All posts by Roger Straw

Editor, owner, publisher of The Benicia Independent
Democracy under attack, Donald Trump, Local vigilance, No Kings!

Benicia crowd of 1200+ protests Trump

NO KINGS DAY 2025 – One for the ages when we talk about political activism in Benicia

All photos by Roger Straw, The Benicia Independent

By Roger Straw, The Benicia Independent, June 15, 2025

Roger Straw, The Benicia Independent

In the last few days before the NO KINGS! rally in Benicia, as the numbers of respondents came in, planners knew it was going to be big. We thought there might even be, say, 250 or 300, which would be huge by almost all previous Benicia activist crowds. Big indeed – most estimates of the crowd were well over 1,000 and up to 1,500!

Numbers don’t tell the whole story, but they tell a lot. This was a WOW! event in Benicia!

I arrived by car about a half hour early, expecting to help get things going. The sidewalks and park were already packed with people holding signs, chanting loudly and encouraging passing cars to honk their support.

I couldn’t find a parking place any closer than 3 ½ blocks away. Walking from there, we came upon an older couple like us, carrying signs and heading to the rally. After friendly greetings, the gentleman said he’d never protested during the ‘60s and ‘70s, and that this would be his first time attending a protest. Mary Susan got a good laugh when she responded, “Oh, we’re veterans at this and you’ll be fine!” We chatted some more, and learned that we’d all spent time living in Indianapolis, and so bonded as former Hoosiers.

The crowd in the park and all along the sidewalk was incredibly friendly. We hugged and chatted with lots of old friends, some of whom we hadn’t seen in years. We met new people and stood for pictures with our high-school graduate grandson, who arrived with a bunch of other Benicia High students. I’ve been to many protests, rallies and vigils in Benicia. You get used to seeing the same old (literally old) people. Not since March For Our Lives have I seen such a mix of young and old. Not since Black Lives Matter have I seen such a racially diverse crowd of concerned Benicians. And I’ve never seen such a wide spectrum of known and new folks. It was encouraging to know that NO KINGS has such a solid base of support in our small town. Yes!

Organizer Cathy Bennett came in her long red Handmaid’s Tale robe, and kicked off the event with a bullhorn welcome that could hardly be heard over the chants and cars honking.

Organizer Susan Street set up a welcome table and brought a portable bubble machine, which she carried around giving a celebratory light and life to the affair.

Later, Benicia Mayor Steve Young and City Councilmember Terry Scott spoke. And near the end of our time together, our State Senator Chris Cabaldon arrived and offered remarks. After his talk, I approached Chris with thanks, and with a knowing look that acknowledged the political assassination in Minneapolis that morning, I encouraged him to “be brave.”

I almost can’t express fully the sense I have that this gathering was historic for Benicia. And that the 2000+ similar rallies around the U.S. and abroad were also way larger than expected and peaceful, and strong in the growing public opposition to the Trump administration’s shockingly ambitious moves toward an authoritarian takeover that would destroy our democracy. The signs held up by protesters show us to be a thinking city, an aware and deeply concerned nation and world.

This can’t be the last such lifting of our voices in dissent. We continue to be a people of peace and kindness, a nation of liberty and justice for all. (See Benicia’s Juneteenth celebration.) In the “culture war” that is being promoted and executed by oligarchs and white Christian supremacists, we represent the backbone and vision of Dr. King’s long arc of the moral universe. “…the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Along with the rally signs, The Benicia Independent lifts a strong and insistent voice: Stop ICE! No Kings since 1776! Stop the cruelty! Liberty and justice for all! We will PERSIST and PREVAIL! Love always wins!

Roger Straw
The Benicia Independent

Benicia Mayor Steve Young, Democracy under attack, Donald Trump, Local vigilance, No Kings!, Vallejo-Benicia Indivisible

Benicia Mayor Steve Young: NO KINGS DAY Speech

Mayor Young receives kudos for his speech at the Vallejo NO KINGS DAY rally

Benicia Mayor Steve Young, NO KINGS, Vallejo, CA, 6/14/25. Photo: Vallejo-Benicia Indivisible.

[Editor’s comment: Several Benicians who were at the NO KINGS rally in Vallejo said Mayor Young’s speech was excellent. I asked Steve for a copy and here is what he sent. Note more photos and comments on Vallejo-Benicia Indivisible Facebook page. – R.S.]

By Benicia Mayor Steve Young, June 14, 2025

Back on Memorial Day  I gave a speech in which I decried the proposed  cuts of 83,000 jobs in the VA and speculated that cuts of this size would put veterans at risk.  Afterwards, I was criticized for politicizing the event. So I want to make it clear that I am speaking only for myself and not the City of Benicia.

