On August 25, the German government raided and shut down Linksunten Indymedia, an integral part of the global Independent Media Center network, and the most widely used German-language platform for radical politics and organizing. In Freiburg, riot police seized computers and harassed those they accuse of maintaining the site, justifying their actions on the grounds that the alleged administrators constitute an illegal organization intent on destroying the German Constitution. This represents a massive escalation in state repression against what the authorities call “left-wing extremism,” disingenuously suggesting an equivalence between those who seek to build communities beyond the reach of state violence and Neo-Nazis organizing to carry out attacks and murders.

On the morning of August 16, a convoy of unmarked federal vehicles rolled up in West Oakland and a dozen or more agents jumped out, demanding entry into a Latina home. The agents only identified themselves as a "special unit" and said that they were investigating a family-owned cleaning business. After handcuffing and detaining the family for over four hours, the agents quickly left, but two residents were removed over immigration-related issues. Oakland police issued a press statement slandering the family, falsely claiming the raid was related to child sex trafficking. One man remains in ICE custody.

UPDATE (8/25, 10pm): Organizers of the fascist "Patriot Prayer" called off their Presidio rally for Saturday, announcing a supposed press conference for Alamo Square at 2pm with all of the same speakers scheduled for Crissy Field. San Francisco Against Hate and the ILWU have called for a march at 11am. The organizer of the fascist rally set for Berkeley on Sunday claims she doesn't want people to come, but she plans on attending herself.

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. The 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.

Right-wing protest organizer Jack Posobiec cited “credible alt-left terrorist threats” as the reason for postponing an extreme right march at Google headquarters in Mountain View scheduled for August 19. Cause célèbre for the extreme right, former Google software engineer James Damore inspired the protest when he was fired for penning an internal memo in which he argued that the low number of women in technical positions was a result of biological differences. Despite the postponement of the alt-right demo, demonstrators carried on with a counter protest on August 19.

Called by prisoners to give voice to their demand to remove the prison 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 speakers who saluted the prisoners and inspired the crowd. Every year for decades Black radical prisoners and liberationists have identified August as a month for organized resistance and commemoration.

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.

Chlorpyrifos, a neurotoxic pesticide linked to IQ loss and autism, has been found in the air in Kern County in amounts far in excess of the level of concern established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for pregnant women, according to 2016 air monitoring data released on August 17 by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation. California officials are now weighing a statewide ban based on the assessment by EPA scientists. A ban can’t come soon enough for residents of California’s farming communities, who worry about the effect of chronic exposure on the wellbeing of their children.

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.

As tensions ramp up between the U.S. and North Korea, speakers at a rally in San Francisco on August 15 called for the halting of US/South Korea military exercises along the Korean Peninsula. The annual war games are scheduled to be held starting August 21 and coincide with North Korea's threat to Guam. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK/North Korea) views the joint exercises as continued acts of war, as there was never a signed peace treaty at the end of the Korean War in 1953. Professor Christine Hong said the United States should negotiate to replace the 1953 Armistice Agreement with a peace agreement, and finally end the Korean War.

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 9, news spread quickly that Santa Cruz's oldest, best known, and most loved coffeehouse will shut their doors forever on August 26, 2017. Caffé Pergolesi, an institution of downtown Santa Cruz, holds a very special place in the hearts of so many people. Besides offering coffee, tea, beer, wine, cider, and snacks, the cafe is an important space for friends and groups to meet. Its walls serve as a gallery for local artists, and The Perg, as it's known, is a one of a kind venue, particularly for punk and hardcore musicians. The funky alternative counterculture community known as Santa Cruz, loved by so many people near and far, continues getting its capitalist corporate makeover from the university, technology, and tourism industries.

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.

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.

Retired ILWU Local 10 member and chair of the Transport Workers Solidarity Committee Jack Heyman writes: The ink wasn’t even dry on the West Coast longshore contract when the head of the employers’ group, the Pacific Maritime Association, proposed to the International Longshore and Warehouse Union a three-year extension, making it an eight-year contract. Under the current contract, employers have eliminated hundreds of longshore jobs through automation on marine terminals such as the fully automated Long Beach Container Terminal and the semi-automated TraPac freight-forwarding facility in the Port of Los Angeles.

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.

From the open-publishing newswire: Berkeley's new mayor, Jesse Arreguin, has been meeting in private with UC Berkeley's new chancellor, Carol Christ. The new mayor and the new chancellor are in agreement: People's Park must end. According to Berkeleyside, the mayor "is enthusiastic about the plans" to develop housing on People's Park. This is a crucial time to defend People's Park, through occupy tactics, and other methods of public support. The development plan includes two large buildings: a unit for student housing and allegedly a unit to house the homeless. Increasing housing is a noble cause; however, the city of Berkeley has a shortage of truly public open space.

Nothing better illustrates the political bankruptcy of the Democratic Party — for all progressive intents and purposes — than California State Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon’s announcement on June 26 that he was going to put a “hold” on the single-payer health care bill (SB 562) for the state, effectively killing its passage for at least the year. Democrats like Rendon, who “claims to be a personal supporter of single-payer,” will make sure that the governor is not put in the embarrassing position of having to reject what he’s been ostensibly arguing for for twenty-five years.

On July 13, the California Coastal Commission will consider an agreement that would close the Cemex Lapis Sand Mine in Marina. The mine has been linked to severe coastal erosion in southern Monterey Bay, which is losing more coastline than anywhere else in the state. Cemex mines about 300,000 tons of sand each year from a self-made pond right on the beach in Marina. This is essentially like carrying away one 14-yard dump truck full of sand from the beach every 40 minutes, around the clock. And this has been going on at the plant for decades — although at lower quantities when operations began — without a requisite Coastal Development Permit.

On June 20, over 500 advocates and Berkeley residents, including former mayor of Berkeley Gus Newport, packed the Berkeley City Council chamber to show support for withdrawing the city from the controversial and highly militarized Urban Shield SWAT training and weapons expo. Berkeley police officers violently cracked down on community members opposed to Berkeley’s participation in Urban Shield at a special hearing of the city council. Two people were arrested, and multiple people were injured. Two days later, the City of Berkeley decided to uphold the largely contested vote by the Mayor and City Council on the city's participation in the controversial Urban Shield program.