Tag: Coast Guard Academy

At Coast Guard Graduation, Kristi Noem Talks as Protesters Gather

Emilia Otte and Lisa Hagen, May 21, 2025, CT Mirror

As Coast Guard Academy cadets and their families arrived on the New London campus Wednesday morning for graduation, protesters filled nearby McKinley Park to voice their opposition to the academy’s commencement speaker, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

“Congratulations!” the protesters called out to the cadets and their family members as they passed by on the sidewalk. Some of the graduation attendees thanked the protesters for their presence outside the academy.

The protesters carried signs calling out various actions by the Trump administration, including the unlawful deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, the Trump administration’s cuts to veterans services, the recent federal budget proposal that includes cuts to Medicaid, the administration’s position on Ukraine and the detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University student who played a strong role in pro-Palestinian protests.

[To read the article in its entirety, please go to https://bit.ly/3Fo3nyz.]

Build Back Better: End the New Nuclear Arms Races

by The CT Committee for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

[Vice President Kamala Harris was met by demonstrators when she spoke in New London on May 18 at the graduation of the Coast Guard Academy. The following is from the email calling for people to join the demonstration.]

The Biden-Harris Administration proposed a new economic agenda to Build Back Better, investing in children and caregivers, affordable healthcare, housing, education, and clean energy technologies, while increasing jobs and improving our quality of life. However, billions of dollars are flowing into the modernization of nuclear weapons, including the Columbia-class submarine and weapons for Ukraine. While U.S. nuclear doctrine is “Mutually Assured Destruction,” the war in Ukraine fans nuclear tensions between the United States and Russia, who collectively possess more than 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons. For more info, email: nuclearbanct@gmail.com.

The Voluntown Peace Trust posted the above photo and following update on its Facebook page.

The Voluntown Peace Trust posted the above photo and following update on its Facebook page.

This morning, as Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at the Coast Guard Academy commencement ceremony, 18 demonstrators gathered nearby with signs to remind the visiting Vice President of an important message: that we cannot adequately fund the national infrastructure at home while also funding war-making abroad at the same time.

Thank you to everyone who came out to the demonstration, and thanks to Jonathan Daly-LaBelle for the photo.

Anger Over Coast Guard Academy’s Choice of John Bolton as Featured Speaker

Many CT organizations condemned the choice of John R. Bolton, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, as the featured Coast Guard Academy, commencement speaker on May 22. Bolton is notorious for demanding military solutions to international disputes.  He ruined the Korea talks by advising the president to take an all-or-noth-ing approach.  He stoked interference in Venezuelan affairs and helped incite the attempted coup. In 2015 he wrote the infamous New York Times op-ed entitled “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran.”  His militarism would plunge this coun-try into useless and unjust wars and would endanger the lives of millions of people in the world including U.S. soldiers and Coast Guard officers.

Among the groups that spoke out against Bolton’s appearance are the Greater New Haven Peace Council, Central CT Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Promoting Enduring Peace, Middle East Crisis Committee, Tree of Life Education Fund (CT), We Refuse to Be Enemies (CT), ANSWER Coalition (CT), Unidad Latina en Acción (ULA), CT Peace and Solidarity Coalition and the War Resisters League.