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Over two dozen people were arrested at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday for protesting Republicans’ plans to cut Medicaid as part of a sweeping reconciliation package that would gut programs for the working class to
provide tax giveaways to the wealthy.

“Around 2:00 pm, 25 people were arrested for illegally demonstrating in the Rayburn House Office Building,” a Capitol Police spokesperson
toldAxios.

While the effort to pass the package spans several panels, these protesters were targeting a U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing. As
Politico reported:

Committee Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) repeatedly pounded his gavel and said that “disruption of congressional business is a violation of law and is a criminal offense.”

“People feel very strongly because they know they’re losing their healthcare,” said Ranking Member Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), asking police not to arrest protesters if possible. “Many of them are disabled and I don’t want to see them further hurt with their disability in the process of being arrested.”

Protesters also lined the halls outside the hearing, many of them in wheelchairs, chanting as police threatened to take more people into custody. Julie Farrar—an activist with ADAPT, a disability rights organization—said there were about 90 people with her group, many of whom are on Medicaid and some who are direct care workers.

Popular Democracy in Action shared video footage of the protesters’ chants against Medicaid cuts and comments from one wheelchair user who shouted at lawmakers while being wheeled out by a police officer: “You will kill me! I’m HIV positive. For 20 years, I have survived on my meds that are $10,000 a month… You look at me—I’m from Youngstown, Ohio.”

An analysis released by the Congressional Budget Office on Tuesday estimated that under the committee’s proposal, by 2034, Medicaid enrollment would drop by 10.3 million people and the number of uninsured individuals would rise by 7.6 million.

President Donald Trump and his Republican Party “are attempting to get away with the daylight robbery of working Americans with this budget,” Analilia Mejia, co-executive director of Popular Democracy in Action, said in a Tuesday statement. “Their message is abundantly clear: They do not care about the health and well-being of working people. They only care about filling their pocketbooks, even if it kills the people that depend on these services.”

“The only humane thing to do is to kill the bill before it kills all of us,” Mejia declared. “Working people across the country need to call their congressional representatives to let them know what a disgrace this is, and urge them to oppose the Republican budget proposal.”

As Common Dreamsreported earlier Tuesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is mobilizing organizers in swing districts he has recently visited on his Fighting Oligarchy Tour to urge constituents to pressure their representatives to oppose the emerging GOP package.

Additionally, Indivisible is using its Neighbor2Neighbor tool to connect opponents of the GOP’s proposed cuts to Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), “and other vital programs to pay for tax breaks for billionaires.”

Republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

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The gap between what Americans earn and how much they need to bring in to achieve a basic standard of living is growing, according to a new report. Via CBS News:

The analysis, from the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity (LISEP), looks beyond whether people can afford daily necessities like food and shelter to consider whether they have the means to pay for things like the technology tools necessary for work, higher education, and health and child care costs.

In tracking costs associated with what the group calls a “basket of American dream essentials,” LISEP says its Minimal Quality of Life index provides a truer picture of how Americans are faring than standard economic data, such as the nation’s gross domestic product and jobless rate. The index captures the annual change in the typical costs facing low- and moderate-income households who are looking to maintain a basic quality of life.

[…] The findings? For the bottom 60% of U.S. households, a “minimal quality of life” is out of reach, according to the group, a research organization focused on improving lower earners’ economic well-being.

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A weird moment in Doha, Qatar, as Trump praised Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy as a world-class tree-climbing lumberjack.

After bribing Trump with a luxury jet, Qatar couldn’t give a sh*t how many trees Sean Duffy can climb.

TRUMP: But what people don’t know about Sean, because I mentioned lumberjacks, that Sean, you probably didn’t know this.

I’m not talking about this Sean. This Sean, no. This is not. This is a different Sean.

Sean Duffy, the head of transportation.

He’s a great Sean though, I have to tell you.

But Sean Duffy was the world champion for five years, climbing trees and down, up and down. World champion. So that’s what you call a serious lumberjack.

And he’s doing a fantastic job, a really respected guy and a terrific guy.

And I mentioned the champion because when somebody’s a champion, he’s the world champion for a long time, he came down, when you come down those trees, coming down at a rapid, he said that started getting you back.

You will often break your back. You miss a shot and you’re coming down a lot faster than the human body was meant to come down. But he’s doing a fantastic job at transportation.

Where’s my binkie?

Only in the MAGAverse is Trump a mentally competent president.