On the opposite coast, a vanity birthday parade is costing $50 million. How many services to veterans could be paid for with that $50 million?

Let’s talk about what is happening in LA. What the feds are doing has multiple purposes.

    1. Spread a false narrative that all of LA is on fire and subject to riots and looting. When some anarchists or provocateurs, or the military itself, may instigate violence, it plays straight into their hands. It creates video clips that will play round the clock on Fox and during the 26 elections.
    2. It is also a blatant attempt to spread fear and to normalize the use of the military for domestic law enforcement.
    3. Because nothing says things are normal like tanks in the streets of DC and marines in LA. Their purpose is to bully and intimidate the rest of us.

Trump is a man who prizes loyalty over the law, and control over freedom. In fact, his calls for law and order are empty as he does not respect the rule of law, and has no respect for due process.

And why the focus on LA? It is nearly half Latino, and immigrants are the lifeblood of that, and other communities.

ICE queen Kristi Noem says LA is a “city of criminals”, while Stephen Miller calls undocumented immigrants “invaders” and protestors as “insurrectionists”.

And why are they there? According to ICE Barbie, “To liberate Los Angeles and California from the socialist and bumbling failures of our Governor and the LA Mayor.”

In other words, if they disapprove of who we elect, they reserve the right to bring in the military to “liberate” us from our wrong-headed decisions.

The riots on Jan. 6, however, had real insurrectionists who took over the Capitol in an attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power, who threatened to kill the VP, and attacked police resulting in multiple  deaths and injuries.

Meanwhile, not only was the national guard not called, but every single one of the convicted insurrectionists were pardoned. This gives ICE and other agents who may be enforcing illegal orders the belief that, even if they act in a clearly illegal manner, that they will be pardoned.

This is no longer about the mass deportation of violent criminal immigrants. Now, anyone who is undocumented is considered a criminal and an enemy – including children and US citizens.

It is worth noting that there has been no crackdown on employers of undocumented immigrants. No chicken or beef processing plant owners or farmers have been cited, much less arrested. Only their workers.

And somehow it is OK for ICE agents to be masked and operate without judicial warrants, but protestors who are masked are subject to arrest?

But maybe Trump is chickening out. Maybe his corporate billionaire advisers finally got through to him and made him  partly realize the utter insanity of his deportation agenda. That it is immigrants who keep our economy running. Who do the work that most Americans don’t or won’t do. Farm workers, domestic workers, hotel staff, construction workers, restaurant workers. These are the “really bad, violent” criminals we want to deport?

At midnight on June 13, Trump directed ICE to abruptly halt all immigrant raids at farms, restaurants, hotels, and the like. Trump also directed ICE to stop so-called ‘collateral arrests’ where ICE randomly detains and arrests non-criminal immigrants.

Is this real? Who knows? But I do know his policies are massively unpopular, and becoming more so by the day. And he caved before a single protestor hit the streets.

Does that mean we should not continue to protest? No, we need to do it louder and more often. Can we force him from office? Not until after the elections next year.

So what can we do?

As an elected official and a Democrat, I have a message to the Democratic Party.

Stop texting me every 15 minutes asking for money. Get away from the consultant class offering their ineffective advice. Get out into the field like Bernie and AOC  who drew huge crowds all across the country.

Is there a single Democrat in Congress calling for impeachment? Only Elon Musk.

What we need is our own Project 2029. What should it include?

    • Codify a woman’s right to choose
    • Codify equal rights and marriage rights for all
    • Institute universal health care or Medicare for All
    • Eliminate the electoral college
    • Eliminate the Citizens United decision
    • Term Limits across the board, including the Supreme Court
    • Prohibit gerrymandering
    • Make college affordable
    • Adopt common sense gun regulations
    • Tax the rich – no tax cuts for people making over $250k
    • Cap CEO pay at 35x lowest paid employees
    • Tax Megachurches
    • More renewable energy

These are things that polls have consistently shown are very popular with people. Democrats need to start working for what people want, not for what corporations will accept.

As we leave here to continue our right to assemble and exercise free speech, be careful. Don’t take the bait by allowing violence when instigators like anarchists, provocateurs or proud boys try to start something.

Our efforts can only prevail through continued nonviolent protest.

The founders fought a revolution to defeat the same things we are fighting.

    • Unlimited executive power
    • Use of a standing army to suppress dissent
    • Lack of due process
    • Suppression of freedom of assembly and free speech.

