NATIONWIDE RALLIES PROTEST ICE KILLING OF RENEE GOOD, FASCIST TRUMP. Hundreds of demonstrations took place in cities large and small across the United States the weekend of Jan. 10-11 to denounce the killing of Renee Nicole Good by a federal immigration enforcement officer Jan. 7 in Minneapolis, Jon Queally noted at CommonDreams (1/11).
The wave of “ICE Out for Good” protests arrives as a consolidated expression of outrage directed at President Donald Trump for his authoritarian tactics, cruel policies, and a lawlessness seemingly without end. Just a day after Good was killed in Minnesota, two other people were shot and wounded by federal agents in Portland, Oregon.
“Renee Nicole Good and the Portland victims are just the most recent victims of ICE’s reign of terror,” said the 50501 movement, one of the groups behind the weekend protests, said in a statement. “ICE has brutalized communities for decades, but its violence under the Trump regime has accelerated.”
The killing of Good by Jonathan Ross, a 10-year veteran of the Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) agency, came just days after Trump’s unlawful military attack on Venezuela which culminated in the arrest of President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. Many who protested noted that the two events are deeply related as they epitomize the increasingly violent nature of the president’s second term.
Also notable is how the act of war against Venezuela and the killing of Good bookended the fifth anniversary of the Trump-backed insurrection that took place on Jan. 6, 2021. While many marked that occasion with solemn remembrances, the Trump administration released a fabricated version of the day that was denounced as Orwellian and gaslighting of the highest form.
As Mother Jones’ David Corn wrote on Jan. 8: “The military assault on Venezuela, the shooting of a Minneapolis woman by an ICE agent, the launch of the White House’s new revisionist website about Jan. 6—these three events convey a powerful and unsettling message from Donald Trump and his crew: Violence is ours to use, at home and abroad, to get what we want.”
The Jan. 10 protests—organized by the Not Above the Law Coalition, MoveOn, the ACLU, Indivisible, and others—took place from Minneapolis to New York and from Chicago to Los Angeles. Demonstrations and rallies also took place in Portland, Oregon as well as Portland, Maine, with hundreds of events and rallies in smaller cities and communities nationwide.
“It feels like maybe we’re hitting a tipping point,” 49-year-old Ben Person, who marched in Minneapolis, told The New York Times.
“The shootings in Minneapolis and Portland were not the beginning of ICE’s cruelty, but they need to be the end,” said Deirdre Schifeling of the ACLU. “These tragedies are simply proof of one fact: the Trump administration and its federal agents are out of control, endangering our neighborhoods, and trampling on our rights and freedom. This weekend, Americans all across the country are demanding that they stop.”
At a rally in Portland, Maine the evening of Jan. 10, Troy Jackson, the Democratic former president of the State Senate now running for governor, said the killing of Good in Minneapolis made clear to him that such violence against regular citizens could indeed happen anywhere:
For one demonstrator in Minneapolis, the imperial and authoritarian drive of the Trump administration reminded him of the galactic villains of the Empire in the Star Wars series:
The organizers of the weekend protests said that public shows of dissent will remain key in the coming days, weeks, and months.
“We will resist the government’s attacks by building community, by documenting atrocities, by protesting nonviolently, by showing kindness and solidarity at all times,” said Pablo Alvarado, co-executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, another of the organizing groups.
“We will meet them in the streets, in the courts, at the day labor corners. We will meet them everywhere. And we will win. We are not afraid or discouraged. And we will not be defeated,” Alvarado added. “The more we stand together as a community of determination and love, the harder it will be for them to divide and destroy us.”
GOP EAGER TO DEFEND ICE AGENT WHO KILLED RENEE GOOD. In a sick and twisted way, Republicans have proved President Donald Trump right when he said that he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose any votes, Emily Singer noted at Daily Kos (1/11).
In the wake of a masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shooting and killing an unarmed U.S. citizen during an immigration raid in Minneapolis, GOP lawmakers have all lined up behind Trump and the agent, while making vile and defamatory statements about the victim.
