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Sunrise Movement Responds to Sinema's Proposal to Cut Climate: It's Cruel and Unfathomable
WASHINGTON
Following news that Senator Kyrsten Sinema, representative of a state plagued by intense fires and heat waves this year, wants to cut at least $100 billion from climate programs, Varshini Prakash, Executive Director of Sunrise Movement, released the following statement:
"Senator Sinema represents a state that has lost the lives of over 500 people to the climate crisis since 2020 alone. It is cruel and unfathomable that she's demanding severe cuts to life saving climate legislation, but not surprising since she's been meeting nonstop with corporate executives. Senator Sinema is out of touch with her constituents and with what's happening across the globe on climate. Maybe if she actually took the time to speak to the people of her state, she'd realize how much their families need her to deliver action on climate.
"Biden cannot cave to this level of delusion and must pass his entire $3.5T climate and jobs agenda by the time he arrives in Glasgow. This is a matter of Joe Biden's legacy, human life and the future of our generation."
This comes after weeks of progressive protest towards Sinema by Arizonans and others, which has gone largely ignored by the Senator.
Sunrise Movement is a movement to stop climate change and create millions of good jobs in the process.
LATEST NEWS
'Scowling Void of Pure Nothingness': Critics Destroy $75 Million Melania Trump Documentary
"It’s one of those rare, unicorn films that doesn’t have a single redeeming quality," said one critic.
Jan 31, 2026
Critics have weighed in on Amazon MGM Studios' documentary about first lady Melania Trump, and their verdicts are overwhelmingly negative.
According to review aggregation website Metacritic, Melania—which Amazon paid $40 million to acquire and $35 million to market—so far has received a collective score of just 6 out of 100 from critics, which indicates "overwhelming dislike."
Similarly, Melania scores a mere 6% on Rotten Tomatoes' "Tomameter," indicating that 94% of reviews for the movie so far have been negative.
One particularly brutal review came from Nick Hilton, film critic for the Independent, who said that the first lady came off in the film as "a preening, scowling void of pure nothingness" who leads a "vulgar, gilded lifestyle."
Hilton added that the film is so terrible that it fails even at being effective propaganda and is likely to be remembered as "a striking artifact... of a time when Americans willingly subordinated themselves to a political and economic oligopoly."
The Guardian's Xan Brooks delivered a similarly scathing assessment, declaring the film "dispiriting, deadly and unrevealing."
"It’s one of those rare, unicorn films that doesn’t have a single redeeming quality," Brooks elaborated. "I’m not even sure it qualifies as a documentary, exactly, so much as an elaborate piece of designer taxidermy, horribly overpriced and ice-cold to the touch and proffered like a medieval tribute to placate the greedy king on his throne."
Donald Clarke of the Irish Times also discussed the film's failure as a piece of propaganda, and he compared it unfavorably to the work of Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl.
"Melania... appears keener on inducing narcolepsy in its viewers than energizing them into massed marching," he wrote. "Triumph of the Dull, perhaps."
Variety's Owen Gleiberman argued that the Melania documentary is utterly devoid of anything approaching dramatic stakes, which results in the film suffering from "staggering inertia."
"Mostly it’s inert," Gleiberman wrote of the film. "It feels like it’s been stitched together out of the most innocuous outtakes from a reality show. There’s no drama to it. It should have been called 'Day of the Living Tradwife.'"
Frank Scheck of the Hollywood Reporter found that the movie mostly exposes Melania Trump is an empty vessel without a single original thought or insight, instead deploying "an endless number of inspirational phrases seemingly cribbed from self-help books."
Kevin Fallon of the Daily Beast described Melania as "an unbelievable abomination of filmmaking" that reaches "a level of insipid propaganda that almost resists review."
"It's so expected," Fallon added, "and utterly pointless."
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Leaked DHS Memo Reveals ICE Claiming Expansive New Warrantless Arrest Powers
"This memo bends over backwards to say that ICE agents have nothing but green lights to make an arrest without even a supervisor’s approval," said one former ICE official.
Jan 31, 2026
An internal legal memo obtained by the New York Times reveals that federal immigration enforcement agents are claiming broad new powers to carry out warrantless arrests.
The Times reported on Friday that the memo, which was signed by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Acting Director Todd Lyons, "expands the ability of lower-level ICE agents to carry out sweeps rounding up people they encounter and suspect are undocumented immigrants, rather than targeted enforcement operations in which they set out, warrant in hand, to arrest a specific person."
In the past, agents have been granted the power to carry out warrantless arrests only in situations where they believe a suspected undocumented immigrant is a "flight risk" who is unlikely to comply with obligations such as appearing at court hearings.
However, the memo declares this standard to be “unreasoned” and “incorrect,” saying that agents should feel free to carry out arrests so long as the suspect is "unlikely to be located at the scene of the encounter or another clearly identifiable location once an administrative warrant is obtained."
Scott Shuchart, former head of policy at ICE under President Joe Biden, told the Times that the memo appears to open the door to give the agency incredibly broad arrest powers.
"This memo bends over backwards," Shuchart said, "to say that ICE agents have nothing but green lights to make an arrest without even a supervisor’s approval."
