Jake Johnson, Common Dreams

A Scottish lawmaker railed against US President Donald Trump on Wednesday over the American military’s seizure of an oil tanker and detention of its two top officers earlier this month in waters between Iceland and Scotland.

Ross Greer, a member of the Scottish Parliament and co-leader of Scotland’s Green Party, said that two people—tanker captain Avtandil Kalandadze and his unnamed first officer—“have been abducted from Scotland in the middle of the night by the US military, despite our highest court ordering they be kept under our jurisdiction.”

As the Scottish newspaper The National reported Thursday, Kalandadze—a Georgian national—and his first officer were taken out of UK territory by the US Coast Guard earlier this week despite a court ruling against their removal from Scotland’s jurisdiction.

“He’s not our ally. He is a fascist,” Greer said of Trump during his remarks in Parliament on Wednesday. “Our sovereignty has been violated, our courts have been defied, and a foreign military has abducted two people from our territory.”

Greer called on the Scottish government to immediately evict US troops from Prestwick Airport, which is used by American forces.

“Will the first minister show Trump that his piracy has consequences?” Greer asked.

The BBC reported Wednesday that the Trump administration “says it intends to prosecute” Kalandadze and his colleague for alleged involvement in the violation of US sanctions.

Angela Constance, Scotland’s justice secretary, has said the Trump administration’s handling of the vessel seizure and abduction of its crew has demonstrated a lack of respect for Scottish jurisdiction.

“We have a number of questions, we have a number of concerns, and deep frustrations about how this matter has evolved, because it is a matter of significant public interest and confidence,” Constance said earlier this week. “The Scottish government wants to play our part in international justice because that is appropriate and responsible. But that starts with the recognition and respect that must be afforded to Scottish jurisdiction and Scots law.”

Aamer Anwar, an attorney representing Kalandadze’s wife in a lawsuit over the incident, said earlier this week that the captain was “whisked away under the cover of darkness” by US forces, and “we have no idea what role our own governments played in that.”

“A dangerous precedent has been set, as the US should not have the power to arrest people under our control,” said Anwar. “These people have been denied their most basic human rights right under our noses, whilst the UK knowingly assisted the US ‘abduction’ of two men from Scotland to avoid the Judicial Review taking place.”

Ecuador’s Foreign Ministry filed a formal note of protest on Tuesday after a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent tried to enter the South American nation’s consulate in Minneapolis before being stopped by a staffer inside the building.

In a statement released following the incident, the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry said an ICE agent “attempted to enter the consulate premises,” but “consulate officials immediately prevented” the officer from getting through the door, “thus ensuring the protection of Ecuadorians who were present at the time and activating emergency protocols.”

The ministry said it “immediately presented a note of protest” to the US Embassy in Quito, Ecuador’s capital, “so that acts of this nature are not repeated in any of Ecuador’s consular offices in the United States.”

Under international treaties, law enforcement officers of host nations are barred from entering foreign embassies and consulates without permission.

One eyewitness to the incident in Minneapolis, a flashpoint in the Trump administration’s violent mass deportation efforts, told Reuters that they saw ICE agents “going after two people in the street, and then those people went into the consulate and the officers tried to go in after them.”

Video footage posted to social media shows a consulate official walking quickly to the building’s entryway and repeatedly telling an ICE agent that he “cannot enter.”

The ICE agent can be heard telling the consulate staffer, “If you touch me, I will grab you.”

“ICE set off an international incident in Minneapolis today because agents tried to go into the Consulate of Ecuador without permission, and then yelled at their staff for trying to keep them out,” Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, wrote on social media.

The video can be seen here.

Republicans in the US Senate indicated Sunday that they planned to move ahead this week with government funding legislation that includes $10 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement after a federal agent gunned down intensive-care nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, a killing captured on video from multiple angles.

“My support for funding ICE remains the same,” declared Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE), a sentiment echoed by other GOP lawmakers ahead of votes on a package of six government appropriations bills approved by the US House last week.

