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Again To the Grisly Well, With Ballrooms
Leave it to this still-repugnant regime to instantly twist a Keystone Cops security breach - not a so-distant-it-was-on-another-floor "assassination attempt" - to their own skeevy purposes: blaming Democrats for "this dark moment," demanding a $400 million gold ballroom for "national security," burnishing the Brave Dear Leader myth of an addled old man who barely registered it, and what gun control issue? Meet the Epstein class: When shots (again) ring out, they get a friggin' ballroom, kids get thoughts and prayers.
The latest "clown show on steroids" - and grim proof of Trump's relentless corrosion of political discourse - unfolded Saturday night at an evidently sloppily unsecured Washington Hilton, where in 1981 John Hinckley shot Reagan, who survived. The already contentious White House Correspondents' Dinner drew the black-tied, preening, profit-driven remnants of a craven legacy media - and a growing right-wing slopaganda brigade - both willing to pretend it was normal to party with an abusive enemy of free speech who's spent years attacking, belittling, suing, bullying and name-calling them as an "enemy of the people" for seeking to do their jobs and tell the truth, thus turning the evening into a queasy "case study in institutional self-abasement."
Even before the vitriolic and incendiary Trump - who led a Jan. 6 riot, urged fans to “knock the crap out” of protesters, bade Proud Boys "stand by," mused "the 2nd Amendment people" could do something" about his opponents, warned of "a bloodbath" if he was defeated, killed schoolgirls and threatened genocide in an illegal war he doesn't know how to end - let loose with what he dubbed "the most inappropriate speech ever made" (which Press Barbie called "shots fired") - before all that came a few muffled thuds of a dud of an assassination attempt, on the floor above, by a suspect who ran past a security checkpoint before being tackled. One shot was fired - it's unclear by whom - and one cop was wounded through a bulletproof vest; he is expected to be okay.
On the floor below, meanwhile, "absolute chaos" reigned. Panicked women in gowns and men in tuxedos hit the floor, flipping over chairs, lunging under tables and sometimes holding phone cameras aloft as a horde of Secret Service agents swarmed the ballroom, leaping on stage, yelling "Get down! Get down!", running in all directions at once, weapons poised and flailing. A crowd of security guys whisked J.D. Vance out of his chair first; then another cluster went for Trump, dazed and stumbling, guys holding him up on both sides. Video later showed alleged FBI head Kash Patel crouching absurdly behind a chair and RFK Jr. heroically leaving his wife behind; an idiotic "USA!" chant that "absolutely nobody wanted to hear" flared briefly before dying a well-earned death.
The suspect was identified as Cole Tomas Allen, 31, a Torrance, CA. mechanical engineer, game developer and teacher with a Masters degree in computer science; on Facebook, he also called himself "an amateur entomologist, casual composter and occasional artist." When he tried to breach the metal detectors above the ballroom, he was armed with a shotgun - loaded with buckshot not slugs "to minimize casualties" - a handgun and several knives. He was charged with two counts: Using a firearm during a crime of violence and assault on a federal officer with a dangerous weapon. Earlier, he'd posted a lucid, relatively mild missive from "a Friendly Federal Assassin" to explain his actions; it began with, "Hello everybody!" and apologies to "everyone whose trust I abused."
He apologized to his parents "for saying I had an interview without specifying it was for 'Most Wanted,'" to his colleagues and students, to "everyone abused or murdered before this or after, any "person raped in a detention camp, fisherman executed without trial, schoolkid blown up, child starved... I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes." As a Christian, he noted, "Turning the other cheek when *someone else* is oppressed is not Christian behavior; it is rather complicity in the oppressor’s crimes." He blasted the "insane" incompetence of the lax security he encountered, said he felt "awful" about what he thought he had to do, and expressed "rage thinking about everything this administration has done...Stay in school, kids."
Despite its placid tone, MAGA world promptly dubbed it "a manifesto" of "anti-Christian bile" from "a depraved crazy person." Press Barbie blasted the "demonization (and) hateful rhetoric directed at Trump...Nobody has faced more bullets and violence." Similarly, nobody in the cult wants to admit they're adamantly declining to acknowledge years of vicious Trump rhetoric that have shaped "an angry, polarized nation," or the role of rabid MAGA responses, say, to AOC noting she's glad everyone was safe - "There is a special place in hell for demons like you," "Go fuck right off with the other Commie losers" - or the "vibes for security" so lax - no photo ID, attendee list, checkpoint to enter the ballroom, basic competence - even attendees and the would-be assassin both denounced it.
