US President Donald Trump participates in calls to US service members, on Christmas Eve, from the Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, December 24, 2025. 

(Photo by Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

“His outbursts are real threats, but they come from weakness,” said one critic of the president. “Tough shit, he’s going down.”

Brad Reed

Feb 02, 2026 (CommonDreams.org)

President Donald Trump on Monday declared that the Republican Party should “nationalize the voting” in the US and take away individual states’ power to administer their elections.

While speaking with Dan Bongino, a former FBI deputy director and current podcaster, Trump rehashed the false allegations he’s made in the past about Democrats only winning elections through the help of undocumented immigrants.

RECOMMENDED…

Fearing Midterm Loss, Trump Once Again Says ‘We Shouldn’t Even Have an Election’

It Would Be a ‘Mistake’ for Dems to Assume Trump Won’t Try to Subvert 2026 Elections: Experts

“These people were brought to our country to vote, and they vote illegally!” Trump falsely claimed. “Amazing that the Republicans aren’t tougher on it. The Republicans should say… ‘We should take over the voting in at least… 15 places.’ The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”

Trump then continued to rehash his lies about winning the 2020 election that he lost to former President Joe Biden.

“We have states that are so crooked, and they’re counting votes, we have states that I won that show I didn’t win!” he said. “Now, you’re going to see something in Georgia, where they were able to get with a court order the ballots, you’re going to see some interesting things come out. But, you know, the 2020 election, I won that election by so much. And everybody knows it!”

In fact, Trump lost the 2020 election to Biden at both the national level and in the state of Georgia, which has a Republican governor, a Republican secretary of state, and a Republican-run Legislature.

Last week, the FBI executed a search warrant at Georgia’s Fulton County election hub and hauled out boxes of ballots as part of an investigation related to the 2020 election.

Some Trump critics reacted to his latest outburst about “nationalizing” the vote by noting how incredibly unlikely the president would be to succeed in such an endeavor.

“Neither Trump nor the GOP in Congress have this power, and the only way they do this is if we decline to stand up for our rights,” wrote Ezra Levin, co-executive director of Indivisible, in a social media post. “He’s had a string of electoral defeats and rightfully fears the midterms. His outbursts are real threats, but they come from weakness. Tough shit, he’s going down. No Kings.”

MS NOW contributor Philip Bump also expressed skepticism about Trump’s scheme, which conflicts with Article I of the US Constitution.

“Trump doesn’t have the power to federalize elections, which obviously doesn’t mean it’s OK that he’s saying things like this,” he wrote. “The stuff about ginning up bullshit in Atlanta—we’ll see.”

Political strategist Murshed Zaheed likewise advised his social media followers to “take a deep breath” before panicking over Trump’s plans.

“Trump cannot change election/voting rules with [executive orders],” he wrote. “Of course they are going to try crazy stuff—but this is desperate attempt to gin up fear.”

Other critics, however, said that Trump’s remarks needed to be taken as a direct threat to democratic governance.

“He’s saying the quiet part out loud,” said Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.). “Trump and MAGA Republicans can’t win with their unpopular policies at the ballot box, so they want to steal the 2026 election.”

Dartmouth political scientist Brendan Nyhan expressed even greater alarm.

“The last time he started talking like this, his allies minimized the risks and we ended up with January 6,” he warned, referring to the deadly riots carried out by Trump supporters on the US Capitol that sent lawmakers running for their lives. “This time we must take him literally and seriously. These comments are a five-alarm fire for democracy. In a functioning republic, he would be impeached and removed from office today.”

Trump’s comments come as Republicans in Congress push a bill that would enable massive voter purges, impose photo ID requirements, and ban ranked-choice voting, universal mail-in ballots, and the acceptance of mailed ballots that arrive after Election Day.

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Brad Reed

Brad Reed is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

Full Bio >

WASHINGTON, DC – DECEMBER 09: U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) looks on as senators speak to reporters following a Senate Democratic policy luncheon at the U.S. Capitol on December 09, 2025 in Washington, DC. The senators discussed a variety of topics including a vote expected this week on a Democratic proposal to extend expiring Obamacare subsidies. 

Photo by Heather Diehl/Getty Images

“Seventy-five percent of Democratic voters oppose sending Israel more military aid, as do 66% of independents and 60% of Americans overall,” noted one domestic policy expert.

Jon Queally

Feb 02, 2026 (CommonDreams.org)

Progressive critics of Senate Minority Chuck Schumer had fresh reasons to speak out Sunday after the powerful New York Democrat said that “one of many of [his] jobs” in the US Senate was to fight for ongoing taxpayer-funded military and financial assistance to the Israeli government, a position that has been the focus of growing protest among rank-and-file party members and the public at large in the face of Israel’s brutal genocide against the Palestinian people of Gaza.

