SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
sotu
He 'Understood the Assignment': Support for Al Green Pours In After Disruption of Trump Speech
"Al Green stood up. Would like to see more people stand up," wrote Ezra Levin, the co-founder of the progressive group Indivisible.
Mar 05, 2025
Democratic Rep. Al Green of Texas is earning praise online after delivering perhaps the most dramatic moment of U.S. President Donald Trump's address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night.
Green interrupted the speech, shaking his cane at Trump and shouting that the president had "no mandate to cut Medicaid." He was led out of the chamber by the sergeant-at-arms after being told to sit down by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), as Republicans cheered. Speaking to reporters after he was escorted out, Green said that he was protesting Trump's efforts to cut federal government programs, including Medicaid, according to The Hill.
"Al Green understood the assignment," wrote Sam Weinberg, the executive director of the progressive group Path to Progress, on Bluesky on Tuesday. Ezra Levin, the co-founder of the grassroots group Indivisible, similarly said: "Al Green stood up. Would like to see more people stand up."
"EVERY DEMOCRAT SHOULD BE EXACTLY LIKE THIS!!! RESPECT TO AL GREEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" posted the leftist Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, on X.
Former Congressman Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) wrote "Al Green!" and added that all the Democrats in the room should have left with him.
The New York Times reported that Green's act was a show of protest not only against Trump, but also congressional Democratic Party leaders who had asked Democrats to attend the speech but not disrupt it.
During the address, other Democrats sat through the speech and raised signs with messages such as "Save Medicaid" and "Musk Steals." According to Reuters, Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) and others turned their backs as Trump spoke, revealing messages on the backs of their shirts like "No Kings live here," before exiting.
While threats to Medicaid were the central focus of Green's protests, Republicans' targeting of the program did not feature in Trump's speech—during which he boasted about gutting climate initiatives, ending the "tyranny of so-called diversity, equity and inclusion policies," and peddled the falsehood that Social Security benefits are being paid out out on a large scale to people who have been dead for years.
Last week, House Republicans were able to pass a budget resolution that tees up passing trillions of dollars in tax cuts, a move that will almost certainly be paid for by slashing social programs like Medicaid and nutrition assistance.
The resolution instructs the House Energy and Commerce Committee to "submit changes in laws within its jurisdiction to reduce the deficit by not less than" $880 billion over the next decade. That panel has jurisdiction over Medicaid, which the GOP has repeatedly targeted in public and private discussions, with one leaked document floating over $2 trillion in cuts to the program.
Republicans also rejected numerous Democratic amendments that would have prevented Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program cuts in the upcoming budget reconciliation process as their resolution moved through committees.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Working-Class Unity Key to Defeating Oligarchy, Says Sanders in Response to Trump SOTU
"We can win. We will win," said the senator. "Let's go forward together."
Mar 05, 2025
If working-class people in the United States were wondering why President Donald Trump had "very little to say about the REAL crises facing the working class of this country" in his State of the Union address, said U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders Tuesday night, they need look no further than the people Trump surrounded himself with at his inauguration in January.
"Standing right behind him were the three wealthiest men in the country," said the Vermont Independent senator, naming billionaire mogul and "special government employee" Elon Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. "And standing behind THEM were 13 other billionaires who Trump had nominated to head major government agencies. Many of these same billionaires—including Musk—were there tonight."
Despite Trump's repeated campaign promises to address the rising cost of living for working people, said Sanders, the State of the Union address offered the latest proof that "the Trump administration IS a government of the billionaire class, by the billionaire class, and for the billionaire class."
Watch Sanders' address in full:
LIVE: President Trump’s Congressional Address needs a response. Here’s mine. https://t.co/O9yN04isIw
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) March 5, 2025
Sanders amplified the message he has sent on his National Tour to Fight Oligarchy—which he is scheduled to continue this week with stops in Warren, Michigan on Saturday and Kenosha, Wisconsin on Friday.
The senator called on working people of all racial identities, religions, and sexual orientations to join together to fight Trump's agenda and the billionaires who would benefit from his tax cuts, slashes to essential public services like Medicaid and food assistance, and efforts to divide people by demonizing immigrants, transgender people, and people of color.
"Yes, the oligarchs ARE enormously powerful. They have endless amounts of money. They control our economy. They own much of the media. They have enormous influence over our political system," said Sanders. "But, from the bottom of my heart, I am convinced that they can be beaten."
