The government has shut down — and our national parks and public lands are paying the price. Republicans control the House, Senate, and White House, and their mismanagement has led us here, with regular Americans suffering the consequences. And now our parks, wildlife, and communities are caught in the middle. From day one, Donald Trump has worked to dismantle the very protections that keep our air clean, our water safe, and our public lands protected. He gutted the Department of the Interior with layoffs and hiring freezes, leaving rangers and staff stretched thin. Now his gross mismanagement has forced a shutdown, and he’s making things worse by forcing the parks to stay open without the resources to operate safely. Park superintendents warned Trump about the effects of a shutdown on public lands. They knew what was at stake. But Trump and his allies refused, right in the middle of peak visitation in some parks.
Here’s what’s happening right now:
Rangers and staff are stretched to the breaking point. Ongoing maintenance and non-essential visitor services are on hold.
Trash and infrastructure maintenance may pile up. Trails, restrooms, and facilities will be attended with skeleton crews, potentially creating hazards for visitors if the shutdown drags on.
Wildlife and ecosystems are vulnerable. Vital programs like habitat restoration, invasive species control, and wildfire prevention are on hold.
Local communities are impacted. While visitors can still come, nearby businesses face uncertainty and reduced services, and emergency response support is thin.
Operating parks without the necessary support and resources is dangerous for visitors, staff, wildlife, and the future of our public lands. The Sierra Club and our allies are urging lawmakers to fully fund park operations and ensure the safety of people and land. But we need your voice and support to keep the pressure on.
On October 1, Dr. Jane Goodall, founder of the Jane Goodall Institute, passed away at age 91 peacefully in her sleep while in Los Angeles, CA for her speaking tour in the United States.
In a statement the Jane Goodall Institute wrote:
Dr. Goodall’s life and work not only made an indelible mark on our understanding of chimpanzees and other species, but also of humankind and the environments we all share. She inspired curiosity, hope and compassion in countless people around the world, and paved the way for many others — particularly young people who gave her hope for the future.
In 1960 Dr. Goodall established the longest running wild chimpanzee study in Gombe National Park, Tanzania which continues to this day. She pioneered and sustained the Jane Goodall Institute’s community-centered conservation initiatives across the chimpanzee range for over four decades. Her legacy includes the creation of JGI’s international environmental and humanitarian youth program Roots & Shoots, which is actively driving change in 75 countries and counting around the world.
The Jane Goodall Institute is incredibly grateful to all our supporters, partners, and friends, especially during this difficult time. To add a personal remembrance of Dr. Goodall and continue her legacy for future generations, please visit JaneGoodall.org/RememberingJane
Dr. Jane Goodall was a British primatologist and anthropologist.
Regarded as a pioneer in primate ethology, she is best known for her more than six decades of field research on the social and family life of wild chimpanzees at Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania.
Under his sponsorship beginning in 1960, Louis Leakey arranged for Goodall to study for a PhD in Ethology at Newnham College, Cambridge. Having witnessed Jane’s patience and determination, Leakey asked her to travel to Tanzania, to study families of wild chimpanzees in the forest of Gombe. In July, 1960, Jane arrived in Gombe. It was there that she developed her unique understanding of chimpanzee behaviour and made the ground-breaking discovery that chimpanzees use tools. An observation that has been credited with “redefining what it means to be human.”
Goodall’s doctoral thesis, The Behaviour of Free-living Chimpanzees in the Gombe Stream Reserve, was completed in 1965. Her three-month study evolved into an extraordinary research program lasting decades and it is still ongoing today.Goodall’s work challenged prevailing scientific views by showing that chimpanzees make and use tools, hunt cooperatively, and display complex emotions and social structures once thought unique to humans.
Looking back, Jane always said she’d have “studied any animal” but felt extremely lucky to have been given the chance to study man’s closest living relative in the wild.
She later founded the Jane Goodall Institute in 1977 to promote wildlife conservation, followed by the Roots & Shoots youth program in 1991, which grew into a global network. She also established sanctuaries and reforestation projects in Africa and campaigned for the ethical treatment of animals in research, farming, and captivity. Goodall was appointed a United Nations Messenger of Peace in 2002, advised organisations such as Save the Chimps and the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks.
In addition to her scientific research, Goodall published several memoirs and remained an active lecturer throughout her career, travelling extensively to promote conservation and climate action. Goodall was an honorary member of the World Future Council. Among other honors, she was the recipient of the Kyoto Prize, the Templeton Prize, and was awarded the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2025. She was on the board of the Nonhuman Rights Project from 2022 until her death in 2025
A younger Jane Goodall. Photo credit JGI Judy Goodall.