“I have many jobs as [Senate] leader… and one is to fight for aid to Israel — all the aid that Israel needs,” Schumer said at a gathering of Jewish leaders and community members in New York on Sunday.

RECOMMENDED…

Calls to Impeach Bondi Mount After Nude Photos of Possible Victims Released in Epstein Files

US Military Told Mideast Ally That Trump Attack on Iran is ‘Imminent’: Report

“I will continue to fight for it.,” Schumer continued. “We delivered more security assistance to Israel, our ally, than ever, ever before.”

According to Jacob Kornbluh, who provided footage of the remarks while reporting for The Forward, Schumer told the audience that his support for Jewish security funding will only continue growing under his leadership, calling it his “baby.”

“As long as I’m in the Senate,” Schumer said, “this program will continue to grow from strength to strength, and we won’t let anyone attack it or undo it.”

Meanwhile, in Gaza over the weekend and despite claims that a cease fire remains in effect, bombings by Israel in Gaza killed and wounded dozens of people, including women, children, and police officers.

“We found my three little nieces in the street. They say ‘ceasefire’ and all. What did those children do? What did we do?” Samer al-Atbash, an uncle of the three children killed in Gaza City, told Reuters.

Critics of Schumer’s leadership took his comments Sunday as yet more confirmation that his relentless and unquestioning support for Israel—despite the genocide in Gaza, the enormous drop in public support for US support of the Israeli government’s policies—as a sign that he remains far out of step with the general public and party membership, especially younger Democrats.

“A reminder that he vast majority of Democratic voters don’t agree with this—either this being his job description or aid to Israel itself—which is why Schumer should not be leader of the Democrats in the Senate,” said journalist Mehdi Hasan.

X post: https://x.com/briantashman/status/2018105248699605411?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2018105248699605411%7Ctwgr%5Ec263a42d678995a8623a36124274cb26330b7c37%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fschumer-israel-aid

“No, that is not your job,” declared Saikat Chakrabarti, a Bay Area progressive running for a seat in the US House in California in this year’s primary.

“Seventy-five percent of Democratic voters oppose sending Israel more military aid, as do 66% of independents and 60% of Americans overall,” noted Dylan Williams, vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy, in response to the clip. “Schumer may use his position as Leader to push for more aid to Israel, but he should not misunderstand that to be part of the job Democrats entrusted to him.”

Progressive organizer Aaron Regunberg, in a social media response, listed “jobs a Senate Democratic Leader should have,” which include: “Fight Trump/fascism; Help Democrats win back power; Pass policy to help working people,” compared to “jobs a Senate Democratic Leader shouldn’t have: Fight for all the aid that Israel needs.”

“That’s just not the job,” Regunberg said. “Schumer needs to resign.”

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Jon Queally

Jon Queally is managing editor of Common Dreams.

Full Bio >

A picture sits at a memorial to Alex Pretti on January 25, 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Pretti, an ICU nurse at a VA medical center, died on January 24 after being shot multiple times during a brief altercation with border patrol agents in the Eat Street district of Minneapolis.

 (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

“It’s not a lack of training issue, it’s a culture of violence and lawlessness issue.”

Jon Queally

Feb 02, 2026 (CommonDreams.org)

After Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo Gutierrez were identified Sunday as the two masked federal officers who shot and killed ICU nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on Jan. 24, immediate calls for their arrest and prosecution went out alongside demands for the heavy-handed operations ordered by the Trump administration to come to an immediate end.

ProPublica named Ochoa and Gutierrez, both from Texas but deployed for operations in Minnesota prior to the shooting, based on government documents the nonprofit news outlet obtained.

RECOMMENDED…

‘Please Get the Truth Out,’ Alex Pretti’s Parents Plead as Trump Officials Baselessly Smear Shooting Victim

‘What the F*ck Did You Do?!’ Video Contradicts DHS Claims About Killing of Alex Pretti

According to ProPublica:

Both men were assigned to Operation Metro Surge, an immigration enforcement dragnet launched in December that sent scores of armed and masked agents across the city.

CBP, which employs both men, has so far refused to release their names and has disclosed few other facts about the deadly incident, which came days after a different immigration agent shot and killed another Minneapolis protester, a 37-year-old mother of three named Renee Good.

Protests erupted in Minneapolis and nationwide following the homicides of Good and Pretti, both captured on video from various angles by bystanders for all the world to see. Sunday’s reporting notes that both Ochoa and Gutierrez were seasoned officers with the Border Patrol, joining the agency in 2018 and 2014 respectively.