“We’re not defunding ICE,” said Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) after the horrific shooting of Pretti. “Live with it.”

An unnamed Senate Republican aide told Punchbowl that “government funding expires at the end of the week, and Republicans are determined to not have another government shutdown. We will move forward as planned and hope Democrats can find a path forward to join us.”

One of the bills up for consideration in the Senate this week would provide $64.4 billion in taxpayer money to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), including $10 billion for ICE—an agency that is already more heavily funded than many national militaries. Last summer, congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump approved $170 billion in new funding for immigration enforcement, which ICE has used to massively jack up weapons spending.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) reportedly has the votes from his caucus to block the DHS funding bill.

Senate Democrats have proposed separating the DHS legislation from the rest of the appropriations bills to avoid a looming January 30 shutdown and debate ICE reforms. The American Prospect‘s David Dayen reported late Sunday that Democrats are “going to ask for real investigations into the murders (including an end to impeding the state/local investigations)” as well as an end to arrest quotas and mask-wearing by ICE agents.

“Federal agents cannot murder people in broad daylight and face zero consequences,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the Democrats’ top appropriator in the Senate. “I will NOT support the DHS bill as it stands. The DHS bill needs to be split off from the larger funding package before the Senate—Republicans must work with us to do that. I will continue fighting to rein in DHS and ICE.”

Murray also stressed that “blocking the DHS funding bill will not shut down ICE.”

“ICE is now sitting on a massive slush fund it can tap, whether or not we pass a funding bill,” the senator added. “But we all saw another American shot and killed in broad daylight. There must be accountability, and we must keep pushing Republicans to work with us to rein in DHS.”

“The Senate must immediately take out any additional funding for the Department of Homeland Security in the current spending bill. Congressional Republicans must answer for these killings.”

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), the top Republican appropriator, did not mention ICE funding in her statement on Pretti’s killing, saying only that “this tragic shooting needs to be thoroughly and transparently investigated.”

Assuming unified support from their caucus, Senate Republicans need at least seven Democratic votes to pass the funding package with DHS appropriations included. Last week, seven House Democrats voted with Republicans to approve the DHS funding.

Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the watchdog group Public Citizen, said in a statement that “this federal enforcement agency is running rampant with an outrageous budget that dwarfs most countries’ militaries.”

“The Department of Homeland Security must get ICE off our streets now, and the Senate must immediately take out any additional funding for the Department of Homeland Security in the current spending bill,” said Gilbert. “Congressional Republicans must answer for these killings.”

Amy Fischer, Amnesty International USA’s director for refugee and migrant rights, asked, “How many more people must die before US leaders act?”

“The US Senate faces an urgent choice in the coming days: continue pouring billions of taxpayer dollars into a lawless agency that endangers lives with impunity, or take meaningful action to rein in ICE and stop funding its abuses,” said Fischer.

The Trump White House has reportedly ordered federal agencies to conduct a sweeping review of funding to more than a dozen states carried by former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, a move that lawmakers from the targeted states condemned as unlawful political retaliation.

The review, first reported by RealClearPolitics, was outlined in a data request that the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) sent out on Tuesday. Every federal department and agency was included in the request except for the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington state, and Washington, DC are the jurisdictions targeted by the OMB.

The OMB memo, according to the Washington Post, “requests agencies provide detailed information on all funds to those states, including money routed for state and local governments, nonprofit organizations, and higher education institutions.” OMB claims it is trying to root out fraud.

“This is authoritarianism, plain and simple,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), whose state is the only one on the list with a Republican governor.

“The Trump administration is targeting states that didn’t vote for him—including my home state of Vermont,” Sanders added. “Using federal power to punish political opponents is anti-democratic and blatantly illegal.”

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) similarly condemned the funding investigation as “more political retribution from Trump, the authoritarian strongman, and his crony Russ Vought,” the head of OMB.

“This is a blatant and dangerous abuse of power,” Merkley wrote on social media. “Trump does not care how many people he hurts to score cheap political points.”

