

Elected officials across California have condemned the deployment of federal agents and Trump’s threats to send National Guard troops. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom—a likely 2028 presidential candidate—declared in a Wednesday video on social media that “this is right out of the dictator’s handbook.”

Newsom accused Trump of sending in masked immigration agents to cause “anxiety,” so he can then justify deploying the National Guard. As the governor put it, “This is no different than the arsonist putting out the fire.”

Democratic San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said Wednesday that “our communities have already endured the painful impact of aggressive immigration enforcement. At the same time, we continue to see escalated operations across the country, with military personnel on the ground in cities like Chicago and Portland.”

“For the last 10 months, we have been taking steps to prepare for this kind of escalation here in San Francisco,” he continued. “Just a few minutes ago, I signed an executive directive that will build on these preparations, strengthen the city’s support for our immigrant communities, and ensure our departments are coordinated ahead of any federal deployment.”

“Immigrants are the small business owners, essential workers, community leaders, and neighbors who make San Francisco a place that we are proud to call home. They fuel our economy—contributing nearly $275 billion in output and $23 billion in annual tax revenue across California,” he added. “San Francisco will never stand by as our neighbors are targeted, and neither will I.”

Meanwhile, in Alameda, where the base is located, the city said in a Wednesday statement that “the Alameda Police Department (APD) is not a part of this operation, and APD does not enforce federal immigration laws or related civil warrants.”

The city also shared various resources and stressed its commitment “to the values of dignity, inclusivity, and respect for all individuals, regardless of ethnic or national origin, gender, race, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, or immigration status.”

Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), a former speaker of the House of Representatives, said Tuesday that “San Francisco does not want or need Donald Trump’s chaos. Our city takes great pride in the steps we’ve taken to significantly increase public safety and reduce crime—without the interference of a president just seeking headlines.”

California Attorney General Rob Bonta this week threatened to sue over any deployment of the National Guard, as did San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu—who on Monday urged the US Supreme Court “to uphold the bedrock legal principle that domestic law enforcement is not the military’s job.”

“San Francisco has seen historic drops in crime,” Chiu said, “and our local law enforcement are more than capable of keeping our city safe while upholding First Amendment rights.”

The administration’s attacks on First Amendment rights have extended far beyond immigrants and protesters of the president’s anti-migrant agenda; Trump and his officials have also targeted journalists and media companies, comedians, law firms, federal workers, anti-fascists, and anyone expressing views deemed “anti-Christianity,” “anti-capitalism,” or “hostility toward those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”

Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn't bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes' concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country's economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.

Continue Reading‘Right Out of the Dictator’s Handbook’: Trump Sends Immigration Agents to San Francisco

New data exposes ‘the bankruptcy of Britain’s privatised water model’

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/new-data-exposes-bankruptcy-britains-privatised-water-model

 A tanker pumps out excess sewage from the Lightlands Lane sewage pumping station in Cookham, Berskhire which flooded after recent heavy rainfall, January 10, 2024

Water companies record worst-ever environmental performance in England as serious pollution incidents increase by 60% in 2024, Environment Agency finds

EMBATTLED water companies have recorded their worst-ever environmental performance in England, with serious pollution incidents up 60 per cent last year, data from the Environment Agency revealed yesterday.

Thames Water, Southern Water and Yorkshire Water were responsible for 81 per cent of all serious incidents, while Thames Water alone saw cases more than double.

Northumbrian and Wessex Water were the only companies with none.

The agency said only Severn Trent achieved the top four-star rating for 2024, while all nine water and sewage firms in England collectively earned just 19 out of a possible 36 stars — the lowest since the annual performance system began in 2011.

The regulator said the decline marked the end of over a decade of gradual improvement.

Serious pollution incidents causing significant environmental harm rose to 75, their highest since 2013.

The agency partly blamed extreme weather, which strained ageing infrastructure, but said “this is never an excuse.”

It also cited long-term underinvestment and poor maintenance.

…

Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/new-data-exposes-bankruptcy-britains-privatised-water-model

April 2023 Surfers Against Sewage and Extinction Rebellion protests in St Agnes, Perranporth, Truro and Charlestown which unveiled spoof Blue Plaques to the MPs and Conservative Government who allowed raw sewage to be dumped in the sea (Image: Surfers Against Sewage)
April 2023 Surfers Against Sewage and Extinction Rebellion protests in St Agnes, Perranporth, Truro and Charlestown which unveiled spoof Blue Plaques to the MPs and Conservative Government who allowed raw sewage to be dumped in the sea (Image: Surfers Against Sewage)

Continue ReadingNew data exposes ‘the bankruptcy of Britain’s privatised water model’