“The two CBP federal agents who murdered Alex Pretti have been on the job for 11 and 7 years, respectively,” said Melanie D’Arrigo, executive director of the New York Health Campaign, in response to the reporting. “It’s not a lack of training issue, it’s a culture of violence and lawlessness issue. If you’re still voting to fund this, you’re condoning it.”

Many lawmakers have argued that the killings of Pretti and Good—as well as the near-endless list of violence, intimidation, unconstitutional searches, and unlawful behavior of immigration enforcement officers under the direction of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem—are attributable to a wave of new recruits and inadequate training. But critics have said that the argument provides a smokescreen for the Trump administration, which has encouraged such tactics as a matter of policy.

“ICE has much more than a training problem—it has a culture problem,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) during a news interview on Sunday. “The lack of accountability for their violence and lawless actions corrupts the entire agency, and our communities are forced to pay the consequences.”

Social justice activists like Lance Cooper were among those demanding, now that the identities are known, for the arrest and prosecution of the two agents named in the reporting.

“These killers are being protected by the US government,” said Lance, “and we must continue to demand their arrest and prosecution.”

X post: https://x.com/taradublinrocks/status/2018107433735033337?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2018107433735033337%7Ctwgr%5E066873db66ac82156254d44e4c859612cfb38be6%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fnames-of-agents-who-killed-alex-pretti

State and local law enforcement in Minnesota been allowed to participate in the investigation following Pretti’s shooting, and both agents were quickly taken away from the scene and then out of the state.

While the Trump administration has withheld the names of the agents from public disclosure, the editors at ProPublica said in a note that the public has an overriding interest in learning more about the masked men behind the killing of Pretti.

“The policy of shielding officers’ identities, particularly after a public shooting, is a stark departure from standard law enforcement protocols, according to lawmakers, state attorneys general and former federal officials,” the outlet stated. “Such secrecy, in our view, deprives the public of the most fundamental tool for accountability.”

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Jon Queally

Jon Queally is managing editor of Common Dreams.

Full Bio >

1. Tell your Members of Congress: The DHS budget must halt ICE’s terror, and not hand it more money. Last week, the Senate blocked the House’s Homeland Security appropriations bill that shoveled more money into ICE and CBP while doing very little to stop these agencies’ abuses. Now, we have to keep up the pressure and demand that any bill that replaces it enact ironclad policy accountability measures, and doesn’t add one penny more to ICE’s budget.
2. Tell your Members of Congress to reject the GOP’s power grab in DC. A Republican resolution that would override a DC funding law passed by the city’s elected council will come before the House on Wednesday; it will then move to the Senate for committee markup. DC residents and allies with representation in Congress need to fight back: DC’s finances and right to self-govern shouldn’t be in the hands of politicians who don’t represent its people.
3. Join Tuesday’s ICE OUT For Good Indivisible Phone Bank (3-5pm ET): Senate Democrats met our first demand of no new DHS funding without real restraints on ICE and CBP; now we need Republicans to listen to their own constituents who are just as fed up with this brutal lawlessness. Join us to call voters in key states and encourage them to call their Republican senators about reining in ICE.
4. Join (and/or invite friends to join) Thursday’s No Kings Coalition Mass Call: Eyes on ICE (Feb. 5 8pm ET / 5pm PT): Learn how to participate in ICE Watch efforts and nonviolently protect your community from ICE and CBP thugs. If you attended the first training last week — the largest ICE Watch training ever — invite two friends to join this one. Let’s make it the new largest ICE Watch training ever.

P.S. The Trump regime continues to escalate against our communities and trample our rights, but Indivisibles remain on the frontlines of the fight to defend our neighbors and our democracy. From nationwide nonviolent mobilizations against ICE to gearing up for No Kings in March, our defiance is everywhere, all the time. If you can, please consider chipping in to continue fueling our work.

New group calls billionaires ‘value creators’ who are ‘building, not taking’ — and say they’re not joking around

by Joe Rivano Barros February 1, 2026 (MissionLocal.org)

A new group is advertising a “March for Billionaires” in San Francisco on Saturday — either a Swiftian attempt to parrot Silicon Valley executives who are raging against a planned California billionaire tax, or an earnest try to ward it off.

“Vilifying billionaires is popular. Losing them is expensive,” reads the group’s website, which is scant and gives no indication of who is behind the effort. The site links to BlueSky and X accounts — the latter is @ProBillionaires — and records show it was created on Jan. 29. 