We are the defenders of our country and our Constitution.  Reclaim the flag. We are the real patriots. It is up to us. Complacency is not an option.

Russia, Stephen Golub, Trump

The Manchurian President


Speaking hypothetically…

 Stephen Golub, A Promised Land – America as a Developing Country

A Promised Land – America as a Developing Country, by Stephen Golub, Benicia resident and author, June 7, 2025 [UPDATED ON 6/10/25] (Previously appearing in The Benicia Herald, “Benicia & Beyond,” 6/8/25)

In the 1962 film, “The Manchurian Candidate,” a US soldier is captured during the Korean War and brainwashed in Manchuria (a part of China bordering Korea) by Chinese and Russian agents. They then arrange his supposedly heroic “escape” that earns him the Medal of Honor back in America.

The point of this plan? Acting as an automaton, he will then unwittingly assassinate a presidential candidate and usher in an authoritarian regime serving our enemies’ interests.

Which brings us to Donald Trump. I am not suggesting that he’s been brainwashed or that he deliberately prioritizes the Kremlin over America. His main motivators instead seem to be money, power and narcissism.

But, speaking hypothetically, what  if Trump were in fact a “Manchurian President,” brainwashed  by Russia to  undermine the United States? What would he do?

He would intentionally and illegally call in the National Guard and Marines to inflame legitimate protests and to open the door to even more inflammatory, repressive steps.

He would, in contrast, do nothing for hours on January 6, 2021, as insurrectionists violently tried to take over the U.S. Capitol and block a presidential election’s certification.

He would pardon those very insurrectionists and praise them as patriots.

He would badmouth democracies far more than despots.

He would insult long-time friends such as Canada and Denmark by threatening their territorial integrity.

He would have his vice president back a Russia-friendly neo-Nazi party in Germany.

He would alienate other democratic allies through statements, trade policies and foreign policy decisions that force them to reconsider their relations with us.

He would purge the U.S. military brass of many officers, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, likely to prize fealty to the Constitution over loyalty to him.

He would gut our National Security Council staff and other parts of the government that guard us against efforts to cripple our security and democracy.

He would abandon Ukraine, whose fight against Russia’s brutal aggression is so crucial to European security and democracy that even formerly neutral Sweden and Finland have joined NATO.

He would appoint incompetents or people sympathetic to hostile powers to top national security positions.

He would take little action when such officials engage in discussions that leak combat plans to outsiders.

He would sabotage American soft power by ravaging foreign aid and sacrificing millions of lives abroad through public health cuts.

He would attack our democratic institutions right and left, including by condemning judges and extorting law firms and media outlets.

He would authorize a fellow narcissist and associated techno-brats to hastily purge the government of expertise, personnel and resources in a matter of weeks.

He would impose massive staff and funding cuts on medical and other research, harming public health in particular and American scientific leadership in general.

He would select individuals with bizarre public health ideas to head agencies charged with protecting the public against pandemics.

He would deregulate a cryptocurrency industry that could run amok even as it enriches him and his allies.

He would push tariff policies that whiplash practically daily and could hurl the U.S. economy into a tailspin.

He would back budget-busting, billionaire-benefiting legislation that would both damage the economy and deny health care to millions.

He would so undercut America’s financial and defense credibility that the world could lose confidence in the country for decades.

He would seek to block thousands of brilliant foreign students from studying here, ensuring that many of them will instead benefit other nations’ universities, economies and societies.

He would engage in rhetoric that cleaves our country in unprecedented ways, with boasts of retribution and brutal social media blasts against anyone who opposes him.

He would pardon other criminals in exchange for financial favors or political loyalty.

He would embark on an unparalleled reign of corruption that wreaks havoc on our rule of law at home and our image abroad.

He would order a $45 million, Soviet-style military parade on June 14, ostensibly to honor the U.S. Army’s 250th anniversary but in reality to celebrate his birthday that day.

He would do all this – and far more – less than 10 percent of the way into his presidency.

He would assume that he can’t and won’t be stopped.

>>> Which brings us to the “No Kings” rallies taking place across the country on June 14. The Benicia gathering will be at the City Park Gazebo (near the corner of 1st Street and Military West) from 1 to 2 pm.
>>>Through such demonstrations, we demonstrate to the media, the world and ourselves that we’re not giving up. By  showing up, we’re standing up for democracy.

Benicia resident and author Stephen Golub, A Promised Land

CHECK OUT STEPHEN GOLUB’S BLOG,
A PROMISED LAND

…and… here’s more Golub on the Benicia Independent