Democrats react to the ICE-engendered crisis in Minnesota with their usual aplomb, savoir-faire, organization, coherence, and discipline.
I kid, I kid. Sorry for the cheap cynicism, but it’s difficult to watch congenitally impotent, institutionalized politicians and a propagandized populace attempt to deal with the deliberate provocations of the Trump regime without resorting to snark.
On Monday I attempted to summarize the precipitating causes of the ICE crisis in Minnesota as well as give some of the political and demographic backstory.
Yesterday Yves posted Common Dreams’ report on the federal lawsuits filed by Illinois and Minnesota “in hopes of ending deadly operations by President Donald Trump administration’s intended to hunt down and deport immigrants.”
In hopes and prayers, perhaps.
Updates on Trump vs Minnesota
Today I’ll cover:
- The latest moves of the Trump Regime
- Some stumbles on the way to the crackdown
- Democrats react and how
- Intra-Democratic party politics in Minnesota
- Some calls for more serious and effective action from unexpected quarters
- Not All Democrats
- The connection to the geo-politics of Somaliland
And Trump Just Don’t Stop
Yesterday, teh Donald took to Truth Social to post a screed that ended with “FEAR NOT, GREAT PEOPLE OF MINNESOTA, THE DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION IS COMING!” Here’s the full statement.
On the 8th, the Trump regime issued a new policy that “members of Congress need to schedule any visits to Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities 7 days in advance. Any exemptions to the rule have to be approved by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem” the new policy bypasses a court order that had blocked officials from restricting such oversight visits.
The new policy was not widely reported until the 11th.
Trump’s spokesgal Karoline Leavitt posted the following on X yesterday (note the link to Fox News, synergy!)
🚨🚨🚨NEW: President Trump ends temporary protected status for thousands of Somalis in US
'Somali migrants with TPS will be required to leave the country by March 17'https://t.co/Bth3c5xDlF
— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) January 13, 2026
NBC explained some details and had a quote from DHS boss/ICE Barbie Kristi Noem:
The Trump administration is ending temporary protected status for Somali immigrants, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed in a post on X on Tuesday.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services confirmed on X that “Somali nationals with TPS are now required to leave the United States by March 17, 2026.”
…
In a statement, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said, “Temporary means temporary.”“Country conditions in Somalia have improved to the point that it no longer meets the law’s requirement for Temporary Protected Status,” she said. “Further, allowing Somali nationals to remain temporarily in the United States is contrary to our national interests. We are putting Americans first.”
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) January 14, 2026
Regarding the slogan, “ONE OF OURS, ALL OF YOURS”:
“The phrase evokes the Lidice Massacre in June 1942, where Nazis retaliated for Reinhard Heydrich’s assassination by wiping out the Czech village. SS forces shot nearly all men over 14, sent women to Ravensbrück camp, and scattered children—some gassed at Chełmno, others Germanized. They then razed the site, killing about 340 in a symbol of terror tactics.”
FWIW Lead stories has “fact-checked” the above claim and found “No, that’s not true” but it’s clear from the article they just did Google searches and did not consult any actual historians.
The Metro has a quick rundown of some of the other times the Trump regime has echoed not-see rhetoric and I’ve previously posted about White House Deputy Fuhrer Chief of Staff Stephen Miller plagiarizing Joseph Goebells.
So yea, nothing to see here folks, listen to the “fact-checkers” and go back to sleep.
ICE-ing Ain’t Easy
But not all runs smooth for the Trump juggernaut.
Ken Klippenstein has revealed multiple internal ICE documents revealing that “DHS is privately divided and hesitant about the latest deployments. According to documents leaked to me, not only is the Department seeking “volunteers” for the apparently unpopular mission, it is urging its agents to maintain a low profile and comply with the use of force policies.”
And Raw Story is reporting that “A Department of Homeland Security whistleblower has released the identities of about 4,500 ICE and Border Patrol employees Tuesday in what has been called potentially the largest agency data breach for the department.”
Meanwhile Trump regime demands that the Department of Justice investigate the widow of ICE victim Renee Good has reportedly triggered resignations of at least six DOJ prosecutors, including Joseph H. Thompson, the lead prosecutor of the many fraud cases that served at the pretext for ICE’s invasion of Minnesota. Per The New York Times:
Minneapolis police chief, Brian O’Hara, said in an interview that Mr. Thompson’s resignation dealt a major blow to efforts to root out rampant theft from state agencies.
…
Mr. Thompson strenuously objected to the decision not to investigate the shooting as a civil rights matter, and was outraged by the demand to launch a criminal investigation into Becca Good, according to the people familiar with the developments, who were not authorized to discuss them publicly.Mr. Thompson had originally set out to investigate the shooting in partnership with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, a state agency that reviews police shootings. Senior Justice Department officials overruled the decision to cooperate with the state agency.
…
Mr. Thompson grew frustrated in recent weeks as the immigration surge became a distraction for the office’s work on fraud, undermining the goal the administration said it was trying to pursue, according to people familiar with his thinking.
…
Mr. Thompson’s departure is a major blow to the effort. A self-described workaholic, he has encyclopedic knowledge of dozens of investigations involving a complex web of defendants and transactions.More than 90 people have been charged since 2022 and at least 60 have been convicted of defrauding programs meant to feed children during the pandemic, aid people at risk of homelessness and treat minors with autism.