Organizers say the effort is very real.

Want the latest on the Mission and San Francisco? Sign up for our free daily newsletter below.Sign up

“We sincerely believe what we’re saying,” the organizers wrote in a message. “We think most American billionaires have had greatly positive societal impacts, directly and indirectly. We support wealth creation and oppose rent-seeking/extraction, anticompetitive practices, and regulatory capture.”

The organizers said they were staying anonymous due to backlash “and some threats” online, but that they were not taking any money from billionaires or “outside groups.”

The goal, they said, is to challenge anti-billionaire perspectives by “highlighting their contributions,” and to fight the billionaire tax, which “would be particularly harmful to the startup economy.”

The group’s language mimics tech executives who have been railing against the “Billionaire Tax Act,” which is being put forth by Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West and would institute a one-time wealth tax on those with a net worth over $1 billion. The measure has yet to qualify for the ballot but, if successful, would tax billionaire residents 5 percent of their wealth.

SEIU-UHW says the tax would help backfill about $100 billion in “cuts to federal healthcare funding” and affect roughly 200 billionaires. The measure has received the backing of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, California Rep. Ro Khanna, and the Teamsters California union. Khanna is working on a compromise measure.

Gov. Gavin Newsom opposes it. The state office that analyzes legislation wrote that the tax would likely add “tens of billions of dollars” to the California budget, but could result in ongoing tax losses of “hundreds of millions of dollars or more per year” if billionaires flee the state.

Silicon Valley is rising up against it. President Donald Trump’s crypto czar David Sacks called the measure an “asset seizure” and has reportedly left for Texas. Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan said the tax would “wholesale destroy business creation” in the state. Anduril founder Palmery Lucky (net worth: $3.6 billion) said he could be “screwed for life” and would be forced to “sell huge chunks” of his stock. 

Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page have relocated dozens of limited liability companies and other business entities outside of California, and Brin has given $20 million to a political action committee that may fight the tax. Venture capitalist Peter Thiel has given $3 million to a similar effort.

The site calls billionaires “value creators” who are “building, not taking” and lists 10 of them, including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Page and Brin, the popstar Taylor Swift, the tennis champion Roger Federer, and James Dyson, who the site says “invented the bagless vacuum cleaner after 5,127 prototypes.”

“These billionaires didn’t steal from you,” it reads. “They created new products, new services, new possibilities that millions of people freely chose.”

On BlueSky, the group has shared Y Combinator founder Paul Graham’s well-known essay calling for a fight against poverty rather than inequality, and a post from Matthew Yglesias that reads, “It’s time to take a bold stand in defense of America’s oft-maligned billionaire class.”

It retweeted a post from Tan where the CEO is wearing, unironically, a shirt that reads, “We should have more billionaires.”

The in-person march is marketed for Feb. 7 at 11 a.m. It will start at Alta Plaza Park, in tony Pacific Heights, and end with a rally at City Hall. 

In November, a “People Over Billionaires” march took a similar route through the wealthy area and stopped to chant in front of multi-million dollar homes: “Let’s stop these money grabbing maniacs from wrecking our world!”

Join the 3,250 readers who keep Mission Local free for all!

Because of you, Mission Local reached and surpassed our $300,000 year-end fundraising goal. All we can say is thank you. 

Thank you for choosing to invest in a local newsroom rooted in San Francisco’s communities — one that listens first and reports deeply. 

If you haven’t yet had a chance to give, it’s not too late to be part of this community. Your contribution today helps sustain the reporting our city relies on all year long.

We’re grateful you’re here — and we’d be honored to have you join our donors.

Donate

Latest News

Super Bowl, Shmooper Bowl: What to do in S.F. if you don’t care about the big game

Mayor Lurie just expanded subsidized child care in S.F. Will residents go for it?

Santarchy: Radical roots of S.F.’s drunkest, stupidest pub crawl exposed in new ‘SantaCon’ doc

Joe Rivano BarrosSenior editor

joe.rivanobarros@missionlocal.com

Joe was born in Sweden, where half of his family received asylum after fleeing Pinochet, and then spent his early childhood in Chile; he moved to Oakland when he was eight. He attended Stanford University for political science and worked at Mission Local as a reporter after graduating. He then spent time at YIMBY Action and as a partner for the strategic communications firm The Worker Agency. He rejoined Mission Local as an editor in 2023. You can reach him on Signal @jrivanob.99.More by Joe Rivano Barros

• Myesha Phukan | Staff
• Feb 2, 2026 (DailyCal.org)

UC Berkeley announced Jan. 29 that it was named a Black-Serving Institution, or BSI, in December 2025. 

