If you were a legal resident of the U.S.—not a citizen—and had to choose between flying a drone over Vandenberg Space Force Base or being a pro-Palestinian protester on a college campus, which would you choose?
One is illegal and the other riles up the delicate sensibilities of the Trump administration but is legal under the First Amendment.
What do you think?
You could ask Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder and Columbia University graduate student who Immigrations and Customs Enforcement arrested in early March. He’s sitting in an ICE detention facility waiting for his case to be heard by a judge.
You could also ask Yinpiao Zhou, a legal resident of the U.S. who lives in Brentwood. He will get released from prison after serving four months and pleading guilty to a misdemeanor of flying a drone over and taking pictures of Vandenberg. He also has to pay $225 in fines.
Zhou was arrested as he was about to board a flight to his home country—China. Seems fishy. Khalil was arrested at his university apartment.
While Zhou’s act, which included downloading software that made it so his unmanned aircraft could fly over a restricted airspace like Vandenberg, could make him lose his status in the U.S., it hasn’t so far.
Khalil possibly engaged in protests last year that pissed Columbia University off, and Trump’s goons have accused him of being antisemitic. But I guess he will at least get his day in court.
One sure seems worse than the other.
And yet, Zhou is going to be released from prison under the plea deal. It seems like this administration has its priorities all mixed up.
But it’s all part of the Trump show—whatever rallies his base more and pisses off his perceived enemies the most, that’s what you get. Division is his talisman.
Hang on tight. It’s going to be a long four years.
Especially for nonprofits who work with federal agencies, like the Los Padres Forest Association. The group rehabilitates federal land so that residents can continue to recreate on it. This is a necessity for the hiking trails in Los Padres National Forest, an area that’s constantly fighting the damages that natural disasters cause without adequate funding to do anything about it.
Campgrounds, roads, and recreation areas damaged by storms and wildfire remain closed for years.
The association steps up when the Forest Service can’t, but the administration’s push to fire “unnecessary” federal employees to “save billions” in a “corrupt” federal system means that the national forest no longer has the employees to help facilitate the permits that the association needs to do its public service.
“A lot of the projects that we’ve been working on with the Forest Service staff have halted, have slowed down, have stopped,” Bryan Conant with the association said. “We’re kind of like taking a step back again. … We may be right back to where we were three or four years ago, where we didn’t have anywhere near the staff in order to complete the projects and the capacity that was needed.”
Pretty lame if you ask me. You didn’t ask, but I don’t need you to!
The canary is a loudmouth. Send a response to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Apr 3-13, 2025.