As the scandal drew national attention, Mr. Thompson became a high profile figure, earning praise from elected officials across the political spectrum. Several urged him to run for office, something Mr. Thompson — who refuses to discuss his political preferences — has said he has ruled out.
I wonder if Thompson plans to run for office as a Democrat?
If so, I hope he is capable of more serious action than the current party leadership.
Feckless Is As Feckless Does, National Democrats React
The Never-Trump neo-con centrist Substack publication The Bulwark headlined their coverage of Congressional Democrats’ response to ICE’s attack on Minnesota, “Democrats Appear Ready to Duck a Key Fight on ICE.”
Key quotes:
Democrats appear suddenly reluctant to use their leverage to address another issue that is important to their base (and, frankly, a lot of voters outside of it): the money pouring into ICE.
…
I asked a number of Senate Democrats if increasing ICE funding is a red line for them in the upcoming budget negotiations. Most of the lawmakers I spoke with refrained from describing it in that way, opting instead to strongly criticize the agency without specifying what legislative action they might be willing to take to address the problems.“I just think there are ways we can call out this behavior and the kind of level of disruption that’s taking place in city after city,” said Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.). He mentioned reduced training requirements for ICE officers being a serious concern.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) said she does not support increases to ICE’s budget, but offloaded much of the responsibility for whether that happens onto her GOP colleagues.
“Yeah, I would ask my Republican colleagues who are obviously taking the lead on these [appropriation bills],” she said. “Is this what they want to rubber stamp for residential neighborhoods across this country? Thousands of masked, armed agents coming into their communities?”
When asked by another reporter if she wants policy changes for DHS separate from strictly by-the-numbers funding, Baldwin, a member of the Appropriations Committee, suggested that programmatic reforms to an agency would be a separate matter from a debate over how much money to give said agency.
“That’s obviously—I don’t wanna get in the weeds—that’s obviously an authorizing committee issue,” she said. “When we’re talking about appropriations, I call on my Republicans . . . do they wanna rubber stamp this or what?”
…
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security—and one of the party’s most vocal critics of Trump’s authoritarian impulses—said discussions are taking place about the path forward on DHS funding and reform. But he stopped short of making any formal policy commitments.
Politico’s piece “‘Abolish ICE’? Many Democrats are ready to fund it — with conditions” shows that national Dems are still trapped in a morass of kayfabe and pretend:
Behind the scenes, top Democrats are feverishly working to fund the agency — with strings attached.
The mismatch between the anti-ICE rhetoric and the actions of Democratic appropriators reflects a Catch-22 of congressional power: The only way lawmakers can put guardrails on the controversial agency and curb President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda at this moment is to hand it billions of taxpayer dollars.
As they negotiate fiscal 2026 funding for the Department of Homeland Security with Republicans ahead of a Jan. 30 shutdown deadline, Democrats are demanding new rules for DHS agents, such as forcing them to use body cameras, refrain from wearing masks and go through more extensive training.
Even as new polling fielded after the fatal Jan. 7 shooting of Renee Good shows that a plurality of voters back ICE’s elimination, top Democrats on Capitol Hill are seeking to restrain the agency under Trump’s leadership — not disband it.
It’s not just national Democrats who don’t have good answers about what to do when ICE invades a Blue City in a Blue State.
Feckless Is As Feckless Does, Local Democrats React
And who can blame them? As Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey pointed out to The Bulwark (video): “You’re basically asking – can our cops arrest ICE agents? Legally? Yes. Practically? It gets kind of hard when they outnumber us and have bigger guns than we do.”
But his actual impotence hasn’t stopped NBC from proclaiming, “Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey emerges as city’s ’emotional voice’ following ICE shooting”
Like fellow “dark woke” Democrats, Frey’s speech was so strong NBC can’t even print his words in full:
(Frey) accused ICE of “trying to spin this as an action of self-defense,” claiming that its interpretation of the video of the incident “is bulls—.” He said the officer who shot the woman was “recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying” and demanded that ICE “get the f— out of Minneapolis.”
Whew. I hope readers of this family blog are not too frightened to continue.
Doesn’t matter what we think though, The New York Times has declared our boy has the stuff in yesterday’s feature profile titled, “The Minneapolis Mayor Who Cursed Out ICE Is No Stranger to Crisis. Most importantly the sub-heading informs readers that “Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat, has clashed with his party’s activist wing. His response to ICE has won him new respect at home and new foes in Washington.”
Though President Trump’s allies have portrayed Mr. Frey in recent days as an example of liberal excess, the mayor has long faced the opposite charge inside his heavily Democratic city, where some residents have complained that he was too moderate and too accommodating of the police.
In recent days, as ICE has flooded Minneapolis, Mr. Frey and other top Democrats have been unified in their criticisms of the president and their calls for agents to leave. It is a far different political landscape from 2020, when Minneapolis Democrats were divided over what to do about policing after an officer murdered George Floyd, and when Mr. Frey became a target of left-wing protests.
“Apparently,” said Mr. Frey, who has said he is in his last term as mayor, “I’m like a walking Rorschach test.”
After the murder of Mr. Floyd in the spring of 2020, Minneapolis was in chaos and protesters gathered near Mr. Frey’s home. A speaker asked about defunding the police and presented the first-term mayor with a microphone.