- YouTube www.youtube.com
Despite faux-thoughtful deadlines - "Stunned Washington Faces Searching Questions About Political Violence" - Trump entirely missed the point, rambling and deflecting in his clueless, bonkers, self-serving way. He said he wanted the dinner to go ahead: The show must go on. He (weirdly) crooned about the "very strong, really attractive law enforcement." He babbled he'd "studied assassinations...The most impactful people, they're the ones they go after. Like Abraham Lincoln. I hate to say I’m honored by that, but I’ve done a lot." He called the presidency "a dangerous profession," worse than bullfighting. He declared the "manifesto" “strongly anti-Christian," and the perp "a very sick person...a lone wolf whack job," though he's an incomparably more dangerous one.
Mostly, relentlessly, he shilled for his ballroom: "This event would never have happened...The conditions that took place, I didn't wanna say it but this is why we have to have it...We need levels of security probably like no one's ever seen...This is exactly the reason our great Military, Secret Service, Law Enforcement and every President for the last 150 years have been demanding a large, safe, secure Ballroom be built," which is bullshit 'cause only he's demanding it. Still, miraculously, within six minutes of the lone shot fired, MAGA pivoted, lockstep, online to the same skeevy, amidst-a-war-and-ravaged-economy-how-is-this-a-thing refrain: This is why Trump needs the ballroom. Also, the lawsuit against it "puts the lives of the President, his family, and his staff at grave risk."
As if the whole corrupt ballroom shtick, "the definition of a non-sequitur,” wasn't grotesque enough, there was the right's virtual ignoring of any recognition of guns as a relevant part of the deadly equation - this, in a country with more guns than people, with 120 mass shootings since the start of the year, with over 3,800 people dead and over 6,500 wounded, with 100 people shot every day, with Trump having dismantled gun safety and mental health measures, with as yet no accountability for Renee Good and Alex Pretti being gunned down in the street, with the awful, prevailing, willfully blind, "gun violence for thee but not for me" admonishment that, "Every few months, Americans are asked to resume their banquet, and pretend a shooting didn’t just happen."
Which is what we regularly ask of our kids. "Last night, powerful people hid," wrote Digital Drumbeat. "Journalists, lobbyists, and politicians dove under tables, pressed against walls, and ran for exits..Secret Service moved. Protocols activated. And within hours, everyone went home. Welcome to the reality American children, teachers, and parents live every single day. Except they do not get the protocols. They do not get the security detail. And not all of them get to go home." It was not "crouching in a locked, darkened classroom for three hours while your phone dies and you cannot call your mother," or a teacher saying "to be very, very quiet," which is "a Tuesday in America." What we can't imagine: "Wanting an entire secure ballroom for one man, and not wanting gun reform for every child."
Other obscenities abound: The billions in ballroom funding from corporations, most of which are seeking billions more in federal contracts; the latest grift of secretly awarding the ballroom-building company a no-bid $17.4 million contract to repair two fountains in Lafayette Park that Biden estimated would cost $3.3 million; the "brazen inversion of reality" that is the MAGA claim criticism of Trump's hateful, violent rhetoric is what somehow incites more violence, when he's done more than anyone in recent history to normalize it; the righteous indignation - Fire Jimmy Kimmel (again) for joking Melania looks like an expectant widow! - when anyone notes the gross hypocrisy. Color America skeptical: "Fuck him, he can only go to the well so many times."
Also, we're still gonna need those Epstein files. See Trump lash out at CBS' Norah O'Donnell when she quotes Cole Allen's "pedophile, rapist, and traitor": "I was waiting for you to read that (because) you're horrible people..I'm not a rapist...I'm not a pedophile... You're disgraceful." Will Bunch: "This is our country now." The Rude Pundit: "We live in the goddamn United States. We're never far away from someone shooting a gun. It's what we are debased enough to call 'freedom.'" And in the two days before the shooting, Trump made a racist attack against Hakeem Jeffries, called for Hillary and Obama to be arrested, boasted of more war crimes. In brief, "We don't have to pretend that a motherfucker isn't a motherfucker just because someone wanted to kill him."