San Pedro Connection
Dr. Jane Goodall made a significant appearance at the 2024 Day of Peace celebration at Point Fermin Park in San Pedro. She also participated in a tree-planting service project there in honor of her 90th birthday.
Previous appearances include the Warner Grand Theatre in 2013 and in 2017, when her appearance at the theater supported the Jane Goodall Institute and included a VIP reception.
Holds Lessons for Iraq and Afghanistan U.S. War Veterans
A couple of weeks ago, producer Robert Altman, son of legendary MAS*H director Robert Altman, brought Parallel Process to the stage at the Odyssey Theatre.
In a recent interview, Altman recalled Fox Studios telling his dad they wouldn’t do a movie about Vietnam — explaining that it was too political.
“They said it had to be about the Korean War. But if you look at MAS*H closely, you’ll see that it’s really about Vietnam. Indeed, those same unflinching themes of war’s hidden costs and the bonds between soldiers are at the heart of Parallel Process,” Altman said.
The play is about two estranged brothers — Dennis, a respected clinical psychologist, and Bobby, a former district attorney — who are reunited decades after serving together in Vietnam. The brothers were drafted together and served in the same platoon, but one returned as an opponent of the war, and the other a die-hard militarist and defender of the U.S. slaughter.
The brothers face personal crises, a reckoning reflecting the unimaginable psychological wounds of killing humans fighting for their country’s self-determination. PTSD continues unabated, partially manageable but never-ending, well after the shooting stops. It is a personal crisis for them and thousands of other vets from the U.S. who are on never-ending adventures abroad (still today).
The U.S. war against the people of Vietnam ended 50 years ago with 1 million Vietnamese deaths, 60,000 U.S. soldiers killed, and tens of thousands more maimed from PTSD, Agent Orange (toxic defoliant), and the horrors of war for both sides.
As an anti-Vietnam War organizer, supporter of GIs’ constitutional right to speak out and march against the war (which they did in their thousands as well as refusing to fight in Vietnam itself), this performance was particularly intense.
The ongoing psychological and physical impact of this war carried out under Democratic and Republican administrations over two decades was brought to life in an unusual and exceptionally well-written play by David Kohner Zuckerman.
The conditions depicted in Parallel Process are reflected today in the development of the “About Face” organization of Iraqi and Afghani war veterans coming home and now organizing to support each other, fight U.S. military aid for Israel, the illegal use of the National Guard in U.S. cities’ streets violating human rights and aiding the horrendous, racist acts by ICE agents sent by President Trump, against the will of local elected officials and every city’s population.
The playwright draws authenticity from extensive conversations with Vietnam veterans, particularly executive producer Lt. Lewis Finocchio, whose observation that “every Vietnam veteran carries a secret” and acknowledgements from military historians and combat veterans describing it as “a gut punch of truth.” The after-play conversation with actors, producer, writer and veterans in the audience was a powerful ending to the evening’s revelations about the continuing psychological struggles of veterans from their foreign missions.
One veteran pointed out “That the Veterans Administration never gave a damn about us upon our return” (It took six years of fighting before vets were given treatment for Agent Orange, and the Vietnamese never got any medical assistance for 1 million there suffering the effects.) Another added, “We knew something was wrong, and it didn’t matter if we were sacrificed.”
In an interview with the periodical What the Butler Saw, writer Zuckerman had this to say:
“Talking with veterans like Lewis was transformative. They were candid about the burden they’ve carried — not just the horrors witnessed, but the moral compromises they still wrestle with. Those conversations helped me understand that the ‘shared secret’ in our story isn’t just about what happened in Vietnam — it’s about what they’ve told themselves to survive. Perhaps the moral complexity comes from that gray area between what’s right, what’s necessary, and what you can live with.”
Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., and Sundays at 2 p.m., Sept. 19 through Oct. 26. Tickets are $39. The Odyssey Theatre is at 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles. For more information, visit https://tinyurl.com/Parallel-Process.
We shook hands to make it official. If my tacos were the best ever, as claimed, I would win the wager. Otherwise, victory went to my adversary. It was admittedly the most audacious of claims, the longest of long shots. Out of how many hundreds of Mexican restaurants and taco trucks? She took a bite and stared at me, her eyes smooth blend of “OMG,” “WTF” and “up your nose with a garden hose.”
