What Is Democratic Socialism: DSA ?

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Oppose ICE in Sacramento

The recent ICE killings in Texas and Maine are alarming and ICE arrests in June and July have surged.* States Win Sacramento is acting now to support SEMBRANDO SEMILLAS DAY LABORER WORKER CENTER to protect day laborers, migrants, and low-wage workers. See where you fit in with these important actions. States Win will continue to highlight this dark moment and uplift our endorsed candidates and alumni who are taking action to stop ICE from terrorizing our communities. The Coalition Against Project 2025 (CAP2025), of which States Win Sacramento is a founding member, has issued a Call to Action to protect local Home Depot Day Laborers Minneapolis-style. Coalition Partner Sembrando Semillas Day Laborer Worker Center is reporting ongoing harassment by Sheriffs, Home Depot Management, and parking lot security over the past week. (Scroll to the bottom for Good Trouble Lives On Mutual Aid partnership opportunities and to review the Coalition-Building Volunteer Interest Form.) What: We are organizing the surrounding neighborhoods of the regionwide Home Depots in order to support Day Laborers. They need our help now! When: We will have infosessions and organizing calls throughout the next week. Please let me know of your availability, so we can make sure to schedule a convenient time for you. Even if you are just spreading the word to your network, your participation is truly critical. Why: With the most recent ICE killings in Texas and Maine, and ongoing ICE raids in LA, we are shouting out a Call to Action now, to get prepared and organized Minneapolis-style. The chances of the Trump Administration expanding their tactics to Northern California are quite high. LA is just the beginning for the ICE’s next phase of Project 2025 and Stephen Miller’s lethal plans. How you can make a difference NOW: Attend an Adopt a Corner Infosession and spread the word to your network (or let CAP25 know your availability to join a call this week and then spread the word). Attend future organizing meetings based on each of the Home Depots to learn more about what Adopt-a-Corner will look like at the Home Depot closest to your home or work. Join a Corner team. Attend an onsite meeting with Day Laborers, where Sembrando Semillas Executive Directors Fatima and Christina will introduce you to the Day Laborers they have built relationships with over the past few years. Bring coffee, break bread. Get to know the Day Laborers, even if you don’t speak Spanish! (Our eyes and hearts communicate a lot and translators will be onsite.) Show up in solidarity with our brown people without papers whose very lives are at risk right now. Let them know their community cares about their current tribulations Join a Corner Signal group to:  Be alerted to ICE activity and other harassment happening for rapid mobilization. Schedule a time for you to be onsite, in solidarity with the day laborers, as a visible watcher, a rapid deployment communicator, a videographer, a mocker of ICE agents, and all activities which are non-violent. Support the Day Laborers by funding and delivering food, beverages, diapers for their kids, groceries for their kitchen. Help grow the Corner support team by spreading the word and vetting people before they join CAP25 communication channels. Administration (onsite calendar management, outreach and follow up through volunteer sign ups, mobilize set-up, data entry, etc). Operations (support infosession facilitators, communicating with local, regional, and national leaders and organizations). Logistics (coordinating supplies, carpools, and other behind-the-scenes activity). Be a co-leader of your Corner team. Other needs as they arise in the moment. As Corner teams are being formed, Brittany Johannson with CAP25 will be a co-lead at all sites in order to facilitate orientation calls, lead trainings, recruit and build out teams, processes, workflows, etc.  Current Corners with a team forming:  Home Depot Howe Ave Rancho Cordova Florin Rd Galt:  Flea Market & Street Vendors What neighborhood do you live or work in where you’d like to join a Corner? Educational Resources:  NDLON Adopt a Corner Toolkit  NDLON Adopt a Corner Training Webinar (Video 07/10/26) CONTACT INFO Brittany Johannson, 916.390.6136, brittany.politics@gmail.com Adopt-a-Corner Co-Lead Coalition Against Project 2025 cap25.org & opposeproject2025.org Steering Committee Chair, Partner Liaison, Volunteer Recruitment & Management About STATES WIN Sacramento Be a part of our team as we fight for democracy in 2026 in the states! For questions and information about this message from our chapter, please contact info@stateswinsacramento.org

  

ICE Must Submit to Investigation

The Petition

I join LULAC in demanding a full, independent, and transparent investigation into the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by ICE agents in Houston. ICE's immediate claim that Mr. Salgado attempted to use his vehicle to injure officers cannot simply be accepted at face value. Every piece of evidence including body camera footage, surveillance video, radio communications, and witness statements, must be preserved and released to the public.

This is not the first time ICE has justified a shooting by claiming someone tried to run over officers, only for later evidence to prove that to be untrue. In the 2025 shooting of Marimar Martinez in Chicago, ICE alleged she tried to ram federal agents, but video evidence later showed that to be false, and the criminal charges against her were dismissed. Earlier this year in Minneapolis, ICE claimed a woman attempted to run over officers before she was fatally shot, but video of the incident showed that was inaccurate. 

