We seem to have reached a tipping point and I'm trying to figure out why. The murder on Saturday of Alex Pretti by an ICE agent seems to have ushered in a sea change. An increasing number of Republicans in the Senate are calling for an investigation. Democrats are standing their ground and pledging they will refuse to pass a budget that includes funding the DHS and ICE even if it means the government will shut down, again. Even Sen. John Fetterman has roused himself out of his anti-Democratic stupor to call for the firing of Department of Homeland Security Secretary and puppy murderer Kristi Noem. In the wake of Mr. Pretti's murder, protestors have refused to back down, and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has deployed the state's National Guard to protect peaceful protestors against a violent, out of control federal agency. People are openly discussing the horrors of having masked, heavily armed agents of the federal government terrorizing their cities. Even some Republicans are saying, "Enough is enough." In a stark juxtaposition to the lawless violence being perpetrated by ICE, National Guardsmen showed up in reflective vests to do what should have been done all along—protecting protestors from Federal law enforcement. Why, though, does the murder of Mr. Pretti appear to have been the last straw? Is it because he was an American citizen (although so, too, was Renee Good)? Is it because he was a white man killed while trying to protect a woman? Is it because he was carrying a gun he had a legal right to possess? Is it because he was shot in the back? Likely, it's an accumulation of horrors—the terrorizing of children; the chilling images of ICE agents shoving people to the ground, pinning them and spraying them in the face with bear spray; throwing canisters of tear gas at them; and stalking the streets of Minneapolis, wearing garb reminiscent of the SS. I was beginning to worry that such a moment would never come. For decades, we have witnessed Donald Trump, as an individual, as a private citizen, get away with every horrid transgression, every act of cruelty, every crime he's ever committed. When called to serve in Vietnam, he deferred five times. He and his father engaged in racist rental practices so egregious that they were sued by Richard Nixon's DOJ in 1973. His businesses declared bankruptcy six times between 1991 and 2009. During the 2016 presidential campaign, he disparaged military officers who died while serving their country; mocked a disabled reporter; and insinuated that Sen. John McCain, a legitimate war hero, was a coward. In the Hollywood Access tape, he admitted to sexually harassing women. In 2023, a jury of his peers found him liable for defaming and sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll. A year later, another jury found that he had "acted in malice when he denied Carroll's allegations" and awarded her $83.3 million. That same year, he was found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records (also by a jury of his peers) and his company was ordered to pay $450 million in damages. For reasons that are hard to comprehend, Donald still has never been held accountable for anything. E. Jean Carroll has not yet received a dime. A NY appeals court voided the monetary penalty against the Trump Organization and, even though the convictions stand, the judge in the case, Juan Merchan, "sentenced" Donald to an unconditional discharge—no penalties, no probation, no prison – because Donald got back into the White House. What remains unfathomable is that, over the course of his lifetime, none of this has been cumulative. The next horrible thing replaced, and seemingly erased, the horrible thing that had preceded it. Nothing was ever additive. How was that possible? But that's what happened time and time again. And none of it ever seemed to matter, as if he were constantly being granted a clean slate. This trend continued during his first term. Despite his awful policies—the Muslim ban; kicking transgender soldiers out of the military; the child separation policy—Republicans fell in line. Despite his malicious mishandling of COVID that resulted in the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans; his refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election which undermined the American people's faith in free and fair elections; and, the biggest blow to democracy in modern American history, his incitement of an insurrection against his own government, almost 78 million voters chose to put him back in the Oval Office. The first full year of his second term was one of the worst years we've ever lived through as a country, at least in my lifetime. Once again, every awful thing Donald did disappeared in the wake of the next awful thing. This was partially the result of the intentional chaos he created, his tendency to flood the zone and make it difficult for people to stay engaged. But the immunity granted to him by the corrupt, illegitimate, supermajority of the Supreme Court; the cravenness of the Republican Party; and the capitulations of media corporations, white-shoe law firms, and institutions of higher learning all played a bigger role. In the last few weeks—between the media's continuing to ignore Donald's cognitive and psychological decline, the continuing erosion of our institutions, and his attempts to dismantle the post-World War II order—it's begun to feel like there would be no point at which any of the crimes he or his regime continue to commit against the American people amount to anything. Donald and the thugs at ICE were never going after "the worst of the worst." They wanted to make a point by going after innocent people exercising their constitutional rights to object to this violent and corrupt regime. And yet in Minneapolis, Minnesota it feels like the tide just might be turning. While Mr. Pretti's murder was an inflection point, the images of protestors being brutalized have shaken us to our core. One of our cities has been turned into a battlefield by the federal government and its citizens treated like the enemy. It is almost entirely certain that Donald will never be held accountable in a way that will feel just or satisfying. There is no prison or poverty in his future. He is a lame duck and a shockingly weak man. At the very least, though, let's make sure that he and his party are neutered and let's make sure he knows we know it. |
Tuesday, January 27, 2026
Something to Know - 28 January
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Andy Borowitz
| 8:45 AM (1 hour ago) | |||
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WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Taking decisive action to stem a spiraling crisis, on Tuesday the White House replaced an asshole with a different asshole. Stephen Miller, widely regarded as the senior asshole in the Trump administration, masterminded the sociopath substitution, White House sources said. Minutes after the decision was made to swap psychos, Miller assembled an array of qualified miscreants in the White House Situation Room, including Kristi Noem, Pete Hegseth, Pam Bondi, Karoline Leavitt, and Marco Rubio. "Anyone who thinks this administration is going to run out of assholes any time soon better think again," Miller told reporters. "We have a very deep bench."
