Politico: Trump knocks California on its heels: ‘He’s pulling the trigger on everything all at once.’

In years of conflict with Trump, California has never seen anything like this.

California Democrats have long battled Donald Trump. But they’ve never faced such a ferocious offensive as they did this week.

Between the deployment of federal agents to Los Angeles, the gutting of climate standards and the manhandling of the state’s senior U.S. senator, the state absorbed one show of force after another from the president. And in the balance of power between the Trump administration and the nation’s most populous state, California was on the losing end.

“We’re at DEFCON 1 in the conflict between California and the Trump administration,” said Democratic strategist Katie Merrill. “It’s orders of magnitude more than what we’ve seen, ever.”

Democrats in this deep-blue state have spent years working to shield California from a hostile White House, dating back to his first term. But for them, the week’s events registered a new low — a multifront assault that not only threatened the state’s liberal values, but exposed the limits of California’s ability to control its destiny when the federal government has other ideas.

“The moment we’ve feared,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a Tuesday night address, “has arrived.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/14/the-week-trump-rocked-california-00405932

Daily Beast: Trump Turns Presidency Into His Cash Cow With $600M Haul

President Donald Trump has already made a small fortune off his second go-around as commander in chief.

An annual financial disclosure shows the Republican president’s crypto ventures, golf clubs, and resorts, as well as the large fees he collects from garish MAGA-branded merch, have helped him rake in more than $600 million in income last year, Reuters reported.

Overall, Reuters calculated that Trump’s combined assets totaled $1.6 billion, with his income feeding into the Trump Organization trust operated by his three eldest children—which some said allows him to skate the Constitution’s Emoluments clause, which bars the president from benefitting financially from the office.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-turns-presidency-into-his-cash-cow-with-600m-haul

Raw Story: ‘Direct result’: Trump family member ties president to political assassination

President Donald Trump is “directly” responsible for what Governor Tim Walz said is a politically motivated assassination, according to a member of the Trump family.

Mary Trump, a trained psychologist and the president’s niece, weighed in on the recent attacks:

“As you may have heard two Democratic lawmakers and their spouses were shot in a targeted and politically motivated attack. State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark were assassinated. State Senator John Hoffman and his wife were shot multiple times and there is still hope that they will survive,” Mary Trump wrote.

She added, “These attacks are the direct result of the dangerous political climate Donald Trump has created, purposefully and maliciously, driven by his need for division and retribution, and his thirst for power.”

“Such incidents make even more urgent the need for us to protest while also increasing the need for us to keep ourselves and each other safe,” Trump’s niece added.

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-family-direct-result-shooting

Guardian: EPA drops case against prison company that has donated heavily to Trump

The Donald Trump administration has dropped up to $4m in potential fines against the private prison operator Geo Group over the latter’s use of a toxic disinfectant in a detention center that allegedly put employees’ and detainees’ health at risk.

The administration made the move after Geo donated over $4m to the president and Republican leadership, as well as Trump’s inauguration fund.

More corruption?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/14/trump-administration-epa-prison-company-donations

Law & Crime: ‘Lied to courts’: Appeals court affirms disbarment recommendation for Trump attorney John Eastman

The legal disciplinary board for attorneys in California has affirmed a recommendation that former law professor John Eastman be disbarred over his role in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election to favor President Donald Trump.

On Friday, a three-judge panel on the California State Bar Court’s Review Department ruled on two separate requests by  Eastman and the Office of Chief Trial Counsel – seeking review of a March 2024 decision recommending he lose his law license.

The panel, effectively a court of appeal in the Golden State’s lawyer discipline system, declined to disturb the lower court’s ruling.

Sounds like King Donald’s kind of guy!!!

AFP: Balloons, bubbles, tear gas: LA anti-Trump protests turn chaotic

For hours, thousands of people in Los Angeles peacefully celebrated their defiance of US President Donald Trump Saturday with music, marching, bubbles and balloons — then police unexpectedly moved in, and chaos and confusion broke out.

The demonstration — part of the nationwide “No Kings” day of protests across the country — was by far the largest in more than a week of protests ignited by anger against immigration raids the Trump administration has been carrying out across the country’s second-largest city. 

Like those before it, Saturday’s had been largely peaceful. A march that began in the morning had finished, with demonstrators milling about on a sunny afternoon as the scene took on the air of a street festival. 

But then:

Then police unexpectedly began moving people away from the area, igniting confusion and anger among demonstrators caught off guard and unsure of where to go.

Police on horseback pushed crowds back as law enforcement fired tear gas and flash-bang grenades hours ahead of an 8:00 pm (0300 GMT) curfew. 

A police spokeswoman later told local TV channel KTLA that a “small group of agitators” had begun throwing rocks, bottles and fireworks at officers, prompting the decision to order the crowd to disperse.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/balloons-bubbles-tear-gas-la-anti-trump-protests-turn-chaotic/ar-AA1GJd8h

Independent: She was Stephen Miller’s high school class president. Now she’s fighting his deportation efforts

California attorney is fighting Miller’s mass deportation efforts by working as an immigration lawyer

Cynthia Santiago, an attorney in Southern California, won her high school presidential class race the same year Stephen Miller, the current White House Deputy Chief of Staff, lost the class speaker race. More than 20 years later, Santiago is trying to fight Miller’s mass deportation efforts.