Trump: Sean Duffy was the world champion climbing trees up and down. When somebody’s a champion— he was the world champion for a long time… pic.twitter.com/aoIKh9xxgN

— Acyn (@Acyn) May 15, 2025

Trump: You hide behind a tree and the drone comes down and it circles you with fire.. you see these trees being knocked down like like they’re being sawed down by a top of the line timber-man like like you know who, Sean Duffy pic.twitter.com/K7js3x6upc

— Acyn (@Acyn) May 15, 2025

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Someone needs to tell these morons that Trump was the one insisting that the obviously Photoshopped image of the tattoos on Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s knuckles was supposedly real, and not a “caption.”

During a segment on this Wednesday’s The Ingraham Angle on Fox, Trump suck-up and Florida GOP Rep. Byron Donalds was asked about some of the hearings earlier that same day, and of course the two of them framed it as some sort of disaster for Democrats, rather than the shit-show it actually was for the likes of Kristi Noem and RFK Jr.

INGRAHAM: What’s the mood up there on Capitol Hill? Is it just desperation because it looks like it?

DONALDS: Full desperation. Look, the Democrats really don’t have any leadership. They don’t know where to take their party. Are they going to moderate? Are they going to become more progressive? Are they going to stay in Democrat status quo?

They don’t know. And so all they have is the lash out factor, doing these types of hearings, raising the craziest things that don’t actually matter, getting caught in the weeds on weird people like Kilmar Garcia, like that’s now the poster child for what deportations are going to look like in the United States.

The Democrats are going to take that side of the argument?

INGRAHAM: Speaking of that, Congressman Swalwell had a bit of a fit over the photo of Abrego Garcia’s hands.

Cue the exchange between Swalwell and Noem, where he continually tried to get her to admit that the photo was doctored, and her repeatedly refusing to give him a straight answer.

Here comes the bullshit where they pretend Trump was not saying the image was real during his pathetic interview with ABC’s Terry Moran.

INGRAHAM: So the picture was translating the symbols on the on the knuckles, so it was saying, M… this stands for M, this stands for S.

So when he’s saying it’s doctored, he literally knows he’s lying.

DONALDS: Yeah, he does.

INGRAHAM: But he does it anyway.

DONALDS: Let me help my colleague who has no credibility. That picture has what’s called a caption.

The caption is to explain what the tattoo means so everybody in our country has the same piece of information.

President Trump ran on and won on deporting criminal illegal aliens. That’s what he’s doing.

But when you do that, it completely destroys the narrative of the Democrat Party over the last couple of decades, which calls for completely leaving our borders unsecured and allowing anybody in the country.

So they’re left trying to defend the indefensible.

So if they continue to do this, they’re going to lose, but that’s okay, because they have no policy, they have no strategy.

Republicans have the solution for the future of this nation and commend the cabinet of President Trump.

INGRAHAM: That’s what I’m saying.

DONALDS: He has chosen great cabinet officials who are pushing back and they’re winning the war.

INGRAHAM: And I think they’re getting better and better.

DONALDS: Yes.

Even if you buy their ridiculous lie that Trump knew it was some sort of caption, the meaning of the tattoos is in dispute as well. The ones lying and “trying to defend the indefensible” when they know better are these two.

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WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court gave a skeptical hearing Thursday to a lawyer for President Trump who was appealing rulings that blocked his plan to deny citizenship to newborns whose parents were in this country illegally or temporarily.

None of the justices spoke in favor of Trump’s plan to restrict birthright citizenship, and several were openly skeptical.

“Every court is ruling against you,” said Justice Elena Kagan. “There’s not going to be a lot of disagreement on this.”

If his plan were to take effect, “thousands of children will be born and rendered stateless,” said Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

But Thursday’s hearing was devoted to a procedural question raised by the administration: Can a single federal judge issue a nationwide order to block the president’s plan?

Shortly after Trump issued his executive order to limit birthright citizenship, federal judges in Maryland, Massachusetts and Washington state declared it unconstitutional and blocked its enforcement nationwide.

In response, Trump’s lawyers asked the court to rein in the “epidemic” of nationwide orders handed down by district judges.

It’s an issue that has divided the court and bedeviled both Democratic and Republican administrations.

Trump’s lawyers argued that on procedural grounds, the judges overstepped their authority. But it is also procedurally unusual for a president to try to revise the Constitution through an executive order.

Thursday’s hearing did not appear to yield a consensus on what to do.

Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh said the plaintiffs should be required to bring a class-action claim if they want to win a broad ruling. But others said that would lead to delays and not solve the problem.

Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said he was looking for a way to decide quickly. “How do we get to the merits expeditiously?” he asked.

