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White-supremacist and other fascist groups have repeatedly targeted the Bay Area in recent months. Now they are back for a weekend of provocations on Saturday, August 26 in San Francisco and Sunday, August 27 in Berkeley. Pro-Trump group "Patriot Prayer" is having a "Freedom" rally at Crissy Field in SF. Their events in Portland and Seattle attracted neo-Nazis, white supremacists, militia groups, and "Alt-Right" trolls. The following day, white supremacists, Alt-Right activists and neo-Nazis are holding a “No to Marxism in America” rally at Martin Luther King Park in Berkeley. As with Boston, local organizers are calling for people to come together by the thousands to say: We will not allow your hate in the Bay.

Called by prisoners to give voice to their demand to remove the slavery clause from the 13th Amendment, thousands turned out in as many as 16 cities on August 19 to abolish slavery and end mass incarceration. At the main march in Washington, D.C., a speaker from Leonard Pelitier's support committee read Leonard's statement of solidarity with Mumia Abu-Jamal. In San José, about 200 people marched to the county jail for a rally with powerful speakers who saluted the prisoners and inspired the crowd.

Federal prosecutors say DisruptJ20.org was used to plan a violent anti-Trump riot on Inauguration Day in Washington, D.C. Initially, the Department of Justice (DoJ) demanded that the site’s web host, DreamHost, turn over extensive data including 1.3 million IP addresses. After DreamHost and activist organizations complained that the warrant was an abuse of government authority, the DoJ narrowed the scope of the warrant on August 21, dropping IP addresses but still seeking information on private groups that organized via the website. In preparation for the trial of more than 100 demonstrators in October, the government is trying to prove protesters premeditated violent demonstrations.

Some have suggested that the best way to fight back against all the hate being spread around by the Trump regime, the KKK, neo-Nazis, and white supremacists, is by exposing the supporters of hate and violence, in the good old U.S.A. One place to start exposing the supporters of hate, would be to expose some of the local supporters of David Duke who reside in the Bay Area. David Duke ran for the U.S. Senate during 2016, from Mandeville, Louisiana, and lost. However, Duke had a number of campaign contributors in local cities including Walnut Creek, Martinez, Hayward, Santa Rosa, San Francisco, and Santa Cruz.

The California Superior Court has ruled that Monterey County’s contract with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services program to kill predators and other native wildlife violates state law. The decision responds to a lawsuit filed by animal protection and conservation organizations. The court concluded that Monterey County violated the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) by failing to analyze the environmental impacts before renewing the controversial program, which has shot, trapped and snared thousands of animals in the county in recent years.

On the night of August 14, the official Twitter account of the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office retweeted a video of a press conference organized by Richard Spencer, the icon of the white supremacist “alt-right” movement. The retweet dubbed the press conference with a “Unite the Right” hashtag — the same slogan that white supremacist groups used to mobilize people to Charlottesville, VA, which resulted in the tragic murder of an anti-racist demonstrator by a white supremacist. A protest was held at the Sheriff’s Office in Oakland on August 16. Community members condemned not just the retweet, but the ongoing racism and violence of the Sheriff’s Office.

Eric Clanton writes: I’m currently facing years of prison time as the result of accusations made in the most shockingly hateful parts of the internet. On April 19, I began being targeted by a dedicated swarm of internet trolls known for spewing racism, xenophobia, and misogyny onto the web. Suddenly a hit piece by Milo Yiannopolis caused the targeting to go viral. Several old social media photos were posted, online accounts hacked, addresses published, hundred of calls to my employers, and countless threats of physical violence made against me, my coworkers, friends and many others. This harassment campaign is where the accusations against me originated.

On August 11, over 500 neo-Nazis attacked a group of young students and community members at the University of Virginia. The neo-Nazis had gathered for a nighttime march before the now infamous “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville that resulted in the death of 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injured close to 20 people. CSU Stanislaus student Nathan Damigo, the neo-Nazi leader of Identity Evropa was not only there, he was a key organizer of the rally. Back in April, Damigo first came into the public spotlight for punching a female protester at a demonstration. CSU Stanislaus did nothing then and the problem only continued to grow. Now someone is dead.

After a fascist mob attacked a small group of UVA student counter-protesters the night before, the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia turned deadly on August 12 when nazi enthusiast James Alex Fields of Ohio deliberately sped his car into a crowd of antifa, killing thirty-two year old anti-racism activist and Charlottesville native Heather Heyer. Nineteen others were injured in the attack, some critically. Within hours, solidarity demonstrations and vigils sprang up across the country. In Northern California, San Francisco, Oakland, Santa Cruz, Monterery, and other cities gathered to show support for the anti-fascist resistance in Charlottesville.

The Workhouse medium security prison in north St Louis City is notorious for it’s filth, cockroach and rodent infestations, black mold, antagonism by the guards, and deep ineptitude of those who operate it. To highlight the inexcusable conditions, a noise demo was called for the evening of July 21. Around 300 people gathered outside the Workhouse to demand immediate relief for those suffering inside. The front line of the demo turned it’s energy on the fence itself, shaking the outer fence and eventually removing some of the clasps that adhere the fence to the fence poles. Protests continued through the following day. People were pepper sprayed by police and arrested.

During July 22 through July 29, the National Low-Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), nonprofit housing organizations, and tenant groups organized a National Week of Action, with rallies in San Francisco, San Rafael, and across the nation in support of federal subsidized housing programs that are under attack by the Trump regime and Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson. Trump’s $7.2 billion in proposed budget cuts to HUD will result in over 5,000 new cases of homelessness in the Bay Area alone.

Last week, the Senate blocked a proposal by Republicans to repeal much of the the Affordable Care Act, but many people in the U.S. worry Republicans in Congress remain determined to take away health care. A recent study shows a majority of Americans say it is the federal government’s responsibility to make sure all Americans have health care coverage; a growing number now supports a single payer plan. On Saturday, July 29, demonstrators called the win in the Senate a “temporary victory." and said they are not waiting for the next Republican attack.

On May 5, someone presenting themselves as federal informant Andrew Clark Darst tried again to establish communication with organizers he informed against in the lead-up to the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, MN. Most of the RNC 8 write: We are bewildered, dismayed and angered by the bizarre entitlement of the email. The author, apparently the same person who spent a full year lying to people to gain their trust, all the while sharing all the information he gathered with the FBI, dares to ask us for privacy. He points out that our shining a light on his actions may damage his career options.

At a meeting between representatives of the Santa Cruz chapter of ACLU of Northern California; Sanctuary Santa Cruz; Peace United Church of Christ and the Public Defender’s Office on April 19, Santa Cruz County Sheriff Jim Hart was presented evidence of the ongoing arrangement whereby the Sheriff’s Office notifies ICE of release dates of arrested but non-convicted undocumented locals. When confronted with this evidence Hart confirmed the jail policy of cooperation and agreed to consider the information presented to him about other jurisdictions who refused to cooperate with ICE. At a meeting on May 10, however, Hart said that he would not change Santa Cruz County's jail policy.

A new study released by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, Paying More for Being Poor: Bias and Disparity in California’s Traffic Court System, shows that Californians pay some of the highest fines and fees in the country — more than three times the national average for running a red light. And new Bay Area data reveals that African-Americans are four to sixteen times more likely to be booked into county jail on a charge related to inability to pay a citation. Two bills before the California Legislature (SB 185 and AB 412) seek to address many of the disparities