January, 06 2021, 11:00pm EDT
Rep. Omar Unveils Privileged Impeachment Resolution Against President Donald J. Trump
Resolution is co-lead by co-lead by Reps. David Cicilline, Ted Lieu, Al Green, Hank Johnson, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, Vicente Gonzalez, Jamaal Bowman, Mondaire Jones, Veronica Escobar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Cori Bush.
WASHINGTON
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) today unveiled a privileged resolution to impeach President Donald J. Trump for high crimes and misdemeanors, co-lead by Reps. David Cicilline, Ted Lieu, Al Green, Hank Johnson, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, Vicente Gonzalez, Jamaal Bowman, Mondaire Jones, Veronica Escobar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Cori Bush.
" Donald Trump remains the single greatest threat to our democracy," Rep. Omar said. "Every day that he remains in the office of the presidency--overseeing the United States military and nuclear arsenal--is a day the safety of the American people and the world are threatened. The very administration officials who have been complicit in his crimes cannot be relied upon. We must impeach and remove him from office immediately so that he cannot threaten our democracy and the world any longer or hold public office ever again. Congress should reconvene immediately to carry out this constitutional duty."
"After four years of lies, misinformation and abuse of power - that culminated in yesterday's treasonous and violent conduct - we in Congress are left with no choice but to impeach for a second time," said Rep. Johnson. "Orchestrating a mob to overthrow Congress and the government violates and subverts his duties as commander-in-chief and leaves us no choice but to act."
" Donald Trump presents a clear, direct threat to our democracy and national security, and yesterday's acts of white supremacist domestic terrorism on the U.S. Capitol--incited by Trump himself--is further evidence of the danger he presents," said Rep. Pressley. "Our nation cannot afford one more day with Trump in office. He must be immediately impeached by the House of Representatives and removed from office by the United States Senate. We must act with the urgency to defend our Republic."
"I've called for the impeachment and removal of Donald Trump since the day I arrived in Washington, D.C.," said Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. "Donald Trump is a tyrant that has continued to endanger and bring harm upon the people in the United States. Yesterday's attack on the Capitol was a continuation of Trump's destructive reign in this country - he must be impeached again, removed, and barred from ever holding public office again. We cannot wait and hope a peaceful transition of power happens on the 20th, Trump and his supporters have already displayed that peace is nowhere in their minds. It's time for us to act."
"Donald Trump incited a violent mob to descend upon the legislative branch, all in an attempt to overturn the results of a free and fair election and undermine the integrity of our democracy," said Rep. Mondaire Jones. "We must ensure that this is nothing more than a last gasp for Donald Trump and his Republican co-conspirators in the House and Senate. That's why I'm proud to join my colleagues in calling for impeachment. Hundreds of Donald Trumps in the Republican Party seek to ascend to higher office, and we must send them a message that no one is above the law."
On January 6th, 2021, President Trump encouraged individuals who traveled to Washington, District of Columbia to violently attack the United States Capitol while both chambers of Congress were in session. After those supporters had violently breached the Capitol, he put out a further statement repeating his false claims of election fraud and telling the members of the mob, "We love you, you're very special".
Additionally, on January 2, 2021, President Trump violated his constitutional duty to uphold the laws of the United States when, on a recorded call, he repeatedly asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to overturn the finalized and verified results of the November 2020 Presidential election in the State of Georgia. President Trump misused the power of his office by threatening an elected official with unspecified consequences if he failed to pursue the President's false claims and attempting to coerce an elected official to commit fraud.
The bill is also cosponsored by Payne, Jr., Huffman, Newman, Rush, Schakowsky, Wilson, Espaillat, Swalwell, Hayes, Velazquez, Clarke, and DeSaulnier.
You can read the full text of the resolution here.
Rep. Ilhan Omar represents Minnesota's 5th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, which includes Minneapolis and surrounding suburbs.
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'Only the Beginning': Santa Marta Summit Heralded as New Dawn in Fight to End Fossil Fuel Era
“Amid a tense geopolitical context and worsening climate extremes, Santa Marta helped spark a feeling of renewed energy, but delegates must now follow through to deliver action, not just words," said a senior climate adviser at Greenpeace.
Apr 30, 2026
Environmental activists are hopeful after a six-day climate summit in Colombia resulted in a coalition of more than 50 countries agreeing to start developing plans to move away from planet-heating fossil fuels. But they say action must now follow talk.
In marked contrast to the annual United Nations climate summits, which have been routinely overrun by oil and gas industry lobbyists and concluded with agreements that largely ignore the imperative to divest from fossil fuels, Shiva Gounden, the head of Greenpeace's delegation this week in Santa Marta, said the conference that concluded Wednesday "was a breath of fresh air, a real sign that the wind is finally shifting."
