Please Protest—but Take Steps to Stay Safe; Trump Threatens Protesters of His Parade–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: June 12, 2025

Indy Digest: June 12, 2025

Hey, readers: Some of you may be going to the one or more of the “No Kings” protests/rallies this weekend. (RSVP and get more details here.) If you do, please … be careful, because things are getting very strange.

The National Guard and Marine deployments in downtown Los Angeles have been making worldwide news since the weekend. (According to an article in The Guardian, many of these soldiers are troubled by these deployments.) Meanwhile, in Texas, the governor deployed more than 5,000 Texas National Guard troops, as well as 2,000 state police, in advance of protests in that state,

“Peaceful protests are part of the fabric of our nation, but Texas will not tolerate the lawlessness we have seen in Los Angeles in response to President Donald Trump’s enforcement of immigration law,” Gov. Greg Abbott said, according to The Associated Press.

One of the things that worries me most about, well, all of this, is the level of exaggeration—both in rhetoric and in action—by the Trump administration and allies. As the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday:

Driverless Waymo vehicles, coated with graffiti and engulfed in flames. Masked protesters, dancing and cavorting around burning American flags. Anonymous figures brazenly blocking streets and shutting down major freeways, raining bottles and rocks on the police, while their compatriots waved Mexican flags.

The images flowing out of Los Angeles over nearly a week of protests against federal immigration raids have cast America’s second most populous city as a terrifying hellscape, where lawbreakers rule the streets and regular citizens should fear to leave their homes.

In the relentless fever loop of online and broadcast video, it does not matter that the vast majority of Los Angeles neighborhoods remain safe and secure. Digital images create their own reality and it’s one that President Trump and his supporters have used to condemn L.A. as a place that is “out of control” and on the brink of total collapse.

Here’s what Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said today at a press conference—words that prompted U.S. Sen Alex Padilla, who was in the audience, to speak up. Per KTLA, she said: ““We are not going away. We are staying here to liberate this city from the socialist and the burdensome leadership that this governor and mayor have placed on this country and what they’ve tried to insert in this city.”

(The story continues: “Padilla was then forcibly removed from the room, as shown in footage shared by Fox News correspondent Bill Megulin. He was not successfully able to ask a question, but Noem said she will contact him after the press conference. She reportedly met with the senator shortly after the conference, but not before he was reportedly taken down to the ground by law enforcement.”)

Folks, this rhetoric, these exaggerations, these deployments of the military—this all needs to be spoken out against and protested. This crap should not be happening in a free and democratic United States. But be careful and lawful, please. The forces that are OK with authoritarianism seem to be looking for an excuse. Don’t give it to them.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• A good chunk of the Internet went down today. The Verge explains why (in a story that’s being updated as details come in): “On Thursday afternoon, many people with smart home setups connected to Google Home / Nest, or who are trying to stream music on Spotify, started coming up empty. All I got when I tried to open the Spotify website was a message that says ‘Audiences in Jwt are not allowed,’ and opening the app also pops up an error saying it can’t connect. The issues appear to be tied to problems with Google Cloud that affected server locations globally starting at about 1:51 p.m. ET. … Spokesperson Alexander Modiano said that a simultaneous outage report on Thursday from Cloudflare was due to the problems with Google Cloud, and that ‘…core Cloudflare services were not impacted.’ We saw issue reports spike on outage trackers like Downdetector and ThousandEyes, as well as some error messages popping up for other large cloud-based services, like Twitch, Snapchat, Anthropic, Shopify, and Discord. … Google Cloud’s status page initially didn’t list any issues, but later updated to report ‘Multiple GCP products are experiencing impact due to Identity and Access Management Service Issue.’”

• KESQ News Channel 3 reports that local ICE raids have created such a climate of fear that a number of people are deciding not to show up for work: “Alexander Rosas, landscape worker, who posted about the issue on social media, said when he was driving around the Coachella Valley he didn’t see a single landscaper or gardener. ‘We thought it was weird because right now it’s Palm season. It’s a very busy time for gardeners and landscapers,’ Rosas said. He said workers in agriculture, landscaping and pest control are skipping shifts, amid mounting fears of immigration enforcement. … Multiple landscaping supply companies in the region also told News Channel 3 that they are seeing a noticeable drop in foot traffic and order volume. While none would speak on camera, each confirmed that business has slowed significantly since the ICE raid last week. ‘We were going to get supplies and usually when you pull up to anywhere that has supplies for gardeners and everything, it would be packed,’ Rosas said. ‘These places were empty.’”

