Dear Everybody:
There has been another shooting in Minneapolis:
--ICE agents shot a man in the leg as he ran into his home while his pregnant wife and children were inside. He called 911 for help.
--The DOJ claimed that he was an illegal alien from Venezuela and that he assaulted them and then two people came out of a nearby apartment house and allegedly attacked the officer with a snow shovel and broom handle. The officer claimed he fired "defensive shots," striking the man in the leg. Kristi Noem said the agent was "beat up" and bruised. "We’re thankful he made it out alive."
--The New York Times said, "The federal government’s narrative could not immediately be verified." MuellerSheWrote: "Better: The federal government’s narrative is consistently horseshit and should be ignored."
--ICE fired pepper balls at a CNN crew after someone threw "a projectile" at them. An ICE agent said "The crowd had become dangerous and unlawful, throwing fireworks, ice, rocks, and other projectiles." (Snowballs? Shades of the Boston Massacre.)
--ICE agents are upping the violence, breaking into a home with weapons drawn, dragging a teenager away from his job, engaging in door-to-door searches without warrants, bashing down doors and entering houses without a warrant (clearly illegal and a direct violation of the Constitution), using illegal chokeholds and putting their knees on peoples necks, smashing car windows, dragging people out of their cars, spraying pepper spray and throwing flash bangs randomly into groups of people without warning, and threatening to spray a 9-months-pregnant female immigration attorney in the face with pepper spray.
--Status Coup News: "ICE unleashed an onslaught of flash bang grenades and chemical ammunition at unarmed Minneapolis protesters in WAR-LIKE attack. Several protesters struck. Reporter Z.D. Roberts was struck in the head on camera.
--MuellerSheWrote: "It seems as though ICE has been instructed to escalate the violence to justify more violence, and to create propaganda to make us forget we outnumber them 10,000 to one."
The DHS is also now claiming that the DOJ lawyers who quit because they refused to investigate Renee Good’s widow for crimes were actually fired:
--Pam Bondi: "We had six prosecutors who suddenly decided they didn’t want to support the men and women in ICE. They came and said we want to resign...I fired them all. They would be an HR nightmare, so people better look into them. One of them actually defended BLM. They want to be part of the resistance. Bring it on. They won’t be working for Donald Trump and the DOJ. Good riddance."
--Rage of a Thousand Forebears; "I have pretty much never seen an American AG doing a press hit in front of the White House like a mouthpiece for the administration. She disgraces the office."
--Brad Moore: "She would put them all in jail to make an example out of them for disobeying her orders if she could. Most illegal Attorney General we’ve ever had."
And they are now claiming that the agent who murdered Renee Good had severe "internal injuries:"
--The report came from "two anonymous government sources" with no confirmation or evidence and was promptly repeated by CBS and then JD Vance (of course.) They said he had suffered "internal bleeding to the torso."
--JD Vance: "While much of the left has lied about this case, it turns out ramming a law enforcement official with a car causes injuries. Who knew?" (Note: JD Vance has already admitted he would lie if it advanced a narrative. Remember how the Hatians were eating the cats and dogs?)
--Ron Filipkowski: "MAGA CBS puts out this ‘story’ which contains only two anonymous ‘US government’ sources and no other information, and it is subsequently used by every right-winter to try and justify their narrative. Exactly how Trump, Vance, Carr, Ellison, and Weiss want the network to operate."
--JJ Cornflower: "If true, he wouldn’t have walked around after he shot her, the hospital he supposedly went to wouldn’t have immediately discharged traumatic internal bleeding, a medical report would exist, he wouldn’t have carried boxes moving out of his house the next day (there’s video), and it wouldn’t have taken five days for the news to break."
--renee dodson: "It took them 7 whole days to come up with that BS."
--Judy: "It’s garbage. As a retired health care worker I can say that 1) he wasn’t struck by the car and 2) if he’d had severe internal injuries he wouldn’t have walked away."
In response, Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act:
--Trump: "If the corrupt police of Minnesota don’t obey the law--stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of ICE, who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State. Thank you for your attention to this matter. President Donald J. Trump."