Mike Johnson to Unleash 'Catastrophic' Attack on Endangered Species Act
Conservationists warned Monday that "Earth Day could become Extinction Day" if Republican leaders in the US House of Representatives get their way.
Elected Republicans have long set their sights on the historic Endangered Species Act of 1973—and wildfire defenders sounded the alarm in December, when the Republican-led House Natural Resources Committee advanced Chair Bruce Westerman's (R-Ark.) ESA Amendments Act.
"If this bill passes, protections for species like the Florida manatee, monarch butterfly, and California spotted owl would immediately decrease," Earthjustice legislative director for lands, wildlife, and oceans Addie Haughey warned at the time.
Since then, President Donald Trump has continued his war on endangered species with his budget request for the 2027 fiscal year, and his administration's so-called "God Squad" unanimously approved an "unprecedented" exemption allowing fossil fuel operations in the Gulf of Mexico to ignore ESA protections.
Now, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) plans to take up Westerman's bill this week—potentially on Wednesday, Earth Day.
"At a time when wildlife is already under immense pressure from habitat destruction, climate change, pollution, and industrial development, Congress should be strengthening the Endangered Species Act, not tearing it apart," said Jewel Tomasula, policy director of the Endangered Species Coalition, which has hundreds of member organizations.
"If Rep. Bruce Westerman and Speaker Johnson have their way, Earth Day will become Extinction Day," Tomasula warned. "The urgency is real. This bill is catastrophic for threatened and endangered species."
Susan Holmes, the coalition's executive director, emphasized that "the Endangered Species Act works because it is rooted in science and because it recognizes a simple truth: Once a species is gone, it is gone forever."
"We should not allow politicians to dismantle protections that have saved bald eagles, gray whales, peregrine falcons, and so many other species from disappearing forever," she declared.
Holmes also noted that "the American people overwhelmingly support the Endangered Species Act" and "understand that protecting wildlife is not a partisan issue. It is about responsibility, stewardship, and ensuring that future generations inherit a world still rich with wild species and wild places."
Polling commissioned by IFAW and conducted online last year by Beekeeper Group found that over three-quarters of Americans say they are concerned about the environment, the welfare of animals, and conserving nature, and specifically support the goals of the ESA. That aligns with figures from surveys conducted over the past three decades, according to a 2025 analysis.
The U.S. House is scheduled to vote on the so-called "ESA Amendments Act" (H.R. 1897) on Earth Day, April 22. H.R. 1897 would drastically weaken the Endangered Species Act and decrease protections for threatened and endangered species.TAKE ACTION >>> wildernesswatch.substack.com/p/the-extinc...
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— Wilderness Watch (@wildernesswatch.bsky.social) April 20, 2026 at 3:23 PM
"Protecting the nation's wildlife and habitats has never been an issue of right or left—it is a shared value and a commitment to future generations," said Cassie Ferri, legislative analyst at Defenders of Wildlife, in a Monday statement. "Instead of honoring Earth Day, Congress is turning it into 'Destroy Earth Day' by attempting to dismantle one of our nation's most foundational conservation laws. We all depend on healthy ecosystems to thrive, and the vast majority of Americans want to preserve wildlife through a strong Endangered Species Act—yet time and again Congress blatantly disregards their voices."
The advocacy group director of legislative affairs, Mary Beth Beetham, said that "shameless attempts by some members of Congress to dismantle the Endangered Species Act demonstrate a profound disregard for how valuable this law is to wildlife conservation."
"The Endangered Species Act isn't just rhetoric—it's proven effective and has safeguarded imperiled species for more than 50 years," Beetham stressed. "This bill could be the driving force behind future extinctions and would set a dangerous precedent for wildlife legislation moving forward."
The U.S. House is expected to vote on H.R. 1897 next week—the most dangerous bill facing endangered species right now! It prioritizes profits over science-based safeguards and blocks judicial review. ACT NOW and tell your lawmakers #NOHR1897!ACT NOW at TeamWolf.Org!
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— Team Wolf (@team-wolf.bsky.social) April 17, 2026 at 4:01 PM
Defenders of Wildlife is among nearly 300 groups that have signed on to a Monday letter—shared with Common Dreams by another signatory, Humane World for Animals—urging US House members to "vote NO on HR 1897, which is a damaging bill that would dramatically weaken the ESA and make it harder, if not impossible, to achieve the progress we must make to address the alarming rate of extinction our planet now faces."