The 59 nations that attended the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels did not ultimately end with a binding agreement to transition away from fossil fuels within a specific timeframe, which activists say is urgently necessary as global heating rapidly approaches 1.5°C above preindustrial levels.
Many of the world's biggest polluters—including the United States, China, and India, as well as petrostates like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates—were also absent.
However, the summit did end with attendees, nearly half of whom are fossil fuel producers and who represent more than half of global gross domestic product, agreeing to form tangible "frameworks" for how they plan to transition away from a fossil-fueled model of capitalism that Colombian President Gustavo Petro decried as "suicidal."
Perhaps the single biggest breakthrough at the conference was France's unveiling of a national roadmap to phase out fossil fuels in the coming decades. It became the first developed nation to lay out such a plan, with the goals of removing coal from its national grid by 2027, phasing out oil by 2045, and fossil gas by 2050.
The French climate envoy, Benoit Faraco, described it not only as an obligation but an opportunity: “This process has made us realise we want to be an electro-superpower,” he said, according to The Guardian. “We want to be the electricity Saudi Arabia of Europe, selling green electrons to the UK, Ireland, Germany, and other countries.”
Many attendees also agreed that any collective movement away from fossil fuels would require addressing the debt crisis in the Global South, which many countries—especially those in Africa, where national debts have doubled in the past five years—have found themselves cranking up fossil fuel production to cope with.
While the conference concluded without any binding plan for debt forgiveness, which many delegates from developing countries had proposed, the participants agreed that poorer countries would need support to move out of debt and finance a green transition.
"Fossil fuel dependency deepens economic instability, fuels conflict, and traps countries in cycles of debt," said Bronwen Tucker, public finance lead for Oil Change International. "As long as Global South countries remain locked in this system, while Global North governments write the financial rules, public resources will continue to flow away from people and toward the systems driving crisis."
Laura Caicedo, the campaigns coordinator at Greenpeace Colombia, described the conference as "an important space to put the just energy transition on the agenda ahead of the Climate COP," which will take place in Turkey this coming November.
"There is willingness and a sense of fresh momentum that is worth celebrating," she said. "But this is only the beginning: more time is needed for this process to mature into a true platform for dialogue that can inform decision-making in this and other cooperation spaces on key energy issues."
The next conference on Transitioning Away From Fossil Fuels is set to occur early next year in Tuvalu, a low-lying Pacific island nation that is at risk of becoming uninhabitable within decades due to sea-level rise.
While climate activists were heartened by the progress made in Santa Marta, Gounden said countries need to come to Tuvalu with concrete plans.
“When we get to Tuvalu, the conversation has to change," she said. "We can’t just bring more ambition; we have to bring proof of implementation."
This week's conference took place against the backdrop of the US and Israel's war in Iran, where US President Donald Trump has suggested a key goal is to "take the oil" controlled by Iran. The obstruction of oil shipments has become a critical piece of strategic and economic leverage and simultaneously inflicted chaos upon the global economy, disrupting humanitarian aid for some of the world's poorest and most vulnerable people.
"Amid a tense geopolitical context and worsening climate extremes," said Rodrigo Estrada, Greenpeace International's senior climate adviser, "Santa Marta helped spark a feeling of renewed energy, but delegates must now follow through to deliver action, not just words."
While the war has sent energy companies' profits soaring, the climate advocacy group 350.org estimated this week that the continued blockade of the Strait of Hormuz could cost households and businesses an additional $600 billion to $1 trillion.
"It’s never been clearer that fossil fuel phase-out is imperative for stability and peace," Tucker said. "Every step away from fossil fuels weakens the outsized power and wealth that allows the US to wage illegal wars in the name of energy dominance."
At the next conference, she added, "The richest polluting countries must show they are serious. Canada, Norway, the UK, and the EU must make real plans to accelerate their fossil fuel phaseout at home and come to the table with real economic collaboration."
Mariana Paoli, the climate policy lead for Oxfam, said the lack of action by rich countries was "disappointing" and needed to change.
"Wealthy governments have still not stepped up to provide sufficient climate financing for poorer countries, which face the brunt of the impacts of the climate crisis," she said. "Rich countries hold the historical responsibility for the climate crisis, therefore they must not only move first and faster but also provide finance at scale for others to follow them."
"A just transition," she said, "must make rich polluters pay for the crisis they have caused."
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US Falls to Lowest-Ever Rank on Press Freedom Index as Trump Pours 'Gasoline on the Fire'
"Trump and his administration have carried out a coordinated war on press freedom since the day he took office, and we will live with the consequences for years to come."
Apr 30, 2026
Reporters Without Borders warned Thursday that the United States is facing a "press freedom crisis" as President Donald Trump and his subordinates wage an aggressive assault on the media that has included threats of treason charges and imprisonment against journalists.
