Nearly 1,000 ‘Worker Over Billionaire’ Actions Planned for Labor Day in US

   

Care workers protest proposed cuts to Medicaid in Washington DC on 23 June 2025. (photo: Tasos Katopodis/Getty)

Rallies from Alaska to Hawaii will highlight cuts to wages, unions and social safety nets under Trump policies

 Michael Sainato The Guardian

Nearly 1,000 “worker over billionaire” protests are being planned in all 50 states starting this weekend as part of a Labor Day week of action organized by labor unions and advocacy groups in opposition to the Trump administration’s policies.

The actions include marches and rallies in cities such as Chicago and Los Angeles, a Labor Day parade in New York City, rallies in Palmer, Alaska, Freeport, Maine, and a planned protest at the state capitol in Honolulu, Hawaii.

The protests are organized by the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labor unions in the US, and dozens of partner organizations, including Public Citizen, Indivisible, Democracy Forward, MoveOn and Patriotic Millionaires.

“This is about organic, grassroots organizing, and we intentionally wanted it to be outside of Washington DC, because that’s where the impacts are being felt,” Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, said.

“Whether it’s teachers or nurses or construction workers, they’re all determined to stand up and fight back, because they’re experiencing the cuts, they’re experiencing the change in policies, they’re experiencing the attacks of this White House on their unions, and so they’re determined to make their voices heard and mobilize to fight forward regardless of what’s happening around us, no matter the obstacles.”

Among the policies being protested are the Trump administration’s attempts to rescind collective bargaining rights from 1 million federal workers, the largest single act of union busting in US history, a cut to minimum wage requirements for federal contractors from $17.75 an hour to $13.30 an hour, a proposed rule to eliminate federal minimum wage and overtime protections for 3.7 million childcare and home care workers, and the rescission of a minimum wage requirement for disabled workers.

The actions come as public support for labor unions remains strong. A national poll conducted by the AFL-CIO and David Binder Research found trust in labor unions is at 55% – larger than the 36% of respondents who said they trusted the Democratic party and the 35% of respondents who said they trusted the Republican party.

“People are waking up to the fact we don’t have to just sit back and take it and the labor movement is the place to go to channel that activism, to build what’s next and we’re putting forward a vision for what the economy can be,” added Shuler.

“When people see tanks rolling into Washington DC, when we were promised lower costs, they’re like, this makes no sense,” said Shuler. “We’re getting billionaires standing up at the front row of the inauguration, basically taking over agencies, our economy and our country. So I think that no matter what party you belong to, that is a unifying thing that everybody wants, the freedom, fairness and security that all working people deserve.”

“The billionaire agenda, the corruption we’re seeing, is changing the way government is functioning. It’s leading to real-time and impactful ramifications for regular people,” said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen. “The gutting of Medicaid, all the firings we’ve seen of federal workers, the ravaging of families through Ice raids. It’s just all coming together to cause people to stand up and say, ‘we are the people of this country. It is workers over billionaires.’”

Gilbert noted they currently have 984 events scheduled, with the aim to reach over 1,000 by Labor Day, a mass organizing effort that has been weeks in the making.

“We’ve been standing together over and over again to talk about the authoritarian slide that this administration is ushering in in our country. We expect a lot of energy this weekend. This is really just the beginning of an ongoing fight against what’s being taken away from regular people,” she said.

NEWSOM'S PARODIES: MAGA World Is So Close to Getting It...

   

Gavin Newsom’s parodies are riling people up—and they don’t quite seem to understand why. (photo: Sean Rayford/Getty)

...that a politician should not conduct himself in public like a dim, insufferable child.

Tom Nichols / The Atlantic

Aug 24 2025 

 

The Fox News commentator Dana Perino has finally had enough. “You have to stop it with the Twitter thing,” she told the chief executive. “I don’t know where his wife is,” she fumed. “If I were his wife, I would say, ’You are making a fool of yourself! Stop it!’” She went on to note that he has a big job, and that he has to be “a little more serious.”

What a relief to see someone from Fox, the flagship MAGA network, getting completely fed up with juvenile social-media behavior from a national politician. Except the chief executive in this case was not Donald Trump, the president of the United States, but Gavin Newsom, the governor of California.