The most despicable comment came from Rep. Randy Fine of Florida, who said that he feels no remorse for Renee Nicole Good, the 37-year-old mother who was killed on Jan. 7 while serving as an observer of an ICE operation in her community.
“If you impede the actions of our law enforcement as they seek to repel foreign invaders from our country, you get what’s coming to you,” Fine said in an appearance on Newsmax. “I do not feel bad for the woman that was involved.”
But he was hardly alone in disparaging Good and parroting the Trump administration’s lies about the killing.
Trump falsely said that the agent who killed Good was injured and that Good was trying to run him over with her car—even though the incident was captured on video from several angles, showing that the agent was not in danger and was not injured as Good tried to slowly drive past him.
Republicans then pushed those same lies, which Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said is a naked attempt to help the agent avoid accountability.
“It appears that the ICE agent was struck by the car, and in the first video you just showed you can see the agent limping away after he fired shots,” Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina said on Fox Business. “So I agree with President Trump and Secretary Noem that this was an act of domestic terrorism. These were, it appears, paid agitators.”
Most Republicans who commented on the killing said that they stand with ICE, while Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee goes as far as calling ICE agents “heroes.”
“ICE officers are heroes, not villains,” she wrote on X.
Other lawmakers absurdly blamed Democrats for the killing, saying that their criticism of ICE’s lawless and violent behavior is what led to this.
“This clearly appears to be the result of this just months-long rhetoric against law enforcement and people encouraging that kind of violence,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said Jan. 8.
“I pray that every federal law enforcement officer on the ground in Minnesota right now remains safe as they carry out their vital mission,” House Majority Whip Tom Emmer wrote on X “Tim Walz and [Minneapolis Mayor] Jacob Frey are cowards who are inciting violence to distract from their own failures. It’s dangerous. Stay safe, @ICEgov.”
FED CHAIR POWELL SAYS HE WON’T BOW TO TRUMP AS DOJ LAUNCHES CRIMINAL PROBE. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell revealed in a defiant statement Jan. 11 that the US Department of Justice is threatening him with criminal charges, a step the central bank chief condemned as “intimidation” for not bowing to President Donald Trump’s demands on interest rate policy, Jake Johnson noted at CommonDreams (1/12).
“I have deep respect for the rule of law and for accountability in our democracy. No one—certainly not the chair of the Federal Reserve—is above the law,” Powell said in a video statement. “But this unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration’s threats and ongoing pressure.”
Powell said the Justice Department, which Trump has repeatedly wielded against his political opponents, served the Federal Reserve Jan. 9 with grand jury subpoenas related to the central bank chair’s congressional testimony on Fed office building renovations.
But Powell, who was first nominated to his role by Trump in 2017, said accusations that he misled lawmakers about the scope of the renovations were a “pretext” obscuring the real reason the Justice Department is pursuing a criminal indictment.
“The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the president,” said Powell. “This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions—or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation.”
The New York Times reported Jan. 11 that the investigation into Powell was approved late last year by Trump loyalist Jeanine Pirro, a former Fox News host now serving as US attorney for the District of Columbia. Trump claimed he didn’t “know anything about” the Powell investigation, but added, “He’s certainly not very good at the Fed, and he’s not very good at building buildings.”
Powell, whose term as Fed chair ends in May, has repeatedly defied Trump in public, dismissing the president’s threat to remove him from the helm of the central bank as unlawful and, at one point, fact-checking Trump to his face about the estimated cost of Fed renovations.
Powell has also publicly blamed Trump’s tariff policies for driving up inflation.
“It’s really tariffs that are causing the most of the inflation overshoot,” Powell said last month, following the central bank’s December 10 meeting. The Fed cut interest rates three times last year, bringing them down by a total of 75 basis points.
But Trump has pushed for much more aggressive rate cuts and attacked Powell—who does not have sole authority over interest rate decisions—as a “moron” and “truly one of my worst appointments.”
Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the watchdog group Public Citizen, applauded Powell’s “bold defense of the rule of law” and said that Fed policy “should not be subject to intimidation and bullying by Trump loyalist prosecutors.”
“The Department of Justice should serve the rule of law, not the vindictive instincts of an authoritarian president,” said Gilbert. “And it should never misuse its criminal enforcement powers to pursue pretextual prosecutions against the president’s political opponents or those who show a modicum of independence.”
Democratic members of Congress also rose to Powell’s defense.
“Threatening criminal action against a Fed chair because he refuses to do the president’s bidding on interest rates undermines the rule of law, which is the very foundation for American prosperity,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) wrote on social media.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) added that “no one should lose their sense of outrage about what is happening to our country.”
“This is an effort to create an autocratic state. It’s that plain,” said Murphy. “Trump is threatening to imprison the chairman of Federal Reserve simply because he won’t enact the rate policy Trump wants.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a frequent critic of Powell and Fed rate policy during his tenure, wrote late Sunday that Trump “wants to nominate a new Fed chair AND push Powell off the board for good to complete his corrupt takeover of our central bank.”
Powell’s term as a Fed governor runs through January 2028. Trump’s top economic adviser, Kevin Hassett, is widely seen as the president’s likely pick to replace Powell as chair of the central bank.
EU WARNS OF ‘END OF NATO’ AS TRUMP RAMPS UP THREATS TO TAKE GREENLAND. The European Union’s defense commissioner, Andrius Kubilius, said Europe must build up its military capabilities as President Donald Trump threatens to rip up the central agreement that’s underpinned the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for more than 75 years with his escalating demand that the US should be able to take control of Greenland—a semiautonomous territory of NATO founding member Denmark, Julia Conley noted at CommonDreams (1/12) .
Kubilius said he agreed with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s recent assessment that a US takeover of Greenland, home to about 56,000 people, “will be the end of NATO.”
“But also among people it will be also very, very negative,” Kubilius told Reuters at a security conference in Sweden.
Trump first expressed a desire to take control of Greenland during his first term. The vast island is in a geopolitically strategic location as countries begin to use the Arctic Ocean for shipping routes, and has stores of rare earth minerals.
The president has intensified his threats against the territory following his invasion of Venezuela and the US military’s abduction of President Nicolás Maduro earlier this month, with White House officials saying Trump has the right to take control of any country he wants, in order to control their resources.
On Air Force One on Jan. 11, Trump told reporters that he has not yet proposed a deal to Denmark and said “Greenland should make the deal.” He added that he does not care whether a takeover of Greenland “affects NATO.”
“They need us more than we need them,” said the president.
Trump also said in the Oval Office Jan. 11 that owning Greenland is “psychologically important for me.”
“Ownership gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document, that you can have a base,” said Trump.
The US already has a military base in Greenland, but Trump has claimed military presence in the territory is not enough to fend off what he claims are imminent threats from China and Russia.
‘DOJ CAN’T BE TRUSTED,’ SAY KHANNA AND MASSIE, SEEKING SPECIAL MASTER FOR EPSTEIN FILES. The congressmen behind the Epstein Files Transparency Act on Jan. 8 asked a federal judge to appoint a “special master and/or independent monitor” to ensure that the Trump administration actually releases the documents from the trafficking case against deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as required by the new law.
Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) led the monthslong congressional effort to pass the legislation, which Trump—a former friend of Epstein who’s repeatedly mentioned in the files—signed in November. Since then, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has published some heavily redacted materials but blown the Dec. 19 deadline to release everything, Jessica Corbett noted at CommonDreams (1/8).
“We have offered for six months to meet with the Justice Department to help them get the right documents out, and we’re now going to be intervening with the Southern District of New York (SDNY) to ask those judges to appoint a special master and ensure that all the documents are released,” Khanna told NPR.