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Something to Know - 27 January
| 8:58 PM (14 minutes ago) | |||
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Yesterday President Donald J. Trump blamed Democratic officials for the killing of VA intensive care nurse Alex Pretti in Minnesota Saturday morning. Since then, administration officials and their supporters seem to be coalescing around the idea that the reason there have been violent clashes in Minneapolis is not the violence of federal agents there, but that city officials aren't cooperating with federal officials. As Allison Gill of Mueller, She Wrote notes, this language comes straight from the Insurrection Act, and indeed, MAGA leader and former Trump advisor Steve Bannon told the Wall Street Journal yesterday that he thinks Trump should invoke that act. Bannon said Pretti "knew exactly what he was doing and he knew the consequences. The violent domestic terrorist mob in the streets of Minneapolis needs to stand down now." On right-wing social media, Bannon echoed the language of a dystopian vision of the world that claims immigrants are invading the United States and those protecting them in Minneapolis are dangerous. He told his supporters: "This is just not Minneapolis—this is an organized, well thought through effort to invade the country." MAGA adherents are embracing the daft idea that the Minnesota people who have come together to protect their neighbors are an organized, paid insurgency. But the tide seems to be running against them. This morning, Trump's social media account posted that the president is sending Tom Homan to Minnesota. Homan is a White House advisor under scrutiny for allegations that he accepted $50,000 in cash stuffed into a CAVA bag after promising to steer government contracts toward those offering him the money. According to Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council, Homan has been clashing with the extremist faction led by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, her advisor Corey Lewandowski, and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller because he thinks their made-for-TV violence is doing long-term damage to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol. Aaron Rupar of Public Notice commented: "[I]f Tom 'Cava Bag' Homan is your emergency crisis comms guy, you're f*cked." Trump's account also posted his version of a phone call with Minnesota governor Tim Walz that would let Trump deescalate the situation there. Despite the fact that, as journalist Laura Bassett notes, the administration has been leading its followers to believe Walz is going to jail, Trump's account posted: "Governor Tim Walz called me with a request to work together with respect to Minnesota. It was a very good call, and we, actually, seemed to be on a similar wavelength. I told Governor Walz that I would have Tom Homan call him, and that what we are looking for are any and all Criminals that they have in their possession. The Governor, very respectfully, understood that, and I will be speaking to him in the near future. He was happy that Tom Homan was going to Minnesota, and so am I! We have had such tremendous SUCCESS in Washington, D.C., Memphis, Tennessee, and New Orleans, Louisiana, and virtually every other place that we have 'touched' and, even in Minnesota, Crime is way down, but both Governor Walz and I want to make it better! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP" This morning, Republican Chris Madel withdrew from the Minnesota governor's race, saying "I cannot support the national Republicans' stated retribution on the citizens of our state, nor can I count myself a member of a party that would do so…. Operation Metro Surge has expanded far beyond its stated focus on true public safety threats." "United States citizens, particularly those of color, live in fear. United States citizens are carrying papers to prove their citizenship. That's wrong," Madel said. He added: "I am above all else a pragmatist. The reality is that the national Republicans have made it nearly impossible for a Republican to win a statewide election in Minnesota." Neil Mehta and Valerie Bauerlein of the Wall Street Journal noted that Preya Samsundar, a Republican strategy consultant, agrees, noting that her own mother, who immigrated legally, has begun to carry her passport with her. Some Republicans are backing away from the administration over its tactics and violence in Minnesota. Former vice president Mike Pence today called images from there "deeply troubling" and called for a full investigation into Pretti's killing. By Sunday, Republican senators Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina had all called for investigations. Today those calls reached deeper into the party, with Republican senators John Curtis of Utah, Jerry Moran of Kansas, and Todd Young of Indiana also calling for an investigation and "accountability." This afternoon, Jordain Carney and Adam Wren of Politico reported that Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), chair of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, had called a hearing for February 12. He has asked Customs and Border Protection (CBP) commissioner Rodney Scott, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services director Joseph Edlow, and ICE acting director Todd