We demand a full, independent investigation, the immediate release of all available evidence, and accountability for the wrongful death of Lorenzo. The public deserves the truth, and the Salgado family deserves justice.

In Loving Memory of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52 Years Old

Impeachement

 My name is Jason Watson. I’m an active-duty Major in the United States Air Force. However, who I am is immaterial. In the grand scheme of things, I’m just a nobody. What matters far more than who I am is what I have to say and the price I’m willing to pay to say it.

“I, Jason Paul Watson, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

I first swore this oath over 20 years ago upon entering basic cadet training at the United States Air Force Academy in late June of 2005. I’ve repeated it many times since then.

The oath of office means everything to me. It is foundational to our system of government in the United States. The oath ensures that officials of our government owe allegiance not to any individual or political party, but to our Constitution and the democratic republic it represents.

Our Constitution binds us all together as Americans.

Like countless veterans before me and military members serving now, I have devoted my life to serving our democratic republic, always doing my best to honor my oath and protect America against foreign threats.

But the greatest threat to our democratic republic is not a foreign one. It is us.

We the people—not just the left, not just the right, not just the center. All of us together define who we are as Americans.

And, like it or not, we have all played a part, myself included, in getting ourselves into this mess. The burden of that culpability is much heavier for some than others, undeniably. And for those with the lion’s share of guilt—such as those currently running the executive branch of the federal government—the bill must come due. But all of us have a share.

For the past 18 months, we the people have allowed the highest levels of the executive branch of the federal government to violate our Constitution and their oath to it with impunity.

When the President of the United States orders military action against foreign countries absent an emergency scenario where American interests are under imminent, dire threat—as was done with Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran—that is an unconstitutional usurpation of Congress’s authority and a violation of the War Powers Clause.

These violations resulted in the deaths of 13 service members and injuries to hundreds more.

For this, the President and Vice President must be impeached, convicted, and removed.

When the President of the United States grants an unelected mega-donor sweeping authority to shut down large swaths of our federal government, along with unrestricted access to our government databases, that is an unconstitutional circumvention of Congress’s advice-and-consent authority under the Appointments Clause and Congress’s power of the purse under the Appropriations Clause.

These violations exposed every American’s sensitive personal data to leaks and exploitation, illegally terminated tens of thousands of federal civil servants, crippled support for Americans needing medical care and disaster preparedness, and—most tragically—resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of the world’s most impoverished people through the inhumane, abrupt cessation of U.S. aid.

For this, the President and Vice President must be impeached, convicted, and removed.

When the President of the United States directs the Department of Homeland Security to deny hundreds of people due process before illegally detaining them and sending them to a foreign prison notorious for human rights abuses, that is a violation of our Fifth and Eighth Amendment rights.

Most people sent to CECOT never committed any violent crimes in their lives, but are being defamed as violent criminals as a pretext for the torture they suffered in El Salvador, paid for with U.S. taxpayer dollars.

For this, the President and Vice President must be impeached, convicted, and removed.

When the President of the United States sponsors violence against the American people engaged in their constitutional right to peacefully assemble and protest, that is a violation of our First Amendment rights.

Pastors praying for DHS agents were violently attacked without provocation. A legal observer lost an eye after being struck by a so-called non-lethal round fired by an ICE agent. A woman attempting to follow chaotic and contradictory DHS instructions was fatally shot. A subdued man who posed no threat was fatally shot after having his firearm removed, while statements by high-ranking cabinet members also violated our Second Amendment rights.

For this, the President and Vice President must be impeached, convicted, and removed.

There are innumerable more impeachable offenses that I could cover: denying congressional oversight of immigrant detention centers that look increasingly like CECOT; suing media organizations, colleges, and law firms for billions of dollars while abusing executive branch agencies to extort settlements; allowing a mega-donor to advertise products on the White House lawn; trading pardons for donations; levying illegal tariffs; weaponizing the Department of Justice against political adversaries while ignoring crimes committed by supporters and enablers; and attempting to reverse birthright citizenship through executive order.

For all of these high crimes and misdemeanors, the President and Vice President must be impeached, convicted, and removed.

The constitutional impeachment process is our best pathway to restore fidelity to our Constitution.

This is why I am here standing in solidarity with Representative Green.

I am not here because I am a Democrat or because I share his policy positions. I’m not a Democrat and know next to nothing about his policies. I am here with him because Representative Green is the only member of Congress who has demonstrated the courage and conviction to invoke Rule IX and force a vote on articles of impeachment.

If Congress followed his example, we could remove the entire Trump administration.

But Congress remains unconvinced of the urgency and necessity of honoring its oath.

So we must persuade them with our unrelenting, uncompromising civil resistance.

I am calling on average Americans everywhere to peacefully exercise your First Amendment rights every day until this administration is removed and our democratic republic is restored.

I believe in America.

I believe in us.

If just a nobody like me can take a stand for our Constitution and our democratic republic, then you can too.