If this confidence sounds like braggadocio, it wouldn’t be on my behalf. I did not invent that runny green sauce of cilantro, jalapeño, garlic and lime that you may have noticed at your local taco stand. I don’t know where it came from or even its name; the recipes online refer to it with the same list of ingredients. I also did not invent the trick that probably won me the wager, which I learned from a friend in California.
I did kind of invent the braised oxtails, spiced with thyme and succulent with red wine. They were leftovers from a non-Mexican meal, they were nonetheless stellar as a stand-in taco filler, the only true requirements of taco filling, as I understand it, being that it be delicious and savory, ideally with protein.
As for the tortilla trick, it feels like cheating. You heat the tortillas in a pan or griddle, and when they are piping hot on one side you flip them and add grated cheese to the piping hot sides now facing up. The cheese must be of a melty variety, such as a Mexican orange, or a northern cheddar, or manchego if you are from Spain, or blue cheese, if you partake.
When the cheese melts, turn off the heat, load the tacos and enjoy the best-ever-ness, or bask in the glory of serving them to others. The warm, cheesy treatment toughens the tortillas, making them less likely to fall apart if there is too much sauce on the tacos, as there frequently is.
Mayo Verde
It goes well on steak, eggs, salad, sandwiches, veggie side dishes, and basically anything savory. Or pour it into a glass, where it’s drinkable as a $20 bottle of wine. I call it Mayo Verde because it’s green and half mayo. We could also call it “game changer,” “performance enhancer,” or “food improver.”
The American Years is French-born photographer Guillaume Zuili’s love poem to Los Angeles and the desert landscape of Joshua Tree. The exhibition chronicles nearly 25 years of the artist honing his craft as both a black and white film photographer and master printer.
Zuili stated, in the announcement; “Film Noir has always been my matrix, because cinema is my matrix. Photography came later, but it all started with movies.”
Zuili came to Los Angeles when his then American wife wanted to move back here, to LA. He never wanted to move to LA, but Zuili called it amazing because suddenly he “was in a huge movie set.”
Mighty Shadow by Guillaume Zuili. Photo courtesy of PVAC.
It’s through his love of cinema, which stems from his childhood, that Zuili sees LA. He was profoundly influenced by the genre of film noir and has always seen photography in black and white. The photographer said he’s stuck in a time frame that he always looks for, from the 1940s to the 1970s; it’s what represents the U.S. the most.
Upon his arrival toLA at the end of 2001, Zuili worked with a press agency, which he still belongs to, doing many stories, portraits and assignments. Later, he worked as a correspondent for French magazines. The work eventually dried up around 2008 because of the state of the press when the big shift to digital happened. But another shift occurred for the photographer. Around 2006, after he had time to get a good grasp of Los Angeles, he developed his film noir series.
“The first few years I did nothing good. It started around 2006, when I found the right way to work with it, and after that it never ended.I found my way using [a] pin-hole [camera]. It erases detail and just gives you an idea.The key was to not show everything, to erase detail in a manner that when you see the image, you make the story. It was a tease.”
The pin-hole changed everything in Zuili’s journey because, at first, he had to resolve a lot of technical problems in order to make a good print, he explained. This is how he found lith printing, a process which enables him to achieve the high contrast and grainy shadows that make his Urban Jungle images so cinematic.
“It gave me amazing contrast, amazing blacks, and texture. The first time I saw those prints I couldn’t believe it. I fell in love. It changed my life as an artist because since 2006, I only do lith printing. It became my trademark. Suddenly it was not a photograph; it was more than that.”
He noted, taking the photo is not the most important part of what he does. Everything happens afterward, in the dark room where, Zuili said, he lives and can work whenever he wants. Developing his work takes a very long time. If he does four to five prints in a day he’s very happy.
Just as Zuilihas a talent for encapsulating this city precisely in his urban scenes, he sculpts engrosing desert terrain masterfully, through his lens. In The American Years viewers will find familiar LA buildings, or surprises that Zuili, with a keen eye, captured at the exact right moment, such as his LAX (2005, printed 2024). The silver gelatin print displays practically all one needs — on the surface — in a consumerist’s Los Angeles; parking, rent-a-car, music and entertainment, satellite football, dine-in/take-out, pool and darts, cupping and shiatsu massage, all found squeezed together in a portion of one block. Then, in what must have been a split second, a plane suspended above the citified commodities comes in for landing at LAX. There is so much in this image, notably absent of any humans, only cars on the street and the landmark Capital Records building stands in the distance.
Zuili’s capturing of it is astonishing.
Windows by Guillaume Zuili. Photo courtesy of PVAC.