One possibility was to have the court ask for further briefing and perhaps a second hearing to decide the fundamental question: Can Trump acting on his own revise the long-standing interpretation of the 14th Amendment?

Shortly after the Civil War, the Reconstruction Congress wrote the 14th Amendment, which begins with the words: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”

Prior to that time, Americans were citizens of their states. Moreover, the Supreme Court in the infamous Dred Scott decision said Black people were not citizens of their states and could not become citizens even if they were living in a free state.

The amended Constitution established U.S. citizenship as a birthright. The only persons not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the laws of the United States were foreign diplomats and their families and, in the 19th century, Indians who were “not taxed” and were treated as citizens of their tribal nations.

However, Congress changed that rule in 1924 and extended birthright citizenship to Native Americans.

Since 1898, the Supreme Court has agreed that birthright citizenship extended to the native-born children of foreign migrants living in this country. The court said then “the fundamental rule of citizenship by birth, notwithstanding the alienage of parents” had been established by law.

The decision affirmed the citizenship of Wong Kim Ark, who was born in San Francisco in 1873 to Chinese parents who were living and working there, but who were not U.S. citizens.

But several conservative law professors have disputed the notion that the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States means simply that people living here are subject to the laws here.

Instead, they say it refers more narrowly to people who owe their undivided allegiance to this country. If so, they contend it does not extend broadly to illegal immigrants or to students and tourists who are here temporarily.

On Jan. 20, Trump issued an executive order proclaiming the 14th Amendment does not “extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States.” He said it would be U.S. policy to not recognize citizenship for newborns if the child’s mother or father was “not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.”

Immigrants rights groups sued on behalf of several pregnant women, and they were joined by 22 states and several cities.

Judges wasted no time in declaring Trump’s order unconstitutional. They said his proposed restrictions violated the federal law and Supreme Court precedent as well as the plain words of the 14th Amendment.

In mid-March, Trump’s lawyers sent an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court with “a modest request.” Rather than decide the “important constitutional questions” involving birthright citizenship, they urged the justices to rein in the practice of district judges handing down nationwide orders.

They have “reached epidemic proportions since the start of the current administration,” they said.

A month later, and without further explanation, the court agreed to hear arguments based on that request.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer struggled to explain how judges should proceed when faced with a government policy that would be unconstitutional and harm an untold number of people. Is it wise or realistic to insist that thousands of people sign on to lawsuits? the justices asked.

He also had a hard time explaining how such a new policy would be enforced.

“How’s it going to work? What do hospitals do with a newborn?” Kavanaugh asked. “What do states do with a newborn?”

“Federal officials will have to figure that out, essentially,” Sauer replied, noting that Trump’s order, if upheld, would not take effect for 30 days.

California joined 21 other states in suing successfully to block Trump’s order, but California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said it was important those rulings apply nationwide.

“The rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution belong to everyone in this country — not just those born in states whose attorneys general have stood up to challenge the president’s unlawful executive order. It’s clear that a nationwide injunction is not only appropriate here to avoid devastating harm to the states and their residents, but is also directly aligned with prior Supreme Court precedent,” Bonta said following Thursday’s argument.

The justices are likely to hand down a full opinion in Trump vs. CASA, but it may not come until late June.

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Fox News senior legal analyst, Andy McCarthy, actually bashed Trump and his family on the air for violating the US Constitution by taking lavish gifts and large sums of money from foreign sources.

Speaking on his podcast with co-host Rich Lowry (Yeah.), McCarthy laid the scheme bare.

MCCARTHY: But the alarming thing here is you have all these foreign I mean, even if the even if they weren’t foreign, it would be very disturbing to have somebody who was president leveraging the power of the presidency to get people to buy stuff from him, which is obviously making him much richer. Trump’s net worth, according to Forbes, this week is $5,400,000,000 between, you know, what they did to stand up, this Trump media company, the Trump media and technology group that owns, Truth Social. And what they’ve done with this cryptocurrency stuff, Trump’s net worth has doubled in the last year or so. And that’s, you know, that’s when, Tish James had him on the ropes and it looked for a second like he was gonna lose everything, right?

Which is probably in part why he’s so adamant to strike while the iron is hot. But this is very disturbing. There’s a lot of foreign money coming into these, into the family coffers.

Will McCarthy get to say the same things on Fox News?

It’s a long interview.

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While on his corruption tour in the Middle East, Donald took a minute to call the United States “a STUPID Country” while blasting birthright citizenship on Truth Social. It’s evident to anyone who has been paying attention that co-president Trump despises the United States, but at least he said it out loud.