Khanna and Massie did so with a letter to Judge Paul Engelmayer, writing to the appointee of former President Barack Obama that “we have urgent and grave concerns about DOJ’s failure to comply with the act as well as the department’s violations of this court’s order.”
As MS NOW—which initially reported on the letter—explained, “Engelmayer oversees the case involving Ghislaine Maxwell, and last month, the Justice Department obtained Engelmayer’s permission to release grand jury materials and other evidence provided to Maxwell in discovery that were redacted or sealed per a court order.”
On Dec. 24, DOJ announced that it had received over a million more documents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and SDNY “to review them for release, in compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, existing statutes, and judicial orders.” The department added then that “due to the mass volume of material, this process may take a few more weeks.”
Khanna and Massie noted in their letter that the DOJ’s most recent court filing Jan. 5 states the department has only produced “approximately 12,285 documents (compromising approximately 125,575 pages)” and there is still “more than 2 million documents potentially responsive to the act in various phases of review.”
As the lawmakers pointed out: “Other reports suggest that the DOJ may be reviewing more than 5 million pages. Because these figures are self-reported and internally inconsistent with prior representations, there is reasonable suspicion that the DOJ has overstated the scope of responsive materials, thereby portraying compliance as unmanageable and effectively delaying disclosure.”
AMERICA ISN’T ON BOARD WITH TRUMP’S MURKY PLAN FOR VENEZUELA. On the third day of this new year, the U.S. military abducted Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro on orders from President Donald Trump. And while the American public’s initial response has been split, there’s good reason to think the abduction could hurt Trump in the long run—and perhaps especially in November’s midterm elections, Andrew Mangan noted at Daily Kos (1/11).
An average of 39% of Americans approve of the strike, while 42% disapprove, according to a Daily Kos analysis of the four polls fielded since Maduro’s capture. More telling, an average of 25% of Americans aren’t sure of their feelings about it. (The numbers do not sum 100% due to one survey excluding a “Not sure” response option.)
At first glance, the operation seems to be a wash for Trump, right? Not so fast.
Such high levels of uncertainty are common when it comes to foreign policy. Studies find Americans to have a fairly poor understanding of world affairs. For instance, a 2018 survey from Gallup found that just 47% of American adults could identify Afghanistan as the nation that provided safe haven to al-Qaida ahead of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Due to such lack of knowledge, people often make up their minds by looking to the opinions of others, whether they are people in their own life or public figures they trust.
Nevertheless, as the authors of one study about this “signaling” phenomena have said, “Members of the public may lack information about the world around them, but they do not lack principles.”
And that’s where Trump could find himself in trouble. Though public opinion on the abduction itself is split, data shows the public largely opposes Trump’s behavior around the operation and his stated intentions for what may come next.
For example, Trump didn’t seek congressional approval ahead of the strike, but 63% of Americans think he should have, according to a poll from the Washington Post/SSRS. And 69% want him to get Congress’ okay before conducting any more strikes, per a poll from YouGov/CBS News. Put simply, while the public is well aware of how often Trump breaks norms (and laws), they will surely have less tolerance for it if it leans to a greater conflict.
At the moment, though, the bigger threat to Trump and the Republicans is whether he will stick to his word and “run” Venezuela post-Maduro. Only 1 in 3 Americans supports that idea, according to YouGov. And only 1 in 4 independents do—which matters greatly in an election year.
But it’s not just that Americans are broadly opposed to Trump’s imperialistic tendencies. They also don’t agree with his motives for the strike in Venezuela.
Despite originally claiming the raid was carried out to combat drug smuggling into the U.S., Trump has spent most of his time since then talking about one other thing, something that appears to have been his main motivation: Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.
Venezuela has about 17% of the world’s proven oil reserves, more than any other nation. And when Trump was asked what would happen to that oil, he replied, “We’re going to run everything.” In a later interview with The New York Times, he held firm: “We’re going to be using oil, and we’re going to be taking oil.”
How long will this thievery last? Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the U.S. would control Venezuela’s oil “indefinitely.” And the profits from all this? Well, according to Trump, the profits “will be controlled by me.”