Lyons to testify. One House Republican told Meredith Lee Hill of Politico: "Many of us wonder if the administration has any clue as to how much this will hurt us legislatively and electorally this year." As Kate Riga of Talking Points Memo noted today, even MAGA firebrand Texas governor Greg Abbott said on a Dallas talk show that the White House needs to "recalibrate and maybe work from a different direction to ensure that they get back to get what they wanted to do to begin with—and that is to remove people from the country." And immigration officers themselves are speaking up. This afternoon, Nicholas Nehamas, Hamed Aleaziz, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, and Alexandra Berzon of the New York Times reported that immigration officers deployed to urban areas are angry at the aggressiveness the Trump administration is employing and at the administration's sending them into dangerous situations. They say the arrest quotas, long hours, and public anger at them are taking a significant toll on morale. Most of those the journalists interviewed said they were unhappy that administration officials had jumped to blame Pretti for his own killing. One agent said he had "always given the benefit of the doubt to the government in these situations" but no longer believed "any of the statements they put out anymore." Throughout the day, there were signs that the administration was preparing to throw Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino under the bus. An unsigned editorial in The Free Press, an outlet closely aligned with the administration, lambasted Noem for pushing lies that the American people can see with their own eyes are untrue. "Perhaps Republican operatives consider the politics of division as a viable strategy for their party to survive the midterm elections," the editorial said, but it noted that "the administration's deportation tactics as well as the conduct of federal agents in Minneapolis are driving voters away from the president and his party." Then, this afternoon, CNN's Priscilla Alvarez reported that Bovino and some of his agents are leaving Minneapolis and returning to the sectors from which they came. Before hitting the road, though, on Friday federal agents took into custody Juan Espinoza Martinez, whom a jury acquitted this week after the Department of Justice accused him of participating in a plot to hire someone to kill Bovino. While CBP appears to be leaving, the operation itself will continue. Tonight Alvarez and her colleague Michael Williams reported that DHS had suspended Bovino's access to his official social media accounts. In response to Attorney General Pam Bondi's suggestion in a letter on Saturday, shortly after Pretti's killing, that Governor Tim Walz could "restore the rule of law" in Minnesota by handing over the state's voter rolls, Walz said: "I think everybody understands what the last request was, totally unrelated to anything on the voter files. This is again…Donald Trump telling everybody that the election was rigged…. I would just give a pro tip to the attorney general. There's two million documents in the Epstein files we're still waiting on. Go ahead and work on those." This afternoon, Trump turned back to tariffs, saying he is increasing tariff rates on South Korean "Autos, Lumber, Pharma, and all other Reciprocal TARIFFS, from 15% to 25%." This evening, Trump's social media account posted that he "just had a very good telephone conversation with Mayor Jacob Frey, of Minneapolis. Lots of progress is being made!" Frey responded with a statement: "I spoke with President Trump this afternoon and appreciated the conversation. I expressed how much Minneapolis has benefited from our immigrant communities and was clear that my main ask is that Operation Metro Surge needs to end. The president agreed that the present situation cannot continue. "Some federal agents will begin leaving the area tomorrow, and I will continue pushing for the rest involved in this operation to go. "Minneapolis will continue to cooperate with state and federal law enforcement on real criminal investigations—but we will not participate in unconstitutional arrests of our neighbors or enforce federal immigration law. Violent criminals should be held accountable based on the crimes they commit, not based on where they are from. "I will continue working with all levels of government to keep our communities safe, keep crime down, and put Minneapolis residents first. "I plan to meet with Border Czar Tom Homan tomorrow to further discuss next steps." |
Monday, January 26, 2026
Something to Know - 26 January
| Jan 25, 2026, 10:57 PM (8 hours ago) | |||
