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The atrocities and the fury mount. Astoundingly, after a murderous thug shot a mother of three in the face in broad daylight - "He didn't kill her because he was scared, he killed her because she wasn't" - state terror has ramped up with more lies, goons, attacks on "gangs of wine moms," brutish agitprop literally echoing the Nazis'. So when mini-Bovino went to take a leak at a store, the people's wrath, a bittersweet splendor, erupted. Their/our edict: "Get the fuck out."
For now, Trump's America keeps getting scarier and uglier. He's threatened to (illegally) withdraw the US from the world’s most vital climate treaty and 65 other agencies doing useful work. He's trashing a once-thriving economy because he doesn't know how it works, scapegoating longtime Fed chair Jerome Powell, who's (startlingly fighting back, flipping off autoworkers, admiring non-existent ballrooms. After (illegally) killing over 100 Venezuelans and abducting their president - Chris Hedges: "Empires, when they are dying, worship the idol of war" - he called oil executives to a dementia-ridden meeting where in a reality check one brave skeptic argued Venezuela is historically "uninvestable." He ordered invasion plans for Greenland - wait what - that joint chiefs are resisting as "crazy and illegal": “It’s like dealing with a five-year-old.” And in a supreme irony overload, he's menacing U.S. protesters while warning Iran's killers of protesters they'll "pay a big price" and urging Iran's people to "take over your institutions." We can't even.
Meanwhile, in Minnesota, he's sending yet more thugs, persisting in calling Renée Good "a professional agitator" - Professional Agitators 'R Us! - and warning a besieged, traumatized community, "THE DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION IS COMING!" Up is down and MAGA minions dutifully follow suit. Tom Homan: "We've got to stop the hateful rhetoric. Saying this officer is a murderer is dangerous. It’s ridiculous. It’s just gonna infuriate people more." Newsmax and GOP Rep. Pete Sessions agree: Dems have to quiet their "rhetoric," cease "honking of horns," and stop "putting an iPhone on your face." "STOP THE MADNESS," shrieks David Marcus on Fox, blasting "organized gangs of wine moms" across the country - Wine Moms 'R Us! - using Antifa tactics to "harass and impede" ICE: "It's not civil disobedience. It isn’t even protest. It’s just crime." Here, Renée Good was "a trained member" of groups "executing missions that put law enforcement and the public in harm’s way," probably all part of "criminal conspiracies."
To support the insane narrative that the brazen murder of a mother of three in her car in public constitutes "an attack on our brave law enforcement," DHS released crude, "pathological," Goebbels-worthy propaganda that repeats the first day's lies and includes footage of when Good "weaponized her vehicle” by “speeding across the road" while failing to mention it was when "she had just been shot in the fucking face and her dead foot hit the pedal." No wonder the mindless carnage goes on. A thug leers to a cuffed protester she should've "learned her lesson," she asks what lesson, he snarls, "Why we killed that fucking bitch." And gangs of goons rampage door-to-door, barging into households of kids with guns and tasers ready. One brave, calm woman records it all, demands a warrant, barks get your hands off me, mocks how big and bad they are flashing a light in her face and sneers that, on the street, "You're all some pussies without that shit on your chest...Your mamas raised a bitch if you can wear that outfit proudly."
Last week both Illinois and Minnesota, and each state's targeted cities, filed federal lawsuits to end their invasions by thousands of armed, masked, violent goons racially harassing, terrorizing and assaulting their communities. The courts may yet halt the deadly mayhem; the regime sure as shit won't. In the wake of the DOJ's predictable, outlandish announcement they won't investigate Good's murder, multiple attorneys in the civil rights division - for decades "America’s last line of accountability when federal agents kill" - have resigned, the latest in a flood of departures totaling over 250, a 70% reduction. In their stead, the FBI seized control of the "investigation" after blocking local law enforcement's access to evidence. Kash's Keystone Cops are now looking into, not Jonathan Ross, but Good and her "possible connections to activist groups" - also, because there truly is no low, her widow's. "This isn’t a cover-up," said one former DOJ attorney. "It’s the end of civil rights enforcement as we've known it."