Newsom has taken to trolling Trump on social media by imitating his bizarre rants, odd capitalizations, and affection for exclamation points. He has also posted several memes that are on-the-nose parodies of things Trump has fed to his followers for years.  

Politico recently summarized some of Newsom’s activities on social media:

There’s Newsom on Mount Rushmore. There’s Newsom getting prayed over by Tucker Carlson, Kid Rock and an angelic, winged Hulk Hogan. There’s Newsom posting in all caps, saying his mid-cycle redistricting proposal has led “MANY” people to call him “GAVIN CHRISTOPHER ’COLUMBUS’ NEWSOM (BECAUSE OF THE MAPS!). THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.”

Newsom got even closer to Trumpian perfection with a post yesterday that is almost impossible to tell apart from an actual outburst from the president:

WHAT IS WRONG WITH CRACKER BARREL?? KEEP YOUR BEAUTIFUL LOGO!!! THE NEW ONE LOOKS LIKE CHEAP VELVEETA “CHEESE” FROM WALMART, THE PLACE FOR “GROCERIES” (AN OLD FASHIONED TERM)!!!

Some of these jibes are clumsy, but many are well crafted and even funny, despite the unsettling fact that the person whom the governor is parodying is the commander in chief.

And the proof that Newsom is onto something is that his supporters are reacting with genuine rage. Perhaps Newsom has hit a nerve because satire is always more effective than name-calling. 

Mango Mussolini or Cheeto Jesus (both of which refer to the president’s unusual bronzed skin tone) appeal only to Trump’s opponents. But a post that perfectly mimics Trump’s antics is a mirror—one that prompts people to consider how Trump looks to everyone else in the world.

At the least, Newsom has scored a direct hit on the double standard both in the national press and among the public that excuses Trump’s deeply concerning behavior as merely part of Trump’s shtick, some facet of his personality that cannot be held to account.

Too many reporters have resorted to sane-washing Trump, forcing his bizarre statements somehow to make sense by cherry-picking the occasional phrase or sentence related to policy while ignoring his kooky rants about sharks and his Stalinist threats against his political enemies.

Newsom’s parodies sidestep all the hand-wringing criticism about how presidents should act: Instead they show, rather than explain, what it should feel like when anyone but Trump acts the way Trump acts.

Perino is just one of many who is in high dudgeon. And Newsom responded to Perino with a dead-on Trump-like response: “DANA ’DING DONG’ PERINO (NEVER HEARD OF HER UNTIL TODAY!)”

Vice President J. D. Vance has lashed out at Newsom, telling Fox that the Californian’s attacks aren’t landing, because his trolling “ignores the fundamental genius of President Trump’s political success, which is that he’s authentic”; in other words, everyone knows that Newsom’s crackpot hijinks are fake but Trump’s are real—a rather odd defense.

And of course, the MAGA posters on social media and Facebook have flown off the handle with rage. (Newsom is having a “mental breakdown,” said one MAGA influencer, without a trace of irony.) As it turns out, the people who pioneered the slogan “Fuck your feelings” are impossibly delicate souls.

Others have adopted a pose of criticizing Newsom more in sorrow than anger. “I’m all for appreciating crass humor,” said Harmeet Dhillon, a lawyer and MAGA social-media stalwart who is now assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Trump Justice Department. “I love South Park. It’s hilarious.” (One wonders if she’s been watching the show recently.) “But don’t just be a loser copying the most powerful person in the world’s style.”

Trump’s majordomo at Fox, Sean Hannity, summed up this New Seriousness among the president’s supporters when he tut-tutted Newsom’s “performative confrontational style,” adding that “maybe it wins you points with the loony radical base in your party,” but it won’t win elections.

How refreshing: Fox commentators and leading figures in the Trump administration all agreeing that a politician should not conduct himself in public like a dim, insufferable child.

They’re all so close to getting it.