--New York Times: "President Trump this morning cited attacks against immigration agents in Minnesota as a reason for potentially invoking the Insurrection Act to quell protests. But a review of the federal judiciary’s central database on Thursday afternoon indicates that no federal charges--such as assaulting an officer--have been filed against anyone in connection with the crackdown over the past week."
--Politico: "Every modern use of the Insurrection Act has come either at a governor’s request or to expand civil rights protections over state objections. Trump would flip that script, sending troops against a governor’s wishes to crush protests of the federal government’s own actions."
--Right on schedule, Deputy AG Todd Blanche called what’s happening in Minnesota "an insurrection." He blamed it on the governor and the mayor.
--White House spokesman Abigail Jackson: "Officers act heroically to enforce the law and protect American communities."
--Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said all ICE is doing is "immigration and customs enforcement."
--David Marcus of Fox News says protesters are "organized gangs of wine moms" and "self-important white women...If we simply allow these cosplaying would-be revolutionaries to do whatever they want...Renee Good will not be the last to needlessly die." (Is that a threat?)
--And, as if all that wasn’t bad enough, white nationalists are holding a rally and a march in downtown Minneapolis on Saturday.
--Brian Tyler Cohen: "They are not really after illegals. They are using illegals as an excuse to create a police state aimed at you."
In Trump’s Hitler/Napoleon World Domination Tour news:
--JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco rubio hosted the foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland yesterday amid Trump’s efforts to take over Greenland. The Danish foreign minister said the two sides "have a fundamental disagreement."
--Trump: "Anything less than Greenland in the hands of the US is unacceptable."
--The EU, Sweden, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, and Estonia are all sending additional troops and military equipment to defend Greenland.
--Russia offered to help Trump invade Greenland. (At least now we know whose side everybody’s on.)
--Chris Hayes: "Today Denmark, which controls Greenland, did what was once unthinkable--protectively moving military assets onto the island into the event that Trump does to Greenland what Hitler did to Czechoslovakia and Austria, when he invaded and annexed them in 1938."
--European leaders are also contemplating sanctions against American companies (since money seems to be the only thing that Trump understands.
--Raelerin: "Our government has devolved into full-blown insanity."
--Senator Ruben Gallego: "I’m introducing a War Powers Resolution to stop Trump’s reckless aggression toward Greenland. We are not endangering our national security to satisfy a small man’s ego." --A House Republican confirmed there are enough votes in the House of Representatives to impeach Trump if he invades Greenland.
As a side note to how this buffoonish administration is handling the invasion of an ally and the potential destruction of NATO and the world order, take a look at what Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Iceland did:
--Meidas Touch: "On the eve of a critical diplomatic meeting with Danish and Greenlandic officials, Trump’s US ambassador to Iceland Billy Long joked on the House floor that Iceland will become the 52nd state and he will become the governor. That was how it was described by reporters last night. There is nothing about that statement that signals a joke. It’s a threat, delivered by the very person Trump wants representing the US in Reykjavik."
--Today Long apologized and managed to make it worse: "There was nothing serious about that, I was with some people who I hadn’t met for three years, and they were joking about Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry being governor of Greenland, and they started joking about me and if anyone took offense to it, then I apologize."
--Two Spirit: "Some joke."
--The Dude: "It’s never a joke with them, no matter what they say."
In Venezuela news:
--Trump posted a photo of himself with the caption, "The Acting President of Venezuela." He also posted that Marco Rubio should be President of Cuba. (Exactly how is that different from what Billy Long did? I picture them sitting around divvying up the world among themselves: "You can have Colombia and you can have Nigeria...")
--Trump is selling seized Venezuela oil and putting the cash in a bank account in Qatar. He described Qatar as a "neutral location where money can flow freely with US approval
and without risk of seizure." Trump noted that at least some of the revenue would be held in Treasury accounts.
--Ron Filipkowski: "Why did he put the money into a Qatari bank account instead of the US Treasury?"
--MuellerSheWrote: "Who among us hasn’t stolen oil and stashed the profits in a bank in the country that bailed out our son-in-law’s building at 666 5th Avenue?"