Westerman's bill, the letter says, "would significantly rewrite key portions of the ESA to prioritize politics over science and inappropriately shift responsibility for key implementation decisions from the federal government to the states, many of which do not have sufficient resources or legal mechanisms in place to take the lead in conserving listed species."
"It would place significant new administrative burdens on already overburdened agencies," the letter continues. "It would turn the current process for listing and recovering threatened and endangered species into a far lengthier process that precludes judicial review of key decisions."
While Republicans can pass legislation along party lines in the House, they usually need at least some Democratic support in the Senate—due to chamber rules, which can be changed—to send a bill to Trump's desk.
Despite 'Big Tariff' Threat From Trump, UK Urged to 'Raise, Not Abolish' Tax on Tech Giants
After President Donald Trump threatened to impose a new tariff on the United Kingdom over its Digital Services Tax, the head of a UK economic justice organization on Friday called for standing up to the US leader and even increasing the levy.
The 2% tax on digital companies such as search engines and social media networks that derive value from UK users—which applies to US tech giants such as Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet's Google—has generated significant revenue annually, including £808 million, or over $1 billion, for the 2024-25 financial year.
"We don't like it when they target American companies... whether we like those companies or don't like 'em," Trump—whose inauguration last year featured several ultrarich tech executives—said Thursday. He accused the UK of trying to "make an easy buck" and warned that "they better be careful."
"If they don't drop the tax, we'll probably put a big tariff on the UK," the president continued, suggesting that the tariff would be "more than what they're getting" from the policy targeting Big Tech.
Responding in a Friday statement, Nick Dearden, director of UK-based advocacy group Global Justice Now, said that "Trump's latest threats prove, yet again, that if you give in to a bully, they'll just come back for more."
Just months after striking a bilateral trade deal that notably did not alter the tax on tech companies, Trump and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer signed an artificial intelligence pact last September. The latter, said Dearden, "rolled out the red carpet to Trump's Big Tech barons."
"But this wasn't the end of the story. Rather, the pact has given Trump an ongoing vehicle to bully the British government," the campaigner continued. "It's time to admit that Stramer's strategy towards Trump has been an abject failure. We should raise, not abolish the digital services tax, which has already raised billions of pounds for the British economy."
"Trump won't like this but that's just too bad, we need to stop kowtowing to him, stop offering him humiliating and unpopular 'state' visits, and start enacting economic policies that put the interest of people here ahead of Donald Trump," he argued—as the UK's King Charles III and his wife Camilla, the queen consort, prepare to meet with Trump at the White House on Monday.
Asked about Trump's tech tax threats, a spokesperson for Starmer's office told The Guardian that "our position on that is unchanged... It is a hugely important tax to make sure that those businesses continue to pay their share. So it is a fair and proportionate approach to taxing business activities in the UK."
As the newspaper noted:
The digital services tax is only meant to be an interim measure, and the UK government agreed in 2021 to phase it out, averting the threat of retaliatory tariffs on British products from the US.
The tax was meant to be replaced in 2024 with a new global system after the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) brokered a deal between 140 countries, including the UK, that proposed large multinational companies paying tax in the countries where they do business committed themselves to a minimum 15% corporation tax rate. Implementation has been beset with delays as a number of countries have continued to raise objections over the regime.
Trump's tariff threat comes after he has lashed out at Starmer—and other European officials—in recent weeks over their limited support for his illegal war on Iran. The US leader suggested to the BBC this week that he and the UK prime minister could only "recover" if the Labour leader embraced stricter immigration policies and "opened the North Sea" to the fossil fuel industry.
"I'm here to serve the British people always, to have their interests and to make sure that I make the right decisions for them," Starmer told the British broadcaster. "That is why I took the decision that we would not be dragged into the war in Iran."
'More Destruction of Science': Trump Fires Every Member of US National Science Board
US President Donald Trump on Friday quietly fired every member of the independent board that governs the National Science Foundation, a move seen as an escalation of the administration's destructive war on science.
Members of the National Science Board (NSB) were notified in a brief email "on behalf of President Donald J. Trump" that their "position as a member of the National Science Board is terminated, effective immediately." One fired board member, chemist Willie May, told The New York Times that he was "disappointed" but not "entirely surprised," adding, "I have watched the systematic dismantling of the scientific advisory infrastructure of this government with growing alarm, and the National Science Board is simply the latest casualty."
