Dear Everybody:
So, I guess the ICE/Gestapo guys are actually pulling out of Minnesota because the entire Trump administration is on TV talking about how the campaign was a huge success, so huge they no longer have any need to be there:
--Karoline Leavitt: "Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota has been a resounding success." Then she turned around and said, "ICE operations are continuing. Nothing will stop President Trump." (And since literally everything out of her mouth is a lie, I guess operations AREN’T continuing.)
--Stephen Miller claimed the Trump administration struck a deal with Minnesota officials whereby "jails and prisons are no longer going to obey the unlawful edict by Keith Ellison. Instead, they’re gonna follow federal law, the supreme law of the land, and hand over criminal illegal aliens."
--Mayor Frey and Governor Walz both instantly denied that there was any deal. Mayor Frey: "Obviously there’s progress in that they are leaving it now, but as far as some deal was struck to get them out--the answer is no. I think what you saw was a federal government and administration that thought they were going to break the people of Minnesota down."
--On Tom Homan admitting DHS had "had some issues" in Minneapolis, Frey said, "Issues would certainly be the understatement of the century. These are people that should be alive today. Alex and Renee were standing up for their neighbors. Constitutional protected activities were taking place."
--Over on right-wing OAN News, they were claiming that the campaign was so successful that "George Washington would join ICE." (Um, somehow I don’t think so.)
--Aaron Rupar: "Bovino advanced all the way to within eyesight of Paisley Park, but his supply lines were stretched too thin, and ultimately his frozen troops were encircled by Will Stancil and wine moms with whistles."
--Kristi Noem gave a press conference declaring victory in Minnesota (tellingly, she held it in California) and could barely be heard over the protesters behind her. Her people put up a barricade of boxes so the press couldn’t see them. She claimed DHS would continue to work to "bring peace and safety to the Twin Cities."
In other ICE/Gestapo news, the Democrats held firm and refused to vote for funding for ICE unless they agreed to reforms (like judicial warrants, not tear-gassing protesters, and taking their masks off) and it now looks like there will be a government shutdown at midnight tonight:
--ICE and the Border Patrol are still funded by supplemental money in the Big Beautiful Bill, but it’s harder to spend and will deplete those funds.
--The Senate went home.
In other other ICE/Gestapo news:
--The DHS has apparently lied about every single incident they were involved in:
--Two ICE agents have been placed on leave because they lied under oath about an incident in which they shot a guy in the leg. They claimed that he had viciously assaulted them with a snow shovel and a broom, but video now shows that that’s not what happened at all. Both men were instead running into the house to get away from the agents when the man was shot. "The US Attorney in the cse said "newly discovered evidence" was "materially inconsistent with the allegations made against him and another guy. Kristi Neom had said, "What we saw last night in Minneapolis was an attempted murder of federal enforcement." She claimed the two officers had fired in self-defense. Today ICE Director Todd Lyons said the two officers involved in the incident appeared to have lied under oath and are being investigated by DOJ.
--The woman they shot five times who miraculously survived, Miramar Martinez, is suing the DHS, and discovery has shown that she did NOT ram the agents’ car, as they said, but that instead they intentionally rammed hers and then opened fire. And bragged about it afterward.
--In the case where they took a guy they were holding in detention to the hospital claiming that he had run head-first into a brick wall, the doctors determined that he in fact had been beaten to a pulp by the agents and the guards in the detention center. He had eight skull fractures all around his head and multiple aneurysms, and the doctors all agreed that his injuries were inconsistent with the story the agents told.
--Jameslet: "We’ve seen enough--we should not trust ANY description of an event they provide."
--And in a totally-unrelated-to-ICE case, the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, DHS claimed that the local sheriff in Tucson was refusing to hand over forensic evidence to the FBI. The FBI says they’re lying. (Gosh, who am I going to believe? I mean, DHS has such a stellar reputation at this point for telling the truth. On the other hand, I wouldn’t hand anything over to Kash Patel’s FBI either given how they’ve screwed up every case they’ve had, including Charlie Kirk’s death.)
--There were more ICE hearings on Capitol Hill today, with ICE officials testifying and Minnesota’s AG Keith Ellison being questioned.
--Dem Senator Andy Kim: "There’s reporting that FBI agents equipped with a signed warrant prepared to document blood spatter and bullet holes in Ms. Good’s SUV. They received orders to stop supposedly from Kash Patel. Do you think a sufficient investigation is happening?" Director of ICE Todd Lyons: "I can’t speak to that."
--Under questioning from GOP Senator Rand Paul, ICE officers were forced to admit that yelling at officers is not assault and recording officials is not a crime.