I admit that I am conflicted about Newsom’s approach. Some years ago, I wrote that Trump’s opponents, especially the ones addicted to terms such as Drumpf, the Orange Menace, Cadet Bone Spurs, and others needed to act like adults, and convey the gravity of their concerns about Trump instead of treating him like either an inconsequential boob or a towering werewolf whose name must not be invoked. The same goes for the too-online liberals who refer to “Rethuglicans” and “RepubliKKKans”—uncomfortably similar to the media-addicted right-wingers who use infantile slams such as DemonRats and Killary.

One aspect of Newsom’s parodies have genuinely made me laugh: his posting of pictures done in the style of the artist and Trump admirer Jon McNaughton, who is a competent illustrator but whose paintings are strange. They’re a kind of hallucinatory mash-up of Grant Wood and medieval iconography, in which Trump carries the world like Atlas, or is blessed by dead presidents, or rescues the Constitution from glowering liberals. (The Newsom image with the deceased Hulk Hogan was so perfectly rendered that at first I thought it was created by McNaughton himself.) Trump supporters seem to love these pictures. Newsom has shown just how weird they are.

Newsom has made his point and should move on. But his lasting accomplishment has been to reveal that Trump’s supporters are not as impervious to reality as the president’s opponents might believe.

I suspect—as I have since the day Trump announced his first run for president a decade ago—that the MAGA faithful are hypersensitive to criticisms of Trump because, in their hearts, many of them know. They know that many of Trump’s statements are offensive and alarmingly detached from reality. They know that Trump has a disordered personality. They know that the president is a daily embarrassment to his party and to his nation.

For years, these MAGA partisans have employed various tactics to prevent the imminent pain of cognitive dissonance. They resort to “what about” arguments aimed at other politicians; they claim that Trump actually knows what he’s doing or that they understand the message underneath all the broken thoughts, garbled words, and dead-end sentences.

Now Newsom is forcing them to see what Trump looks like without the distorting force field created by Trump’s showmanship and his aggressive delivery of incoherent statements.

Come to think of it, maybe MAGA world isn’t close to getting it; maybe they do get it, and maybe that’s why, this time, they’re especially angry.

Newsom's paodies of the clown show are striking a collective MAGA nerve.

 

New York governor ramps up fight with Texas gerrymandering 'renegades'

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul

As we all must, Gov. Hochul takes a stand

By Walter Einenkel 

Daily Kos Staff 

August 08, 2025 at 2:00:11p MDT

 

REPUBLISHED BY:

Blue Country Gazette Blog

Rim Country Gazette Blog

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul held a press conference Monday to respond to ongoing GOP efforts to disproportionately increase Republican representation in Congress. She discussed potential Democratic strategies to combat Texas’ gerrymandering scam, including redrawing New York state’s congressional maps to offset the loss of Democratic seats.  

"If that's what's called for, I will put saving democracy as my top priority at any cost, because it is under siege,” Hochul told reporters. “Just like those who put on a uniform to fight in battles across the ages. For centuries we've stood up and fought. Blood has been shed. This is our moment in 2025 to stand up for all that we hold dear and not let it be destroyed by a bunch of renegades in a place called Texas.”

Hochul joins Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has also pledged to counter Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s machinations to sabotage democracy by redrawing California’s congressional maps.

---

Related | California Democrats have a new plan to combat GOP in the next election

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Texas Democrats have been preparing for this fight. On Sunday, most Democratic state legislators left the state, denying Republicans the quorum needed to pass any legislation. Texas Democratic state Rep. James Talarico accused the GOP of “trying to rig the midterm elections right before our eyes.”

Abbott has since threatened to replace Democratic representatives and charge them with “bribery.” 

Join Gov. Hochul - stand up to Trump.