The NSB sets the policies of the US National Science Foundation (NSF), approves major funding decisions for NSF, and advises Congress and the president on "policy matters related to science and engineering."
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, said in a statement Saturday that "this is the latest stupid move made by a president who continues to harm science and American innovation."
“The NSB is apolitical," said Lofgren. "It advises the president on the future of NSF. It unfortunately is no surprise a president who has attacked NSF from day one would seek to destroy the board that helps guide the foundation. Will the president fill the NSB with MAGA loyalists who won't stand up to him as he hands over our leadership in science to our adversaries? A real bozo the clown move."
Alondra Nelson, an academic who resigned from the NSB last May over concerns of political interference, wrote on social media that "history will not look kindly on this administration for many reasons, but the systematic silencing of independent expertise is particularly troubling."
Since the start of his second term, Trump and his deputies have assailed science across the federal government, including by eliminating the Environmental Protection Agency's scientific research arm and firing experts en masse.
In the coming fiscal year, Trump has proposed cutting NSF's budget by nearly 55%. Additionally, the president's budget would "eliminate funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research," Scientific American reported. The White House plan, if approved by Congress, would also slash NASA's budget by nearly 25%.
"This is how the US loses its scientific leadership—with a reckless budget line," Leigh Stearns, a glaciologist at the University of Pennsylvania, told Scientific American.
In Latest Threat to Press, Hegseth Tells Journalists to ‘Think Twice’ Before Publishing Classified Info
Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth lobbed his latest threat against the American press during a briefing on Friday, telling reporters to "think twice" about publishing stories containing classified information—a common journalistic practice that has brought to light mass surveillance, war crimes, and other government abuses.
Hegseth said Friday that the Pentagon takes "leaking very seriously here" and blasted reporting based on leaks containing classified information as "incredibly irresponsible and unpatriotic." He went on to "encourage members of the press to think twice about the lives they're affecting when they publish things in their publications like the New York Times."
Q: I’m with O'Keefe media group. Earlier this week, James O'Keefe published a story on a department of army nuclear chief who revealed top secret national security information to a stranger he met on a dating app. Will you defer him for termination and prosecution?
Hegseth: He… pic.twitter.com/P9o6cweW2i
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 24, 2026
Hegseth's Pentagon—and the Trump administration more broadly—has been aggressive in attempting to curtail press freedoms, particularly amid the US war of choice in Iran. President Donald Trump said earlier this month that his administration would attempt to jail journalists who reported leaked information pertaining to a US fighter jet recently shot down in Iran.
Last month, the Pentagon temporarily barred press photographers from media briefings on the war because Hegseth's staff was reportedly displeased with "unflattering" pictures of the Pentagon chief.
The Pentagon has also attempted to force journalists to promise not to publish or even solicit information that the department has not specifically authorized for release—with violators forced to surrender their press passes. A federal judge has blocked that policy and rebuked the Pentagon earlier this month for attempting to reimpose the policy with insubstantial changes.
Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation, noted in a recent column for The Intercept that "the Pentagon’s legal filings imply that reporters who don’t follow the rules risk more than their press passes."
"The government argued that although journalists may lawfully ask questions of 'authorized' Pentagon personnel, 'a journalist does solicit the commission of a criminal act, and that solicitation is not protected by the First Amendment, when he or she solicits … non-public information from individuals who are legally obligated not to disclose that information,'" Stern wrote. "The government’s argument would have turned countless Pulitzer-winning national security reporters into criminals."
"The Trump administration is barging through the door the Biden administration left wide open, when, despite warnings from First Amendment advocates, it extracted a plea deal from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Espionage Act charges for obtaining and publishing government records, including about Iraq war crimes," Stern added.
Trump Cancels Kushner-Witkoff Trip as Iran Suggests US Not 'Truly Serious About Diplomacy'
US President Donald Trump on Saturday abruptly canceled a planned visit by two of his administration's negotiators to the Pakistani capital for diplomatic talks to end his illegal war on Iran, complaining that the trip would be "too much work."
The president announced his decision after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi left Islamabad on Saturday, writing in a social media post that he relayed to Pakistani officials "Iran's position concerning a workable framework to permanently end the war on Iran." Araghchi added that he has "yet to see if the US is truly serious about diplomacy."