The OMB data request is just the latest instance of the Trump administration specifically targeting federal funds to Democratic-led states.

The White House budget office previously tried to cut off clean energy funds to Democratic-run states before being blocked in court. Earlier this month, the Trump administration froze $10 billion in childcare and social services funding for low-income families in five Democratic-led states, claiming fraud.

Sharon Parrott, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said the administration’s new funding investigation “follows a clear pattern” and marks “a harmful and shameful escalation of the administration’s corrupt politicization of basic governance.”

“Withholding federal funding can have grave consequences,” said Parrott. “Just take the five-state freeze on childcare. In just those states, those funds are used to provide care to nearly 340,000 children. Without funding, childcare providers close, kids don’t get care, and parents can’t go to work.”

A congressional report published Tuesday further undercut US President Donald Trump’s claim that he has defeated inflation, estimating that the average American family paid $1,625 in higher costs last year as the Republican president’s tariffs and broader policy agenda drove up prices across the nation’s economy.

The new analysis by Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) found that the $1,625 total includes $323 more for housing expenses and $241 more for transportation costs. In some states—including Alaska, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York—the average family paid more than $2,000 in higher costs in 2025 as prices for groceries, housing, and other necessities continued to rise under Trump’s leadership.

Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH), the ranking member of the JEC, said in a statement that “President Trump has imposed reckless tariffs, driven up healthcare costs, and created economic uncertainty. And because of these choices that he made, Americans are paying over $1,600 more than when he came into office.”

“While the president pledged that he would end inflation and now claims that prices are down,” Hassan added, “the data reflects what families are experiencing every day: higher costs that make it harder to make ends meet.”

The JEC report was released just weeks after Trump falsely proclaimed in a year-end address to the nation that “inflation is stopped” and “prices are down.” CNN fact checker Daniel Dale noted that inflation data released on the morning of Trump’s December 17 speech showed that “average consumer prices were 2.7% higher in December than they were a year prior and 0.3% higher than they were in November.”

Trump also used his primetime speech to hail the supposed successes of his tariff regime. But a report released Monday showed that US consumers and businesses, not foreign exporters, are shouldering nearly all of the burden of the White House’s import taxes.

“Despite President Trump’s claims that 2025 was the ‘greatest first year in history’ for an American president, Americans’ attitudes about their economic security and the latest economic data say otherwise,” experts at the Center for American Progress wrote Tuesday. “With increased costs of everyday items due to tariffs and fewer job opportunities, families are feeling the direct impacts of the Trump administration’s harmful economic policies.”

The leading French economist Gabriel Zucman is urging European governments to inflict financial pain on American billionaires in response to US President Donald Trump’s effort to seize control of Greenland, a mineral-rich island that some of Trump’s rich campaign donors see as a potentially massive profit opportunity.

“Europe should respond to Trump’s blackmail with targeted measures aimed not at American consumers, but at American billionaires,” Zucman wrote in a post on his Substack. “Access to the European market—by billionaires and the companies they own—should be made conditional on paying a wealth tax: in effect, a tariff for oligarchs. If Elon Musk, for example, wants to keep selling Teslas in Europe, he should have to pay it. If he refuses, Tesla would lose access to the European market.”Zucman outlined his proposal after Trump threatened over the weekend to hit France, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland with tariffs up to 25% if they don’t drop their opposition to the US president’s demand for “the complete and total purchase of Greenland,” an autonomous territory of Denmark.

The targeted countries are currently weighing retaliatory tariffs and other potential responses to Trump’s threat.

Zucman, a renowned expert on global inequality, argued that while existing mechanisms such as the anti-coercion instrument known as Europe’s trade “bazooka” can be useful, “anti-oligarchic protectionism has a decisive advantage: It opens a two-front struggle against Trump, at home and abroad.”

“By targeting oligarchic wealth rather than national pride,” Zucman wrote, “Europe can blunt Trump’s ability to mobilize nationalist resentment and rally part of the American public behind his imperial agenda.”