Join your friends, neighbors, and activists of all stripes for Good Trouble Lives This Thursday, July 17

 

This Thursday, on July 17, people all across the country will gather together in honor of the late Rep. John Lewis to participate in the Good Trouble Lives On National Day of Action. With MAGA Republicans continuing their ghoulish campaigns to terrorize communities, crush dissent, and tear families apart, it’s more important than ever that we stand up, speak out, and make some good trouble.  What’s good trouble? Coined by civil rights leader Congressman John Lewis, "good trouble" means coming together to take non-violent action to challenge injustice and create meaningful change. That could look like a candlelight vigil, a community event, a rally, or any other creative way you can think of to stand up and remind the world that we will continue to fight back against this authoritarian regime. Once you’ve found an event, invite 3 friends to join you.  As we take the baton from John Lewis and the fight for civil rights, it’s important to remember that the work of opposing an authoritarian takeover must be loud, it must be visible, and it must be sustained. Now is not the time to rest on our laurels of past work; we have to build our opposition and keep it up until we win. And we will win. Join your friends, neighbors, and activists of all stripes as we make sure the Good Trouble Lives On on Thursday, July 17. In solidarity, Indivisible Team P.S. A core principle behind Good Trouble Lives On is a commitment to non-violent action. All participants are expected to de-escalate any situations that arise. If you haven't yet, it's time to get involved.  Show up Thursday and make your voice heard.

A New Declaration of Independence From Tyranny...

 

A woman holds an upside down American flag. (photo: Allison Robbert/Getty)  (Today, most protestors associate the upside down flag with the nation heading in the wrong direction, or being under the control of the wrong political party. The upside down version of the flag is becoming more pronounced among both conservatives and liberals.)

 

(Editor's note: Satirist Andy Borowitz turns serious on this 4th of July weekend.)

 

"...to build a future grounded in compassion, courage, and shared humanity." 

Andy Borowitz / The Borowitz Report 

 

04 July 25

 

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for a people to break from a leader who governs with cruelty, contempt, and corruption, a decent respect to the opinions of humankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all people are created equal, endowed with inherent dignity and unalienable rights—among these are life, liberty, equality, and the pursuit of justice.

That to secure these rights, governments derive their power from the consent of the governed. When a leader becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right and duty of the people to refuse allegiance and to stand united in the defense of their freedoms.

The current holder of high office has shown himself to be unfit to lead a free and just society.

* He disrespects women, mocking survivors of violence and stripping away their rights.

* He fuels racism and white supremacy, scapegoating communities of color and denying their equality.

* He assaults free speech, attacking the press, punishing dissent, and spreading disinformation.

* He exploits public office for private gain, enriching himself and the billionaire class while abandoning the poor and working people.

* He undermines justice, ignores the rule of law, and places himself above accountability.

* He disregards science, endangering lives in times of crisis and sacrificing the planet for profit.

* He fans division and incites violence to maintain power, wielding fear as a weapon against the people.

Time and again, we have protested peacefully, spoken truthfully, and appealed to our shared humanity. We have been met with indifference, hostility, and violence. A leader who governs through hatred and greed is unfit to govern at all.

Therefore, we, the people of conscience and conviction, do solemnly declare our independence from this tyrant and all he represents.

We withdraw our consent.

We refuse to be complicit in cruelty.

We reject the abuse of power for personal gain.

We stand for dignity, truth, equality, and justice for all people.

With firm reliance on each other and unwavering hope in our collective strength,

We pledge to resist oppression in all its forms,

To uphold the rights of the vulnerable,

And to build a future grounded in compassion, courage, and shared humanity.

Let this declaration be both a breaking and a beginning.

 

From massive protests to a puny parade, America really let Donald Trump down | Opinion

 

All he wanted was to celebrate his birthday with a massive military parade that made him look powerful and beloved. Instead he got a derpy, dull parade overshadowed by massive nationwide protests.

(Gazette Blog editor's note: Thanks to USA Today for publishing this column and in doing so reminding us of the importance of a free press.) 

Rex Huppke

USA TODAY

 

Well, Americans, I hope you’re happy with yourselves. You really let President Donald Trump down June 14.

All he wanted was to celebrate his 79th birthday with a massive military parade that made him look powerful, scary and beloved. Instead, thanks to millions of Americans and their stupid First Amendment rights, he got a derpy, dull parade overshadowed by massive nationwide protests denouncing him.

People from Virginia to California and everywhere in between were hoisting signs that said mean things about President Trump like “IF MELANIA DOESN’T HAVE TO LIVE WITH HIM…WHY DO WE?” and “You sucked in Home Alone 2,” referring to the 1992 movie in which Trump had a cameo.