Iranian officials said repeatedly in recent days that they had no intention of engaging in direct talks with the Trump administration this weekend as long as the US naval blockade remained in effect. Despite clear statements from Iran's leadership, the Trump White House insisted that special envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff would be holding another round of direct negotiations with Iranian officials in Islamabad after earlier talks ended without a deal.
"This has happened repeatedly: Trump claims the Iranians are begging for talks, Iran says it is false," observed Drop Site's Jeremy Scahill. "The US says Iran is lying, and then it becomes clear Iran meant what it said."
In an assessment published before Trump canceled his envoys' trip, Scahill wrote that "there is no question it is the US that is seeking direct talks right now, not Iran."
"Iran still believes it is likely the US and Israel will resume the war and has indicated it has prepared new forms of retaliatory strikes and other actions, including in the Strait of Hormuz," Scahill added. "Its military commanders have said that while the US has moved more military assets into the region during the 'ceasefire,' Tehran has also taken this period to prepare its own weapons systems for more fighting."
Trump insisted Saturday that his administration—whose deeply unpopular and deadly war of choice has sparked a global economic disaster—holds "all the cards" and that Iranian leadership is in turmoil. But Sina Toossi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, wrote that "Trump can’t hide exuding desperation for a deal."
"So he invents 'fractures' in Tehran to explain being repeatedly stood up," Toossi added. "Iran’s line is unchanged: demanding the blockade be lifted and holding on to its core red lines. They’re playing hardball. He’s spinning."
Trump's cancellation of the Kushner-Witkoff trip came hours after NBC News reported that "American military bases and other equipment in the Persian Gulf region suffered extensive damage from Iranian strikes that is far worse than publicly acknowledged and is expected to cost billions of dollars to repair."
"The Iran war was a tactical and strategic disaster," said Toossi. "Despite heavy efforts to control the narrative, it’s becoming clear just how much US bases and equipment in the region were damaged or destroyed. The war backfired and inflicted far more damage than its proponents want to admit."
To End 'New Gilded Age,' House Progressives Unveil Bill to Raise Federal Minimum Wage to $25 Per Hour
"We need an economy that reflects the realities of 2026, not one stuck over a decade ago," said the newly sworn-in Rep. Analilia Mejía, who helped lead the campaign to raise wages in her home state of New Jersey.
A pair of progressive Democrats unveiled a bill on Tuesday that would raise the federal minimum wage to $25 per hour, considered the bare minimum a single adult needs to meet the cost of living in much of the US.
The Living Wage For All Act is the first bill to be introduced by the newly sworn-in Rep. Analilia Mejía (D-NJ), who won a special election earlier this month after helping to lead the fight for a $15 minimum wage in her home state of New Jersey.
Citing data from MIT's Living Wage Calculator, the Living Wage For All campaign backing the legislation argues that $25/hour is needed for a single adult in most parts of the country to afford basic necessities like housing, food, and healthcare.
As the cost of living has skyrocketed over the past decade and a half, the federal minimum wage has remained frozen at $7.25 and hour since 2009.
"This is unacceptable," Mejía said. "We need an economy that reflects the realities of 2026, not one stuck over a decade ago."
The bill is cosponsored by Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), the daughter of Guatemalan immigrants who, she said, worked multiple minimum-wage jobs just to get by.
“I remember being in the fourth grade, and my mom talked about her job, and she was getting paid $4.75 an hour,” the 42-year-old congresswoman said during a press conference on Capitol Hill Tuesday. “Yet the federal minimum wage is barely $7.25, many years later.”
"Today, as we think about companies reporting record high earnings, working people are still struggling to survive," she said. "People are working full-time jobs and still cannot afford to live."
A USA TODAY survey from January found that around 40% of workers say their paychecks have not grown enough to meet the rising cost of living, which has been further exacerbated by spiking inflation caused by President Donald Trump's erratic tariff regime and war in Iran. Another survey conducted by Resume Now in April found that about half of workers fear their wages will never catch up to the cost of living.
While some states and cities have gradually raised their minimum wages above the federal level and have seen modest declines in poverty as a result, none have been raised to the point of being considered a living wage.
The bill introduced by Mejía and Ramirez would similarly phase in its increase to the federal minimum wage over more than a decade, with larger employers leading the transition.