“I do not support the full abolition of the police,” Mr. Frey responded through a face mask, his voice barely audible. The crowd booed. He walked away to chants of “Shame!” and “Go home, Jacob.”
They do at least include some quotes from local critics of Frey towards the end of the piece:
(2017 Mayoral candidate) Nekima Levy Armstrong said Mr. Frey needed to “really show” his power and “back up all that tough talk.”
Dan Engelhart, a Democratic member of the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board, said he had never supported the mayor, and “to be honest, I think he’s the worst politician I’ve ever been around in my whole life.” He called for moving beyond “the lowest possible bar and performative speeches.”
This November Substack post from a supporter of one of Frey’s rivals for the position implored Frey to “develop relationships with City Council members, not only those who agree with you, but all of them.”
This is a good time to look at the 2025 mayor’s race to understand how Frey got re-elected. It wasn’t easy.
Frey’s Crooked Path to Re-Election
Last Summer it looked for a few days that Frey was out and that State Senator Omar Fateh might become “The Mamdani of Minneapolis.”
Fateh’s high water mark came in July when he won the endorsement of the Minneapolis Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (effectively the Democratic Party in Minnesota.
Wikipedia more or less ably explains how Fateh won and then lost that prize:
The Minneapolis DFL endorsing convention took place on July 19, 2025 at the Target Center. The convention initially endorsed a mayoral candidate in a contested race for the first time since 1997, with Omar Fateh declared the winner after acquiring 43.58% of the vote in the first round. While this wasn’t enough to reach the 60% threshold required for the endorsement, a second vote was held via raise of delegate badges, which Fateh won. Frey’s campaign appealed his victory to the state party.
On August 21, 2025, the Minnesota DFL revoked the endorsement following the appeal, citing failures in the voting process. These failures included an error in ballot software usage that resulted in an undercount in the first round and a poorly secured registration spreadsheet. The state DFL placed the Minneapolis DFL on a two-year probation and forbade them from holding a second convention or otherwise endorsing in the 2025 mayoral election. The Minneapolis DFL filed an unsuccessful appeal challenging both the revocation and the bans on future endorsements, citing conflicts of interest and claiming that the committee that made the determination was acting outside of the authority given them in the DFL’s constitution.
The state DFL determined that no errors were made in how the endorsement was rescinded. In October, Fateh’s campaign was fined $500 in court for campaign finance violations after continuing to distribute yard signs that listed the DFL endorsement after it was revoked.
It’s like a pocket history of failed progressive attempts to gain control of the Demoratic party apparatus.
Fateh responded to the screw job to The Guardian:
Fateh believes the revoked endorsement is in part because of the donor class and how it would look to support a progressive candidate with a populist message, especially in suburban and rural areas where the DFL has lost ground.
“The DFL and the Democratic party as a whole like to always say we’re a big tent, we are a wide spectrum, we welcome everybody,” he said. “But a lot of times it seems like when it’s the more progressive wing that they can shut out.”
Minnesota’s leading Somali-American progressive politician talked to The Nation:
The reaction of US Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) was every bit as firm and focused as that of the candidate. “It is inexcusable to overturn the DFL endorsement from Omar Fateh,” she said. “A small group, a majority living outside Minneapolis, met privately to overturn the will of Minneapolis delegates who volunteered, organized, and participated in a months-long DFL process. Unacceptable.”
But it took more than insider political fuckery for Frey to beat Omar in the ranked choice general election. He played some shrewd divide-and-conquer politics as well.
This story from the Suna Times (“Latest Somali News in Minutes”) headlined “Somali Clan Divisions Surface as Jacob Frey Wins Third Term in Minneapolis Mayoral Race” elaborates:
Tensions, celebrations, and disappointment have swept across Somali social media circles following the fiercely contested Minneapolis mayoral election, where the race took on deep clan and community undertones among the city’s large Somali diaspora.
In a dramatic and emotional campaign, Jacob Frey secured victory for a third consecutive term as Mayor of Minneapolis, defeating his closest challenger, State Senator Omar Fateh. What made this election particularly remarkable was the way it highlighted the internal divisions within the Somali-American community — primarily between members of the Hawiye and Daarood clans, who rallied behind different candidates.
According to social media trends, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and her ex-husband Ahmed Hersi emerged as key figures on opposing sides of the political divide. Ilhan Omar, who openly supported Omar Fateh, was backed largely by members of the Daarood clan, while Ahmed Hersi, who mobilized an energetic social media campaign, stood firmly behind Jacob Frey — drawing significant support from the Hawiye community.
Warya TV reported that Frey’s relationships in the Somali community were neither new nor shallow:
When Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey walked into a packed East African event hall on election night and delivered part of his victory speech in Somali, it was not a last-minute attempt to broaden his appeal.
It was the culmination of a relationship that has shaped his political life for more than a decade — and one that helped him defeat his top challenger, state Sen. Omar Fateh, the first Somali American elected to the Minnesota Legislature.
While neither campaign can quantify the exact vote breakdown among Somali American residents, both acknowledge that Frey secured a meaningful share of the community’s support, despite Fateh’s deep roots within it.
It is interesting to ponder what the political situation in Minneapolis would be like if it was Mayor Fateh in the crosshairs rather than the centrist-approved Mayor Frey, but we won’t get to find out in this version of the time-space continuum.