Experts say the escalating malfeasance and accompanying thuggery are the logical culmination of a longtime "culture of violence" within border control agencies. Ryan Goodman of Just Security describes a scathing 2013 report, commissioned but then buried, that specifically cites agents' proclivity for standing in front of blocked vehicles as a pretext to open fire on drivers attempting to flee a tense encounter. Thank God we don't see that anymore. Nor do we have to see Stephen Miller's nightmare vision of Dems in power making "every city into Mogadishu or Kabul or Port-au-Prince," complete with roaming convoys of masked, armed, hefty hoodlums snatching people off the streets, dragging them out of their cars, beating them up, kneeling on their necks (illegal under post-George-Floyd Minnesota law), and brutalizing them for unknown offenses until they go limp, fate unknown, like in this video by Ford Fischer last week. For MAGA, ICE proudly represents "the fearsome power of the American state." But don't call them fascists.
It was sick Greg Bovino's knee on that neck. Then he went on Sean Hannity's show to praise Jonathan Ross for shooting Renée Good three times in the face - "Hats off to that ICE agent" - because "a 4,000-pound missile is not something anyone wants to face." Hannity readily agreed it was "not even a close call...There is no ambiguity for anyone with eyes to see that (Good) had been taunting officers," which is not true, also definitely a death penalty offense. Later, Bovino claimed that 90% of the public "are happy to see us." Last week, a YouGov poll disagreed, finding a majority of Americans disapproved of the murderous job ICE is doing, and almost half support abolishing it entirely. That may be why, when Bovino went to take a piss last week at a Target in St. Paul, accompanied by a phalanx of surly stormtroopers with itchy trigger fingers and nervous cameras held aloft, they were met by pure, gut-level fury, and a crowd of we the people with no fucks left to give. More video from Ford Fischer of News2Share.
A handy transcript: "You’re a fucking bum. you’re a bitch. and if your wife’s got a problem, fuck her, too. you guys are all bitches. you can’t do shit to me. you can’t do a thing. get the fuck out of here. get the fuck out. nobody wants you here. right. get the fuck out. walk the fuck, you stupid bitches. get the fuck out of here. coward. you’re a fucking coward, bitch. you’re a fucking bitch. fuck you. hold on, babe, I’m on the phone with these bitch-ass niggas. get the fuck out of here. get the fuck out of here, you stupid bitches. you’re a fucking coward piece of shit. fuck you. and if you didn’t have a gun or a vest, I would beat the shit out of you. take that fucking badge off, and that fucking gun, and see what happens to you. you shut the fuck up, you’re not fucking tough. you’re a bitch and get the fuck out, you fucking pussy. you fucking bitch-ass white boys. I’ll fucking spit on you. fucking get out of here. get the fuck out. shut the fuck up. get the fuck out of here. get the fuck out of here. get the fuck out. nobody wants you here."
Among Minnesota's ICE victims was a Marine veteran who said she was following agents "at a safe distance" when they rammed the car, broke the window, dragged her out by the neck, slammed her face into the ground, tightly cuffed her and snarled, per their memo, "This is why we killed that lesbian bitch." Shaken, she told a reporter, "I took an oath, and they're spitting on it. They're Nazis. They're Gestapo. This isn't Germany." Not yet. But close, says James Fell's Sweary History: "Those who cannot remember the past need a history teacher who says 'fuck' a lot." When ICE Barbie, "this puppy-killing, plasticized bag of fascism" called Good a domestic terrorist, he notes, her podium read, "One of Ours, All of Yours" - the phrase Nazis used when the Resistance killed "murderous motherfucker" Reinhard Heydrich, and Nazis retaliated by killing thousands of Czechs and most of the village of Lidice, where they (wrongly) thought the assassins came from. Kill one of ours, we murder all of yours: "This is what DHS is threatening should people dare to resist the American Gestapo."