The American Civil Liberties Union, one of the organizers of the "No Kings" protests, said in a statement, “More than five million people nationwide rallied at over 2,100 events across the country, condemning President Trump’s escalating abuses of power.”

Way to go, America. You ruined Trump's parade and made him sad

Nice job, guys. Do you know how hurtful that was for a man who just wanted to have a cool birthday parade that would make him feel like a powerful dictator?

Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.

While those protests were massive and made a clear and peaceful point that Americans, only six months into the Trump administration, are fed up, they completely took the shine off the parade in Washington, DC.

Opinion: Trump's military show of force in LA and DC camouflage his failing presidency

The weather there was cloudy with a little rain, the crowd was thin and, while an announcer gave an interesting history of the U.S. Army on its 250th anniversary, the dull pace of tanks and other military vehicles made the event drag.

Troops marched past the VIP section where Trump and administration officials were seated, but they weren’t marching in carefully choreographed lockstep like troops have done in past military parades for notorious authoritarians.

Trump was bored and angry during the parade, while protesters had fun

 

It all felt a bit phoned in and drab. A New York Times reporter noted: “The energy level at the military parade here is a bit desultory.”

And Trump? He looked like a kid who wanted a Nintendo Switch 2 for his birthday and instead got a desultory military parade.

He sulked. He slouched. At one point, the band played an instrumental version of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son,” a famous anti-war song that decried wealthy families able to keep their kids out of the draft during the Vietnam War. That probably made Trump’s bone spurs hurt.

How dare Americans protest instead of bolstering the president's ego

Through it all, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sat next to the president, looking like a guy about to be held accountable for not making the parade “strong” and “huge” enough.

But it wasn’t all Hegseth’s fault. This was the fault of all the Americans who chose to take our president’s special day and make it about America. You meanies decided that standing up against government-sponsored cruelty against immigrants and vast federal overreach was more important than letting the guy behind the government-sponsored cruelty and the overreaching have a glorious parade that would make everyone think he’s awesome.

For shame, Americans. President Trump has been working tirelessly to enrich himself and not do any of the things he said he would do, other than the be-cruel-to-immigrants thing, and this is how you repay him? By making his parade seem puny and sad while making your own grievances seem widespread and legitimate?

A bad weekend led to Trump going off on liberal cities

Trump was so mad about how the weekend went that on the night of June 15 he announced on social media that “we must expand efforts to detain and deport Illegal Aliens in America’s largest Cities, such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, where Millions upon Millions of Illegal Aliens reside. These, and other such Cities, are the core of the Democrat Power Center, where they use Illegal Aliens to expand their Voter Base, cheat in Elections, and grow the Welfare State, robbing good-paying Jobs and Benefits from Hardworking American Citizens. These Radical Left Democrats are sick of mind, hate our Country, and actually want to destroy our Inner Cities.”

Look what you all did! You made the poor man completely lose his mind and start babbling like a maniac who capitalizes words For No reason!

I hope you’re happy with yourselves.

I certainly am. 😈

Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on Bluesky at @rexhuppke.bsky.social and on Facebook at facebook.com/RexIsAJerk

One of Largest Days of Protest in American History

Indivisible Team <info@indivisible.org>

Sat, Jun 14, 7:40 PM (17 hours ago)

"Protesters were peaceful, organized, and above all -- they were brave"

With a few rallies and marches still ongoing, we can already say that No Kings Day is one of the largest days of protest in American history.  From deep red small towns to our largest cities, millions of people turned out to make clear that the American people will not bow to fascism.  The protesters were peaceful, organized, and above all -- they were brave.  Trump has made no secret of his willingness to use force to crush dissent. He’s got tanks rolling through DC and marines in Los Angeles where we’ve all seen (and continue to see) police respond aggressively to peaceful protests. And on top of those authoritarian images, we awoke this morning to the news of horrific political violence in Minnesota, where Democratic Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband were slain and Democratic Sen. John Hoffman and his wife were wounded.  It is a frightening time in our history. But in spite of that reality -- or rather, in response to that reality -- over five million people here in the US, along with allies in cities from London to Tokyo, stood united today in the belief that democracy is worth fighting for.  Please join us on Monday 8pm ET/5pm PT for a national call with No Kings partners on how we continue that fight in the months ahead and build off the energy and momentum of today’s protests.  The scale of today’s mobilization cannot be overstated.  Philadelphia, PA