Trump’s proposed Greenland takeover is widely opposed by the island’s population and US voters. But as journalist Casey Michel wrote for The New Republic last week, there is one key constituency that stands to benefit massively from a US takeover of the mineral-rich territory: American oligarchs, including some of Trump’s top campaign donors.

“Ranging from tech moguls to fossil fuel company heads, all of these figures and forces have invested in mining and extraction companies across the island—and all stand to profit if only they can cut out any pesky Danish or Greenlandic authorities from regulating or restraining their operations,” wrote Michel. “The figures behind the curtain are by no means obscure. KoBold Metals, a mining outfit helping lead Greenland’s ‘modern gold rush,’ has seen investments from figures like Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and hedge funds like Andreessen Horowitz.”

“Another company eyeing Greenland,” Michel added, “is Critical Metals Corp, which is backed by the same hedge fund that Howard Lutnick, now Trump’s commerce secretary, spent years running.”

“The vast fortunes of the sleaze buckets who put Trump into the White House and back his attack on democracy in the United States and around the world will suddenly be thrown into question.”

Tariffs targeting such firms and the billionaires behind them, Zucman argued, would be the most effective way to penalize Trump’s reckless behavior and deter him in the future.

“If imperialism is driven by oligarchic power, then oligarchic power must be confronted,” Zucman wrote. “What are the alternatives? Doing nothing invites endless blackmail.”

US economist Dean Baker, co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, made the case for a similarly aggressive European response to Trump’s economic warfare.

“European countries can announce that they will no longer honor US-owned patents and copyrights,” Baker wrote Monday. “Putting US patents and copyrights on the line is a guaranteed attention grabber. The vast fortunes of the sleaze buckets who put Trump into the White House and back his attack on democracy in the United States and around the world will suddenly be thrown into question.”

“The key point is that European countries, by opting to not respect US patents and copyrights, have an incredibly powerful weapon to use against Donald Trump and his rich supporters,” Baker added. “The time has come for them to go nuclear.”

The first U.S. sale of Venezuelan oil since the Trump administration attacked the South American country earlier this month went to the company of a trader who donated millions to President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign.

The roughly $250 million sale of Venezuelan crude went to Vitol, a Geneva-based energy and commodity trading firm whose U.S. arm is headquartered in Houston. The Financial Times reported late last week that John Addison, a senior trader at Vitol, was involved in his company’s efforts to secure the deal.

Addison, who attended a recent White House meeting with other top oil executives, donated $6 million total to Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign via several super PACs, including $5 million to MAGA Inc.

“Addison pledged to Trump at the [White House] event that Vitol would attain the best price possible for Venezuelan oil for the US, ‘so that the influence you have over the Venezuelans will ensure that you get what you want,’” according to the Financial Times.

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) noted on social media that Vitol has a “criminal history of bribing foreign governments” and called the Venezuelan oil deal “fundamentally corrupt.”

“Trump took Venezuela’s oil at gunpoint, and gave it to one of his biggest campaign donors,” Murphy wrote. “Vitol had to buy access to Trump because under normal circumstances, they wouldn’t be able to get a deal like this.”

Vitol is one of a number of corporations positioned to reap windfall profits from the Trump administration’s assault on Venezuela, abduction of its president, and efforts to seize and indefinitely control the country’s vast oil reserves.

As the Washington Post reported over the weekend:

Hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer’s firm Elliott Investment Management has for years been in the process of acquiring distressed Venezuelan-owned assets in the US and is on the cusp of owning them. After clearing final regulatory and legal approval, the firm can use them to make a considerable profit turning newly available Venezuelan oil into gasoline. The company that would be acquired by an Elliott affiliate is Citgo, the Houston-based refining firm owned by Venezuela’s state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). Citgo owns refineries in Illinois, Louisiana and Texas that are well-positioned to profit off the millions of barrels of Venezuelan oil that Trump says will be steered to US refineries because it is a particularly heavy blend of crude that is difficult to process. Only certain refineries, like those run by Citgo, are equipped to handle it.