Dark echoes keep coming. In more Goebbels-worthy agit-prop, the Dept. of Labor just posted a bizarre musical photo montage captioned, "One Homeland. One People. One Heritage," which even X's AI chatbot Grok noted is just like the Nazi slogan, "Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer" - One People, One Realm, One Leader. Huh, said many: "Sounds familiar," "Sounds better in the original German," "I didn't have DOL dropping race-baiting propaganda with moody techno music on my 2026 Bingo card," "I remember this one from history books," "Can't wait for the sequel! Labor Creates Liberty!" and, "That 1930s retro energy really matches the new vibe." The video added, "Remember who you are, American." Rob Kelner responded, "I remember who I am. I am the grandchild of immigrants, in a nation that welcomed all four of my grandparents, dirt poor...fleeing tyranny." We have fallen so far, and lost so much. But some truths remain: "There is no world in which these are the good guys. None."
"Get it all on record now. Get the films. Get the witnesses. Because somewhere down the road of history, some bastard will get up and say that this never happened." - Dwight D. Eisenhower, Commander of the Allied Forces, on atrocities committed by the German Nazis.

The massive energy needs of artificial intelligence data centers became a major political controversy in 2025, and new reporting suggests that it will grow even further in 2026.
CNBC reported on Thursday that data center projects have become political lightning rods among politicians ranging from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on the left to Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on the right.
However, objections to data centers aren't just coming from politicians but from ordinary citizens who are worried about the impact such projects will have on their local environment and their utility bills.
CNBC noted that data centers' energy needs are so great that PJM Interconnection, the largest US grid operator that serves over 65 million people across 13 states, projects that it will be a full six gigawatts short of its reliability requirements in 2027.
Joe Bowring, president of independent market monitor Monitoring Analytics, told CNBC that he's never seen the grid under such projected strain.
"It’s at a crisis stage right now," Bowring said. "PJM has never been this short."
Rob Gramlich, president of power consulting firm Grid Strategies, told CNBC that he expects the debate over data centers to become even more intense this year once Americans start getting socked with even higher utility bills.
"I don't think we’ve seen the end of the political repercussions,” Gramlich said. “And with a lot more elections in 2026 than 2025, we’ll see a lot of implications. Every politician is going to be saying that they have the answer to affordability and their opponents’ policies would raise rates."
Concerns about data centers' impact on electric grids are rising in both red and blue states.
The Austin American-Statesman reported on Thursday that a new analysis written by the office of Austin City Manager TC Broadnax found that data centers have the potential to overwhelm the city's system given they are projected to need more power than can possibly be delivered with current infrastructure.
"The speed in which AI is trying to be deployed creates tremendous strain on the already tight resources in both design and construction," says the analysis, which noted that some proposed data centers are seeking more than five gigawatts, which is more than the peak load for the entire city.
In New York, local station News 10 reported last year that the New York Independent System Operator is estimating that the state's grid could be 1.6 gigawatts short of reliability requirements by 2030 thanks in large part to data centers.
Anger over proposed data centers has even spread to President Donald Trump's primary residential home of Palm Beach County, Florida, where local residents successfully postponed the construction of a proposed 200-acre data center complex.
According to public news station WLRN, locals opposed to the project cited "expected noise from cooling towers, servers, and diesel generators, along with heavy water use, pollution concerns, and higher utility costs" when petitioning Palm Beach County commissioners to scrap the proposal.
Corey Kanterman, a local opponent of the proposed data center, told WLRN that his goal is to shut the project down entirely.
"No good comes of having an AI data center near you," Kanterman said. "Put them in the location of least impact to the environment and people. This location is not it."
The US labor market appears to be running on fumes under President Donald Trump, as the latest jobs report revealed that the American economy added just 50,000 jobs in December, below economists' consensus estimate of 55,000 jobs.
The report, released on Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), also found that the US economy as a whole created just 584,000 jobs in 2025, which is less than a third of the 2 million jobs created in 2024 during the last year of former President Joe Biden's term.
The 2025 figure also marked the lowest number of annual jobs created since 2020, when the economy was shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Fox Business anchor Cheryl Casone couldn't put a happy spin on the jobs report after its release, as she noted that the gains of just 37,000 private-sector jobs on the month were "much weaker than expected."