The Trump administration's active disdain for press freedom has pushed the US to its lowest-ever rank on Reporters Without Borders' (RSF) World Press Freedom Index, which ranks countries based on numerous indicators including legal protections for journalists, reporter safety, and overall political hostility toward the press. The US landed at 64th out of 180 countries on the latest version of the index, falling seven spots compared to last year.
"The US has experienced a steady decline in the RSF Index over the past decade, but President Trump is pouring gasoline on the fire," said Clayton Weimers, executive director of RSF's North America section. "Trump and his administration have carried out a coordinated war on press freedom since the day he took office, and we will live with the consequences for years to come."
"The index shows that this decline is measurable and ongoing, but preventable," Weimers added. "Our message is clear: Protect legal rights, ensure accountability for attacks on media professionals, and support independent media to restore American press freedom."
RSF specifically cites Trump's efforts to dismantle public broadcasters, weaponization of government agencies to punish media outlets and figures critical of his administration, and lawsuits against "disfavored outlets" as factors contributing to the erosion of press freedom in the US.
The index also points to rising violence against journalists during Trump's second term in the White House. "According to the US Press Freedom Tracker," RSF notes, "there were more than 170 attacks on journalists in 2025, nearly double the previous year, driven by an increase in violence against journalists while covering protests and law enforcement activity."
The precipitous decline of press freedoms in the US comes in the context of growing attacks on and criminalization of journalism worldwide. For the first time in the 25-year history of RSF's index, more than half of the world's countries currently fall in the "difficult" or "very serious" categories for press freedoms.
The country that ranked last on the index for 2026 was Eritrea, a nation that is "sadly notorious for detaining journalists longer than any other country in the world," said RSF.
Norway ranked first on this year's index, with RSF praising the country's "robust" legal safeguards for press freedom, "vibrant" media market, and "extensive editorial independence" for publishing companies.
Anne Bocandé, RSF's editorial director, said that "current protection mechanisms" for journalism worldwide "are not strong enough" to withstand escalating attacks by "authoritarian states, complicit or incompetent political powers, predatory economic actors, and underregulated online platforms."
"How much longer will we tolerate the suffocation of journalism, the systematic obstruction of reporters and the continued erosion of press freedom?" Bocandé asked. "The ball is in the court of democracies and their citizens. It is up to them to stand in the way of those who seek to silence the press. The spread of authoritarianism isn’t inevitable."
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Mills Suspends Flailing US Senate Bid, Clearing Platner's Path to Nomination
"Now let's unify to defeat Susan Collins," said one progressive.
Apr 30, 2026
Maine Gov. Janet Mills on Thursday officially suspended her campaign for the US Senate, clearing the path for progressive candidate Graham Platner to secure the Democratic nomination.
In a statement posted on social media, Mills claimed that she no longer had the financial resources to continue with the campaign, which multiple polls projected she was losing badly to the upstart Platner.
"I step back from campaigning with unending love, admiration, and hope for Maine people," wrote Mills, "a people whose hearts are filled with love and whose integrity and humility is surpassed only by their kindness, generosity, and compassion."
Shortly after Mills announced her decision, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) released a statement supporting Platner's candidacy.
“After years of allowing Trump’s abuses of power, Senator Collins has never been more vulnerable," they said, "and we will work with the presumptive Democratic nominee Graham Platner to defeat her."
Mills' decision to suspend her campaign came less than a week after she vetoed a bill passed by the Maine Legislature that would have imposed a statewide moratorium on building artificial intelligence data centers.
Mitch Jones, the managing director of litigation for Food & Water Watch, described Mills' veto of the data center moratorium as symbolic of her out-of-touch Senate campaign, saying "it is no wonder" that the Maine governor's "political career seems to be limping to a feeble conclusion."
While Mills' decision to end her Senate campaign was not entirely unexpected given how badly she trailed Platner in both opinion polls and fundraising, some observers nonetheless found it a stunning development given that she's a two-term Maine governor running against a populist oyster farmer who has never held political office.
"A sitting two-term governor recruited by the leader of the Senate Democrats just lost to a Bernie Sanders-endorsed guy who started the race with zero name ID," wrote Zeteo News reporter Prem Thakker.
Kevin Robillard, senior politics editor at HuffPost, said that Mills' campaign will go down as "one of the most stunning flops in recent political history."
"Suspending a Senate campaign because you ran out of cash is something that happens to gadfly state legislators," he observed, "not sitting governors running with the endorsement of party leaders."
Tommy Vietor, a former National Security Council staffer under President Barack Obama and cohost of Pod Save America, questioned Mills' claim that she was suspending her campaign due to lack of resources.
"Her problem was lack of support from Maine voters," Vietor wrote, "not money."
Faiz Shakir, a longtime adviser to US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), graciously welcomed Mills' concession.
"Tough to make these kinds of decisions, but kudos to her for making the right one," wrote Shakir. "Now let's unify to defeat Susan Collins."
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