"If we stand together and not let them divide us up by the color of our skin or where we were born or our religion or sexual orientation; if we bring our people together around an agenda that works for the many and not the few—there is nothing in the world that can stop us," he said.
In his address, Sanders remained laser-focused on issues that impact working people—raising the federal minimum wage of just $7.25 per hour to a living wage of $17 per hour, repealing the Citizens UnitedSupreme Court ruling to end corporate influence over elections, and Trump's desire to pass a "big, beautiful" budget that would cut Medicaid by $880 billion, leaving up to 36 million Americans, including millions of children, without health insurance.
His response to the State of the Union address contrasted sharply with parts of the Democratic Party's official response given by Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), who spoke out against the "unprecedented giveaway" Trump wants to give "to his billionaire friends" but also signaled the party leadership's disinterest in focusing primarily on issues that impact working people when she spoke positively about former Republican President Ronald Reagan.
"After the spectacle that just took place in the Oval Office last week, Reagan must be rolling over in his grave," Slotkin said, referring to Trump and Vice President JD Vance's attacks on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. "As a Cold War kid, I'm thankful it was Reagan and not Trump in office in the 1980s."
Historian Moshik Temkin wondered why the Democratic Party chose to hold up Reagan as a positive example of a president—considering his deregulatory, anti-taxation policies and promotion of so-called "trickle-down economics" that helped pave the way for rising economic inequality and the decimation of the middle class—instead of former President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who introduced Social Security, reformed the financial system, and provided relief to people who were suffering due to the 1929 stock market crash and the Great Depression.
"Who was this for?" asked historian Michael Brenes of Slotkin's address. "You don't rebuild the New Deal coalition with Cold War nostalgia and deference to Ronald Reagan. A better message: national security begins with economic security."
In contrast, Sanders' response, said former journalist and author Paul Handley, "is how you respond to Trump and define him for the American people."
Sanders ended his address by acknowledging the challenge of fighting against a political system increasingly controlled by billionaires, but warned, "despair is not an option."
"Giving up is not acceptable," said Sanders. "And none of us have the privilege of hiding under the covers. The stakes are just too high. Let us never forget. Real change only occurs when ordinary people stand up against oppression and injustice—and fight back."
"We can win. We will win," he concluded. "Let's go forward together."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Seattle's Socialist City Councilor Offers Radical Response to Obama Speech
In rebuttal to State of the Union, Seattle's Kshama Sawant challenges key assumptions and policies presented in presidential address
Jan 29, 2014
Though Republicans tied themselves in knots and exposed their party's extensive internal rifts by offering four separate rebuttals to President Obama's State of the Union on Tuesday, a development that received less attention was the short response to the speech offered by recently-elected Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant.
Sawant, who won her seat running as an open Socialist while supporting a $15 minimum wage for local workers, called out the president for betraying an array of his 2008 campaign promises and falling short of subsequent opportunities after more than five years in office.
Unfortunately, Sawant said in her remarks, Obama's presidency "has betrayed the hopes of tens of millions of people who voted for him out of a genuine desire for fundamental change away from corporate politics and war mongering."
In a frank and unflinching critique not seen or heard on the broadcast or cable news shows, Sawant described Obama's renewed focus on income inequality as an indictment of his own failures and misguided economic policy.
Pointing to record high poverty and the fact that "95% of the gains in productivity during the so-called recovery have gone to the top 1%," Sawant argued that Obama's rhetoric on inequality has been forced on him by popular "outrage over the widening gulf between the super-rich" and the millions of workers, many working in low-wage retail and fast food jobs, who generated that wealth.
Overall, in a rebuke of both major political parties, Sawant pointed out the crisis of democracy in the country. "The political system is completely dysfunctional and broken. It is drowning in corporate cash," she said. "Working people, youth, people of color, women, the elderly, the disabled, immigrants - the 99% - have no voice or representation."
The text of her prepared remarks follow:
Tonight, President Obama talked about the deepening inequality.
But that is a testament of his own presidency. A presidency that has betrayed the hopes of tens of millions of people who voted for him out of a genuine desire for fundamental change away from corporate politics and war mongering.
Poverty is at record-high numbers - 95% of the gains in productivity during the so-called recovery have gone to the top 1%.