Windows presents a towering apartment building, double exposed in butter yellow. The edifice beckons the viewer through an upward gaze to multiple, vertical rows of casement windows, most of which are ajar, adding a surreal yet inviting sense to the structure. It’s another masterful work by Zuili that, through light and movement, invites the imagination to play.
The imageis from an apartment building in Long Beach on the oceanfront. Zuili said he loves to do double exposure images.
With their warm sepia tones and minimal composition, the Joshua Tree series pays homage to classic American Westerns. Zuili was first drawn to Joshua Tree for his sanity when he was “freaking out in LA.”
I found peace there because it’s a magical place, he said. “Then I started taking pictures there, but it’s a very hard place to take pictures because the sense of scale is very difficult to render. It’s a tricky place. After lots of time, I tried many directions and found the right way for me. It’s a place that I love and I go there at least once a month, for me and for my photography.”
In several images from his Joshua Tree series, in a photographic trick, Zuili presents a juxtaposition, capturing a massive desert expanse, presented entirely within frame. To this observation the photographer divulged, “And some of those boulders are very small.”
He noted the light is very important, and so is the time that you shoot it.
“Photography is about composition, lights, timing and point of view … you find a spot, wait for the good light and you wait for the moment to shoot,” he said. “There is no mystery about that. So you need to take time and this is why you keep going back to the right place and one day you have everything in the picture. It’s about watching, all the time, what’s going on.”
In particular, Zuili’s When the Sun Goes Down #5 depicts at least three rock formations, two of which appear to be boulders, all nestled together. The remarkable detail is the natural sunlight Zuili captured on one side of the biggest rock, as though the sun had just risen over a desert horizon.
Zuili called the contrast of scenesbetween the urban landscape and Joshua Tree, the yin and the yang.
“It’s a good opposition and it represents the west, California. It’s very emblematic. I will always continue the urban and the desert landscapes but it may be elsewhere.”
Zuili said he is very happy he did this show and that he was approached to do it.
“I was very touched by the feedback I got because it was [from] Angelenos [who] are native, born in LA,” he said. “Usually, they are very blasé, so the fact that they loved the way I photographed LA, it was very important for me to get that feedback.”
When his creativity is there, Zuili noted, he does not stop. He becomes like a machine and goes into the dark room.
“It’s amazing [then] suddenly it stops and you don’t know why,” he said. “You are dry and it can be for a few months. Then I’m relieved because I’m so exhausted. Then suddenly I become very pissed off and I try but it doesn’t work. Then … it comes back. We all have these processes.”
It may be his stubbornness that keeps him working like a machine. In any case, he credits it as both a strength and weakness. On that note, he shared advice given to him, when asked, from a mentor; he told Zuili the best thing is to not listen to any advice.
“I followed that by the book. I do it my way. I don’t care if people like it or not. It’s not easy but I like it.”
The Palos Verdes Art Center will host an artist talk with Zuili from 1 to 3 p.m., Oct. 11.
Next, Zuili has an upcoming show at solo. Gallery in San Pedro, opening Oct. 18.
Guillaume Zuili: The American Years
Time: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday and Saturday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
In June, millions of Americans peacefully took to the streets and declared America has no kings.
Since then, Trump and his authoritarian allies have increased attacks on democracy and local communities. The Sierra Club is joining what might be the largest mass mobilization in this nation’s recent history to once again say “No Kings.”
Trump and his Republican allies in Congress are weaponizing the federal government to punish those who disagree with them.
For anyone who is scared, worried, angry, or heartbroken about what this administration is doing, this movement is for you. Whether you’re a frequent protester or this is your first time, you’re not alone, and your voice is needed.
Join the mass mobilization to protect our democracy.
No Kings is a peaceful national day of action in response to the increasing authoritarian excesses and corruption of the Trump administration. Time: October 18 Details: Sign up to attend one of over 2,200 nationwide No Kings events today, at:
In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, Donald Trump has declared virtual war on his political enemies, conflating political opposition with terrorism in a typical authoritarian effort to jail opponents and intimidate the majority of Americans who disapprove of his performance. The playbook he’s following closely resembles Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, but he’s moving much faster, and with far less public support, both of which could spell big trouble for him, as public opposition grows and stiffens.
On Monday, Sept. 22, Trump signed an executive order declaring antifa (which isn’t an organization) a “domestic terrorist organization” (which isn’t a legal definition under U.S. law). Then, on Thursday, Sept. 25, he issued a memorandum, “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” while publicly naming two prominent, wealthy donors to liberal causes as targets for investigation for possibly funding domestic terrorism — George Soros and Reid Hoffman.