The recognition came as part of an inaugural group of California colleges and universities recognized under a new state initiative, according to Elisa Diana Huerta, Associate Vice Chancellor for Community Engagement and Transformative Care. 

The designation was established by California’s Senate Bill 1348 in 2024. The bill aims to recognize colleges and universities that “excel at providing academic resources to Black and African American students.” 

“For UC Berkeley, the designation affirms ongoing campuswide efforts to align institutional values, programs, and resources to better support students across undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs,” Huerta said in an email. 

UC Davis, three CSU campuses and 25 community colleges were among the 31 other institutions to receive the designation. 

Campus’s application to receive the BSI designation included engaging in frameworks such as the African American Thriving Initiatives, or AATI, according to Huerta in the email. 

The AATI, among other initiatives, outlines goals and strategies to address the climate for Black students on campus, following initial demands made by the Black Student Union in 2015. 

According to the AATI’s website, these demands included opening an African American Student Development Resource Center, renaming Barrows Hall and allocating money toward hiring Black admissions staff members to specialize in recruiting Black students. 

Barrows Hall — named after David Prescott Barrows, the UC system’s president from 1919-23 — was renamed The Social Sciences Building in November 2020 due to Barrows’ past writings, which promote white supremacy. 

“UC Berkeley was designated as a BSI due to its demonstrated, long-standing commitment to advancing Black student success through international initiatives, student-centered programming, and strategic efforts focused on access, retention, belonging, and degree completion,” Huerta added in the email. 

However, ASUC Senator Margaret Solomon, who is endorsed by the Black student community, said she was surprised to hear the campus received a BSI designation. Solomon said that while she is hopeful the designation will draw more attention to Black students, the campus needs to do more work to uplift the community.  

“Even though we are being delegated with this honor, there’s still a large majority of African American students who aren’t able to fully tap into the resources that both the resource center and larger African American Student Development community can provide,” saidMalik Mbugua, a senior and a student staff member at the Fannie Lou Hamer Black Resource Center. 

Mbugua also said the campus should provide more space for students to find community within the African American and African spaces.

Solomon said she hopes to see the campus do better in a number of areas, including increasing funding for Black resource centers, further support of Black transfer students and more scholarships for Black students as a whole.

“I just don’t think right now Berkeley has done much to prove that they’re committed to the success of Black students,” Solomon said. “But, I think with this designation, Berkeley could commit to doing more for Black students.” 

The Daily Guardian Feb 1, 2026 #SFProtest#AntiTrumpRally#StopICE San Francisco streets echoed with honking horns as protesters rallied against Trump and ICE on Van Ness Avenue, waving “Stop ICE” and “Dictator Wannabe” signs outside a Tesla dealership. Part of nationwide demos amid Trump’s DHS non-intervention post.

By Jennifer Gollan, Staff Writer Jan 31, 2026 (SFChronicle.com)

Gift Article

Bicyclists depart from San Francisco’s Ferry Building during Saturday’s tribute to Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old Veterans Affairs nurse who was fatally shot by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis a week ago.Yalonda M. James/S.F. Chronicle

Hundreds of San Francisco bicyclists joined riders across the country Saturday to memorialize Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse and avid mountain biker who was shot dead by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis one week earlier.

The ride took cyclists from the Ferry Building to Golden Gate Park and Ocean Beach, then past Crissy Field and through North Beach. The trek coincided with more than 200 memorial rides that drew thousands of cyclists in at least a dozen countries. Bay Area memorial rides also drew cyclists in Oakland, San Jose and Marin, while U.S. rides were held in Atlanta, Salt Lake City, Seattle and several smaller towns in almost every state.

By Warren Pederson, Staff Writer

Updated Feb 1, 2026 (SFChronicle.com)

Gift Article

Thousands of protesters took to San Francisco’s Ocean Beach on Saturday to create a piece of human art in response to recent fatal shootings by immigration agents in Minneapolis. Stephen Lam/S.F. Chronicle

The protesters, motivated by the killings this month of Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent and Alex Pretti by Border Patrol officers, spelled out “ABOLISH” in a message to ICE, with signs declaring “We have eyes, no more lies” to supplement their message. Some protesters waved upside-down U.S. flags, a traditional signal of extreme distress increasingly displayed at political demonstrations. 

Good, a stay-at-home mom, was killed Jan. 7 as ICE agents surrounded her vehicle during a protest near her home, while Pretti, a Veterans Affairs nurse, was shot last Saturday during a confrontation with immigration agents as he tried to protect another protester. Both Good and Pretti were 37 years old.