Companies with more than $1 billion gross revenue or more than 500 employees would be scheduled to increase their minimum pay to $25/hour by 2031, while smaller employers would be on a longer timeline to reach $25/hour by 2038.
To ensure wages don’t lag again in the following years, the bill also requires the minimum wage to automatically grow each year to reach the equivalent of two-thirds the national median hourly wage. It also eliminates the subminimum wage, which is paid to tipped workers, youth workers, and workers with disabilities.
The bill is almost certainly dead on arrival in a Republican-controlled Congress. Even if Democrats retake both chambers come November, it would likely face an uphill battle to pass.
In 2021, the last time Democrats had a governing trifecta, eight centrist members of the Democratic caucus killed an amendment by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to include a $15/hour minimum wage in then-President Joe Biden's post-Covid budget reconciliation package, the American Rescue Plan.
But as Democrats seek to address rising fears about America's "affordability" crisis, Saru Jayaraman, the president of One Fair Wage, said politics are starting "to catch up to reality."
"Across the country—from California to the Midwest to the East Coast—workers are organizing for $25 and $30 because that is what it takes to live," she said. "The polling shows this is not just popular, it is necessary."
“We cannot talk about affordability without talking about what people are paid,” added Stuart Appelbaum, the president of the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union.
More than 20 Democrats have signed onto the bill as cosponsors, including Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.).
The effort is being spearheaded by the Living Wage For All Coalition, a national collective of labor unions, civil rights groups, and other economic justice organizations that are simultaneously pushing legislation to adopt a living wage in states like New York, Illinois, and Maryland, and municipalities such as Los Angeles and Washington, DC.
April Verrett, the international president of the Service Employees International Union, which has more than 2 million members across North America, said that “the introduction of the Living Wage for All Act is a powerful testament to the worker-led movement that is forcing a new baseline for livable wages.”
Bayer Continues Push to 'Close the Door' on Glyphosate Victims at US Supreme Court
"Bayer is intent on preserving its right to harm at all costs—a pursuit the Trump administration is all too willing to endorse," said a Food and Water Watch campaigner.
As pesticide critics held a "The People v. Poison" rally outside the US Supreme Court on Monday, the justices heard arguments in Monsanto Company v. Durnell, a case whose conclusion is expected to have sweeping implications for cancer patients trying to take on the Roundup maker—now owned by Bayer—in the country's legal system.
The case stems from John Durnell's 2019 lawsuit against Monsanto in Missouri state court, alleging that exposure to the herbicide Roundup—whose active ingredient is glyphosate—caused his non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of blood cancer. A jury found that the company failed to warn users of the risks associated with the weedkiller, and awarded Durnell $1.25 million in damages.
Bayer argued before the Supreme Court on Monday that Durnell—and others like him—should not be able to bring such a suit because the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act preempts state rules for labeling pesticides when the Environmental Protection Agency doesn't require a cancer warning. Bayer and the EPA continue to insist that glyphosate is safe, despite the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer classifying it as probably carcinogenic to humans over a decade ago.
As The Associated Press and Reuters reported, the justices appeared "divided" on Monday, with the AP noting that several "seemed sympathetic to the company's argument that it can't be sued under state law because federal regulators have found Roundup likely doesn't cause cancer. Others, though, grilled attorneys about whether that wrongly stops states from responding to changing research."
Patti Goldman, senior attorney at Earthjustice—which filed an amicus brief in this case on behalf of farmworker organizations—said in a statement that "questions from the justices recognized that the Environmental Protection Agency approves pesticide labels based on the evidence before the agency at a single moment in time, but that evidence can become outdated as real-world exposure grows and scientific studies document resulting harms."
"Federal law requires the manufacturers to update their labels to provide sufficient warnings and directions to protect the public," Goldman stressed, "and state failure-to-warn claims reinforce that obligation—while ensuring children, families, and workers have a path to seek remedies for the harm they suffer."
Other groups that have submitted amicus briefs include Environmental Protection Network—which is made up of former EPA staffers—and the Center for Food Safety, one of the advocacy organizations that joined the rally outside the court. The event was also attended by members of Congress from both major political parties.
"This isn't left v. right—it's right v. wrong," said US Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ). "Big corporations and their lobbyists have captured both parties, putting profits over our families' health. I've fought Monsanto and Bayer for years, and just filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court to protect our right to sue them for illnesses caused by their products."