Soros, who has funded pro-democracy organizations and educational institutions since the late 1970s, has been the target of right-wing anti-semitic conspiracy theories across the globe since the 1990s, promoted both by Trump authoritarian allies Victor Orbán and Vladimir Putin abroad and by multiple Fox News and other right-wing media figures here in the U.S. He’s been painted as the shadowy puppet-master behind everything from Barack Obama to Black Lives Matter to the Color Revolutions of former Soviet and Yugoslav states like Ukraine, Georgia and Serbia. Hoffman, who is also Jewish, appears to be a warning shot that any number of other liberal donors could be open to the same sort of baseless prosecution.
Thus, Trump’s actions are predicated on a wholly false, paranoid, conspiratorial worldview. But that’s not the end of it. Two other falsehoods are also key. First, Charlie Kirk’s assassin wasn’t radicalized by any left-wing group. He had no record of any such contact. Rather, he was radicalized by Kirk’s own violent, hateful rhetoric. “I had enough of his [Kirk’s] hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out,” he explained in a private text.
And he’s not the only recent terrorist with no left-wing ties whose motivations have been falsely construed both by Trump and the corporate media.
Luigi Mangione, who murdered the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, had vaguely libertarian politics and was driven more by his own pain than any ideology. The recent ICE shooter, who killed detainees, not ICE agents, was “someone with a vaguely libertarian bent who despised both major parties and politicians generally (including Trump) but who didn’t engage with politics beyond that,” according to long-time friends interviewed by independent journalist Ken Klipperstein. Although he’d grown increasingly withdrawn from their lives for several years, none of them “believed that the ‘ANTI-ICE’ inscription [on one bullet casing] could possibly be sincere, feeling such a serious political statement was anathema” to who he was.
Second, right-wing violence has far overshadowed left-wing violence for more than a generation, and — unlike left-wing violence — is both connected to and encouraged by elected officials, most notably Trump himself, who played the leading role in mobilizing and encouraging the Jan. 6 insurrection that threatened the lives of Vice President Mike Pence, members of Congress and police officers, five of whom died within days of the assault.
But Trump’s wildly dishonest declaration of political war has gotten cover from corporate media in multiple ways. It begins with stenographically repeating his wild-eyed conspiracist lies and amplifying the false narratives he both relies on and feeds. It’s further supported by downplaying or ignoring contrary facts, and significantly distorting the overall picture of political violence to bring it more in line with Trump’s wild-eyed fantasy.
The basic real-world fact is that right-wing violence has overwhelmingly outstripped left-wing violence since at least the 1990s, as noted in a report Trump had removed from the Department of Justice website early this year:
“Since 1990, far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than far-left or radical Islamist extremists, including 227 events that took more than 520 lives. In this same period, far-left extremists committed 42 ideologically motivated attacks that took 78 lives.”
Yet, despite this long-standing fact, well-known to experts in the field, on Tuesday, Sept. 23, the Atlantic published an article, “Left-Wing Terrorism Is on the Rise,” which the author’s own data, in a report published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), shows to be false. What’s more, in the depths of the article, they frankly admit that “Left-wing attacks are overwhelmingly non-lethal and far less lethal compared with other ideological orientations.” They only cited two fatalities since 2020, and one was the false attribution of the libertarian Luigi Mangione as left-wing. Thus, even if such terrorism were on the rise, that wouldn’t necessarily mean a greater threat to life. But in fact, there is no such rise.
Instead, their own data shows that, since 2015, left-wing terrorist incidents have fluctuated continuously, bouncing up and down from between one per year in 2015, 2018, 2021, and 2023 to highs of seven in 2016 and eight in 2020 and 2022, with other years falling at three or four. Thus, there is no trend, just a fluctuation around an average of about three or four incidents a year. And this year’s total of five so far is not yet at the high end of these fluctuations, though of course it could end up going higher. And that’s assuming their data is good, which isn’t entirely true, as already noted about Mangione.
What is true is that right-wing terrorism has dropped dramatically this year, as the Trump administration has taken over for its grassroots supporters, terrorizing tens of millions of immigrant families and their friends, along with the LGBTQ community — particularly trans Americans — and the country as a whole. CSIS reported 29 incidents of rightwing terrorism in 2023, down to 14 in 2024 and just one this year, giving rise to the subhead of the Atlantic article: “For the first time in more than 30 years, attacks by the far left outnumber those by the far right.”
