The Dictatorship
DHS labeling Renee Good a ‘violent rioter’ fits its ongoing propaganda campaign
After ICE officer Jonathan Ross killed 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis on Wednesday, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin immediately blamed the victim. She said ICE offices were “conducting targeted operations when rioters began blocking ICE officers and one of these violent rioters weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them.”
Video footage from the scene doesn’t seem to support the government’s description of Good or capture the complexities of the scene, and Ross hasn’t been charged with a crime. But McLaughlin’s “violent rioter” label wasn’t an off-the-cuff remark. Rather, this is a phrase the Trump administration, particularly DHS, has regularly and quite purposefully used to characterize people who show up to oppose its officers and actions.
This is a phrase the Trump administration has regularly used to characterize people who show up to oppose its officers and actions.
Chicago was the site of many protests throughout the fall and winter, as ICE agents flooded the city streets during Operation Midway Blitz. DHS consistently described those protests with one-sided, inflammatory language. On Nov. 14, for example, DHS posted a video on X that characterized protesters outside an ICE facility as “violent rioters” attempting to secure the release “of some of the worst human beings on planet earth.” Jack Jenkins, a reporter for The Christian Century who was present that day, wrote that among the peaceful protesters that day was the Rev. Michael Woolfa Baptist preacher who, Jenkins reported, was standing “alongside fellow protesters, fiddling awkwardly with his backpack as faith leaders and other protesters chant slogans at a line of police officers.”
When an officer walked up, grabbed Woolf’s wrist and yanked, Jenkins reported, “Demonstrators attempted to hold onto Woolf, who was wearing a clerical collar, but four officers wrenched him from the crowd and tossed him to the ground.”
Womp womp, cry all you want. These criminal illegal aliens aren’t getting released.
Like clockwork, violent rioters have arrived at the Broadview ICE facility to demand the release of some of the worst human beings on planet earth.
Get a job you imbecilic morons. pic.twitter.com/k4HdE5IqNu
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) November 14, 2025
Also in Chicago, Marimar Martinez was shot multiple times by a CBP agent in October, who claimed he was acting in self-defense after she assaulted him with her car. A DHS statement called Martinez a “domestic terrorist” and initially charged her and a co-defendant with assaulting, resisting or impeding federal officers — only to drop the charges before the case could fully get underway. A defense attorney said bodycam video showed an agent drove into Martinez’s truck.
As The Guardian pointed out, “Since Operation Midway Blitz began in September, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has characterized protesters as violent rioters and vowed to prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. But of the more than two dozen people arrested for impeding or assaulting federal officers or other protest-related offenses, none have gone to trial and charges have been dropped against at least nine of them.”
There’s no doubt that some federal agents have been confronted by violent individuals who want to hurt them, but the government’s broad, seemingly reflexive use of “violent rioters” has helped push the noxious idea that it’s criminal to publicly gather and express outrage at government officials and law enforcement as they carry out Trump’s deportation agenda. In Minneapolis, the government seems determined that we not think of Good as an American who had the right to object to her government’s actions. They want us to reduce Good to a “violent rioter” who got what violent rioters are due.
This attitude has been confirmed by leadership at some of the highest levels of the U.S. Border Patrol. During an Oct. 30 deposition related to a lawsuit alleging overly aggressive immigration enforcement tactics in Chicago, Locke Bowman, a lawyer for plaintiffs, asked U.S. Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino a question about how federal agents had responded to “protesters.” Bowman said agents had responded “to violent rioters and assaultive subjects.”
“Will you acknowledge that some of those at the Broadview facility who came to that location to protest are not violent rioters and assaulters?” Bowman asked. And Bovino said, “I don’t know what they are.”
Quoting Bovino’s phrase “violent rioters and assaulters,” the lawyer asked, “Have you ever interacted with anybody who wasn’t that?”
“I can’t remember,” he replied.
It’s noteworthy that, in that deposition, Bovino’s refusal to acknowledge the presence of peaceful protesters at that Broadview ICE facility came after the attorney showed him video of Pastor David Black being shot in the head with a pepper ball. His refusal also came after Bovino was shown video of the CBP commander climbing over a barrier and personally tackling a man who was walking away after calling Bovino a fascist. (Despite the video evidenceand to a federal judge’s dismayin the deposition, Bovino wouldn’t even admit he’d tackled that man.)