--Republicans tried to blame Renee Good’s and Alex Pretti’s deaths totally on Keith Ellison and Governor Walz.
--GOP Senator Rick Scott: "No one wanted Renee Good or Alex Pretti to die, but..." ("But" in a sentence negates everything that came before it.)
In Epstein files news:
--We find out new horrible stuff every day. Today we got a double dose. First, in one email, Epstein talked about going to Paris with Woody Allen, calling it "les pedophiles convention." Woody Allen, who was accused of molesting his six-year-old step-daughter Dylan, has his name in the Epstein files over 7000 times.
--Second, you know those companies that come into the schools and take pictures of every kid on "Picture Day?" Today we found out that one of the largest of those companies, LifeTouch, has major connections to not one but two of the Epstein co-conspirators.
--The company is owned by Apollo Global Management Group, which was headed by Leon Black, one of the people most intimately connected with Epstein, and the company’s current CEO Mark Rowan also had close ties to Epstein.
--Multiple districts have canceled their contracts with LifeTouch because of a wave of concerned parents objecting (which is putting it mildly.)
--Briana Rose Lee: "LifeTouch is the largest school photo company in the country. They keep a database of all the digital photos of kids and their personal information. Burn. It. All. Down."
--Recreational Pilot: "Brings a new meaning to LifeTouch, doesn’t it?"
--John from Iowa: "this is insane. A pedophile having a database of pictures of school children? We’ve got to get Pam Bondi on this. Oh, wait, the Dow is at 50,000. Never mind."
--We also found out some new details about Epstein’s death from the files. Epstein’s cellmate, a convicted killer who had been put in with Epstein in the days before Epstein’s death in spite of his reputation for violence, had an illegal cell phone. In the days before Epstein’s death, he took 17 calls on that cellphone. ALL 17 PHONE NUMBERS WERE REDACTED BY THE DOJ.
The questions about Trump’s involvement just keep piling up, and try as much as they might, Republicans can’t avoid them.
--During Pam Bondi’s hearing, Ted Lieu played Bondi the infamous clip of Trump and Epstein partying together and asked her if there were any underaged girls at the party the two attended. Bondi: "This is so ridiculous! There is no evidence that Donald Trump has committed a crime." Ted Lieu: "I believe you just lied under oath."
--Dem Rep Ted Lieu brought up the email in which Trump and Epstein are accused of raping an underage girl and then her later being found with "her head blown off." Lieu: "Witness calls FBI’s National Threat Operations Center and reports girl, later found dead, told him Trump and Epstein raped her. DOJ NEVER INTERVIEWS WITNESS. When will DOJ interview this witness?"
--Cheri Jacobus: "And there it is. Rape. Murder. (Donald Trump) raping a girl and she’s later found dead. Thank you, Ted Lieu, for bringing this out in the open when so many others are afraid to point to this in the Epstein Files."
--Even Trump himself can’t avoid the questions, even though he has been avoiding personal appearances this week. Today a reporter asked him, "Were you aware that Lutnick visited Epstein Island?" Trump: "I wasn’t, but from what I hear he was there with his wife and children. I was never there."
--TofuNYC: "Speaks volumes that he felt the need to say that."
--Lisa Rubin, on why no one in Trump’s administration has been fired for being in the files: "If we put the focus on somebody like Howard Lutnick...who went to his island once for a lunch, if we are that focused on a single lunch, imagine what would happen if Howard Lutnick were to suffer consequences, because our eyes would automatically turn back to the person who has demonstrably, much more extensive ties with Jeffrey Epstein..."
--Fox is trying hard to protect Trump by playing none of the stories about Epstein or the Epstein files. They are instead covering the Nancy Guthrie disappearance nonstop.
--And GOP Rep Tim Burchett is blaming the whole thing on Obama, who he claims was some kind of manufactured Manchurian candidate. "President Obama was created. He’s not organic. I mean, you pick, this obscure guy from college who has zero records, you have college people that don’t remember him ever being there, and he runs and he’s all of a sudden people drop out of races and he’s unopposed and he goes from a state senator to a to a US senator to an unknown to be in the US because he was created. They found somebody that fit their mold...Barack Obama does not have a birth certificate, he has a test tube number."
In Trump Destroys the Entire Country news:
--Trump repealed the endangerment finding that says CO2 is a danger to humans’ health, thereby undermining the rationale which underpins the governor’s legal authority to combat climate change, negating the reason for all EPA laws and regulations and pretty much destroying the EPA.
--Trump: "We are officially terminating the so-called endangerment finding." He said this was "the single largest deregulation in American history."