But that subhead is misleading, if not outright false. It’s based on just six months of data, the count is off, and subsequent incidents add even more. The only incident it counts is “the June assassination of the Minnesota state legislator Melissa Hortman and her husband,” but this ignores the shooting of Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, who survived a second incident that same night. It also ignores the following cases, which may lack the sort of specific motives needed for some criminal charges, but whose political motivation is unmistakable:
On Jan. 22, 2025, a student at at Antioch High School in Nashville, Tennessee, opened fire inside the school’s cafeteria, killing one student and injuring another before committing suicide. His writings praised various mass killers, along with sharing antisemitic, racist, and neo-Nazi views. He described himself as a Black man who was angry at members of his own race and had an account on the gore forum WatchPeopleDie.
On April 17, 2025, a mass shooting by a student on the campus of Florida State University in Tallahassee left two dead and seven injured. The shooter’s politics were unmistakably right-wing. He espoused white supremacist, far-right and homophobic views, causing him to be kicked out of a political group at the school he attended before FSU. “He repeatedly espoused white supremacist, alt-right views to the point where people were uncomfortable, and we had to ask him toleave,” one student told the New York Times. “He said Rosa Parks was in the wrong,” another said. He also “held a fascination with Hitler, Nazis and other hate groups, according to screenshots of his online activity captured by the Anti-Defamation League,” according to the Tallahassee Democrat.
On June 12, the Archuleta, Colorado County Clerk’s office was firebombed, apparently targeting the room where the county’s Dominion voting machines are stored. The accused suspect once ran for sheriff in the county and had a history of espousing conspiracy theories that Dominion equipment was used to steal the 2020 election.
On June 29, two firefighters in rural Idaho were fatally ambushed. USA Today reported he “had ‘Nazi tendencies’ in school, sketched pictures of guns and swastikas in a notebook and was ‘obsessed with guns,’” according to three formerclassmates.
All these events occurred during the period covered by the CSIS report, but were ignored. Had they been counted, it would not be true that left-wing incidents outnumbered right-wing ones this year. And since then, there have been at least two more incidents of right-wing terrorism:
On Aug. 8, a gunman who blamed the COVID-19 vaccine for his mental-health problems fired almost 500 rounds at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta, amazingly killing only one security guard before committing suicide. Fired But Fighting, a group self-described as “a coalition of fired HHS employees and allies,” said that RFK Jr., “is directly responsible for the villainization of CDC’s workforce through his continuous lies about science and vaccine safety, which have fueled a climate of hostility and mistrust.”
On Sept. 10, almost at the same time as Charlie Kirk’s assassination, a 16-year-old student opened fire at Evergreen High School in Jefferson County, Colorado, wounding two students before shooting himself. The next day, a sheriff’s spokesperson shared that investigators had learned the shooter had been “radicalized by some extremist network.” The ADL later provided details: he had “an account on the gore forum WatchPeopleDie, where he had commented on posts about shootings in Parkland (2018), Buffalo (2022), and at a Quebec City mosque (2017).” ADL also noted that his TikTok accounts “were filled with white supremacist symbolism.”
All this shows that while right-wing violent incidents outside of government may be down with Trump in the White House, that still doesn’t mean that there are more left-wing incidents, much less that they are more dangerous.
But there’s a deeper problem with the CSIS data: it doesn’t tell us anything about organized violence, which is what Trump claims to be going after. To gain a better understanding of this, we need to examine broader measures of political activity, including protest events and political violence, as well as those collected worldwide by the nonprofit ACLED (Armed Conflict Location & Event Data). In their September 2025 monthly report for the U.S. and Canada, the U.S. headline was “Extremist activity reaches five-year low,” which they explained thus:
Last month saw extremist group activity drop by over a third compared to the month prior. As a result, August saw the lowest number of events involving extremist groups in over five years. This nadir in extremist activity represents a steady decline since 2023. Multiple factors could explain this decline in extremist group activity, from a possible shift to more clandestine organizational tactics to failures of group leaders to mobilize and recruit. Others have suggested that extremist groups may feel less urgency to organize as they see their beliefs reflected in mainstream politics.
In stark numbers, right-wing white nationalist extremism remained dominant. They counted 29 events, of which 21 involve white nationalist groups, and 12 radical groups are active, of which seven are white nationalist. More specifically, they wrote:
Amid this decline, some groups have remained conspicuously active. The brazen neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe organized demonstrations in two state capitals last month, performing Nazi salutes and parading with Swastika flags through the streets of Concord, New Hampshire, and Indianapolis, Indiana. In Concord, members of the group brawled with a bystander who approached them, hitting him with pepper spray and punching him, before fleeing. This marks the group’s first recorded use of violence since their first public demonstration on 11 March 2023.