"Private sector payrolls coming in much weaker than expected" -- Maria Bartiromo and company cope with an underwhelming December jobs report (wait for Stephen Moore's bonkers commentary at the end) pic.twitter.com/C5D8qu5h8f
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 9, 2026
Digging further into the report, Bloomberg economic analyst Joe Weisenthal observed on X that manufacturing employment has been hit particularly hard in recent months, despite Trump's vow that his tariffs would lead to a manufacturing revival in the US.
"It's not just that total manufacturing employment is shrinking," he explained. "The number of manufacturing sub-sectors that are adding jobs is rapidly shrinking. Of the 72 different types of manufacturing tracked by the BLS, just 38.2% are still adding jobs. A year ago it was 47.2%."
Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, noted that the weakness in the labor market extends beyond the manufacturing sector, as there has been "almost no hiring outside of healthcare and hospitality" since the start of Trump's second term.
Richardson also observed that "there was almost no hiring since April" of last year, when Trump announced his "Liberation Day" tariffs that sent shockwaves through the global economy.
Economist Dean Baker, co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, zeroed in on downward revisions in prior jobs reports, reinforcing that the current labor market is anemic.
"With the revisions, the average for the last three months was a fall of 22,000 [jobs]," Baker explained. "The healthcare and social assistance sector added an average of 49,000 jobs over this period, which means that outside of healthcare the economy lost an average of 71,000 jobs in the last three months."
Alex Jacquez, chief economist at Groundwork Collaborative, said the jobs report reflected a "lifeless economy," and he pinned the blame on Trump and his trade policies as a top reason.
"Working families face sluggish wage growth, fewer job opportunities, and never-ending price hikes on groceries, household essentials, and utilities," said Jacquez. "Despite the president's endless attempts to deflect and distract from the bleak economic reality, workers and job seekers know their budgets feel tighter than ever thanks to Trump’s disastrous economic mismanagement."
Economist Elise Gould of the Economic Policy Institute took a look at the jobs numbers and concluded the US labor market now is far weaker than the one Biden left Trump nearly one year ago.
"The slowdown in job growth this year is stark compared to 2024," Gould wrote on Bluesky. "The average monthly gain was only 49,000 in 2025 compared to 168,000 in 2024. Over the last three months, average job growth was actually negative, meaning there are fewer jobs now than in September."
Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified the Navy Federal Credit Union's chief economist. That error has been corrected.
President Donald Trump's shuttering of USAID last year will have a long-term negative impact on children throughout the world, according to a report released on Thursday by Oxfam.
In its analysis, Oxfam estimates that a child under the age of five could die every 40 seconds by 2030 thanks to the Trump administration's dismantling of American foreign aid programs.
Oxfam says it's basing its projections on "calculations in [the] Lancet’s impact evaluation and forecasting analysis from last July, which projected "4,537,157 child deaths by 2030."
The report also pointed to estimates from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) and Gates Foundation, which calculates "an additional 200,000 child deaths" for children under five last year. This lines up with data published by the Boston University School of Public Health last year estimating over 250,000 child deaths caused by the drastic slashing of foreign aid funding under the Trump administration.
Abby Maxman, president and CEO of Oxfam America, said that "we have run out of words to describe the depths of suffering" caused by Trump's destruction of "the entire global aid system."
"We are seeing years of progress unravel, and more children suffer and die preventable deaths because of these cuts," Maxman added.
The report also highlighted the specific impacts cuts have had in Sudan, the Philippines, and Syria.
Mayfourth Luneta, deputy executive director of the Center for Disaster Preparedness Foundation, an Oxfam partner in the Philippines, said that due to the Trump aid cuts, her organization had to cancel programs across eight communities that were impacted by floods and earthquakes last year.
"The Philippines was hit with the most powerful storms on Earth recorded last year," Luneta said. "Communities were devastated, families were left with nothing."
Shabnam Baloch, country director for Oxfam in South Sudan, described the impact that aid cuts have had on a country that is undergoing a horrific civil war.