I shared the lawyer’s exchange with Bovino with Ashley Howard, author of “Midwest Unrest: 1960s Urban Rebellions and the Black Freedom Movement,” who has written thoughtfully about the way the words “riot” and “rioter” have been used to depoliticize and delegitimize violent protest. But, in this case, the federal government is using “riot” to describe nonviolent protest. Bovino was shown the video footage of the pastor being hit by federal agents and still wouldn’t say whether any peaceful protesters had been in attendance.
“It would be comically absurd if it wasn’t so terrifying,” Howard said, of Bovino’s testimony. “People who can use force with impunity need to justify the use of that force, and so they must portray these people, regardless of how they’re engaging, as violent, as rioters.”
“They have a vested interest in suppressing this type of protest,” Howard noted, “and so they need to drum up this idea that they are in imminent danger and that the people who are out in the streets pose an immediate and violent threat.”
To be clear, the stretchy use of the word “riot” didn’t start with the Trump administration. Howard’s book, which focuses on the 1960s, quotes the U.S. criminal codewhich shows that it’s easy for the government to paint a protest (or even a gathering) as a “riot.”
“It’s three people,” Howard said. “Three people acting in concert, and that can be a group of high school students tipping over a trash can. That can be people out in the street blocking a car. They can use that designation of ‘riot’ or ‘riots’ as they see fit. And that’s what makes it so dangerous.”
The day after his October arrest, the Rev. Woolf told a reporter, “It’s just foolish to be called, like, a violent rioter by someone when you’re with a clerical collar, and you’re simply trying to express your First Amendment rights.”
“Foolish” doesn’t really get at it. It’s more authoritarian.
Tricia McLaughlin isn’t the first government official to try to weaponize language in this way. But the government’s push to immediately dehumanize Good in the wake of her killing is just another sign of how authoritarian this government is becoming.
Jarvis DeBerry is an opinion editor for MS NOW Daily.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Most Americans still think their taxes are too high, according to recent polls, even after last year’s tax law fulfilled several of President Donald Trump’s tax-related campaign promises.
In fact, a new Fox News poll indicates people are more upset about taxes than they were last year. The findings from the survey, which was conducted in late March, are another sign that Americans are on edge about their personal finances as the U.S. experiences a spike in inflation and sluggish economic growth. Other polling finds that frustration goes beyond personal tax obligations, with many believing that wealthy people and corporations are not paying their fair share, while others worry about government waste.
The surveys come after Trump and Republicans passed a massive tax and spending cut bill last year. The legislation enacted a range of tax breaks, including a boosted child tax credit and new tax deductions for tips and overtime. Tax refunds are up this seasonand many households are expected to see more income from the Republicans’ tax legislation, but the Congressional Budget Office estimated it will ultimately give the largest benefits to the richest Americans.
Republicans have touted the law as evidence that they are making life more affordable for working families. But polling shows that many Americans may not be feeling the benefits, especially as their tax refunds get eaten up by higher prices.
Most say taxes are too high
About 7 in 10 registered voters say the taxes they pay are “too high,” according to the Fox News poll. That’s up from about 6 in 10 last year. The poll shows heightened concern among very liberal voters and Democratic men, but there has also been a sizable increase among groups that Republicans want to court ahead of the midterm elections, such as moderates, rural voters and white voters without a college degree.
Discontent about taxes has been rising for the past few years. Recent polling from Gallupconducted in March, found about 6 in 10 U.S. adults say the amount of federal income tax they have to pay is “too high,” a finding that’s been largely consistent in the annual poll since 2023. That’s approaching the level of unhappiness found in Gallup’s polling from the 1980s through the 1990s, before President George W. Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts.
Now, about half of Democrats and about 6 in 10 Republicans say their federal income taxes are too high. Republicans tend to view their tax bill more negatively than Democrats, but Gallup’s polling shows that this gap often shrinks when a Republican is president.
Many believe the rich aren’t paying enough in taxes
Most Americans are troubled by the belief that some wealthy people and corporations don’t pay their fair share of taxes, according to a Pew Research Center poll conducted in January. About 6 in 10 Americans said each of those notions bothers them “a lot,” a measure that is largely unchanged in recent years.