Proceeds from the U.S. sale of Venezuelan oil are being stashed in Qatar—an arrangement that critics said opens the door to additional corruption.

“After illegally and unconstitutionally striking Venezuela, Trump is now selling Venezuelan oil through a campaign donor, and funneling the proceeds to an offshore account in Qatar—creating a potential slush fund with no accountability, oversight, or guardrails for Trump and his allies,” U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) wrote late Sunday. “His continued abuse of power doesn’t serve the Venezuelan people or the American people—and it certainly doesn’t lower costs for Americans.”

“This outrage,” Booker added, “is yet another example of his unchecked corruption as he again ignores laws and enriches his friends, donors, and himself.”

Billionaire US Education Secretary Linda McMahon has temporarily suspended the Trump administration’s plan to resume garnishing the wages of defaulted student loan borrowers, a reversal that came after advocates warned the pay seizures would have had devastating economic consequences for people across the country amid a worsening cost-of-living crisis.

McMahon, who is actively working to dismantle her department from within, told reporters earlier this week that wage garnishment efforts have “been put on pause for a bit,” without providing specifics. The Trump administration, which last summer ended a pause on student loan repayments that had been in place since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, was reportedly set to begin notifying defaulted borrowers of plans to withhold a portion of their wages last week.

Aissa Canchola Bañez, policy director at the advocacy group Protect Borrowers, said in a statement Friday that “after months of pressure and countless horror stories from borrowers, the Trump administration says it has abandoned plans to snatch working people’s hard-earned money directly from their paychecks simply for falling behind on their student loans.”

“Amidst the growing affordability crisis, the administration’s plans would have been economically reckless and would have risked pushing nearly 9 million defaulted borrowers even further into debt,” Canchola Bañez added. “Earlier this month, a coalition of partners sent an urgent letter to ED urging them to do just this. We are pleased to see they have heeded our calls.”

That letter—sent on January 7 by Protect Borrowers, the American Federation of Teachers, Debt Collective, and other groups—called the administration’s earlier decision to resume wage garnishment “calloused and unnecessary,” warning that it came at a time when “struggling borrowers have been forced to wait amidst a nearly 1 million application backlog to enroll in an Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) plan, and as mass layoffs at the department have made it even harder for borrowers to get help with their student loans or if they are experiencing issues with their student loan servicer.”

According to an analysis by Protect Borrowers, 3.6 million new student loan borrowers fell into default during the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term in the White House. That’s one new default every nine seconds.

“Nearly two-thirds of the borrowers who defaulted during the Trump administration—more than 2.6 million people—live in states that President Trump won in the 2024 election,” the analysis found.

Under federal law, the Education Department can withhold up to 15% of a borrower’s after-tax income to pay down defaulted debt. The Trump administration has already begun seizing income tax refunds from student borrowers in default.

The National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) noted in a Thursday blog post that “if you have received a notice of proposed garnishment, there are steps you can take to object to the garnishment notice and request a hearing, which is typically conducted through a written review of your objections.”

“You must act quickly to avoid a potential garnishment order from being sent to your employer,” the group stressed.

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 secure 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.”

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Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell revealed in a defiant statement late Sunday 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.

“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 that the Justice Department, which Trump has repeatedly wielded against his political opponents, served the Federal Reserve on Friday 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 Sunday 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.

Warren called on the Senate to “not move ANY Trump Fed nominee” amid the DOJ investigation into Powell.

“He is abusing the law like a wannabe dictator so the Fed serves him and his billionaire friends,” Warren said of Trump.

This article was published in partnership with Common Dreams. Read the original here.

Members of the US Congress on Saturday demanded emergency legislative action to prevent the Trump administration from taking further military action in Venezuela after the president threatened a “second wave” of attacks and said the US will control the South American country’s government indefinitely.

Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), said that “Congress should vote immediately on a War Powers Resolution to stop” President Donald Trump, whose administration has for months unlawfully bombed boats in international waters and threatened a direct military assault on Venezuela without lawmakers’ approval.