"Water borne illnesses are spreading rapidly, starvation is imminent for many, and while needs are rising, lifesaving organizations are working with a fraction of the resources we had in previous years," said Baloch. "Oxfam, along with many other vital organizations, will be forced to scale down our programs without immediate intervention."
Sara Savva, deputy director-general the alliance of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East and the Department of Ecumenical Relations and Development (GOPA-DERD), an Oxfam partner in Syria, said her organization had "to drastically reduce the scale and scope of our programs for Syrian families and Iraqi refugees residing in Syria" in the wake of the Trump administration's cuts.
"We were notified we will no longer receive funding from the US government, and thousands of people are left without crucial services necessary to rebuild their lives after a catastrophic civil war," Savva said.
The ACLU on Thursday filed a class action lawsuit aimed at ending "a startling pattern of abuse spearheaded by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that is fundamentally altering civic life in the Twin Cities and the state of Minnesota."
The thousands of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents sent to Minneapolis and Saint Paul by President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have been documented engaging in violent and even unlawful activities, including at least two shootings.
"Masked federal agents in the thousands are violently stopping and arresting countless Minnesotans based on nothing more than their race and perceived ethnicity irrespective of their citizenship or immigration status, or their personal circumstances," says the complaint, filed in the District of Minnesota.
The state and national ACLU along with Covington & Burling, Greene Espel, and Robins Kaplan filed the suit on behalf of three US citizens in Minnesota and similarly situated people. According to the complaint:
Plaintiffs seek injunctive relief to halt three unlawful policies and practices. First, federal agents are stopping people to question them about immigration status without reasonable suspicion of removability—and particularly targeting those they perceive to be Somali or Latino. Second, federal agents are arresting people for immigration reasons without warrants and without probable cause to believe that they are removable, outrageously including US citizens (who plainly cannot be detained for civil immigration purposes) and individuals with immigration status. And third, federal agents are making warrantless arrests without probable cause to believe the person is a flight risk.
"ICE and CBP's practices are both illegal and morally reprehensible," said Catherine Ahlin-Halverson, staff attorney with the ACLU of Minnesota, in a statement. "Federal agents' conduct—sweeping up Minnesotans through racial profiling and unlawful arrests—is a grave violation of Minnesotans' most fundamental rights, and it has spread fear among immigrant communities and neighborhoods. No one, including federal agents, is above the law."
The three people named in the complaint are Mubashir Khalif Hussen, Mahamed Eydarus, and Javier Doe. Hussen is a 20-year-old man of Somali descent whose "family came to the United States as refugees, and he grew up in this country," the document explains. He lives in Minneapolis, and "works as a manager at a mental health services provider in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood," where he encountered ICE agents while walking to lunch last month.
According to the ACLU, Hussen told the masked agents that he was a US citizen, but they refused to look at his identification. Instead, they put him in a vehicle and drove him to the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, where he was shackled and fingerprinted. After showing a photo of his passport card, he was eventually freed.
"At no time did any officer ask me whether I was a citizen or if I had any immigration status," Hussen said in a statement. "They did not ask for any identifying information, nor did they ask about my ties to the community, how long I had lived in the Twin Cities, my family in Minnesota, or anything else about my circumstances."
The complaint stresses that "at the center of DHS' campaign are Somali and Latino people, who are being targeted for stops and arrests based on racial profiling motivated by prejudice."
Trump and others in his administration have repeatedly attacked Somali immigrants and their descendants in Minnesota—including when the president said during a racist tirade at a December Cabinet meeting that "we're going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country."
Kate Huddleston, senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, emphasized that "the government can't stop and arrest people based on the color of their skin, or arrest people with no probable cause... These kinds of police-state tactics are contrary to the basic principles of liberty and equality that remain a bedrock of our legal system and our country."
As the Trump administration has flooded the Twin Cities with federal agents, Democratic Mayor Jacob Frey has told ICE to "get the fuck out" of Minneapolis; his city, Saint Paul, and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison have filed a lawsuit against the same agencies and leaders targeted by the ACLU suit; and Democrats in the House of Representatives have introduced articles of impeachment against Noem.