By contrast, only about 4 in 10 U.S. adults in that poll said the amount they personally pay in taxes bothers them a lot.
About 8 in 10 Democrats are bothered “a lot” by the feeling that some corporations and rich people aren’t paying their fair share, the Pew survey found, compared to about 4 in 10 Republicans. Government spending is a bigger issue for Republicans, according to the Fox News poll, which found that 75% of registered voters — and a similar share of Republican voters — say “almost all” or “a great deal” of government funding is wasteful and inefficient.
That points to a perception problem for many Americans. Even if their own tax bill is manageable, the idea that the wealthy are underpaying — or that the government is wasting their dollars — bothers many. About half of Americans, 49%, in the Gallup poll say the income tax they will pay this year is “not fair,” which is in line with the record high from 2023.
Broad unhappiness with Trump’s tax approach
Americans’ tax frustration was rising before Trump re-entered the White House, but it’s still a problem for the president’s party — especially if Americans are not feeling the relief that he promised.
The Fox News poll found that about 6 in 10 registered voters, 64%, say they disapprove of how Trump is handling taxes, up from 53% last April. Disapproval has risen most sharply among independents, but also among Democrats and Republicans.
This aligns with a broader feeling that Trump isn’t doing enough to address inflation. Most Americans said Trump had hurt the cost of living “a lot” or “a little” in his second term, according to an AP-NORC poll conducted in January. Roughly 9 in 10 Democrats and about 6 in 10 independents said Trump has had a negative impact on the cost of living.
——-
This story has been updated to correct that less than half of Republicans, 43%, said Trump has helped the cost of living, while 33% said he hasn’t made a difference and only 23% said he has hurt it.
___
The Fox News poll was conducted among 1,001 registered voters from March 20-23. The Gallup poll was conducted among 1,000 U.S. adults from March 2-18. The Pew Research Center poll was conducted among 8,512 U.S. adults from Jan. 20-26. The AP-NORC Poll was conducted among 1,203 U.S. adults from Jan 8-11.
The Dictatorship
Democrats to confront Trump budget director Russ Vought about his ‘stone cold silence’
When White House budget director Russell Vought appears before lawmakers on Wednesday, he will almost certainly face questions about a ballooning Pentagon budgeta special war-funding request and an extended Homeland Security shutdown. But Democrats also plan to press him on an issue closer to the Capitol: why he has spent months dodging their questions altogether.
Vought is set to testify Wednesday before the House Budget Committee and again before the Senate’s budget panel on Thursday. It’s a long-awaited chance for Democrats eager to question him on several fronts — including the cost of the Iran war, cuts to health care spending, a demoralized federal workforce and what the government’s own watchdog has described as the illegal impoundment of federal funds.
Lawmakers also have a growing to-do list that involves Vought, including a war supplemental for President Donald Trump’s military campaign in Iran and a reconciliation bill that would fund immigration enforcement agencies. Congress is also supposed to adopt a budget, though that may slip after the president’s budget was weeks late and omitted any information about projected federal debts and deficits.
But Democrats see Vought as “missing and reclusive,” ignoring their questions for months, the Budget Committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania, told MS NOW. Vought didn’t testify before the committee last year, a break with tradition. And written questions to Vought have been met with “stone cold silence,” Boyle said.
In JanuaryHouse Democrats pressed Vought for answers on the administration’s health care plans, its compliance with congressionally approved funding laws, its attempt to withhold nutrition aid during last year’s government shutdown, and plans for federal layoffs.
“He sent us not one word in response,” Boyle said. “And in doing so, it shows their contempt for the United States Congress, and it shows their contempt for our constitutional system.”
Boyle told MS NOW he plans to introduce legislation to legally require Office of Management and Budget directors to testify before the House Budget Committee, after Vought didn’t do so last year. He also said he aims to require that the OMB director respond to members of the committee.
Democrats didn’t hear back from Vought about testifying to the committee until March, when Boyle displayed a picture of Vought as a missing child on a milk carton. That prompted Vought to respond on X that, “I am coming to testify on April 15. You should get up to speed.”