Patrick: "I was not aware that the US had official accounts in foreign countries."
--Keeper of the Flame: "And let’s remember Trump’s AG Pam Bondi and her extensive ‘relationship’ with Qatar. There are no coincidences."
In Epstein news:
--Mother Jones is suing the Bureau of Prisons for Ghislaine Maxwell’s records.
--People are continuing to talk about the auto worker who shouted "Pedophile protector!" at Trump (or at least Trump assumed he was shouting at him, which tells you something):
--The two Go Fund Mes ended with a total of $810,000 for the worker.
--Dem Rep Sarah McBride: "Look, people are clutching their pearls at this guy yelling something at the president. They are more offended by a worker standing up to the president and calling him out for his hypocrisy than they are by the president trying to cover up for a human trafficking ring."
--In her press conference today, Karoline Leavitt indignantly showed reporters a photo: "Look at this vehicle. It says F--k ICE. You have these individuals who are putting their middle finger proudly so at the camera."
--Kash Patel is now offering a $100,000 reward for information about the vandalism. He’s claiming that several government vehicles were damaged, and that items were stolen from inside.
--YonYone: "And that’s worse than, say, shooting someone in the head? Cry me a river, you self-absorbed sadistic pedo protector."`
--The Lincoln Project: "Save us the outrage, sweetie."
--Adam Parkhomenko: "Didn’t Donald Trump give his middle finger to a UAW union worker 48 hours ago?"
--Governor Newsom: "Wait till she learns about the First Amendment..."
In Trying to get Rid of Jerome Powell at the Fed news:
--Trump and his allies are now saying what they’re doing out loud.
--Reporter: "Jamie Dimon said today that it’s not really a good idea to be chipping away at the Fed’s independence. Do you think he’s wrong about that?" Trump: "Yeah, I think it’s fine what I’m doing. We have a bad Fed person."
In historical news:
--In cities occupied by the British military during the American Revolution--Newport, Boston, New York--the military occupation turned those cities more firmly against the British than before.
In Resistance news:
--Philadelphia’s DA and sheriff warned ICE they will be arrested if they try this stuff in Philadelphia: "We will arrest you. We will put handcuffs on you. We will close those cuffs. We will put you in a cell. We will do everything in our power to convict you and we will make sure you serve your entire sentence because Donald Trump has no power whatsoever to pardon you."
--70 Democrats have signed onto the motion to impeach Kristi Noem.
--Aaron Rupar: "Any Democratic votes to fund DHS later this month as Minneapolis is being terrorized by DHS is going to be a major slap in the face to Americans living here. Demand major reforms or shut the government down."
In other news:
--The DOJ testified in court that federal law does not allow judges to fire someone like Alina Habba, that only the DOJ can fire her. (Not true.)
--There have been 124 cases of measles in South Carolina since last Friday. The number has doubled in a week, and now 1000 people who visited the State Museum may have been infected. This brings the number of measles cases for the year up to 552, and we’re not even through January.
--At a party at Mar-a-lago this week, performers wore costumes like those of the court of the French king Louis XVI and dog masks and danced the minuet for attendees.
In good news:
--A federal court ordered $145 million dollars in funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to be immediately released to the bureau.
--Although the Republicans caved and failed to block Trump’s invasion of Venezuela, Trump had to do major arm-twisting of GOP Reps Josh Hawley and Todd Young and had to send JD Vance to break the tie.
--In a new AP survey, over half of adults now consider Trump to be a poor or terrible president. (I know, I know, the number should be higher, but still...)
--In a new poll, Trump’s approval rating has dropped from minus 8.8 to minus 11.4. In one day.
Best comment of the day, from rugbymom: "As Trump/Miller/Homan/Noem have increased the violence, chaos, and repression, instead of knuckling under and submitting (as they believed they could get anyone to do) MORE people are stepping up and showing up for their neighbors, their cities, and the rule of law. The opposition is stronger, more determined, and more active--and more widespread than ever."
Today’s bit of poetry, by Gerard Manley Hopkinson: "And I have asked to be where no storms come..."
Keep calm and carry on,
Connie Willis