Democratic US Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Somali refugee whose congressional district includes Minneapolis, said Wednesday that "we will not stop fighting until we achieve real justice and accountability. That must begin with impeaching Kristi Noem and ensuring no federal agent can act as a judge, jury, and executioner on our streets."
Omar's remarks in Washington, DC came a week after ICE officer Jonathan Ross fatally shot legal observer Renee Good in Minneapolis, and hours before a federal officer shot and wounded a man in the city during a traffic stop.
"The massive presence of ICE agents as part of Operation Metro Surge has disrupted civic life in the Twin Cities. Minnesotans are at risk of being stopped by ICE while going to work or shopping for groceries," said Greene Espel attorney Kshithij Shrinath. "We will continue to stand with our community and the rule of law."
The president has responded to protests against his immigration operation in Minnesota by threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act so he can send in troops—which Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU's National Security Project, called "unnecessary, irresponsible, and dangerous."
"The real risk to people's safety comes from ICE and other federal agents' violence against our communities, and the killing of Renee Good starkly shows what happens when ICE operates without accountability," Shamsi said. "What's needed now is not federal escalation, but deescalation. Congress must demand these mass federal law enforcement forces leave Minneapolis and refuse to fund ICE and CBP until the administration backs down."
While Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who caucuses with Democrats, said Thursday that "the American people do not want Trump's domestic army," referring to ICE, some Democratic members have signaled that they won't seek to freeze money for the agency ahead of a January 30 deadline for funding the government.
The Trump administration is reportedly planning to hire private military contractors—including possibly the notorious mercenary Erik Prince—to provide security as the US works to plunder Venezuela's massive oil reserves.
CNN reported Thursday that "multiple private security companies are already jockeying to get involved in the US presence in Venezuela" as American oil giants push for physical security guarantees before they back President Donald Trump's push for $100 billion in investment in the country.
"Interest is high given the potential payday; during the Iraq War, the US spent some $138 billion on private security, logistics, and reconstruction contractors," the outlet noted. "One source suggested that Erik Prince, the former Blackwater founder and controversial Trump ally, could also be tapped for help. Prince’s Blackwater played an outsized role in Iraq after the 2003 US invasion, providing security, logistics, and support for oil infrastructure. But the firm came under intense scrutiny following the 2007 deadly shooting of Iraqi civilians."
Prince is currently operating in the region, having partnered with Ecuador's right-wing government as part of a crackdown on organized crime that has been replete with human rights abuses.
News of the Trump administration's potential use of private mercenaries in Venezuela came after the US officially completed its first sale of Venezuelan oil. The sale, valued at $500 million, came days after Trump met with top oil executives at the White House to discuss efforts to exploit Venezuela's oil reserves following the illegal US abduction of President Nicolás Maduro earlier this month.
Darren Woods, the CEO of Exxon Mobil, said his company would need "durable investment protections" before making any commitments in Venezuela.
CNN reported Thursday that the Pentagon has "put out a Request for Information to contractors about their ability to support possible US military operations in Venezuela."
"Contractors are also in touch with the State Department’s overseas building operations office to cite interest in providing security if and when the US embassy in Venezuela reopens," according to CNN.
"A billionaire tax is not radical. It is a necessary response to a crisis made worse by federal decisions."
A broad coalition of labor organizations and community advocates are coming together to launch a campaign aimed at raising taxes on the ultrawealthy.
In a press briefing on Thursday, organizers outlined their plan to pressure state governments to enact a "Tax the Rich" agenda aimed at mitigating the harms done by the Republicans' One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which in the coming years is set to take an axe to funding for programs such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), while showering corporations and the wealthy with more tax cuts.
The coalition is planning to lobby states to pass laws similar to the so-called "millionaires tax" in Massachusetts that has raised billions in revenue to fund schools, mass transit, and other important public goods.
Max Page, president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, said during the press briefing that the Bay State's law has proven to be such a success that it should be a model for states across the US.
"In 2022 we won a constitutional amendment that allows a four penny surtax on annual income over $1 million," said Page. "This past year alone, Fair Share brought in $3 billion from just 25,000 households in a state of 8 million people. That is how concentrated wealth is in the state of Massachusetts."