• If someone would have told you a dozen or so years ago that a U.S. president was going to hold a military parade, and then threaten anyone who dared protest it, what would you have said? NBC News reports: “President Donald Trump warned Tuesday that anyone who protests at the U.S. military parade here on Saturday will be met with ‘very heavy force.’ Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that they’re going to be ‘celebrating big on Saturday,’ referring to the parade that will wind its way through downtown Washington, D.C. ‘If there’s any protester that wants to come out, they will be met with very big force,’ Trump said. ‘I haven’t even heard about a protest, but you know, this is people that hate our country, but they will be met with very heavy force.’ The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.”

• Wired magazine reports that the protests in Los Angeles have shown how terrible AI chatbots are at delivering accurate news: “Disinformation about the Los Angeles protests is spreading on social media networks and is being made worse by users turning to AI chatbots like Grok and ChatGPT to perform fact-checking. As residents of the LA area took to the streets in recent days to protest increasingly frequent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, conservative posters on social media platforms like X and Facebook flooded their feeds with inaccurate information. In addition to well-worn tactics like repurposing old protest footage or clips from video games and movies, posters have claimed that the protesters are little more than paid agitators being directed by shadowy forces—something for which there is no evidence. In the midst of fast-moving and divisive news stories like the LA protests, and as companies like X and Meta have stepped back from moderating the content on their platforms, users have been turning to AI chatbots for answers—which in many cases have been completely inaccurate.“

• ProPublica introduces readers to Thomas Fugate, a 22-year-old recent college graduate who is now in charge of … the government’s terrorism-prevention efforts? Yep! Details: “The White House appointed Fugate, a former Trump campaign worker who interned at the hard-right Heritage Foundation, to a Homeland Security role that was expanded to include the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships. Known as CP3, the office has led nationwide efforts to prevent hate-fueled attacks, school shootings and other forms of targeted violence. Fugate’s appointment is the latest shock for an office that has been decimated since President Donald Trump returned to the White House and began remaking national security to give it a laser focus on immigration. News of the appointment has trickled out in recent weeks, raising alarm among counterterrorism researchers and nonprofit groups funded by CP3.”

• HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy has named a slate of new members to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory panel … and the results are predictably disconcerting. NPR reports: “Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has unveiled eight people he has chosen to serve on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory panel – just two days after taking the unprecedented step of removing all 17 sitting members. … ‘All of these individuals are committed to evidence-based medicine, gold-standard science, and common sense,’ Kennedy said in a post on X. … Public health advocates are wary. ‘Kennedy did not pick people with strong, current expertise in vaccines,’ says Dorit Reiss, a professor at UC Law, San Francisco, who studies vaccine policy. ‘It tells me that Kennedy is setting up a committee that would be skeptical of vaccines, and possibly willing to implement an anti-vaccine agenda.’ The panel of outside experts helps set vaccine policy and craft recommendations for the immunization schedule, which guides health providers and influences which shots are covered by health insurers. Kennedy’s new selections have varied backgrounds, though many rose to prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, when they criticized government policies on school closures and lockdowns, and the mRNA vaccines.”

• CNN reports that a new study shows most fruits and veggies you can buy include something decidedly undesirable—pesticide residue: “More than 90% of samples of a dozen fruits and vegetables tested positive for potentially harmful pesticide residues, according to the 2025 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce. Dubbed the ‘Dirty Dozen,’ the list is compiled from the latest government testing data on nonorganic produce by the Environmental Working Group, or EWG, a health advocacy organization that has produced the annual report since 2004. Spinach topped the list, with more pesticide residue by weight than any other produce tested, followed by strawberries, kale (along with mustard greens and collards), grapes, peaches, cherries, nectarines, pears, apples, blackberries, blueberries and potatoes. The annual report is not meant to discourage consumers from eating fruits and vegetables, which are key to good health, but instead to provide tools for decisions on whether to buy organic for the fruits or vegetables their families consume the most, said Alexis Temkin, EWG’s vice president of science.”

• And finally … today’s recall news involves … frozen shrimp! The Oregonian reports: “A Washington-based seafood wholesaler with facilities in Oregon is recalling nearly 45,000 pounds of frozen shrimp that may be contaminated with listeria. The recall includes 1- and 5-pound bags of Cooked & Peeled Ready-To-Eat Coldwater Shrimp Meat, according to a Tuesday notice posted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Bags were sold by Bellingham-based Bornstein Seafoods, whose primary processing plant is in Astoria. The product was distributed to retailers in Oregon, Washington, California and British Columbia. It may have also been distributed nationwide.”

Support the Independent!

Readers. these are weird and disconcerting times. Please, if you have the financial means, consider helping us out by clicking the button below and becoming a Supporter of the Independent. An independent, free press is vital to democracy, and the business climate isn’t so great for independent news outlets these days. Please stay safe—and thanks for reading!