Trump’s Intimidation and Fear Tactics Are Working in the Coachella Valley; Half of the Country Deals With a Bad Heatwave–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: June 23, 2025

Indy Digest: June 23, 2025

One of the most sinister elements of the current presidential administration—one that even its most ardent defenders can’t truly justify—is its authoritarian-style efforts to quash any and all dissent.

Trump’s attempts to punish law firms, universities, broadcast networks, media organizations, etc., for daring to oppose him are well-documented. One of Trump’s newest targets: Rep: Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican. The Washington Post reports:

A “simple-minded ‘grandstander.’” A “pathetic LOSER.” A “BUM.”

And that’s just since Saturday.

President Donald Trump is intensifying his attacks on Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) as the libertarian-leaning congressman pushes back against the president’s priority legislative package and his decision to bomb Iran without consulting Congress. …

Two of the president’s top political lieutenants, Chris LaCivita and James Blair, have spent recent days on social media vowing to make this term Massie’s last in Congress.

“He should be a Democrat because he is more aligned with them than with the Republican Party,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said of Massie on Fox News on Monday.

LaCivita, who comanaged Trump’s 2024 campaign, is helping lead a new super PAC, Kentucky MAGA, that is dedicated to unseating Massie, according to Axios.

All of these attacks by Trump serve at least two purposes. First, he’s obviously trying to punish his dissenters. Second, he’s trying to scare others by sending a message: If you dare oppose me, you, too, will be hurt.

Those fear tactics, unsurprisingly, are working.

I’d like to draw your attention to a news story we published today, by Kevin Fitzgerald, on the effects federal budget cuts are having, and could have, on local health-care providers.

I didn’t think this would be an easy story for Kevin to report—but I did not anticipate how truly difficult it wound up being. As the story says:

Doctors, health-care administrators and, particularly, lower-income patients are concerned and anxious. Many in the health-care sector, in fact, are so unnerved that they have gone incommunicado, declining to speak to the media about the federal funding cuts and their possible ramifications.

One local provider who did speak to the Independent got cold feet, and called just before this story’s deadline, pleading for us to remove his input—because of a fear of federal retaliation. (We removed the comments, because we did not want to lose the provider as a source.)

Kevin reached out to seven local health-care providers, and only two ended up speaking to him on the record. CJ Tobe, from DAP Health, and Renae Punzalan, of the Transgender Health and Wellness Center.

As for the other health care providers who didn’t respond: I get it. If I were a health care provider, and I thought there was a chance speaking to the media could harm my patients, I’d probably decline to talk, too. I don’t have a problem with their decision, even though I dislike it.

I do have a problem with the atmosphere of fear Trump and co. are creating—a major problem. Everyone who believes in the concept of freedom of speech should have a major problem with this president’s actions, too.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• For the most part, those of us here in the Coachella Valley are prepared to deal with major heat. It’s important to remember that much of the rest of the country is not so prepared—making heatwaves dangerous and deadly. NBC News says: “Tens of millions across the Midwest and the mid-Atlantic are under heat alerts Monday as a dangerous heat wave that began over the weekend continues to move through the region. The rare June heat wave broke about 20 records Sunday and is expected to break more Monday. According to The Weather Channel, Mitchell, South Dakota, broke its daily high Saturday when temperatures climbed to 104 degrees Fahrenheit, smashing its previous record of 101 degrees. Records were also set Saturday across Wyoming and Minnesota, according to the channel. Across the Midwest to the East Coast, 160 million people were under heat alerts Monday. Extreme heat warnings have been issued for 75 million people in nearly a dozen major cities, including Chicago, Boston, New York City, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore and Washington, D.C. By midday, heat index values (what conditions ‘feel like’ when humidity and air temperatures are combined) in several places in North Carolina and Virginia had already topped 110 F.”

• ProPublica just published another stunning investigation—this one having to do with the Food and Drug Administration, and a decision that had deadly consequences. The piece starts by telling the story of Joe DeMayo, who had received a kidney transplant, and was on a drug that was supposed to suppress organ rejections—but was not working: “As he grew weaker, his kidney unable to cleanse his body of excess fluid and waste, investigators from the Food and Drug Administration headed to western India to inspect the factory that manufactured DeMayo’s tacrolimus and other generic drugs for American consumers. It was at least the eighth time since 2015 that the FDA had been there, and each of those visits had uncovered problems in the way the drugs were made, government records show. During the inspection in the spring of 2023, investigators discovered the Intas Pharmaceuticals factory had, among other things, manipulated drug-testing records to cover up the presence of particulate matter—which could include glass, fiber or other contaminants—in the company’s drugs. That November, the FDA barred the Intas factory from exporting drugs to the United States. But under a long-standing practice uncovered by ProPublica, the agency excluded certain medications from the factory-wide ban, including tacrolimus, allowing the drugs to continue flowing to the U.S. ProPublica’s investigation found the FDA has allowed more than 150 drugs or their ingredients from banned factories into the country over the past dozen years, ostensibly to prevent drug shortages.”