Campaigners noted that laws similar to the Massachusetts law are now being proposed in Rhode Island, Michigan, and California, and they planned to push other states to follow their lead in the coming year to avoid facing major revenue shortages caused by the GOP's budget law.
Liz Perlman, executive cirector of AFSCME 3299, argued that California in particular could benefit from such a law, which has drawn opposition from Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
"California has about 200 people who hold roughly $2.1 trillion in wealth," said Perlman. "That is about a quarter of all billionaire wealth in the United States, concentrated in a single state. A billionaire tax is not radical. It is a necessary response to a crisis made worse by federal decisions."
Vonda McDaniel, President of the Central Labor Council of Nashville and Middle Tennessee, argued that Democratic strongholds such as California and Massachusetts shouldn't be the only ones pushing for tax hikes on the ultrawealthy, arguing that GOP-led states such as Tennessee should be adopting them as well.
"A working mother in Memphis faces a combined sales tax on groceries that can approach or exceed 9%," McDaniel explained. "Meanwhile, the Tennessee Department of Revenue has reported more than 60% of corporations are paying zero in state corporate income tax."
Democratic US Senate candidate Graham Platner on Tuesday held a town hall event in Portland, Maine to help promote legislation written by Democratic state Rep. Ann Matlack (43) to change the state's income brackets to place more burden on the wealthiest households.
“For us to build the future that we want, it begins with a more equitable tax system," Platner said during the event, according to local news station WMTW. "And it begins with us thinking about healthcare as a public good and not as something that deserves the profit motive."
"People across Pennsylvania did not put time, money, and energy into supporting his campaign just to elect a Democrat who votes against our interests time and time again," said a campaigner for the Working Families Party.
The Pennsylvania Working Families Party rolled out an online "hub" on Friday to support a primary challenger to the state's US senator, John Fetterman.
The WFP, an independent party that often supports Democrats with a populist economic agenda, backed Fetterman's 2022 Senate bid when he ran in the general election as a champion of many progressive causes. But the group now says he "sold out working Pennsylvanians" after pivoting hard to the right on key issues.
It launched the campaign to oust him in November after he voted with Republicans to reopen the government without an extension of Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies, which is expected to spike health insurance premiums for over 22 million Americans this year.
“While Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) is supporting Trump’s use of American tax dollars to ‘run’ Venezuela or buy Greenland, 500,000 Pennsylvanians are about to see their healthcare premiums rise because of the Republican budget bill he supported,” said Nick Gavio, mid-Atlantic communications director for the Working Families Party and a former Fetterman staffer. “People across Pennsylvania did not put time, money, and energy into supporting his campaign just to elect a Democrat who votes against our interests time and time again. We need new leadership.”
The website provides past Fetterman donors who feel betrayed by the senator with a form letter to "request a refund" of past contributions from the campaign. It also contains a "Sell-out Tracker," which seeks to "track every bad position" he has taken.
In addition to his vote to reopen the government, the group notes that Fetterman has voted to confirm 50% of Trump's Cabinet picks. He was the only Democrat who voted to confirm Attorney General Pam Bondi and Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, and one of the very few to vote in favor of Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.
It also accuses him of "betraying vulnerable people" by supporting Republican legislation that eliminates due process for undocumented immigrants, cheering US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) amid its mass deportation crusade, and giving full-throated support to Israel's genocidal war in Gaza and Trump's strikes on Iran.
The site also highlights Fetterman's tendency to neglect the basic duties of his job as a senator, which he has admitted he skips to spend more time with his family and because he finds them “overwhelmingly procedural.”
Fetterman has one of the worst attendance records in the Senate, having missed over 100 votes since April 2024 and skipped 44 out of 45 meetings for committees he was assigned to between January and May 2025.
He has also said he hosts very few town halls in order to avoid protesters, who have shown up to voice their discontent with his support for Israel, among other controversial positions.