I hope you will join me in the defense of our republic.

Thank you.

Watson was arrested for making this speech. 

His attorney said his client has not been criminally charged but was under investigation for several violations of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice. Major Watson is currently at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington and is not allowed to leave the base, his lawyer said.

 

 

Trump's Lying Claim of Communism

The problem for Trump is that the new stars of the Democratic Party whom Trump wants to defile have nothing whatsoever to do with communism. They barely have anything to do with socialism. 

New York’s Zohran Mamdani, AOC, Seattle’s Katie Wilson, Colorado’s Melat Kiros, and dozens of others — including many who have won recent primaries — are popular because they’re taking on corporate America, attacking political corruption by big money, and dealing with the real problems of ordinary Americans. 

Labels are becoming irrelevant, anyway. In an Axios-Generation Lab poll of young Americans, 67 percent say they have a positive or neutral association with the word “socialism” compared with 40 percent who are positive or neutral toward “capitalism.” A new national survey from the Cato Institute finds Zoomers more supportive of socialism (53 percent) than capitalism (45 percent). 

I can understand Gen Z’s growing disillusionment with capitalism. They can’t afford a home of their own. They struggle to afford health insurance. The job market is horrendous. They can’t afford to start a family. In many ways, capitalism — or whatever you want to call our current system — has failed them. And they’re the future of America.

Trump has run out of cards to play in the midterm elections, which is why he’s now talking about the “communist menace.”

He can’t talk about the economy, because prices continue to rise faster than wages, which means most Americans are getting poorer. He can’t talk about foreign policy, because his war in Iran has been a debacle, his tariffs are an utter failure, and he obviously hasn’t settled the war in Ukraine on “Day 1.” He can’t talk about immigration, because his raids and mass deportations have become so unpopular. 

So, facing the midterm elections, what’s left? 

He’s resorting to the oldest of right-wing tropes — accusing Democrats (especially a rising generation of new, young, vigorous Democratic politicians) of being commies.

Trump's Caravan Destroyed the Reflective Pool ; not vandals

 

President Donald Trump's motorcade drove directly across the drained floor of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on May 7, 2026. He made the unannounced visit to inspect a newly painted, bright "American flag blue" coating applied during a $16 million renovation project. [1, 2, 3, 4]

Defend the Constitution

 

Trump/MAGA Budget Cuts to Education

Unless we act now, critical programs that support our students could shut down.  The Trump administration is proposing to further politicize federal funding decisions by giving political appointees authority over decisions about which schools, colleges, and community organizations receive federal funding.  That means funding decisions will be made by political appointees with an agenda—not based on empirical data, student needs, program quality, and professional expertise. Decisions about research funding will be driven by politics rather than peer review and merit.  Here’s what you can do:  Write a public comment and urge the Office of Management and Budget to withdraw its proposal and to preserve a fair, transparent, and student-centered grant system.

Write a Public Comment  ➤

Any program supporting:  Women and girls,   Immigrant families,   LGBTQIA+ students,   Racial equity, Students with disabilities, or A fuller account of U.S. history...  ...could lose its funding under this administration if this proposal is finalized.   This would apply not just to federal K-12 and college and university programs, but to all discretionary funding received by those institutions and by nonprofits that serve our communities and receive federal grants.   To add insult to injury, it will also have a chilling effect on schools, districts, and colleges as they try to balance what they believe is best for students, with which programs could be targeted for being contrary to the current administration’s values.   We have already seen many institutions drop critically needed programs and instruction in response to similar threats to federal funding.  Before the rule takes effect, the administration must solicit and respond to comments from the public—that's you.  Please share how federal funding supports your students, school, campus, or community and why stable funding matters. You have until July 13 to act.  We give you a sample to adapt, but the more personalized your public comment is, the better.  Educators need stability so they can focus on teaching and supporting students, NOT navigating politically motivated requirements.   And, students deserve stable access to the programs and services that help them learn and thrive.  Federal funding should serve students, not politics.  In solidarity,  The NEA EdAction Team

Note: A new project of Teachers and Educators Defending democracy is in the works.  Information will be posted here when ready.  Without an educated populace, the common good cannot even be discerned. This is fundamental. When education is viewed as a private investment yielding private returns, there’s no reason why anyone other than the “investor” should pay for it. But when understood as a public good underlying our democracy, all of us have a responsibility to ensure that it is of high quality and available to all. Our central obligation as citizens is to preserve, fortify, and protect our democratic form of government — not inundate it with big money and buy off politicians. We must defend the right to vote and ensure that more citizens are heard, not fewer.

 

Trump /Maga Viewpoints

 I came across this Public Service Announcement produced by the U.S. government in 1945. It seems apt today, on the eve of the nation’s 250th anniversary, when bigotry and hate are being stoked by a neofascist president. Please take a look:

Actually, it was Robert Reich who came across this video.  On his substack.

This is a clip from the original, which runs 23 minutes. It was called “Don’t Be a Sucker.”