What we can know is that there is ample frustration with the Democrats’ limited response, coming from some perhaps unexpected quarters.
The Never-Trumpers and Former Trumpers Are Talking Smack
When you’ve lost Bill Kristol…
Hey, @amyklobuchar and @TinaSmithMN: I'm not a senator, but if ICE thugs were rampaging through the major city in my state, I might try to impede Senate business as usual and bring everything to a halt until I could get answers or force some votes.https://t.co/3gJtlNoNpS
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) January 13, 2026
And it’s not just Bill, his fellow Never-Trumper Rick Wilson put out a stirring call to arms on his Substack:
To stop the immediate crisis, we must weaponize the very “propositional nature” of America. This involves a tactical veto of civil society: a collective refusal by elected leaders, local governments, businesses, the legal community, and civic and religious leaders to facilitate the “will to power.”
By creating friction in the gears of the state, we transform the grim anxiety of the populace into a functional resistance that protects the remaining guardrails of the Republic until the momentum of ICE can be broken at the ballot box.
To end the movement, we must embark on a national lustration, a public and legal purging of the rot. Democrats, once back in power, will return to their mean and try to pass feel-good measures and win over America with policies their technocratic hearts crave. They’ll mutter “let’s put this behind us” and “it’s time to move on” while the enablers and architects of Trump’s violence and viciousness roam free to plot a swift return to power.
It’s like treating cancer with a foot massage; what is required is a national run of political chemotherapy, and there is no substitute for the pain and misery that awaits us in that process.
I have had Kristol and Wilson on my private pay-these-assholes-no-mind list for years but I have to agree with them today. Talk about the political blender in action.
The fact that 2024 Trump-endorser Joe Rogan has come out against ICE (“Are we going to be the Gestapo?“) shows there is more opposition than support to Stephen Miller’s efforts to incite enough trouble that POTUS Trump can invoke the Insurrection Act before the mid-terms.
In fact, Puck reports on multiple right-wing or right-wing adjacent figures who recoiled from ICE’s actions in Minnesota including Dan Bilzerian whom they characterize as “the bearded hedonism influencer and gun-loving poker chud—no one’s idea of a progressive—launched.”
The cite this tweet from Bilzerian then go on to provide the obligatory MSM swipes at him for retweeting Candace Owens, note that the tweet got 5 million views:
I don’t believe the ICE agent’s life was in danger.
I think he went into the interaction angry & it was a bad shoot.
I don’t care if she was a blue hair liberal, this isn’t about the right & the left.
This is about government tyranny & overreach
I don’t trust the government
— Dan Bilzerian (@DanBilzerian) January 12, 2026
The piece also describes the extremely anti-ICE reaction of podcaster (and 2024 Trump endorser) Tim Dillon in a video that had more than 680,000 views at last count.
Then it gets to the data:
The eyewitness video of the Minneapolis tragedy has broken through to normies, who don’t like what they see. This week, a poll from The Economist and YouGov found that a mind-boggling 69 percent of Americans had seen the clip. If extrapolated, that would imply a total viewership larger than last year’s Super Bowl—for a video of a masked federal agent shooting a woman three times.
…
After Trump’s inauguration, ICE had a +16 net favorability rating with Americans, according to YouGov. Now, the agency is underwater with a –14 point favorability rating. That’s a 30-point swing since last January, an unheard-of political collapse.Of those who saw the clip, a majority (50 percent) said the shooting was not justified. Most say that the ICE officer, Jonathan Ross, should face criminal charges. Only 30 percent of Americans said the killing was justified, putting the Trump administration decisively on the wrong side of public opinion. Importantly, the poll found that 47 percent of Americans believe ICE is making the country less safe, compared to just 34 percent who say it’s making the country safer.
…
Indeed, the agency is so loathed that 46 percent of Americans now support “abolishing ICE,” YouGov found. …Even 14 percent of Republicans support disbanding the agency. (That said, few Democratic politicians are willing to go there. Even the liberal Minnesota Democrats at the center of the shooting, Mayor Jacob Frey and Attorney General Keith Ellison, are condemning ICE overreach without saying the agency should be eliminated.)
Not All Democrats
In fairness, Rep. Ilhan Omar has been calling for strong measures against ICE:
Demanding accountability for ICE is not radical.
Calling for systematic reforms is not extreme — it’s the bare minimum. pic.twitter.com/HRN5KpPZAy
— Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan) January 13, 2026
And she’s endorsing even stronger action against the ICE Barbie, in support of Rep. Robin Kelly:
Kristi Noem must be impeached. https://t.co/C3Oq8HXT8s
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) January 13, 2026
There is so much more to this story, including AOC’s alleged fecklessness on the abolish ICE issue, Bill Ackman’s support for Renee Good’s killer, calls for a general strike, the author of Copaganda explaining why “reforming” ICE is a canard, Rafi Schwarz’ post about the experience of having ICE come to your town, but I’ll wrap with a pair of tweets and a little bit about possible connections to the breakaway region of Somaliland, because I promised.