As the site points out, while some other Democrats fought tooth and nail in a losing effort to stop Republicans from passing massive safety-net cuts in this summer's budget reconciliation package, Fetterman told Politico, "I just want to go home" and complained that he'd missed his family's trip to the beach.
So far, no prominent Pennsylvania Democrats have offered themselves up as potential primary challengers for Fetterman, who comes up for reelection in 2028.
Top names, including former Rep. Conor Lamb, who ran against Fetterman in the 2022 Democratic primary, and Philadelphia area Rep. Madeleine Dean have said they would not challenge Fetterman if he ran for another term.
Meanwhile, Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), who called Fetterman "Trump's favorite Democrat" last year, told NOTUS he'd be open to running against him.
The Pennsylvania Working Families Party said it is collecting donations that it will use to help "identify, recruit, and elect a real working class champion to replace Fetterman in the US Senate."
The group told NBC News that it has already amassed more than 425 people interested in either running against Fetterman themselves or volunteering their time or donating to help the effort to unseat him.
"Double whammy! Trump wants to raise prices on Americans to help invade Greenland, which we don't want."
President Donald Trump on Friday suggested that he would expand his legally contested and costly tariff regime to target any countries that don't support his plan to conquer Greenland, a self-governing Danish territory opposed to a US takeover.
While he was supposed to be speaking about rural healthcare at the White House, Trump recalled threatening Europe with tariffs on pharmaceuticals and said that "I may do that for Greenland too. I may put a tariff on countries if they don't go along with Greenland, because we need Greenland for national security. So I may do that."
Responding to a clip of Trump's remarks on social media, journalist Adam Cochran cited multiple federal laws and called his comments "impeachable."
Meidas Touch editor-in-chief Ron Filipkowski called the president "the Mad King."
Congressman Darren Soto (D-Fla.) wrote: "Double whammy! Trump wants to raise prices on Americans to help invade Greenland, which we don't want."
Polling has shown that the US seizing Greenland is unpopular with not only Greenlanders but also Americans. As Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Denmark and Greenland's foreign ministers met earlier this week, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that just 4% of US voters think it would be a "good idea" for Trump to take the territory by military force, and only 17% of approve of the president's push to acquire it by any means.
Other countries have rallied around Greenland and Denmark amid Trump's threats, and troops from several nations that have long been allied with the United States—including France, Germany, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom—arrived at the Arctic island this week.
The European Union's defense commissioner, Andrius Kubilius, said Monday that he agreed with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen's assessment that a US takeover of Greenland "will be the end of" the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
A bipartisan group of US lawmakers was in Copenhagen on Friday to meet with Danish and Greenlandic leaders, including Frederiksen. The Associated Press reported that the delegation leader, Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), thanked the hosts for "225 years of being a good and trusted ally and partner," and said that "we had a strong and robust dialog about how we extend that into the future."
The only Republicans to join the delegation were Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Thom Tillis (NC), who isn't seeking reelection. Murkowski told journalists, "Greenland needs to be viewed as our ally, not as an asset, and I think that's what you're hearing with this delegation."
"I think it is important to underscore that when you ask the American people whether or not they think it is a good idea for the United States to acquire Greenland, the vast majority, some 75%, will say we do not think that is a good idea," Murkowski added, according to Reuters. "This senator from Alaska does not think it is a good idea."
As the Hill detailed Thursday:
A Republican senator who requested anonymity said Trump's talk of taking over Greenland has generated more opposition from Republicans in Congress because of the dire implications such an aggressive move would have for the future of NATO.
"You see, more than in other incidents, pushback by Republican senators on this topic," the lawmaker said.
"I have no understanding how this is an idea to begin with," the senator added with exasperation, warning that taking Greenland will undermine NATO and put Ukraine at greater risk.
On Thursday, after another bipartisan meeting with Danish and Greenlandic foreign ministers, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said that "what I thought was remarkable is that they talked to us about how the entirety of Greenland and the entirety of Denmark right now is focused on whether there is an invasion coming from the United States."
"This would be a cataclysm, the United States going to war with Europe," he warned. "We're trying to show Denmark that they have support on both sides of the aisle in Congress, but we need our Republican colleagues to speak up right now."