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As the nation mourned the killing of VA ICU nurse Alex Pretti yesterday at the hands of federal officials in Minneapolis, President Donald J. Trump spent last night at the White House at a black-tie private screening of a documentary about First Lady Melania Trump. Amazon paid $40 million for the rights to the film just weeks after executive chair Jeff Bezos dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago following the former president's reelection and is spending another $35 million to promote the film. Then, this morning, Trump's social media account posted a 450-word social media screed complaining about the lawsuit against his addition of a massive ballroom to the White House. Calling the National Trust for Historic Preservation a "Radical Left" organization, the account claimed that the addition "is being done with the design, consent, and approval of the highest levels of the United States Military and Secret Service. The mere bringing of this ridiculous lawsuit has already, unfortunately, exposed this heretofore Top Secret fact. Stoppage of construction, at this late date, when so much has already been ordered and done, would be devastating to the White House, our Country, and all concerned." This morning, administration officials doubled down on their insistence that the killing had been justified. On CNN's State of the Union this morning, U.S. Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino claimed the true victims of yesterday's shooting were federal agents. He confirmed that the agents who killed Pretti yesterday remain on the streets today, though they have been reassigned elsewhere. FBI director Kash Patel claimed on the Fox News Channel that the fact Pretti was carrying a weapon proved that he was planning trouble, although because he was part of a community-led first-responder network, carrying the weapon for which he had a permit made sense. But Americans are not buying it. They are coalescing around the idea of the American people versus an out-of-control government. As conservative lawyer George Conway put it: "I just checked—it turns out that Art. II, Sec. 1 of the Constitution of the United States does *not* say 'The executive Power shall be vested in a bunch of sociopaths who think they can do whatever the f*ck they want and make sh*t up as they go along.'" Reports out of Minnesota say that in the face of the terror inflicted on it by federal agents, the people there are even more closely linked together in community solidarity. They are patrolling the streets, donating food, delivering groceries, helping with legal services, organizing to look out for each other in a demonstration of community solidarity so foreign to administration figures that Attorney General Pam Bondi yesterday suggested that there was something nefarious about how well organized they are as they protect their neighbors. In Minneapolis today, the Minnesota prison system took the extraordinary step of launching its own website to combat lies from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Its first major announcement suggested that Bovino had lied about the Border Patrol operation that was underway when agents killed Alex Pretti. The Minnesota Department of Corrections expressed its condolences to the family and loved ones of Alex Pretti and said that although Bovino claimed that the operation was targeting a man with a significant criminal history, that information was false. In fact, the individual Bovino identified had never been in custody in Minnesota, and records showed only traffic-related offenses for him. Records did show, though, that he had been in federal immigration custody during Trump's first administration and had been released. Chief Brian O'Hara of the Minneapolis Police Department told Margaret Brennan of Face the Nation, "People have had enough. This is the third shooting now in less than three weeks. The Minneapolis Police Department went the entire year last year recovering about 900 guns from the street, arresting hundreds and hundreds of violent offenders, and we didn't shoot anyone, and now this is the second American citizen that's been killed, it's the third shooting within three weeks…. This is not sustainable. This police department has only 600 police officers. We are stretched incredibly thin. This is taking an enormous toll, trying to manage all of this chaos on top of having to be the police department for a major city. It's too much." The Minnesota National Guard made it clear which side they were on. Wearing neon vests to distinguish themselves from federal agents, they handed out doughnuts, coffee, and hot chocolate to anti-ICE protesters. The National Basketball Players Association said it could no longer remain silent. "Now more than ever," it said, "we must defend the right to freedom of speech and stand in solidarity with the people in Minnesota protesting and risking their lives to demand justice. The fraternity of NBA players, like the United States itself, is a community enriched by its global citizens, and we refuse to let the flames of division threaten the civil liberties that are meant to protect us all. The NBPA and its members extend our deepest condolences to the families of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, just as our thoughts remain focused on the safety and well-being of all members of our community." The newest killing has opened up a rift in Republican ranks. Administration officials not allied with Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and her cronies are complaining to reporters, including Bill Melugin of the Fox News Channel, that they are frustrated with DHS officials' statements that Pretti was intending a "massacre" of federal agents in the face of videos that disprove such absurd claims. They have told Melugin such comments are "catastrophic." "[W]e are losing this war," sources say, "we are losing the base and the narrative." Indeed, at the base level of politics, MAGA supporters who support gun ownership are appalled by statements like that of FBI director Kash Patel, who told the Fox News Channel's Maria Bartiromo, "You cannot bring a firearm loaded with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It's that simple. You don't have the right to break the law and incite violence." But Pretti had a license to carry a weapon, and he did not brandish it. President Rob Doar of the Minnesota Gun Owners Law Center noted that Pretti had the right to carry a gun in that situation and that it shouldn't be necessary "to choose between exercising your First Amendment rights or your Second Amendment rights." He expressed concern that "our government and agents of our government are not engaging in good faith with what we're seeing with our own eyes." Lawyer John Mitnick, who served as deputy counsel of the Homeland Security Council from its inception during the George W. Bush administration and then served as general counsel of the United States Department of Homeland Security from 2018 to 2019, when he clashed with Stephen Miller, wrote on social media: "I helped to establish DHS in 2002 and 2003 and later had the homeland security portfolio as a White House Counsel and served as General Counsel of the Department. I am enraged and embarrassed by DHS's lawlessness, fascism, and cruelty. Impeach and remove Trump—now." Aside from a few strong MAGA voices, elected Republicans appeared reluctant to defend the killing. Neither Senate majority leader John Thune (R-SD) nor House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) commented on it. Vermont's Republican governor Phil Scott did, though, leading the way for other Republicans in districts that are sliding away from MAGA. In a statement, he said: "Enough…It's not acceptable for American citizens to be killed by federal agents for exercising their God-given and constitutional rights to protest their government. At best, these federal immigration operations are a complete failure of coordination of acceptable public safety and law enforcement practices, training, and leadership. At worst, it's a deliberate federal intimidation and incitement of American citizens that's resulting in the murder of Americans…. The president should pause these operations, de-escalate the situation, and reset the federal government's focus on truly criminal illegal immigrants. In the absence of presidential action, Congress and the courts must step up to restore constitutionality." G. Elliot Morris of Strength in Numbers noted today that even the Republican-leaning Rasmussen polls have shown that 59% of Americans disapprove of Trump's handling of immigration, while only 39% approve. In Strength in Numbers today, he reported that "Trump's 2024 coalition has come undone." He explained that "[y]oung voters, non-white voters, and low-turnout voters who swung to Trump from 2020 to 2024 have swung back against him in force. In many cases, these groups are even more anti-Trump now than they were ahead of the 2020 election." Morris also noted that Trump's approval rating is not underwater in ten of the states he won in 2024, as I wrote last night. It's underwater in fifteen. Today the editorial boards of both Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal and his New York Post urged the administration to pause its ICE operations in Minneapolis after the killing of Alex Pretti. The Wall Street Journal's famously right-wing editorial board warned that "[t]he Trump Administration spin on this simply isn't believable." It continued: "Ms. Noem and Mr. Miller aren't credible spokesmen. Their social-media and cable-TV strategy is to own the libs, rather than to persuade Americans. This is backfiring against Republicans…. Mr. Miller's mass deportation methods are turning immigration, an issue Mr. Trump owned in 2024, into a political liability for Republicans in 2026. Americans don't want law enforcement shooting people in the street or arresting five-year-old boys." Tonight, the editorial board of the New York Post warned that Trump's ICE actions in Minneapolis are "backfiring." "Swing voters…see US citizens dying at federal agents' hands, and recoil in horror." It concluded: "Mr. President, the American people didn't vote for these scenes and you can't continue to order them to not believe their lying eyes." Trump's social media account turned defensive tonight. After repeating Trump's false claim that he had won election in a historic landslide (in reality, he won less than 50% of the vote), it blamed Democrats for the chaos ICE and CBP agents have caused in Democratic-led cities. It demanded that every Democratic mayor and governor cooperate with the administration to "MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!" Yesterday, after Alex Pretti's death, the son of a man Pretti had cared for at the VA hospital published a video of Pretti speaking at his father's deathbed. "Today we remember that freedom is not free," Pretti said. "We have to work at it, nurture it, protect it, and even sacrifice for it. May we never forget and always remember our brothers and sisters who have served so that we may enjoy the gift of freedom. So in this moment, we remember and give thanks for their dedication and selfless service to our nation in the cause of our freedom. In this solemn hour, we [give] them our honor, and our gratitude." |