As such, it’s little surprise that Americans see oil as the primary reason the U.S. conducted the operation, with 59% telling YouGov/CBS News that it had “a lot” to do with it—a higher share than any other motivation given in the survey. The catch is, Americans also don’t see that as a good reason for the strike. Only 1 in 4 Americans wants U.S. oil companies to take over Venezuela’s reserves, according to YouGov. Not even a majority of Republicans wants it to happen, with just 43% backing the president’s plan.
Now, there’s a good chance those numbers will move in Trump’s direction. Republicans should start to fall in line behind their leader, and independents may drift toward him as well—especially if this stolen oil drives down domestic gas prices. There is some evidence that a president’s approval rating correlates with the price at the pump—the higher the cost, the lower the rating, generally.
At the same time, it could also drag Trump down even further if the situation spirals out of control. Only 36% of Americans told YouGov they are confident in Trump’s ability to handle an international crisis. And nearly 3 in 4 Americans (72%), including a majority of Republicans (54%), are concerned the U.S. will get “too involved” in Venezuela, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.
What might getting “too involved” look like? Sending in ground troops, for one. Trump is toying with the idea, and it seems like it’d be a necessity if the U.S. were to “run” the country, especially if this oversight is expected to last for “much longer” than one year, as Trump has said. However, the latest YouGov/Economist poll finds that just 26% of Americans support using military force to invade the nation.
N.Y. GOVERNOR BACKS MAYOR MAMDANI CHILDCARE EXPANSION PLAN. Thousands of parents in New York City will have access to free childcare after Gov. Kathy Hochul joined forces with Mayor Zohran Mamdani Jan. 8 to roll out the first steps of his campaign promise to make childcare universal throughout the city, Stephen Prager noted at CommonDreams (1/8).
The governor announced $1.7 billion in this year’s budget that will seek to create childcare access for 100,000 more children, part of a plan to spend $4.5 billion on childcare across the state during this fiscal year.
She said she is committed to “fully fund the first two years of the city’s implementation” of Mamdani’s program, which he hopes will one day provide free childcare to kids between 6 weeks and 5 years old.
According to the childcare marketplace website TrustedCare, the average cost of daycare for children in New York City ranges from $2,000 to $4,200 per month, depending on the child’s age and schedule.
“This is something every family can agree on,” Hochul said at a press conference Thursday at a YMCA in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn. “The cost of childcare is too damn high.”
The governor and mayor will begin by increasing funding for the city’s existing 3K program, created under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, which extended free pre-K, which was already available to all 4-year-olds, to 3-year-olds when spots are available. Hochul said she and Mamdani will seek to “fix” the program and make it truly universal.
After initially promising to make it available to all 3-year-olds, Mamdani’s predecessor, former Mayor Eric Adams, instead slashed funding for it and other early childhood education programs, which children’s advocates said drove kids out of the public school system and left many unable to find seats in nearby areas.
“We stand here today because of the young New Yorkers who were no longer willing to accept that the joy of beginning a family had to be paired with the heartbreak of moving away from a city that they have always loved,” Mamdani said.
In addition to making that program universal, Hochul and Mamdani are rolling out a program offering childcare for 2-year-olds, known as “2 Care,” which will first be available in “high-need areas” before being rolled out to all parents by 2029.
Mamdani has estimated that the plan to make pre-K fully universal will cost about $6 billion per year, with funding made more challenging by the fact that President Donald Trump recently cut off federal childcare subsidies to states, including $3 billion to New York, amid a manufactured panic about rampant fraud. Hochul has said the state is mulling its legal options to fight the funding freeze.
In the meantime, she plans to spend $73 million in the first year to cover the cost and creation of 2 Care, and $425 million in the second year as more children enroll.
While the source of the funds was not immediately clear, Hochul has said that money for the initial phase of the rollout will come from revenue already allocated by the legislature and not from any tax hikes in the coming year.
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