San Diego, CA

Louisville, KY

Chicago, IL

Hattiesburg, MS

Lambertville, NJ

To get a sense of how much today’s protests eclipsed Trump’s birthday parade, just do a search of virtually any US city on social media. The top results are likely No Kings protests, with videos that show crowd sizes that photos just can’t do justice. 

We’ve said that a massive, nationwide mobilization like today can change the narrative, grow our movement, build our organizing muscles, and deliver a jolt of courage -- something much needed after Trump’s recent attempts to quash dissent with violence.

But a single day of protest -- even historically large protests like today -- will not alone defeat the fascist takeover of our government. 

We need to ensure that the incredible organizing and inspiring courage of today’s protests continue to spread. We need to do the hard work of organizing those who turned out today and those who were watching into a sustained, broad-based movement that’s prepared for the hard work that comes ahead.

Breaking up is hard to do: Trump and Musk are over and it's getting ugly

Back to back.  'First buddy' no more: Things will be awkward if Donald Trump and Elon Musk are ever in the same room again.

Elon goes rogue with attack on Dear Leader 

 

By Emily Singer 

Daily Kos Staff 

Thursday, June 05, 2025 at 11:30:07a MDT 

 

REPUBLISHED BY:

Blue Country Gazette Blog

Rim Country Gazette Blog 

By Emily Singer Daily Kos Staff REPUBLISHED BY Donald Trump and his co-President Elon Musk were inseparable during Trump's first 100 days in office.

Trump heaped praise on Musk during uncomfortable Cabinet meetings, even as public opinion soured on the multibillionaire and his destructive Department of Government Efficiency; dined with Musk at his trashy Mar-a-Lago club; hawked Musk's failing Tesla cars in a wildly unethical event on the White House lawn; and overlooked Musk's rampant drug use to give his biggest donor a glowing send-off after he announced he was leaving the administration.

But now that Musk is trashing the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" that House Republicans passed in May and Senate Republicans are now working to get to Trump's desk, Trump says their special friendship may be no more.

"Look, Elon and I had a great relationship. I don't know if we will anymore," Trump told reporters Thursday in the Oval Office.

The president added that he was "surprised" to see Musk hammering what is intended to be Trump's signature piece of legislation.

“You were here, everybody in this room practically was here as we had a wonderful send-off, he said wonderful things about me, couldn’t have nicer, said the best thing,” Trump said. “He’s worn the hat, ‘Trump was right about everything,’ and I am right about the Great Big Beautiful Bill.” 

Trump also accused Musk of turning on the “Big Beautiful Bill”—which slashes Medicaid and food stamps, cuts green energy subsidies, extends tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the rich, and explodes the deficit—because it ends electric vehicle subsidies.

"I'm very disappointed because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here,” Trump said. “All of a sudden he had a problem and he only developed the problem when he found out that we're going to have to cut the EV mandate.”

Musk has already responded to Trump’s attack.

“False, this bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!” Musk wrote in a post on X. 

Trump and Republicans had enthusiastically embraced Musk—largely due to the fact that the richest man in the world spent hundreds of millions to help Trump get elected, and they worried that if they criticized him they'd be hit with an onslaught of Musk-financed primary attacks.

---

Related | 7 of Elon Musk's worst co-president moments as he exits White House

---

But now that Musk has gone rogue and done the unforgivable—i.e. criticize Dear Leader—it's unclear what will happen next.

After Trump’s Oval Office diss, Musk argued in a post on X that “Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate.”

“Such ingratitude,” Musk added.

When announcing his exit from the Trump administration, Musk said he was taking his money and getting out of politics. But if he's instigated by Republican attacks, he could easily flip on that decision.

Whatever happens next, we have our popcorn ready to watch the Republican infighting play out.