The president's focus on income inequality was an admission of the failure of his policies.
An admission forced by rallies, demonstrations, and strikes by fast food and low wage workers demanding a minimum wage of $15. It has been forced by the outrage over the widening gulf between the super-rich and those of us working to create this wealth in society.
While the criminals on Wall Street are bailed out, courageous whistleblowers like Edward Snowden are hunted down and the unconstitutional acts he exposed are allowed to continue.
Obama is the president who is using smartphone apps - games like Angry Birds - to spy against tens of millions of ordinary people in a completely blatant violation of basic constitutional rights.
The President claims ending two wars while he continues to intensify a brutal campaign of drone wars in multiple countries, killing hundreds of innocent civilians, and not to mention the plight of US soldiers returning with permanent medical conditions and declining veterans' benefits.
Obama is the president whose broken website is a symbol of the broken hopes of millions who believed his promises for affordable healthcare.
"Climate change is a fact," says Obama.
Here is another fact: Climate change is getting worse and worse, on his watch. There has been a massive increase in incredibly destructive practices like the use of coal and fracking.
Leadership in stopping the disastrous Keystone XL pipeline has come not from Obama or Congress, but from the thousands of courageous people organizing and taking direct action to stop it.
Obama shouts "Fix our broken immigration system." He is the president with record numbers of deportations.
My brothers and sisters, these problems are not new. And they are not an accident.
Working people have faced nearly four decades of wage stagnation and rising income inequality.
Four decades, with four Republican presidents and three Democratic presidents. Four decades that show neither party can solve these problems and that both fundamentally represent the same interests - the interests of the super-wealthy and big corporations.
We will only make progress on the basis of fundamental, systemic change. We need a break from the policies of Wall Street and Corporate America. We need a break from capitalism. It has failed the 99%.
Both parties bow down before the free market, and loyally serve the interests of their corporate masters - the only difference being a matter of degree.
The political system is completely dysfunctional and broken. It is drowning in corporate cash.
Working people, youth, people of color, women, the elderly, the disabled, immigrants - the 99% - have no voice or representation.
We need our own political party. Independent of big business, and independent of the parties of big business.
Some say it cannot be done.
But look at the example of my campaign for Seattle City Council. I ran as an open socialist. I did not take a penny in corporate cash. My campaign raised $140,000 from ordinary working people. I ran as an independent working-class challenger to the capitalist establishment.
I ran on a platform of $15 minimum wage, taxing the super-rich to pay for mass transit and education, and for affordable housing, including rent control.
I am only taking the average worker's wage while politicians in Seattle and in Congress are totally out of touch with the lives of the rest of us.
We built a grassroots campaign of over 450 people. With almost 100,000 votes, my election was the first time in decades an independent socialist was elected in a major US city.
Americans are hungry for something different. And it's not just in Seattle. A recent poll showed that sixty percent of Americans want a third party.
Let's talk about minimum wage. Obama said, "No one working full-time should have to raise a family in poverty."
And his solution? Raising the minimum wage to $10.10 over 3 years.
I absolutely welcome any step forward on raising the minimum wage. And it is outrageous how the Republican Party is standing in the way.
But let's be honest: $10.10/hour over three years - or $20,000 per year if you are lucky enough to have a full-time job - is not a ticket out of poverty for working families.
Fast food workers and Walmart workers have gone on strike and built powerful protests in cities in every part of the country over the past year for $15/hour. And that is the only reason politicians are now talking about raising the minimum wage.
Look at the example of the SeaTac $15/hour initiative. A initiative for $15/hour minimum wage was on the ballot - and won!
"Let's make this a year of action," Obama said.
In my view, we need action by working people and the poor for higher wages and a $15/hour minimum wage.
Action by young people fighting student fees and the debt around their neck for the rest of their life. Action by homeowners against the epidemic of foreclosures. By trade unionists against anti-trade union laws and for workers' rights.
Get organized!
Get active in your union. Get active in a local movement. Join the struggle to defend the environment.
Join with me and my organization, Socialist Alternative, to challenge big business and fight capitalism.
The epicenter of the fight back in 2014 is the Fight for Fifteen. I urge you to be part of this struggle. Find out more and sign up to get involved at 15Now.org.
Solidarity!
_____________________________________
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular