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'A Good Day for Our Democracy': Judge Orders Trump to End National Guard Deployment in LA
"For more than five months, the Trump administration has held California National Guard troops hostage as part of its political games," said California's attorney general. "But the president is not king."
Dec 10, 2025
In a win for Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, state Attorney General Rob Bonta, and the residents of Los Angeles, a federal judge on Wednesday ordered President Donald Trump to stop deploying the National Guard in the nation's second-largest city.
"The founders designed our government to be a system of checks and balances," wrote US District Judge Charles Breyer, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton. "Defendants, however, make clear that the only check they want is a blank one."
Trump mobilized around 4,000 California National Guard troops in June amid protests against his violent crackdown on undocumented immigrants. Since then, the Republican leader has also pursued deployments in other Democrat-led cities, including Chicago, Illinois; Portland, Oregon; and Washington, DC, where two soldiers were recently shot.
The new ruling from San Francisco-based Breyer comes as the administration was cutting troops in LA from 300 to 100, according to the New York Times.
"Once again, a court has firmly rejected the president's attempt to make the National Guard a traveling national police force."
"Six months after they first federalized the California National Guard, defendants still retain control of approximately 300 guardsmen, despite no evidence that execution of federal law is impeded in any way—let alone significantly," the judge said. "What's more, defendants have sent California guardsmen into other states, effectively creating a national police force made up of state troops."
After ruling in September that Trump's deployment of Marines in Los Angeles violated the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, the judge on Wednesday blocked the president's federalization of California National Guard troops—but he also halted his own decision until next Monday, allowing for appeals.
Despite the prospect that the Trump administration would continue the court fight, Bonta and Newsom—who is expected to run for president in 2028—welcomed the ruling.
"Once again, a court has firmly rejected the president's attempt to make the National Guard a traveling national police force," Bonta said in a statement. "For more than five months, the Trump administration has held California National Guard troops hostage as part of its political games."
"But the president is not king. And he cannot federalize the National Guard whenever, wherever, and for however long he wants, without justification," the attorney general declared. "This is a good day for our democracy and the strength of the rule of law."
In addition to battling Trump's invasion of LA, Bonta has backed lawsuits filed by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, and DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb challenging the president's deployments in their cities and filed an amicus brief with the US Supreme Court for the Chicago fight.
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Gavin Newsom Wants a 'Big Tent Party,' But Opposes Wealth Tax Supported by Large Majority of Americans
"A wealth tax is a big tent policy unless the only people you care about are billionaires," said one progressive organizer.
Dec 05, 2025
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, considered by some to be the frontrunner to be the next Democratic presidential nominee, said during a panel on Wednesday that he wants his party to be a “big tent” that welcomes large numbers of people into the fold. But he’s “adamantly against” one of the most popular proposals Democrats have to offer: a wealth tax.
In October, progressive economists Emmanuel Saez and Robert Reich joined forces with one of California's most powerful unions, the Service Employees International Union's (SEIU) United Healthcare Workers West, to propose that California put the nation’s first-ever wealth tax on the ballot in November 2026.
They described the measure as an "emergency billionaires tax" aimed at recouping the tens of billions of dollars that will be stripped from California's 15 million Medicaid recipients over the next five years, after Republicans enacted historic cuts to the program in July with President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which dramatically reduced taxes for the wealthiest Americans.
Among those beneficiaries were the approximately 200 billionaires living in California, whose average annual income, Saez pointed out, has risen by 7.5% per year, compared with 1.5% for median-income residents.
Under the proposal, they would pay a one-time 5% tax on their total net worth, which is estimated to raise $100 billion. The vast majority of the funds, about 90%, would be used to restore Medicaid funding, while the rest would go towards funding K-12 education, which the GOP has also slashed.
The proposal in California has strong support from unions and healthcare groups. But Newsom has called it “bad policy” and “another attempt to grab money for special purposes.”
Meanwhile, several of his longtime consultants, including Dan Newman and Brian Brokaw, have launched a campaign alongside “business and tech leaders” to kill the measure, which they’ve dubbed “Stop the Squeeze." They've issued familiar warnings that pinching the wealthy too hard will drive them from the state, along with the critical tax base they provide.
At Wednesday's New York Times DealBook Summit, Andrew Ross Sorkin asked Newsom about his opposition to the wealth tax idea, comparing it to a proposal by recent New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, who pledged to increase the income taxes of New Yorkers who earn more than $1 million per year by 2% in order to fund his city-wide free buses, universal childcare, and city-owned grocery store programs.
Mamdani's proposal was met with a litany of similar warnings from Big Apple bigwigs who threatened to flee the city and others around the country who said they'd never move in.
But as Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein explained in October for the American Prospect: "The evidence for this is thin: mostly memes shared by tech and finance people... Research shows that the truth of the matter is closer to the opposite. Wealthy individuals and their income move at lower rates than other income brackets, even in response to an increase of personal income tax." Many of those who sulked about Mamdani's victory have notably begun making amends with the incoming mayor.
Moreover, the comparison between Mamdani's plan and the one proposed in California is faulty to begin with. As Harold Meyerson explained, also for the Prospect: "It is a one-time-only tax, to be levied exclusively on billionaires’ current (i.e., 2025) net worth. Even if they move to Tasmania, they will still be liable for 5% of this year’s net worth."
"Crucially, the tax won’t crimp the fortunes of any billionaire who moves into the state next year or any later year, as it only applies to the billionaires living in the state this year," he added. "Therefore... the horrific specter of billionaire flight can’t be levied against the California proposal."
Nevertheless, Sorkin framed Newsom as being in an existential battle of ideas with Mamdani, asking how the two could both represent the Democratic Party when they are so "diametrically opposed."
"Well, I want to be a big-tent party," Newsom replied. "It's about addition, not subtraction."
Pushed on the question of whether there should be a "unifying theory of the case," Newsom responded that “we all want to be protected, we all want to be respected, we all want to be connected to something bigger than ourselves. We have fundamental values that I think define our party, about social justice, economic justice.”
"We have pre-distribution Democrats, and we have re-distribution Democrats," he continued. "Therein lies the dialectic and therein lies the debate."
Polling is scarce so far on the likelihood of such a measure passing in California. But nationally, polls suggest that the vast majority of Democrats fall on the "re-distribution" side of Newsom's "dialectic." In fact, the majority of all Americans do, regardless of party affiliation.
Last year, Inequality.org examined 55 national and state polls about a number of different taxation policies and found:
A billionaire income tax garnered the most support across party identification. On average, two out of three (67%) of Americans supported the tax including 84% of Democrats, 64% of Independents, and 51% of Republicans.
In national polls, a wealth tax had similarly high levels of support. More than three out of five Americans supported the tax including 78% of Democrats, 62% of Independents, and 51% of Republicans.
That sentiment only seems to have grown since the return of President Donald Trump. An Economist/YouGov poll released in early November found that 72% of Americans said that taxes on billionaires should be raised—including 95% of Democrats, 75% of independents, and 48% of Republicans. Across the board, just 15% said they should not be raised.
Support remains high when the proposal is more specific as well. On the eve of Mamdani's election, despitre months of fearmongering, 64% of New Yorkers said they backed his proposal, including a slight plurality of self-identified conservatives, according to a Siena College poll.
Many observers were perplexed by how Newsom proposes to maintain a “big tent” while opposing policies supported by most of the people inside it.
"A wealth tax is a big tent policy unless the only people you care about are billionaires," wrote Jonathan Cohn, the political director for Progressive Mass, a grassroots organization in Massachusetts, on social media.
"Gavin Newsom—estimated net worth between $20 and $30 million—says he's opposed to a billionaire wealth tax. Color me shocked," wrote the Columbia University lecturer Anthony Zenkus. "Democrats holding him up as a potential savior for 2028 is a clear example of not reading the room."
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Trump Ripped Over 'Reckless' Plan to Drill for Oil Off California, Florida
"Donald Trump and Doug Burgum are once again trying to sell out our coastal communities and our public waters in favor of corporate polluters' bottom line."
Nov 20, 2025
While other governments are gathered in Brazil for the United Nations climate summit, the Trump administration on Thursday announced plans for new oil drilling off the coasts of California and Florida, drawing sharp denunciations from defenders of the planet and all life on Earth.
After running on a promise to "drill, baby, drill" and raking in campaign cash from Big Oil, President Donald Trump launched his pro-polluter agenda on the first day he returned to office. Doug Burgum, the billionaire fossil fuel industry ally appointed to lead the US Department of the Interior, advanced that agenda on Thursday with his "Unleashing American Offshore Energy" order.
Burgum ordered the department to terminate the Biden administration's 2024-29 National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program—which had the fewest sales in history—and replace it with a "new, more expansive" plan "as soon as possible."
While the department said in a statement that "under the new proposal for the 2026-31 National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program, Interior is taking a major step to boost United States energy independence and sustain domestic oil and gas production," critics quickly pointed out the pitfalls of the Trump administration's planet-heating ambitions.
#BREAKING: The Trump admin just released its plan to expand offshore drilling on the West, Gulf & Alaskan coasts of the U.S.This move threatens beloved beaches, precious marine life & countless coastal communities across the country – despite bipartisan public opposition. https://oceana.ly/4pn13t1
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— Oceana (@oceana.bsky.social) November 20, 2025 at 4:14 PM
"Donald Trump and Doug Burgum are once again trying to sell out our coastal communities and our public waters in favor of corporate polluters' bottom line," declared Sierra Club executive director Loren Blackford in a statement. "Americans across the political spectrum have made it clear they oppose offshore drilling. We know the risks are far too great, threatening ecosystems and coastal economies with the risk of spills that would take decades to clean up."
"Despite overwhelming bipartisan opposition, Trump and Burgum are moving forward with their reckless plan to serve their ultimate goal of handing over our public lands and waters to Big Oil CEOs," Blackford continued. "These lease sales are privatization in everything but name—a 'keep out' sign is the same whether an area was sold or leased. The Sierra Club will continue to stand with coastal communities and work to stop this reckless plan dead in the water."
“Trump's plan would risk the health and well-being of millions of people who live along our coasts. It would also devastate countless ocean ecosystems. This admin continues to put the oil industry above people, our shared environment, and the law,” said Earthjustice senior attorney Brettny Hardy.
— Earthjustice (@earthjustice.org) November 20, 2025 at 3:29 PM
Kristen Monsell, oceans legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity, also blasted the administration's plan for as many as 34 potential offshore lease sales.
"Trump's war on marine life continues with this absolutely unhinged attack on our coasts," she said. "Auctioning off nearly the entire US coast to Big Oil will inflict oil spill after devastating oil spill, harm whales and sea turtles, and wreck fisheries and coastal economies. I'm confident that Americans across the political spectrum will come together to fight Trump's plan to smear toxic crude across our beaches and oceans."
Unlike the Trump administration, the center's energy justice director, Jean Su, is at COP30 in Belém. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat expected to run for president in 2028, also attended the UN conference last week.
"Trump can't stand it that Gov. Newsom showed him up here in Brazil, and I think that explains the timing of this reckless plan to drill our oceans," Su said. "To Trump, this plan is political theater to spite Newsom and the climate talks. But this isn't an episode of The Apprentice. This plan would do immense damage to people and wildlife, damage those of us at COP30 are fighting like hell to defend against."
While Florida is led by a Trump sycophant, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, Newsom joined conservation and climate campaigners in calling out the administration's drilling plans. The Democrat said that "Donald Trump's idiotic proposal to sell off California's coasts to his Big Oil donors is dead in the water. We will not stand by as our coastal economy and communities are put in danger."
Trump is rolling out the red carpet for offshore oil and gas—which will inevitably spill into the ocean and increase costs at home. Trump is doing this while sabotaging offshore wind, the energy source that does the exact opposite. He’s not “unleashing American energy”—he’s underwriting Big Oil.
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— Senator Ed Markey (@markey.senate.gov) November 20, 2025 at 5:11 PM
Two other California Democrats, US House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Jared Huffman and Sen. Alex Padilla, a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, similarly said in a joint statement that "with this draft plan, Donald Trump and his administration are trying to destroy one of the most valuable, most protected coastlines in the world and hand it over to the fossil fuel industry."
"They didn't listen to Californians. They didn't listen to communities up and down the West Coast. Instead, Trump wants to take a wrecking ball to our communities while trampling over anyone who stands between him and what billionaires demand," the lawmakers continued. "These lease areas are not only irreplaceable, but allowing drilling in these areas would undermine military readiness and pose risks to national security. But Trump doesn't care."
"Californians remember every spill, every dead dolphin and sea otter, every fishing season wrecked by contamination. We built stronger, cleaner, more resilient coastal communities—and a burgeoning $1.7 trillion coastal economy—in spite of all that. And we're not going to stand by and watch it get destroyed by Trump's oil and gas pet projects," they added. "This plan targets California and the whole West Coast because they think we will roll over. They are wrong. We're going to fight this with everything we have."
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