It's a bird.  It's a plane.  It's a flying muskrat.  Our dynamic duo in happier times.  

‘We are guilty. Period.’: Jan. 6 rioter refuses pardon from ‘felon Trump,’ claims president has been ‘gaslighting’ followers

Left: Pam Hemphill announces on Facebook that she is going to Washington DC on Jan. 6. Right: Then former President Donald Trump after appearing before the Brotherhood of International Teamsters. 

 “You know that everybody there was guilty. I couldn’t live with myself. I have to be right with me. And with God.”

 Jerry LambeJun 2nd, 2025, 11:40 am

Law & Crime  

An Idaho woman who was found guilty of storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and encouraging others to do the same is now working to ensure that she is not among the more than 1,500 rioters to be pardoned by President Donald Trump.

Pamela Hemphill, who was 69 years old in 2022 when she was sentenced to two months in jail for her role in the attack, is actively refusing the president’s clemency, claiming that Trump’s mass pardons and commutations are part of his larger effort to push false claims about the crimes committed by his followers that day.

“The pardons just contribute to their narrative, which is all lies. Propaganda. We were guilty, period,” Hemphill said in a recent interview with CBS News.

“We all know that they’re gaslighting us,” she said. “They are using January 6 to just continue Trump’s narrative that the Justice Department was weaponized. They were not, When the FBI came to my home, oh my God, they were very professional. They treated me very good.”

Hemphill in January 2021, flew to Washington, D.C., from Idaho to support Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, court documents show

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Prosecutors said she pushed through police lines three different times as the crowd outside the Capitol grew increasingly violent. She also encouraged her fellow rioters to push their way inside the building, and she was later seen inside the Rotunda itself.

Additionally, when police offered to help Hemphill, prosecutors said she “needlessly” exaggerated her injuries in an effort to distract officers from more violent protesters.

Hemphill pleaded guilty in January 2022 to one count of demonstrating, picketing, or parading in a Capitol building — a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail, a fine up to $5,000 and up to five years of probation. Hemphill requested a sentence of probation only, while prosecutors suggested that she serve at least 60 days in jail, three years of probation and 60 hours of community service.

Since storming that Capitol, Hemphill says she has realized that Trump’s claims about winning the 2020 election were not true and regrets getting caught up in the false narrative, referring to the MAGA movement as a “cult” and the president as “felon Trump” who should be blamed for what happened.

“How could you sleep at night taking a pardon when you know you were guilty?” she told CBS. “You know that everybody there was guilty. I couldn’t live with myself. I have to be right with me. And with God.”

According to CBS News, Idaho Sen. James Risch, a Republican, has been assisting Hemphill in her effort to formally refuse the pardon.

Though his office told the network that it “cannot disclose details” about Hemphill’s case due to “privacy concerns,” records reportedly show that the Office of the Pardon Attorney wrote the senator about the pardon in April stating, in part, that “Hemphill’s non-acceptance is noted.” The correspondence reportedly also noted that Hemphill would not receive a formal certificate of her pardon.

Asked what she thinks will happen if the president hears about her position, Hemphill said Trump would probably call her “an ungrateful lady” and will probably tell government officials to “give her the worst you can give her.”

 

Pam Hemphill says it is “felon Trump” who 

should be blamed for what happened.

Things Worth Remembering: Nora Ephron on Being a Mom

 

Sunday, 05.11.2025

By Hadley Freeman

When debating with a 4-year-old about what color of plate is acceptable for his dinner, you may realize: Motherhood is absurd, and very funny.

(David Turnley/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)

When I was asked to write an article for Mother’s Day I thought, Sure. I thought, How hard can that be? I thought, I have three kids under 10, which absolutely makes me a mother. Even if all of my kids have informed me at various points that I’m the worst mother in the world because I wouldn’t let one of them eat a piece of old chewing gum he found on the bus; or I declined the 5-year-old’s request to have her own smartphone; or I forgot to buy an emperor costume for Roman Day at school, which all good mothers know is the most important holiday of the year.