This violence, while troubling, is dramatically overshadowed by ICE violence on a daily basis. That’s where the real center of rightwing terrorism can be found today. And Trump is dead set on expanding that terrorism as far as he possibly can. That is the real number one terrorist threat facing America today. We are quickly becoming a right-wing authoritarian state. Everything else is just gaslighting.
Los Angeles, CA – Federal, state and local law enforcement carried out a sweeping operation on the morning of Oct. 2, targeting the Rancho San Pedro (RSP) gang, one of the Los Angeles Harbor area’s most violent criminal organizations. At Tuesday’s press conference, top law enforcement brass announced that hundreds of officers executed arrests and search warrants across the community as part of a multi-year investigation by the FBI, LAPD, and U.S. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).
Eight of fourteen federal defendants were arrested, along with five facing state charges. Authorities also executed nine federal and eight state search warrants in San Pedro. One suspect is still at large.
RSP, founded in the 1970s, has roughly 500 members organized into six cliques, including two female groups. The gang operates under the Mexican Mafia, paying “taxes” in exchange for protection. Violations of gang rules can result in assault or even death, authorities said. Yet they couldn’t say how many local homicides could be connected to RSP.
“This operation delivers a significant setback to Rancho San Pedro and their Mexican Mafia overseers,” said FBI Assistant Director in Charge Akil Davis. “It will lead to safer streets for San Pedro residents.”
The federal criminal complaint charges thirteen defendants with racketeering (RICO) and conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, including methamphetamine, fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, and PCP. A fourteenth defendant faces firearm charges. Most federal defendants face life in prison if convicted.
Officials said the RSP Enterprise engaged in a range of crimes, from drug trafficking and extortion to violent assaults, some directed from prison. The gang also maintained control of members and territory through orders from incarcerated Mexican Mafia leaders.
“This shows the power of partnerships in policing,” said LAPD Chief Jim McDonnel in a released statement. “By working together, we can remove violent offenders and illegal weapons from our streets.”
HSI Los Angeles Special Agent Eddy Wang added, “Our goal is to target the most violent gangs in the Southland and make our communities safer.”
Full Recovery Could Take Five to 10 Years. More Than 40% of Losses Will Be Countywide
Nine months after the disastrous Palisades and Eaton fires, LA County provided the first of four planned reports of the recovery process. The data-intensive approach could not convey the enormous human cost involved, much less the stark underlying racial disparities involved. But it does provide some sense of policy effectiveness in the face of an openly hostile and destructive federal government that continues making war on its people.
A Sept. 15 webinar presented the first quarterly report of a study conducted by the LA County Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) and the LA County Economic Development Corporation’s Institute for Applied Economics (IAE).
“The quarterly approach allows us to track how recovery is evolving over time, identify where resources may still be needed, and then adjust strategies as conditions change,” Shannon Sedwick, senior director of the IAE explained. The study tracks key indicators, including business and workforce recovery, rebuilding progress, and housing and infrastructure restoration. It analyzes both fires, with two distinct impact zones in each: the primary, direct burn areas, which suffered enormous damage that will take five to 10 years to completely rebuild, and the secondary fire areas, that “experienced significant disruption due to evacuation orders, smoke conditions, and business closures,” which averaged about 10 days in the Eaton area and 15 days in the Palisades.
There’s some good news, in terms of the immediate recovery response, but the long-term outlook is more troubling, with wide uncertainty dependent on how rapidly and effectively recovery efforts continue to be implemented. Short-term good news included the following:
As of July 31, 2025, 93% of filed insurance claims had been partially paid, totaling $20.4 billion.
95% of destroyed or damaged parcels have been cleared of debris within seven months.
Nearly 800 rebuilding permits have been issued with an average processing time of 52 business days.
Short-term rent spikes occurred in fire-adjacent ZIP codes, with rents returning to 2024 trend levels within six months.
Housing listings and sales in affected communities did not show evidence of mass resident flight.
At the same time, long-term losses could vary widely:
Total output losses across all affected zones are projected between $5.2 billion and $10.1 billion.
Between 28,000 and 55,000 job-years are expected to be impacted.
Labor income losses are estimated at $2.2 to $4.2 billion.
Tax revenue losses could reach between $900 million and $1.6 billion.