House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, had previously assured reporters that Vought would testify in 2026, but Boyle said Democrats hadn’t gotten confirmation until the milk carton incident.
“That’s what shamed him into it,” Boyle said of Vought.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee and a member of the Budget Committee, also said Vought had not been responsive to questions from Democratic members of the Senate, including on the cost of the Iran war. She said she’d press Vought at Thursday’s hearing on whether he would distribute funds appropriated by Congress.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said he’d ask Vought questions “around this ‘traumatizing the federal workforce’ stuff,” and whether DOGE wasted money by firing employees who needed to be rehired later. And Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said he’d ask Vought “how he’s not a corrupt stooge of the fossil fuel industry.”
Senate Republicans, meanwhile, say they haven’t been pressing Vought hard for answers. For example, the missing debt and deficit data in the budget proposal — which Maya MacGuineas, president of the fiscally conservative Committee for a Responsible Budget called “an astonishing lack of information — hasn’t prompted pushback from conservative lawmakers.
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., said he was unbothered by Vought’s decision to leave out the debt data in the president’s budget request.
“Nobody looks at it anyway,” Scott told MS NOW. “It’s just for you guys to write something.”
Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, said he’d ask Vought “to give a great update on the progress that we’ve made” in reducing the deficit. When asked about the missing debt and deficit information, Moreno said he didn’t know about it.
“I haven’t had a chance to see the whole thing, to be honest with you, so I’ve got to see what that’s all about,” Moreno told MS NOW.
In prepared remarks obtained by PunchbowlVought reportedly plans to say that, “when President Trump took office, the nation was facing financial catastrophe under the failed leadership of the Biden Administration and decades of status quo spending strangling our nation.”
But federal spending, according to the Treasury Departmenthas increased under Trump. And the federal deficit is going up. (The federal deficit was $1.8 trillion in fiscal 2025 and is projected to be $1.9 trillion in fiscal 2026according to the Congressional Budget Office.)
Republicans have also been patient with the lack of information about the cost of the Iran war.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters Tuesday he still hasn’t seen a request and doesn’t know how much it will cost.
“The only thing I think I’ve seen is what you guys report,” Thune told reporters.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told reporters he’d want to scour the funding request’s details before he decides if he’ll support it.
But when pressed whether the administration had answered his questions on the topic, Johnson made it clear he hadn’t focused on those details yet.
“Haven’t really asked,” he said.
Jack Fitzpatrick covers Congress for MS NOW. He previously reported for Bloomberg Government, Morning Consult and National Journal. He has bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Arizona State University.
The Dictatorship
Justice Department moves to erase Jan. 6 convictions of Oath Keepers, Proud Boys’ leaders
The Justice Department requested on Tuesday for a federal appeals court to erase the seditious conspiracy convictions of a group of leaders of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys — two right-wing extremist groups who were involved in the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6.
The request asks the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to vacate the individuals’ convictions, effectively erasing their guilty verdicts, and to dismiss the charges with prejudice. A dismissal with prejudice prevents the government from bringing the cases again.
In January 2025, President Donald Trump had already either pardoned or commuted the prison sentences of most of the roughly 1,500 people charged in connection with the 2021 attack on the Capitol after Trump’s loss to President Joe Biden in 2020. While most of the defendants received pardons, wiping their convictions, Trump only commuted the sentences of 14 high-profile defendants to time served, which upheld their convictions while allowing them to leave prison.
The request by the Justice Department would go a step further and erase all the convictions for the extremist group leaders, including Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodeswho didn’t receive pardons last January.
Only 12 of those defendants were referenced in the Justice Department’s request on Tuesday. Rhodes, who was sentenced to 18 yearsin prison, is among those who would benefit.
“The government’s motion to vacate in this case is consistent with its practice of moving the Supreme Court to vacate convictions in cases where the government has decided in its prosecutorial discretion that dismissal of a criminal case is in the interests of justice — motions that the Supreme Court routinely grants,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing signed by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro.
Trump himself faces criminal a series of civil lawsuits related to his incitement of the Jan. 6 attack. A federal judge earlier this month rejected his efforts to end the suits ahead of his trial, which has not yet been scheduled.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.
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