Well, at the risk of pulling the curtain back on the magic-making here, I have been trying to write this article for three hours and failing, and here is an incomplete list of reasons why:

1. An email arrived informing me that two of my children will go on a field trip tomorrow and therefore need a packed lunch, necessitating a run out to Pret A Manger to spend about $37.19 on sandwiches and dried mango that the children will definitely not eat;

2. An argument erupted in the school parents’ WhatsApp about children and screen time, and let me tell you, those parents could teach Sun Tzu a thing or two about the art of war;

3. Another email arrived reminding me I had to buy a costume for Viking Day at the 5-year-old’s school, which even bad mothers know is the second most important holiday of the year.

Like a fish can’t describe water, parents can’t really describe parenting, mainly because they don’t have the time. And it’s very difficult for mothers who have got through the brunt of the experience to describe it in retrospect, because—like childbirth—they’ll have blocked a lot of it from their memory. Which is why I love the essay “Parenting in Three Stages,” by the late, great Nora Ephron, from her 2006 collection, I Feel Bad About My Neck.

Ephron wrote about parenting exactly the way she wrote about heartbreak, aging, friendship, and food: hilariously, wisely, originally, and honestly. Ephron’s sons were adults by the time this was published, but she remembers in teeth-clenching detail what it’s like to deal with, first, small children, who you’re constantly terrified of breaking, physically or emotionally, and then large adolescents who suddenly hate you for no obvious reason.

“Adolescence comes as a gigantic shock to the modern parent, in large part because it seems so much like the adolescence you yourself went through,” she writes:

Your adolescent is embarrassed by you and walks 10 steps ahead of you so that no one thinks you are remotely acquainted with each other. Your adolescent is ungrateful. You have a vague memory of having been accused by your parents of being ungrateful, but what did you have to be grateful for? Almost nothing. . .You’ve devoted years to making your children feel that you care about every single emotion they’ve ever felt. You’ve filled every waking second of their lives with cultural activities. The words “I’m bored” have never crossed their lips, because they haven’t had time to be bored. Your children have everything you could give—everything and more, if you count the sneakers. You love them wildly, way more than your parents loved you. And yet they seem to have turned out exactly the way adolescents have always turned out. Only worse. How did this happen? What did you do wrong?

Just as Ephron knew that no amount of expensive face cream can head off the aging process (not that it stopped her from buying lots of expensive face creams, a paradox she wrote about often), no amount of parenting can prevent your child from becoming a teenager.

This essay captures two more truths that I think have been forgotten in a lot of more recent writing about parenting: First, kids are changing all the time. And second, parenting is worth it.

When did people stop understanding that kids are not adults, and therefore subject to change on a daily basis? I noticed it during the rise of the gender debate, when parents were suddenly writing articles saying—and I swear I’m not even making this example up—that they always knew their daughter should have been a boy, because she told them she was a boy when she was “almost 2.” Let’s not get distracted with that craziness. The point is, whatever lunacy your child comes out with, whether they’re 2 or 12, don’t sweat it too much, because they’re programmed to try on things for size and then mutate, just as kids have always done. It’s hard not to catastrophize when your kid is wildly unhappy at age 14, as I was. But the worst thing you can do is affirm your child’s belief that they are uniquely, hopelessly doomed. Instead, reassure them—and yourself—that pretty much everything in childhood is a phase. Or just give them Ephron’s essay, which at least might make them laugh.

Secondly, parenting is worth it. I appreciate that a lot of parents fear coming across as smug, or making the child-free feel left out, but I think we’ve had enough of this tedious trend in which every article about parenting focuses on how stressful and horrible it is. Is it any wonder young women increasingly say they don’t want kids? By all means, don’t have kids when you’re young—I waited until pretty much the last chimes before midnight—but parenting is not miserable. Yes, it can be stressful, but the stress is often hilarious. Not even Larry David could write the kind of absurdist comedy scenes that parenting brings, such as when you’re debating with a 4-year-old about what color of plate is acceptable for his dinner.

Then one day, according to Ephron, you realize your children are delightful adults. It’s a miracle, all of it, in the truest sense of the word. Happy Roman or Viking or Mother’s Day.