The wide variation reflects differences in three long-term recovery scenarios. The first is based on “median repair and reconstruction timelines for damaged buildings by damage level and building occupancy type according according to FEMA’s disaster damage and impact assessment model,” IAE economist Dr. Dan Wei explained, the second is based on doubling the timelines “reflecting potential financial permitting or resource challenges,” and the third based on tripling the timelines.
Under all three scenarios, 2025 losses were estimated to be about $1.26 billion in lost revenue and 8,200 lost jobs, a decline of 85-90% of the baseline levels. Scenario one reaches full recovery by 2028, scenario two shows 12-15% of losses persisting in 2029, with recovery delayed to 2032. And scenario three shows 30-35% losses in 2029, with full recovery in 2034. Thus, the effectiveness of recovery support will have enormous financial impacts.
There were more homes lost in the Eaton fire, but more business losses in the Palisades, though temporary business impacts were greater in the Eaton secondary fire area. Across both areas, residential losses dominate. More than 11,600 homes were destroyed, including over 11,000 single family homes and about 230 multifamily. Roughly 200 commercial and eight mixed use structures were destroyed, along with more than 4,200 utility and miscellaneous structures (typically non-habitable buildings tied to residential properties). A total of 1,863 individual businesses were identified in both areas (not including home-based businesses), which employed 9,610 people and generated an estimated $1.4 billion in annual sales.
More than 5,000 individual businesses were located in these secondary areas, employing over 37,000 people and generating about $6.8 billion in annual sales. Roughly 76% of affected businesses were in the Eaton area, accounting for 75% of employees and 74% of revenue, while 24% of businesses, 25% of employees and 26% of revenue were in the Palisades.
In the Palisades, the burn area covered about 22 square miles with just over 21,000 residents and nearly 9,000 households. It’s about 80% white, 7% Hispanic and 7% Asian. Nearly 78% held a bachelor’s degree or higher. Median household income is around $200,000 and home values average nearly $2 million. It’s characterized by high home ownership with many residents commuting to white collar jobs outside the area.
Just over 12,000 structures were assessed, 57% were destroyed, another 8% sustained varying levels of damage, and only about a third were undamaged. More than 5,000 homes were lost, as well as 51 school structures, several churches, and a mix of commercial and community-serving buildings. About 60% of the impacted businesses were in the Palisades, with 62% of affected employees and 71% of revenue.
The secondary fire area was 43 square miles with almost 36,000 residents and more than 15,000 households. It’s 78-79% white, 8% Hispanic, and 7% Asian. More than 75% of residents hold a bachelor’s degree or higher, and the median household income is about $179,000, and the average home values are closer to $1.9 million. It has a similarly high homeownership and occupational profile.
The Eaton burn area was 38 square miles with almost 23,000 residents and almost 8,800 households. It’s 44% white. 28% Hispanic and 19% Black. Nearly 58% held a bachelor’s degree or higher. Median household income here is about $143,000, with average home values closer to $1.2 million. Nearly 18,500 structures were assessed, with 51% destroyed, another 6% sustaining partial damage, and 43% left intact.
Over 6,000 homes were lost, including more than 5,100 single-family residences and 64 multi-family structures. In addition, 46 school structures were lost, along with losses to churches, commercial buildings, and infrastructure. Eaton had 40% of impacted businesses, with 38% of affected employees and 29% of revenue.
The secondary fire area for Eaton was 88 square miles with nearly 96,000 residents and over 35,000 households. It’s 49% white, 25% Hispanic, 19% Asian, and 6% Black, with 62% holding a bachelor’s degree or higher. Median household income is about $156,000, and average home values are around $1.4 million.
“Across all scenarios, direct losses make up roughly 50 to 60% of the total, reflecting the immediate damages and disruptions to affected businesses within the burn areas. Then the remaining 40 to 45% arises from the ripple effects across the entire county,” Dr. Wei said. “Suppliers, contractors, employees, and local consumer spending are all impacted by the reduced business activities.”
This is yet another reminder of the old union saying: An injury to one is an injury to all.
The Harbor Area Peace Patrol reported that 13 local residents were confirmed detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, with the total number possibly reaching 15 as of 9:30 p.m. on October 8.
The Harbor Area Peace Patrol went to some 20 locations, at least, in San Pedro and Wilmington on Oct. 8 and reported its sightings on its Instagram page.
The peace patrollers also stressed to this community to stay safe and to bear witness to what is happening around them.
The Harbor Area Peace Patrol’s Instagram story highlights the San Pedro, Wilmington, and Carson locations that the patrollers watch – it is potentially illuminating – ICE’s go-to locations to abduct people as they live and work in this community.