--Repealing the endangerment finding rather than the EPA laws could prevent future presidents from reinstating any climate rules in the future.
--Reporter: "What do you tell Americans who are concerned that repealing the endangerment finding comes at a cost to public health and the environment based on science?" Trump: "I tell them don’t worry about it. This was all a scam. They’ll have more money to spend for healthcare." (Wait--if it’s a scam, why do they need more money for healthcare?)
--learn: "You wonder how much the Republican Party really thinks that you solve a problem by not believing in it." He called it the Tinkerbell Party. "If you just believe it’s not true (and subsequently remove all regulations), why, then you won’t have any more storms or bad air quality or toxic water problems." (Or mega-tornadoes or dying coral reefs or melting glaciers or flash flooding or rivers on fire or killer fogs.)
And they’re STILL talking about Bad Bunny:
--Now that the actual numbers are in, Turning Point USA’s actual viewing numbers weren’t six million, they were 10,000.
--Kid Rock claims he wasn’t lip-synching, but they did admit they pre-recorded the concert on a sound stage, and that they hired 250 actors to pretend to be the audience.
--Trump, who had been the one leading the fight against Bad Bunny’s halftime show, did not watch the alternative. There’s video of his big party at Mar-a-lago of everybody, including him, watching Bad Bunny’s show on large TV screens.
--Rick Wilson: "Here’s the cold, hard truth for MAGA. Bad Bunny doesn’t know who you are, and he doesn’t care. The NFL doesn’t care. The advertisers definitely don’t care. You are shouting at a tide that went out three decades ago. You’re losing the culture because your "culture" is a stagnant pond of grievance, gas station boner pills, Lee Greenwood covers, of a be-jorted Kid Rock lyp-syncing in a nearly-empty sound stage. The future is dancing past you in better clothes and with sexier music, and your only response is to scream into the void of Truth Social. It’s not a political stance; it’s a geriatric temper tantrum."
--Andrew Junker: "The Super Bowl Halftime Show featuring Bad Bunny is expected to take place between 8:00 and 8:30 p.m. ET. The alternative halftime show by Turning Point USA featuring Kid Rock is expected to take place between 1930 and 1932."
--Tonya: "The same people who need their own half-time show...needed their own water fountains, too."
--The Onion: "Terrified Conservatives Lose Ability to Speak English After Exposure to Bad Bunny Performance. ‘Dios Mio!’ Cry Millions of Panicking Republicans."
In Resistance news:
--The rainbow flag outside Stonewall was raised by New York City officials and activists in defiance of the Trump edict to take it down.
--Ami Fields: "I know this sounds simplistic, but it is a very good thing that the Trump administration is now squarely on the defensive about ICE, but also about most things--and it’s great Democrats are sustaining the pressure. Credit where it’s due."
In historical news:
--Today is the anniversary of the founding of the National Negro League in 1920 in Kansas City, a group of teams owned by black owners. It was a critical step for Black baseball players who at that point were excluded from the all-white Major Leagues. Not only did they make baseball available to an entire new audience and hundreds of thousands of people (their games were frequently far more exciting and daring than Major League games) but they also provided a chance for Black players to shine. Players like Buck Owens, Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, Buck Leonard, and the astonishing Satchel Paige proved they weren’t just as good as white players, but better. The teams were also acting as a training ground for scores of Black players who were then more than ready to play in the Majors when they finally got the chance--not only Jackie Robinson, but Roy Campanella, Willie Mays, Ernie Banks, and Hank Aaron, who went on break Babe Ruth’s home run record. It’s a disgrace that the Negro leagues had to exist at all, but thank God they did!
In other news:
--Border Patrol leader Greg Bovino was thrown out of a Las Vegas bar for being roaring drunk and disorderly. Among other inappropriate comments, he kept asking for beaver meat.
--Trump endorsed dictator Victor Orban in a long Truth Social post full of praise for him.
--In a hearing today, Trump’s SEC commissioner just refused to say insider trading was bad.
In good news:
--A federal judge terminated the deportation case of Narcisco Barranco, the father of three US Marines who had been arrested and detained while he was at his gardening job.
--A federal judge ruled on men who were removed from the country without due process, ordering the Trump administration to either return them to the US or afford them opportunities to proceed in court from abroad, whichever they prefer.
--In the new AP-NORC poll, Trump’s approval rating had dropped to 36%.
Best meme today: "Before the Epstein files--Tax the rich. After the Epstein files--Castrate the rich."
Best comment of the day, from Abraham Lincoln: "The struggle of today is not altogether for today--it is for a vast future also."
Keep calm and carry on,
Connie Willis