• Speaking of the fear being caused by the Trump administration: Southern California clinics are seeing a significant uptick in no-shows. The ICE raids are to blame, reports the Los Angeles Daily News: The lede: “For years after her diabetes diagnosis, a patient at St. John’s Community Health had kept her blood sugar levels in check. Then, federal immigration raids intensified across the region. She stayed home, fearing federal agents would detain her. The patient didn’t go to the grocery store to buy food and ate what was in her home—tortillas and coffee—for five days. Eventually, she canceled one of her regular appointments at a St. John’s clinic. Staff with the health network, which operates 28 locations in Los Angeles County and the Inland Empire, called the patient and offered to do the appointment at her home, a new service that St. John’s launched last month in response to heightened concerns around immigration raids. Medical staff took her blood sugar levels. She was on the verge of falling into a diabetic coma, said Jim Mangia, president and CEO of St. John’s. ‘Thank God we got there before she had serious injury,’ Mangia said. ‘That’s why it’s so important we provide this support.’”

• The Trump administration today rolled back yet another key environmental projection. The Washington Post says: “A decades-old rule protecting tens of millions of acres of pristine national forest land, including 9 million acres in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, would be rescinded under plans announced Monday by the Trump administration. Speaking at a meeting of Western governors in New Mexico, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the administration would begin the process of rolling back protections for nearly 59 million roadless acres of the National Forest System. If the rollback survives court challenges, it will open up vast swaths of largely untouched land to logging and roadbuilding. By the Agriculture Department’s estimate, this would include about 30 percent of the land in the National Forest System, encompassing 92 percent of Tongass, one of the last remaining intact temperate rainforests in the world. In a news release, the department, which houses the U.S. Forest Service, criticized the roadless rule as ‘outdated,’ saying it ‘goes against the mandate of the USDA Forest Service to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the nation’s forests and grasslands.’”

• A deadly listeria outbreak has been traced back to heat-and-eat chicken fettucine that was sold at Kroger (aka Ralph’s) and Walmart stores. The Associated Press reports: “A listeria food poisoning outbreak that has killed three people and led to one pregnancy loss is linked to newly recalled heat-and-eat chicken fettucine alfredo products sold at Kroger and Walmart stores, federal health officials said. … The outbreak, which includes at least 17 people in 13 states, began last July, officials said. At least 16 people have been hospitalized. FreshRealm, a large food producer with sites in California, Georgia and Indiana, is recalling products made before June 17. … The strain of listeria bacteria that made people sick was found in a sample of chicken fettucine alfredo during a routine inspection in March, U.S. Agriculture Department officials said. That product was destroyed and never sent to stores.” Click the link for full details on the recalled products.

• And finally … some Democratic senators are protesting Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center by … putting on a show at the Kennedy Center. Deadline explains: “Five Democratic senators will host an invitation-only Pride concert at the Kennedy Center Monday as a protest against President Donald Trump’s takeover of the Washington D.C. arts institution. The 90-minute concert, which is expected to feature Broadway performers as well as The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington D.C., is set for Monday night, The New York Times reports. Organized by John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., the group of Senators—Hickenlooper, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Jacky Rosen of Nevada, Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts—have rented the Justice Forum, a 144-seat theater located in the Reach expansion of the Kennedy Center, using a privilege available to all members of Congress. … Richard Grenell, the president of the Kennedy Center, said in a statement, ‘Earlier this month, Senator Hickenlooper’s staff asked to rent space at the Kennedy Center for what his team billed as a first annual Talent show. We were pleased to welcome them to the Kennedy Center in this capacity. We were only later notified by the New York Times that Senator Hickenlooper’s event was instead an invite-only political stunt where, once again, the Kennedy Center was being used by political operatives to larp as victims of intolerance in order to get a story in the Times.’” “Larp”?

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