“Trump has no right to take us to war with Venezuela. This is reckless and illegal,” said Casar. “My entire life, politicians have been sending other people’s kids to die in reckless regime change wars. Enough. No new wars.”

Another prominent CPC member, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), said in response to the bombing of Venezuela and capture of its president that “these are the actions of a rogue state.”

“Trump’s illegal and unprovoked bombing of Venezuela and kidnapping of its president are grave violations of international law and the US Constitution,” Tlaib wrote on social media. “The American people do not want another regime change war abroad.”

Progressives weren’t alone in criticizing the administration’s unauthorized military action in Venezuela. Establishment Democrats, including Sen. Adam Schiff of California and others, also called for urgent congressional action in the face of Trump’s latest unlawful bombing campaign.

“Without congressional approval or the buy-in of the public, Trump risks plunging a hemisphere into chaos and has broken his promise to end wars instead of starting them,” Schiff said in a statement. “Congress must bring up a new War Powers Resolution and reassert its power to authorize force or to refuse to do so. We must speak for the American people who profoundly reject being dragged into new wars.”

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said he will force a Senate vote next week on a bipartisan War Powers Resolution to block additional US military action in Venezuela.

“Where will this go next?” Kaine asked in a statement. “Will the president deploy our troops to protect Iranian protesters? To enforce the fragile ceasefire in Gaza? To battle terrorists in Nigeria? To seize Greenland or the Panama Canal? To suppress Americans peacefully assembling to protest his policies? Trump has threatened to do all this and more and sees no need to seek legal authorization from people’s elected legislature before putting servicemembers at risk.”

“It is long past time for Congress to reassert its critical constitutional role in matters of war, peace, diplomacy, and trade,” Kaine added. “My bipartisan resolution stipulating that we should not be at war with Venezuela absent a clear congressional authorization will come up for a vote next week.”

The lawmakers’ push for legislative action came as Trump clearly indicated that his administration isn’t done intervening in Venezuela’s internal politics—and plans to exploit the country’s vast oil reserves.

During a press conference on Saturday, Trump said that the US “is going to run” Venezuela, signaling the possibility of a troop deployment.

“We’re not afraid of boots on the ground,” the president said in response to a reporter’s question, adding vaguely that his administration is “designating various people” to run the government.

Whether the GOP-controlled Congress acts to constrain the Trump administration will depend on support from Republicans, who have largely applauded the US attack on Venezuela and capture of Maduro. In separate statements, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) described the operation as “decisive” and justified.

Ahead of Saturday’s assault, the Republican-controlled Congress rejected War Powers Resolutions aimed at preventing Trump from launching a war on Venezuela without lawmakers’ approval.

One Republican lawmaker who had raised constitutional concerns about Saturday’s actions, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, appeared to drop them after a phone call with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

But Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) noted in a statement that both Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “looked every senator in the eye a few weeks ago and said this wasn’t about regime change.”

“I didn’t trust them then, and we see now that they blatantly lied to Congress,” said Kim. “Trump rejected our constitutionally required approval process for armed conflict because the administration knows the American people overwhelmingly reject risks pulling our nation into another war.”

The Trump administration on Wednesday froze federal childcare funding to every state in the US after initially suspending funds for Minnesota earlier this week, a move that the state’s Democratic attorney general condemned as a “hasty, scorched-earth attack” on key social services.

Jim O’Neill, deputy secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), said in a statement posted to social media that he has “activated our defend the spend system for all [Administration for Children and Families] payments” to states, alleging “fraud that appears to be rampant in Minnesota and across the country.” As evidence, O’Neill cited a viral video by Nick Shirley, a right-wing influencer who recently visited Somali-owned Minnesota daycare sites at the direction of state Republicans.

In order to receive Administration for Children and Families (ACF) funding going forward, O’Neill said Thursday, states will have to provide “a justification and a receipt or photo evidence.” States with childcare centers that the Trump administration suspects of fraud will have to jump through additional hoops, according to an HHS spokesperson.