“Big case today in the United States Supreme Court. Birthright Citizenship was not meant for people taking vacations to become permanent Citizens of the United States of America, and bringing their families with them, all the time laughing at the “SUCKERS” that we are!” he wrote. “The United States of America is the only Country in the World that does this, for what reason, nobody knows — But the drug cartels love it!”

Fact check: Speaking of drug cartels, the Trump administration negotiated a deal to allow El Chapo’s ex-wife and a slew of their family members to enter the U.S.

“We are, for the sake of being politically correct, a STUPID Country but, in actuality, this is the exact opposite of being politically correct, and it is yet another point that leads to the dysfunction of America,” It continued. “Birthright Citizenship is about the babies of slaves.”

“As conclusive proof, the Civil War ended in 1865, the Bill went to Congress less than a year later, in 1866, and was passed shortly after that,” he insisted. “It had nothing to do with Illegal Immigration for people wanting to SCAM our Country, from all parts of the World, which they have done for many years. It had to do with Civil War results, and the babies of slaves who our politicians felt, correctly, needed protection.”

“Please explain this to the Supreme Court of the United States. Again, remember, the Civil War ended in 1865, and the Bill goes to Congress in 1866 — We didn’t have people pouring into our Country from all over South America, and the rest of the World,” It added. “It wasn’t even a subject. What we had were the BABIES OF SLAVES. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Good luck with this very important case. GOD BLESS THE U.S.A!”

Trump signed an executive order in January declaring that children of immigrants are not entitled to U.S. citizenship even though the 14th Amendment to the Constitution guarantees that “all persons born” in the U.S. are citizens. The 14th Amendment wasn’t intended solely to grant citizenship to Black Americans, but do go off, grandpa.

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Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem refused to answer a simple question from Rep. Eric Swalwell during today’s House hearing about the doctored tattoo photo Trump used to smear Abrego Garcia as a terrorist after they deported him to El Salvador.

For much of his questioning, Noem refused to even look at the blown up photo provided by Rep. Swalwell.

SWALWELL: Madam Secretary, you agree that the letters MS and the number 13 in Times Roman numeral font, that they are doctored on this photo, right?

Congressman, Abrego Garcia, a known member of MS-13, it wasn’t based off of tattoos.

It was based off an entire case.

And I’ll accept that for the purpose of this question.

You agree, though, that this is doctored.

Is that right?

The same protocols that are applied to every individual with law enforcement.

Madam Secretary, I want you to have credibility, and I want you to be taken seriously.

Is this doctored or is it not doctored?

I’m not taken quite seriously.

Is it doctored or not doctored?

Because I appreciate the importance that the president has given me to do this job.

I understand.

Is it doctored or not doctored?

I have a bullshit detector.

I’m just asking you, is this doctored or not doctored?

Sir, the protocols in the case built against Abrego Garcia were exactly the same.

After this exchange, Noem claimed to have no knowledge of a photo Trump used that went viral. This is the Trump administration’s get-out-of-jail card.

Feign ignorance.

I don’t have any knowledge as to that photo you’re pointing to.

OK, can you show the photo?

Walk her the photo down there.

No, that one.

Please take a look at this photo.

It was tweeted by the president on April 21.

It’s been hanging out there for about a month.

So what is your point?

My question is, the numbers and the letter, MS-13, could you look at the photo, please?

It’s right in front of you.

Trump tried to peddle that fake photo as actual proof to ABC News.

When Rupar says this was dystopian, he is correct.

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Palm Beach residents probably got some good laughs at Donald Trump’s expense Wednesday, thanks to some expert Democratic trolling. Jabbing at Trump’s outrageous plan to accept a $400 million jet from Qatar, the Democratic National Committee flew a “Welcome to Qatar-a-Lago” banner over his Mar-a-Lago home for four hours on Wednesday.

Via Newsweek:

The banner will fly from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday along South Ocean Boulevard in Palm Beach, near the president’s home.

The DNC released a statement from Chair Ken Martin to Newsweek ahead of the display via email: “Donald Trump is using the presidency to personally enrich himself while he bankrupts working families.”

Martin continued, ripping the president for “his corruption,” saying it “is a slap in the face to the millions of Americans who are struggling to get by and put food on the table.”

Concluding, the DNC chair said: “Today, the DNC is highlighting what foreign autocracies around the world already know: Trump has no loyalty to the American people, national security, or the Constitution – his only allegiance is to his bank account and his billionaire buddies. Whether it’s billionaires at home or governments abroad, Trump won’t hesitate to sell out America’s working families to the highest bidder.”