Recalling the day she won her class election at Santa Monica High School, Santiago said that Miller was “booed” off stage for giving an incendiary speech about picking up trash.

video of the moment, posted online years ago, shows Miller on stage asking his fellow students, “Am I the only one who is sick and tired of being told to pick up my trash, when we have plenty of janitors who are paid to do it for us?”

A school newspaper clipping, obtained by The Daily Beast, says Miller’s microphone was turned off and he was escorted off stage for what school officials said was going “over time.”

Writing for the Santa Monica Lookout in 2002, Miller advocated for all announcements to be written in English only, claimed “very few” Hispanic students were in honors classes, and asserted that the school’s political correctness would make Osama bin Laden “feel very welcome at Santa Monica High School.”

It seems Stephen Miller was brain dead at an early age and has never recovered.

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/stephen-miller-deportation-high-school-classmate-b2768997.html

Mediaite: Pritzker Throws ‘Hitler’ Comment Back at GOP Congresswoman: ‘I Am Not Going To Be Lectured to by Somebody Who Extols the Virtue of Adolf Hitler’

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker (D-IL) did not appreciate the line of questioning he received from Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL) during a committee meeting on Thursday.

The House Oversight Committee conducted a wild hearing with “sanctuary state governors,” featuring Govs. Pritzker, Kathy Hochul (D-NY), and Tim Walz (MN). Republicans on the committee took turns hectoring the witnesses.

When it was her turn, Miller took issue with Pritzker’s criticism of raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Chicago.

Pritzker responded by referencing a bizarre comment Miller made in 2021, when she said, “Hitler was right on one thing: He said, ‘Whoever has the youth, has the future.’” The congresswoman eventually apologized for the reference.

“You know, Congresswoman Miller, I am not going to be lectured to by somebody who extols the virtue of Adolf Hitler,”

“Reclaiming my time!” Miller interjected. The hearing moved on.

CNN: DHS posted an image calling for help locating ‘all foreign invaders.’ It was previously circulated by far-right accounts

On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security posted a striking graphic on its official X account. Uncle Sam, a symbol of American patriotism, is depicted nailing a poster to a wall that reads, “Help your country… and yourself.” Written underneath the poster is the sentence, “REPORT ALL FOREIGN INVADERS,” and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement hot line.

The post — which DHS and the White House also posted to Instagram — prompted a flood of criticism, with some social media users comparing the post to authoritarian propaganda. On Thursday, at least two far-right X accounts claimed to have a hand in creating or disseminating the image before it was shared by DHS. A source within DHS told CNN the agency did not create the graphic.

The Uncle Sam graphic is reminiscent of media used previously by other governments to provoke fear, especially of immigrants, said Elisabeth Fondren, a journalism professor at St. John’s University who has studied government propaganda and communications during war times.

“This poster fits within a long history of anti-immigrant rhetoric and, yes, state propaganda,” Fondren said. “It evokes these remnants of Cold War, fake propaganda by the Russians, or, you know, authoritarian fear mongering messages … but what I think is so interesting is that this is a call to action in an environment where we’re not in a war.”

Perhaps from here:

The image of the Uncle Sam poster was posted on X last Friday, around the time tensions in Los Angeles escalated, by podcaster C. Jay Engel, who describes himself as “Christian nationalist adjacent” and has claimed that “nations cannot survive replacement migration.” After DHS shared the Uncle Sam image, Engel posted: “This image came from my account. NEVER STOP POSTING.”

“The question is, ‘Is there room for like-minded Christians and patriots in Tennessee?’” the podcaster, Engel, said in an October podcast, in response to a listener’s question. “Yes, there’s an imperative for like-minded Christians to gather and fight with us.”

Or maybe:

Although Engel circulated the image of the Uncle Sam poster, another X user claimed to have created the image. That pseudonymous X account, which has the words “Wake Up White Man” in its biography, is full of nativist rhetoric and reposted another X user who declared: “Whites deserve our own nations, like everyone else is allowed to have.” The pseudonymous account appears to have been the first to post the image.

It’s beyond disgusting that Homeland Security is sourcing such material from white supremacists.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/12/politics/dhs-social-media-post-ice-deportations-criticisms

Newsweek: Gavin Newsom responds to Donald Trump’s ICE threat

California Governor Gavin Newsom’s office has responded to President Donald Trump‘s threats to send federal immigration agents to sanctuary cities.

“It looks like Steven Miller got ahold of Trump’s phone again,” Diana Crofts-Pelayo, deputy director of communications at Newsom’s office, told Newsweek.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “must expand efforts to detain and deport Illegal Aliens in America’s largest Cities, such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, where Millions upon Millions of Illegal Aliens reside.”

Newsome responded in a post on X, formerly Twitter: “His plan is clear: Incite violence and chaos in blue states, have an excuse to militarize our cities, demonize his opponents, keep breaking the law and consolidate power. It’s illegal and we will not let it stand.”

https://www.newsweek.com/gavin-newsom-responds-donald-trump-ice-threat-sanctuary-cities-los-angeles-2086087