First this harsh reminder of the kinetic predicament local officials face in resisting ICE:
In Los Angeles, the National Guard and the USMC helped ICE, DHS, LAPD, and the Sheriff’s Department shoot and brutalize protesters. Not just once. For weeks and weeks and weeks. This is suicidal and naive rhetoric. It’s dangerous. This person is not our ally. Fuck the military. https://t.co/aGlQUBBLsu pic.twitter.com/DqnDqgkKhQ
— Kamille Bidan (@KamilleAEUG) January 14, 2026
And second this bit of AI slop to remind us we’re through the looking glass:
god almighty what the fuck is this pic.twitter.com/zisPsywZJ7
— austerity is theft (@wideofthepost) January 12, 2026
What’s Somaliland Got to Do With It?
I found the timing of Israel’s recognition of Somaliland as an independent nation and the ICE attack on Minnesota a bit more than coincidental, but I had nothing more than a hunch.
But this piece from the crazed neo-cons at the Middle East Forum (backers of Tommy Robinson in the UK among others) made the connection as well.
President Donald Trump will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on December 29, 2025, but the U.S. president appears reticent about recognizing Somaliland, as Israel did on December 26.
Trump should reconsider. For reasons of U.S. national security, but also as he battles rampant Somali corruption in Minnesota and Rep. Ilhan Omar’s efforts to undermine his own policies on assistance and immigration, he could make no better response than to recognize Somaliland independence.
Glad I’m not the only crazy one out there.
Stay safe Minnesotans and everyone.
Trump needs to put these critics in their place by awarding Jonathon Ross the Presidential Medal of Freedom!
He’s certainly as worthy as a number of past recipients…
Or the Nobel Peace Prize, joining an infamous list indeed.
He could surrender his football peace gewgaw to mr ross.
I doubt Fifa’s CEO, contra the righteous executors of the nobel trinkets, would understand that transfers are just part of the game.
I disagree with the tenor of Wikipedia’s characterization of the endorsement convention – the errors mentioned that occurred were minor technical glitches that did not affect the outcome. Fry went into the convention hoping for a non-endorsement, when it became clear that they didn’t have enough delegates to block endorsement his faction did everything in their power to delay and sabotage the meeting, ending in an attempted walk-out to deny quorum, but again failed at math. They then appealed to the bucket of warm spit that leads our state and his corrupt cronies, who surprisingly supported the faction with the most money.
The primary political dispute was not some exotic struggle between Somali clans, but about wealthy landlords fighting off rent control, as was passed in St. Paul. Fun fact that the chamber of commerce/landlord types who funded Fry both were leading beneficiaries of the ‘Feeding our Future’ scandal, though they were mostly able to shuffle responsibility onto the frequently Somali bagmen and women, as well as sponsor the vicious anti-Somali propaganda that was picked up gleefully by the right. (Shades of Hillary launching the questioning of Obama’s citizenship.)
I absolutely defer to you on this.
I’m trying to summarize a very complicated fight in a blog post from many states away.
The points I wanted to convey were:
1) Fatah got screwed out of the DFL endorsement, and
2) Frey got some key support from inside the Somali community that helped him in the general (not in the endorsement fight).
I never said that the election was decided by “some exotic struggle between Somali clans” in fact, I was trying to show that the campaign wasn’t fought on primarily ethnic grounds since the Somali community was split to some degree.
This all just shows we have one single party in this country – maybe 2 if you consider MAGA a party and then everyone else their own party.
All Dems have to do it take the low hanging fruit of addressing the terror we are seeing daily in videos yet they take the “high road” and claim compromise is possible.
I guess it’s not shocking from a country that employed Nazis instead of locking them away in jails after WW2
Will say it again – bad cop/psycho cop
I don’t think the Ds know how to politically fight or operate or present — they might know how to function when no one is looking, which is not that different from situations where their position is a tap dance ice cream social (deaf and blind centrism). They are at teat, so expecting them to listen to their base first is fantastical. The Ds are fundamentally helpless — not for lack of ideas, but for lack of the courage and principle necessary to break free of the teat. They can’t fathom stepping left TOWARD center, nevermind left of. They don’t mind being dragged rightward, because it cloaks their fear of any movement leftward. ICE makes them hopeful they can steal votes without suggesting anything left of Heydrich.
All outward appearances indicate Team D is okay with the Insurrection Act being implemented prior to mid-terms.
Now is the time to rip the money out of ICE and foreground the lawlessness of the Administration.
Instead they’ll pay the criminal gang but ask it to behave. WTF?
The Ds are funding the insurrection to justify Trump in the Act. Are their donors telling them to? I guess it’s the same donors paying Trump.
Antifaxer:
> All Dems have to do it take the low hanging fruit of addressing the terror
That’s not the low hanging fruit to them … please revisit Nat’s wonderful write up: Democrats Looking to Coast on Anti-Trump Sentiment (via NC).
These are your #doNothingDems … even reaching for the low hanging fruit is too much. They prefer to scrounge from what has already fallen from the tree.
A rotten harvest indeed!
Will be forever grateful to NC (again) for linking to Glenn Diesen’s interview with Sayed M. Marandi where Deisen paraphrases a quote attributed to the first president of Tanzania Julius Nyerere:
“Yes, we have one party here. But so does America. Except, with typical extravagance, they have two of them.”
Been repeating that for day making friends chuckle uncomfortably with its decades-old truth pain.
I live three blocks west of the Minneapolis city boundary, and am glad I do.