Unfortunately, Trump was on his corruption tour in the Middle East on Wednesday, so wasn’t there to personally witness the mockery.

But I’m sure the news got under his very thin skin.

A+ work Dems! More like this, please.

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If you voted for Donald Trump last November because you believed he’d increase economic freedom, it’s safe to say you were fooled. Following a reckless tariff barrage, the White House and its allies are preparing a new wave of tax-code gimmickry that has more in common with progressive social engineering than pro-growth reform. And don’t forget a fiscal recklessness that mirrors the mistakes of the left.

Defend these policies if you like, but let’s be clear: The administration shows no coherent commitment to free-market principles and is in fact actively undermining them. Its approach is better described as central planning disguised as economic nationalism.

This week’s example is an executive-order attempt at prescription-drug price control, similar to Democrats’ past proposals. If implemented it would inevitably reduce pharmaceutical R&D and innovation.

Tariffs remain the administration’s most visible economic sin after Trump launched the most extreme escalation of protectionism since the infamous Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930. Unlike the 1930s, however, today’s economy is deeply integrated with global supply chains, making the damage extensive and far more immediate. Tariffs are only nominally imposed on imports. Ultimately, they’re taxes on American consumers, workers and businesses.

The president has made it clear that he’s fine with limiting consumer choice, blithely telling parents they might have to “settle” for two dolls instead of 30 for their children. Smug pronouncements about how much we should shop (not much) or which sectors we should work in (manufacturing) are economic authoritarianism.

They’re also indicative of a deeper government rot. Policymaking is now done by executive orders as comatose congressional Republicans, like some Biden-era Democrats, allow the president to rule as if he’s a monarch.

A full-throated, assertive Congress would remind any president that manufacturing jobs were mostly lost to technologies that also create jobs and opportunity in members’ districts. Prosperity increases only through innovation and competition and isn’t restored by dragging people backward into lower-productivity jobs.

Now, even Trump’s tax agenda — once considered a bright spot by many free-market advocates — is being corrupted. Instead of championing the broad-based, pro-growth reforms we’d hoped for, the administration is doubling down on gimmickry: exempting tips and overtime pay, expanding child tax credits and entertaining the idea of raising top marginal tax rates.

These moves might poll well, but they’re unprincipled and unproductive. They undermine the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which aimed (however imperfectly) to simplify the code and incentivize growth, and not to micromanage worker and household behavior through the Internal Revenue Service.

And then there are the administration’s misleading, populist talking points about raising taxes on the rich to reduce taxes on lower- and middle-income workers. The U.S. income-tax system is already one of the most progressive in the developed world. According to the latest IRS data, the top 1% of earners pay more in federal income taxes than the bottom 90% combined. These high earners provide 40% of federal income-tax revenue; the bottom half of earners make up only 3% of that revenue. Thankfully, the House of Representatives steered away from that mistake in its bill.

Meanwhile, some Republican legislators are pushing to extend the 2017 tax cuts without meaningful offsets, setting the stage for a debt-fueled disaster. As noted by Scott Hodge, formerly the longtime president of the Tax Foundation, the GOP’s proposed cuts could add more than $5.8 trillion to the debt over a decade. That’s nearly three times the cost of the 2021 American Rescue Plan, which many Republicans rightly criticized for fueling inflation and fiscal instability.

To be clear: Pro-growth tax reform is essential. But not every tax cut is pro-growth, and no tax cut justifies further fiscal deterioration. Extending the 2017 cuts, which I generally support, shouldn’t be confused with true tax reform.

Some of the provisions being floated — expanded credits, exclusions for tips and overtime, rolling back the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap — are not growth policies. They are wealth redistribution run through the tax code, indistinguishable in substance from the kind of demand-side, Keynesian stimulus Republicans once decried.

Hodge notes that these measures would do more to mimic the American Rescue Plan than to reverse its pricey mistakes. And with the Federal Reserve still fighting inflation, adding trillions in unfunded liabilities to the national ledger is profoundly irresponsible.

None of this should surprise anyone paying attention. This administration is packed with advisors and surrogates who glorify union power, rail against globalization and scoff at the very idea of limited government. Some sound more like Bernie Sanders than Milton Friedman. Whether it’s directing industrial policy or distorting the tax code to reward their favorite behaviors, they are hostile to the competition and liberty of the free market.

Sadly, that hostility has real consequences: higher prices, greater economic uncertainty, sluggish investment and fewer opportunities for middle- and lower-class families.

Veronique de Rugy is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. This article was produced in collaboration with Creators Syndicate.