Despite President Donald Trump's campaign promise to "Make America Healthy Again," the Republican recently issued an executive order mandating the production of glyphosate, and the US Department of Justice has sided with Bayer in this case—part of a broader trend of his administration serving the pesticide industry's interests.
"Monsanto Company v. Durnell will have enormous consequences for environmental health litigation," Food and Water Watch legal director Tarah Heinzen said Monday. "Bayer is intent on preserving its right to harm at all costs—a pursuit the Trump administration is all too willing to endorse. This case threatens to close the courthouse doors to the many Americans harmed by pesticides."
Heinzen argued that "should the Supreme Court hold that the Environmental Protection Agency's failed pesticide regulatory scheme preempts state failure to warn lawsuits, leaving tens of thousands of sick Americans without legal recourse, Trump and his industry-dominated EPA will be to blame."
"This high stakes case should be a wake-up call for Congress to act," the campaigner added. "Industrial agriculture's pesticide addiction is poisoning America. Congress must pass the Pesticide Injury Accountability Act to safeguard access to justice for all harmed by toxic pesticides."
As The American Prospect noted Monday in its "three-part series on Bayer's crusade for immunity from Roundup-related cancer claims," the company "is now aggressively lobbying Congress to permanently close the door" on the weedkiller's victims, and managed to get an immunity provision included in the 2026 Farm Bill that advanced out of the US House Agriculture Committee last month.
After joining the rally at the Supreme Court on Monday, Friends of the Earth (FOE) US led a protest outside Bayer's headquarters in downtown Washington, DC, delivering hundreds of thousands of petition signatures are calling on the company to phase out the production of toxic pesticides, including glyphosate and neonicotinoids.
"People are sick and tired of being exposed to toxic pesticides while pesticide corporations shirk responsibility," said FOE senior campaigner Sarah Starman, who spoke at the rally. "Bayer and other pesticide companies should not be allowed to profit from chemicals that threaten our health, harm our environment, and undermine the future of our food system. The hundreds of people who rallied outside the Supreme Court and the 200,000 people who signed comments to Bayer are demanding change."
In the leadup to the arguments before the nation's top court, the Environmental Working Group last week sued the Trump administration at the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, accusing the EPA of unlawfully delaying its response to an EWG petition seeking stronger restrictions on glyphosate.
"The EPA's silence leaves families in the dark and falls far short of its responsibility to protect public health," declared EWG president and co-founder Ken Cook. "It's time for the agency to stop stalling and do its job."
California 'One Step Closer' to Taxing Billionaires With Enough Signatures to Make Ballot
"In a nation as rich as ours, that’s the least we deserve," said one proponent of the billionaire tax.
The coalition behind a plan to tax California billionaires on Monday announced it's reached a major milestone in its efforts to get its proposed wealth tax on ballots this fall.
The California Billionaire Tax coalition revealed it has now filed more than 1.5 million signatures, or nearly twice the 875,000 signatures required to make the California Billionaire Tax Act an official state ballot initiative.
The proposed tax, which has drawn opposition from Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom and support from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), will hit the state's billionaires with a one-time 5% wealth tax that proponents say will be used to fund local hospitals, food aid, and public education.
Mayra Castañeda, an ultrasound technologist and a member of Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW), which proposed the ballot initiative, said that the tax was essential to preserve quality of healthcare in California.
"When funding is cut, it brings a world of pain," said Castañeda. "It means longer ER waits, fewer healthcare workers, rural hospitals shutting down, delayed care, and lives lost that could have been saved. It's clear that most Californians and most billionaires recognize how reasonable and necessary this proposal is—both to keep emergency rooms open and to save California businesses from closing."
Jared Hamil, a member of Teamsters Local 396, said gathering more than 1.5 million signatures in favor of the tax means "we are one step closer to the California we deserve."
"We deserve to be able to afford to see a doctor when we’re sick," Hamil emphasized. "We deserve to know our local hospital will be open and ready to treat you in an emergency. In a nation as rich as ours, that’s the least we deserve."
A poll of California voters conducted last month by the University of California, Berkeley found that the proposed billionaire tax is broadly popular, with support outweighing opposition by a roughly two-to-one ratio.
An analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimates that the tax will raise $100 billion in revenue over the next five years, which would be enough to fill the hole in California's state budget caused by the Republican-passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act that takes an ax to spending on Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).