City politics have been a mess since Kid Cann owned the City Council from 1930 to 1960 under the careful watch of Saint Hubert.
The state’s Democrat-Farmer-Labor party screwed the farmers by 1940 and labor by 1980.
Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith are useless as U.S. senators – Amy’s head up the collective asses of John McCain and Lindsay Graham, not to mention being owned by AIPAC. Even as a short-timer, Smith doesn’t have the guts to speak out on how dysfunctional the Senate is – see the Vanity Fair interview and podcast. I notified them two years ago that I considered them both Nazis for their abysmal failure to recognize the Gaza genocide.
Tim Walz was never any more than average, in a state where “all our children are above average.” Agreeing to be Kamala’s Veep was the stupidest thing a Minnesota politician has done, at least recently.
Trump is horrible but the people around him are making him a lot more horrible. Noem absolutely should be fired along with our Lindsey–current bff and adviser– who is loonier than Trump is. Isn’t Trump’s claim to fame supposed to be eagerness to fire people? One can speculate that all that humiliating lawfare that backfired on the Dems is part of what has created our Frankenstein in the Oval. While sitting dozing in those courtrooms was Don plotting the whole thing?
Perhaps the takeaway is that if you are going to bend the law to “stop Hitler” then you better be sure you succeed.
In other words most Dems are not serious people any more than our real estate president is a serious person (except to his victims). It’s a double blow.
Can’t the politicals simply stand up and demand that Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison convene a grand jury to investigate the murder of Renée Good? Yes, J. Edgar Kash and ICE Barbie will obstruct the grand jury and will ignore their subpoenas.
How about, unlike Adam Schiff, Moriarty and Ellison follow the example of the Watergate Committee by litigating non-compliance in the courts and making the public case that this Confederacy of Dunces is obstructing justice? Then, when the grand jury inevitably returns an indictment for murder against ICE-man Jonathan Ross, let J. Edgar Kash and ICE Barbie publicly obstruct execution of the warrant of arrest. Let them tell us who they really are.
I can still remember listening to the Watergate hearings on the radio half a century ago and this is how Senator Sam Ervin and Chief Counsel Sam Dash publicly ground down Nixon and his cronies over the course of 14 months. Who cares about the mid-terms? “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” We’ve got time.
I don’t support “abolishing” ICE — border security is an essential component of national sovereignty. But its activities should certainly be suspended until deep and lasting institutional reforms can be implemented which respect the constitutional guarantee of due process of law that is applicable to all persons who find themselves on American soil.
Another well-researched article, Nat!
You may be interested in this detailed article on the potential for a state prosecution of the murderous ICE thug.
Thanks, had glanced at that but seems like a dead letter.
Ross will go down. There is no statute of limitations on a homicide, and they can prosecute both federally and in Minnesota. The Trumpenreich won’t stand 1000 years, they will be hard pressed to stand 12 years, and when it falls, if not before, Ross will get his indictment unless he elects to take the honorable route. No one will forget.
That will require some significant reform of prosecutions in the US. If you think local police have massive leeway to commit assaults on citizens, it’s nothing compared to the protections in place for the Feds.
I hope to see it, but we’re a long way from that point now.
At KD, don’t kid yourself that people will not forget. There will be further atrocities piled on top with more bloody topping on top of that.
At least Laura Loomer is still part of Trump’s inner circle, imagine how bad things would be without her stabilizing influence…
She’s really lubricated the wheels of commerce for various lobbies I hear. Give that woman a Medal of Freedom!
The Renee Good shooting has nothing to do with reforming ICE, or abolishing it. ICE needs to follow the existing law on the use of deadly force, and when an agent violates existing law, instead of lying about it, hiding him, and suppressing investigation into a bad shooting, actually follow their own procedure. Sure, perhaps 20% of the electorate is psychopathic enough to cheer on the murder of liberal lesbians in broad daylight, but the other 80% is completely disgusted, and trying to politicize this is going to be about as popular as ICE Barbie shooting more puppies.
It appears Trump is careening into Alzheimer’s, and the bobble-headed sycophants surrounding him are letting their incompetence metastasize into an unchecked tyranny. This will not end well for anyone.
By the time anyone gets prosecuted for killing Renee Good, I’m afraid ICE will have done it again and again unless Americans really get seriously organized to stop it.
Baby steps in that direction are happening on the ground in Minnesota.
Tim Walz just gave a televised address tonight and the big takeaway from it was his call for all Minnesotans to document every ICE encounter they witness to build a body of evidence. Paraphrasing his statement, he urged everyone to carry their phones with them at all times and if they see something, “hit record”.
Multiple groups here in the state are providing Constitutional Observer training sessions and they have been filling up fast.
Whether or not this leads to something larger or fizzles out is anyone’s guess.
Here’s a link to the full address.
Thanks!
Yet a bit later, at about 9pm, State police was deployed to support ICE in North Minneapolis (near 24th and Lyndale N) after another
SturmAbteilungICE idiot shot someone after getting himself into danger.“Now Is Not The Time” is the Dems motto, even when the occupation is underway. And make no mistake, I live in St. Paul: this is a paramilitary occupation, affecting all aspects of day to day life.
The New Republic has more polling data:
Who wants masked ICE thugs shooting people? The Trumpies and most especially Vance couldn’t be more politically tone deaf.