The Trump administration’s decision to cut off childcare funds to all states—not just Minnesota—on the dubious grounds of fighting fraud came after Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz accused President Donald Trump of politicizing the issue to advance a broader assault on the social safety net.

“While Minnesota has been combating fraud, the president has been letting fraudsters out of jail,” Walz wrote in a social media post on Thursday, apparently referring to the president’s commutation of the seven-year prison sentence of David Gentile, a former private equity executive convicted of defrauding more than 10,000 investors.

“Trump’s using an issue he doesn’t give a damn about as an excuse to hurt working Minnesotans,” Walz added.

In a statement on Wednesday, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said that the Trump administration “is threatening funding for the essential childcare services that countless families across Minnesota rely on—apparently all on the basis of one video on social media.”

“To say I am outraged is an understatement,” he said. “We’ve seen this movie before. In mid-December, the Trump administration gave four counties in Minnesota one month to conduct in-person interviews with almost 100,000 households that receive [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] benefits to reverify their eligibility.”

“My team and I are exploring all our legal options to ensure that critical childcare services do not get abruptly slashed based on pretext and grandstanding,” Ellison added.

Minnesota state Rep. Carlie Kotyza-Witthuhn (D-49B), co-chair of the Legislature’s committee on children and families, warned that “if we allow this funding freeze to happen, all Minnesotans are going to suffer.”

Federal data released Thursday shows that the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits surged last week, another indication of growing instability in President Donald Trump’s economy as corporations lay off workers en masse and prices continue to rise.

For the week ending December 6, new unemployment claims jumped to 236,000—an increase of 44,000 from the previous week, according to figures from the US Labor Department.

Andrew Stettner, an unemployment insurance expert at The Century Foundation (TCF) noted that new unemployment claims are now at their highest level since early September.

“These totals don’t include an additional 12,732 former federal workers who are also now relying on unemployment benefits, as the number of federal workers on UI has stayed at levels not seen since the pandemic, even after the government shutdown has ended,” Stettner said.

“This disappointing news comes on the heels of other troubling labor market data,” he continued, pointing to private-sector payroll figures showing the US economy lost 32,000 jobs in November. “With hiring still so weak, it is no surprise that the percentage of workers feeling confident enough to quit their job dropped to its lowest level since the beginning of the pandemic in April 2020. In fact, our polling shows that 27% of Americans said they took on a ‘second job, side hustle, or gig work’ in the past year to help make ends meet.”

The updated unemployment numbers come as Trump is on an economic messaging tour during which he has dismissed the notion that his policies have worsened the country’s affordability crisis, calling such claims a Democratic “hoax” even as polling shows Americans—including a significant percentage of his own voters—increasingly blame the president for rising costs for groceries and other necessities.

“We inherited the highest prices ever, and we’re bringing them down,” Trump said, falsely, during a stop in Pennsylvania earlier this week.

“We’re crushing it, and you’re getting much higher wages,” the president added, another falsehood.

Survey data released Thursday by The Century Foundation shows that Americans are increasingly skipping meals and doctor visits as prices rise.

“Roughly three in 10 voters delayed or skipped medical care in the past year due to cost, while nearly two-thirds switched to cheaper groceries or bought less food altogether,” the group noted in a summary of its findings. “About half tapped into their savings to cover everyday expenses.”

Julie Margetta Morgan, president of The Century Foundation, said in a statement that “while President Trump calls affordability a ‘hoax,’ countless families are being forced into impossible tradeoffs every day as a result of Trump’s disastrous policies that are jacking up prices.”

“Working-class Americans are living in a different, harsher economy under Trump,” Morgan added, “and they feel the impacts of financialization—and the added risks and costs that come with it—most severely.”

The Trump administration’s quiet effort to deliver billions more in tax breaks to some of the largest companies in the United States drew fresh scrutiny and outrage this week, with Democratic members of Congress warning that a series of obscure regulatory changes could further undermine efforts to rein in corporate tax dodging.