Claire Trickler-McNulty, former senior adviser at ICE during the Biden administration, said the memo's language was so broad that "it would cover essentially anyone they want to arrest without a warrant, making the general premise of ever getting a warrant pointless."
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, noted in a social media post that the memo appears to be a way for ICE to "get around an increasing number of court orders requiring [US Department of Homeland Security] to follow the plain words of the law which says administrative warrantless arrests are only for people 'likely to escape.'"
The memo broadens the terms, Reichlin-Melnick added, so that "anyone who refuses to wait for a warrant to be issued" is deemed "likely to escape."
Stanford University political scientist Tom Clark questioned the validity of the memo, which appears to directly conflict with the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution, which requires search warrants as a protection against "unreasonable searches and seizures."
"So, here’s how the law works," he wrote. "People on whom it imposes constraints don’t get to just write themselves a memo saying they don’t have to follow the law. Maybe I’ll write myself a memo saying that I don’t have to pay my taxes this year."
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From Maine to Minnesota and Beyond, Tens of Thousands March to Demand 'ICE Out!'
"We want to show solidarity," said one employee at a worker-owned bakery in Los Angeles. "We've seen historically that strikes work. I hope the violence stops. I want ICE out of our communities."
Jan 30, 2026
Popular outrage over President Donald Trump's deadly campaign targeting immigrants and their defenders sparked a National Shutdown day of protests across the United States on Friday, as people from coast to coast took to the streets demanding an end to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement's "reign of terror."
"No school, no work, and no shopping," the National Shutdown said on its website. "The entire country is shocked and outraged at the brutal killings of Alex Pretti, Renee Good, Silverio Villegas González, and Keith Porter Jr. by federal agents."
"While Trump and other right-wing politicians are slandering them as 'terrorists,' the video evidence makes it clear beyond all doubt: They were gunned down in broad daylight simply for exercising their First Amendment right to protest mass deportation," the campaign continued.
"Every day, ICE, Border Patrol, and other enforcers of Trump’s racist agenda are going into our communities to kidnap our neighbors and sow fear," the protest organizers added. "It is time for us to all stand up together in a nationwide shutdown and say enough is enough!"
BREAKING: For the second week in a row Minneapolis came out in full force for the nationwide shutdown demanding ICE out of everywhere. pic.twitter.com/bOnN8nWEI4
— BreakThrough News (@BTnewsroom) January 30, 2026
One week after an estimated 50,000 protesters marched in downtown Minneapolis for the "ICE Out of Minnesota: Day of Truth and Freedom" rally, at least tens of thousands of people braved subzero wind chill temperatures to protest the ongoing Operation Metro Surge blitz in the Twin Cities.
Rock icon Bruce Springsteen—who this week released a song called “Streets of Minneapolis" to pay tribute to activists fighting Trump's assault on immigrants and American democracy—made a surprise appearance at a benefit concert for the families of Good and Pretti.
Maine Public Radio reported that over 150 businesses, mostly in the Portland area, closed their doors Friday amid Operation Catch of the Day, during which ICE enforcers have arrested hundreds of people in the Pine Tree State.
"Today, the working class of Portland has sent a clear message to those in power: Your power is derived from our labor, and we are not afraid to withhold our labor for the safety of our neighbors," South Portland retail worker Keeli Parker told MPR.
In Chicago—where ICE's Operation Midway Blitz prompted a special commission appointed by Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker to recommend the prosecution of federal agents who violate people's constitutional rights—Nick Mayor, co-owner of Brewed Coffee in the Avondale neighborhood, told the Chicago Sun-Times that the cost of closing his business for the day "pales in comparison to the cost of what is happening to other people and their families, with their lives getting taken and torn apart.”
More than 1,000 people packed into Washington Square in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah, where protesters chanted slogans including “Power to the people, no one is illegal,” and, “No justice, no peace, we want ICE off our streets!”
Three hundred miles southwest of Salt Lake City in St. George, Utah, dozens of demonstrators rallied in the city center, holding signs reading, "ICE Out" and "the wrong ICE is melting." One disapproving motorist yelled, "Go back to California" while driving by, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.
In Los Angeles, Proof Bakery, a worker-owned cooperative in Atwater Village, also shut its doors for the day.
"We want to show solidarity," Proof Bakery worker-owner Daniela Diaz told KABC. "We've seen historically that strikes work. I hope the violence stops. I want ICE out of our communities."
Incredible scene at Brown University as thousands of schools across the country stage walkouts to protest ICE’s reign of terror.History will remember who stood up and who stayed silent against state sanctioned murder.
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— Matt McDermott (@mattmfm.bsky.social) January 30, 2026 at 11:26 AM
Hundreds of high school students walked out of their classrooms in Asheville, North Carolina, where sophomore Henry Pope told the Mountain XPress, “We reject the ICE terror that’s sweeping across our communities."
“We reject everything this far-right, billionaire administration stands for, and we need justice to be brought to Jonathan Ross and every other killer ICE agent in this country," Pope added, referring to the officer who fatally shot Good earlier this month.
Kelia Harold, a senior at the University of Florida in Gainesville, rallied on campus with around 100 other students.
“Instead of sitting on my own and being helpless, it really helps to come out here,” she told the New York Times, noting Pretti's killing.
“If that could happen to him," she said, "I don’t see why it couldn’t happen to anyone else.”
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