I will be absolutely amazed if further violence does not result in a foreign influence operation to destabilize the United States. The CIA has taught everyone how that game is played, and the US is a society and state ripe and wide open for Syria-style armed radical regieme change/resource looting revolutions. Any state, non-state actor, or brazen oligarch could stir the pot right now and the US political class would just go along with it rather than pull back. I would not put the CIA or FBI past being a part of the action themselves.
I will be absolutely amazed if further violence does not result in a foreign influence operation to destabilize the United States.
I doubt it. A foreign operation might interfere with a successful US action. Why interfere when the USA is doing so well on its own? A foreign operation might accidentally improve things.
Still, a bit of funding and a few weapons to the Puerto Rico independence movement might not be a bad idea.
We’re in the midst of the Israelis locking in control over the American social media and MSM to an unprecedented degree. The Ellisons takeover of TikTok and Paramount just made it flagrantly obvious.
Thanks for this type of corporate media coup are largely owed to Bill Clinton’s Telecommunications Act of 1996.
https://truthout.org/articles/democracy-in-peril-twenty-years-of-media-consolidation-under-the-telecommunications-act/
Hasn’t a foreign influence operation been destablizing the United States since Truman?
Ken Klippenstein with another scoop:
“Fleur De Lis? Looks more like a squashed frog to me.”
-some WWF wrestler
Opposition parties are usually the first to fracture during the transition from Sclerotic Decay to a Velvet Divorce. The US is currently in a “Cold Civil War,” and the Democratic Party, without strong leadership, will only accelerate the transition.
Under the Iron Law of Oligarchy, the national leadership of an opposition party is part of the political “inner circle” of the capital. They share the same social circles, zip codes, and economic interests as the party in power. As local politics becomes divorced from the national scene, the local “outer circle” members realize their national leaders are effectively controlled opposition.
Local leaders calling upon the local militias (National Guard), advocating for the revocation of central authority (ban ICE), refusing to cooperate with the central government (FBI assistance), and rallying once again for change in leadership (dissolution of the inner circle) are clear indicators of a “dual sovereignty” crisis. Any outcome decided by the courts will not resolve the situation.
The “inner circle” leaders (Schumer/Jeffries) prioritize institutional stability and “appropriate timing,” while the local “outer circle” leaders (Frey/Omar/Walz) are forced by their constituents to take a stand for immediate survival. They both inhabit two different realities that can only collide and fracture. Even if the local uprising in Minneapolis is effectively “put down” through force, law, and propaganda, it will spill over once more on the next sign of weakness/chaos in the national government.
Where is the Minnesota National Guard? Is Walz reluctant to activate them completely because that would give the Trump admin an excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act?
We’re headed for civil war as it is, so why the delay?
The National Guard came down on the side of ICE in Los Angeles last summer. There is no indication they (or even the Minneapolis PD) would do anything different in MN.
The Democrats have done nothing to get control of their state National Guards that I am aware of. The only governors who have done anything even close are GOPers Ron DeSantis in FL and Greg Abbott in TX.
The wildcard in which side the Minnesota National Guard will align with if things escalate further is that Tim Walz was one of them for 24 years.
That’s interesting. I didn’t know that. Does he have any grasp of kinetic reality? Is he smart enough to realize he might need control of the NG, or at least good relations with their commanding officers, if shit really hits the fan?
Unfortunately, I don’t have any insights there (hopefully another member of the commentariat will chime in). I do know he was their Command Master Sergeant for a while (the highest NCO rank) and there was a feeble attempt to “swift boat” him by other members of the Minnesota National Guard during the 2024 campaign that went nowhere so it’s likely he still has good relations with the flag officers.
He was a very senior enlisted person. He knows more than any Minnesota governor in my lifetime. Contrary to how he’s portrayed in the media, he’s a centrist, so don’t expect him to actually do anything beyond a firey speech. If he deploys the NG, 1. it probably won’t be to break the occupation, and 2. He’ll know exactly how to best deploy (and who to lead) them to conduct their assigned mission.
I think East Germany is the example- the troops were deployed and when the order was given to fire they switched sides instead of firing on their own people.
pretty sure he beat trump to the punch here. I think Walz has the national guard under his control now.
https://content.govdelivery.com/attachments/MNGOV/2026/01/08/file_attachments/3515363/Executive%20Order%2026-01.pdf
also, maybe some of Jessie Ventura’s quotes should be added in for political color.
Ah I saw of Jesse’s comments but forgot about them when it was time to post.
I have a bit of an anti-Jesse bias from having briefly worked with his campaign gurus on a complete fiasco of a campaign where they screwed me royally (never meet your heroes).
It seems we’re now in a stage where politicians are making open, sometimes coordinated calls to the people with the guns. There were the Democrats with the “ad” urging service members not to follow illegal orders. Now we have Miller telling ICEmen they should go for it because Trump has their back.
Since January 6, I’ve thought that both parties were solicitous of military and quasi-military support, but neither was certain of whom they could trust. Now, as Trump is forming his private army in the form of an ICE consisting largely of ex-military with PTSD and Proud Boys, the Dem bosses are unsure whether they want to nip this in the bud or view it as a useful tool that they can employ themselves in the future.