In a letter to the US Treasury Department unveiled Thursday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) led a group of lawmakers in denouncing the Trump administration’s assault on the corporate alternative minimum tax (CAMT), a Biden-era measure that requires highly profitable US corporations to pay a tax of at least 15% on their book profits—the numbers reported to shareholders“The Trump administration has consistently chipped away at CAMT to further corporate interests,” the lawmakers wrote, pointing to rules issued in recent months exempting many corporations from the tax.

“But these massive giveaways apparently aren’t enough for billionaire corporations and their lobbyists, which are trying to further undermine CAMT,” the lawmakers continued.

The Democratic lawmakers, who were joined by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), specifically warned against an ongoing corporate push for a carveout to a research and experimentation (R&E) tax break included in the Trump-GOP budget law enacted over the summer.

Corporations supported the R&E tax break. But as the Wall Street Journal reported last month, the giveaway is driving some companies’ “regular taxes down so far that they are pushed into CAMT.”

“This is exactly what CAMT was designed to do, the tax’s defenders say,” the Journal noted. “Companies are pressing the Treasury Department for relief, particularly on the way that CAMT limits the deduction for research expenses. The National Association of Manufacturers, the R&D Coalition, and the National Foreign Trade Council sent letters urging the administration to write rules that would be favorable to companies.”

The Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service are reportedly considering the corporate proposal.

Such a change, Democratic lawmakers warned in their new letter, “egregiously circumvents Congress’ intent to set a floor on corporations’ tax liabilities regardless of deductions.”

But the Trump administration’s hostility to the CAMT, cozy relationship with powerful corporations, and willingness to trample existing law have fueled concerns that it will readily bow to industry demands.

“Apparently the Trump administration thinks the trillions they spent on tax cuts for the wealthy wasn’t enough now they’re planning another huge tax windfall for the biggest corporations in the country,” Beyer said Thursday.

In a social media post, Warren wrote that “giant corporations are lobbying Donald Trump for yet another tax handout—this time for research they’ve ALREADY DONE.”

The Trump administration is reportedly looking to dramatically reduce the number of people who visit Social Security field offices across the United States, a plan that Democratic lawmakers warned is yet another scheme to disrupt and ultimately cut benefits.

Nextgov/FCW viewed internal Social Security Administration (SSA) planning documents showing that the agency is aiming for “no more than 15 million total” in-person visits to field offices in fiscal year 2026—half the level of the prior fiscal year.“Under Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano, the agency is aiming to push people to interact with Social Security online instead of going to a field office or calling the agency, although Bisignano told lawmakers in June that, even with his focus on technology, the agency is not ‘getting rid of field offices,’ despite reports of planned closures,” Nextgov/FCW reported Monday.

One anonymous SSA staffer told the outlet that agency leadership wants “fewer people in the front door and they want all work that doesn’t require direct customer interactions to be centralized.”

“They appear to be quietly killing field offices,” the staffer said.

The plan comes after the Trump administration carried out the largest staffing cut in SSA history, cutting the agency’s workforce by around 7,000. The cut left one SSA worker for every 1,480 beneficiaries, resulting in understaffed field offices and overwhelmed phone operations.

Beneficiaries have also repeatedly faced issues this year attempting to access the Social Security website, problems that SSA’s plan to curb field office visits could exacerbate.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), one of the lawmakers spearheading a probe into Bisignano’s questionable tenure at the fintech company Fiserv, said in response to the new reporting that “this sure sounds like another way to make it even harder for Americans to get the benefits they’ve earned.”

In a social media post on Monday, Warren highlighted testimony from seniors who have faced long wait times and other difficulties while seeking assistance from SSA under Bisignano’s leadership.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, told Nextgov/FCW that “between staffing reductions, more restrictive documentation requirements for Americans to get assistance on the phones, and rapid reorganization of offices around the country, it’s difficult to see how” SSA’s goal of slashing visits to field offices “will lead to anything other than worse service and more challenges at Social Security.”