In LA, it was Trump who called up the Cali NG while Bass and Newsom opposed it. Right now, our big, brave Democrats are letting the unarmed people of Minneapolis defend their own streets from these ICE thugs. Obviously, if Walz calls up the MN NG to protect the city, we’re at Fort Sumter, but the citizens of Minneapolis are left essentially defenseless. Not any easy choice, but these are not easy times.
Team blue is likely focused on the fundraising potential and outcome ramifications in regards to !Elections 2026!. Don’t expect much more than hyperbolic tweets and sternly worded letters from that crowd (excepting some locals representation with skin in the game).
The time nears for a parody of Peace Frog.
More developments:
Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA) proposes an amendment that would bar federal funding from being used to implement NSPM-7.
St. Paul’s teachers’ union just told 3,500+ members to “choose what side they’re on” and join a shutdown protest – “no work, no school, and no shopping.”
Teachers Demands: ICE leave Minnesota now, legal accountability for officer who killed Renee Good, no additional funding for ICE in the new federal budget
Let’s see Nat … let’s see … are USians finally ready for solidarity … ?!
Hurray for the St. Paul teachers’ union! It reminds me of when a Wisconsin AFL-CIO council called for a general strike during the 2011 fight against Scott Walker.
This radical energy was, of course, siphoned off into an effort to elect a Dem to the Wisconsin Supreme Court–which the Dems then lost.
“One of ours. All of yours.” It’s not like us mopes have much to lose. An endless cycle of violence waits, primed with hate speech from the top. (Isn’t hate speech a crime?) Will “Antifa” and “domestic terrorism” become self fulfilling prophecies?
The problem is there is a worldwide,long term shortage of terrorists; witness the countless sting operations on hopeless dupes.
Antifa folks go home after an anonymous days work, put their boots and masks away in their locker, and consider a good day’s work done.
Also ICE is having difficulty recruiting so yea, it’s hard to find a good terrorist these days.
It’s now almost unbelievable to think that Trump, at one point, seemed like a (comparatively) less warlike politician…at least he did when compared to the usual ghouls, i.e. Hillary Clinton, Lindsay Graham, Joe Biden, Mitch McConnel, etc. etc. An actual throwback to the old-fashioned conservative isolationist types, which would probably be the best we could hope for in today’s political environment.
And now here we are.
Trump’s feeling desperate pressure from a number of factors, but mostly I think Susie Wiles is a vicious inside operator who really controls who sees the POTUS. It seems like a much less fractious operation than Trump 1.0. The neo-cons have it on lockdown this time in a way they didn’t before.
But there is some MASSIVE financial pressure on Trump that he didn’t face in his first term so he’s flailing around wildly in desperation. In his first term he chose to start a trade war with China. Biden didn’t stop it, but didn’t really escalate (Sleepy Joe had a lot on his plate with COVID, Ukraine, and then Gaza).
But in Trump 2, he tried to dramatically escalate only to find out the Chinese were prepared rather than surprised as in his first term. And they cleaned his clock and will continue to do so.
Hence the attempt to cut off Venezuela and now Iran from China.
Also the Fed has been partying like it’s 2009. From the Lever: “The Federal Reserve’s $420 Billion Wall Street Bailout
Massive, unprecedented payouts from the New York Federal Reserve could signal that big banks are seriously short on cash.”
> But there is some MASSIVE financial pressure on Trump that he didn’t face in his first term so he’s flailing around wildly in desperation.
I’ve tongue-in-cheekingly wondered if Market malady is a bit of an automatic stabilizer for Trump. That is to say, he’ll push some nonsense like the DOJ thing until he realizes that it will severely affect markets, and then quickly retreat on a position. Pretty sure his plutocrat minders don’t want their net-worth/portfolio-values tumbling down precipitously in the next two to three years. Let’s see if he calls Bondi off to some degree.
Jacobin also has a write up on the bailout BTW (for those who don’t like sign-ups).
I wonder if Fed-chronicler Nathan Tankus will do one on this latest bank freebie. I just dropped him a note.
One more grim observation from the house doomer. I find it likely these jackboots who have no qualm shooting up the street will become roving gangs of marauders when the climate catastrophe sets in for real.
I don’t see the need for them to wait for extenuating circumstances, unquestioned seizure of possibly criminal gains has been a good tickle for many years.
Rounding up illegals shouldn’t be so controversial; that it is shows how many US citizens live in bizzaro world.
Having said that, ICE should start jailing a few business leaders whose firms employ illegals and jailing a few landlords who rent to them. The left will have a bit of CogDis if they object to jailing the rentiers profiting from exploitation of the sacred migrants, and the migrants themselves might start self deporting as the well runs dry.
Then who picks the tomatoes?
The problem is ICE isn’t finding many “illegals” to round up so they’re racially profiling and harassing citizens and legal residents.
I think the high order bit is not the “rounding up illegals”, it’s the abandonment of the usual due process and rule of law. Which should be very controversial. Glad I could help.
Most people on the streets of Minneapolis have no idea what constitutes due process in immigration matters.
“ Where an alien is given a full and fair opportunity to be represented by counsel, to prepare an application for § 212(c ) relief, and to present testimony and other evidence in support of the application,he or she has been provided with due process.”
— VARGAS-HERNANDEZ V GONZALES, No. 04-73343 (9th Cir. 2007)
Many of those people being rounded up never showed up for their court dates with immigration judges. That kind of prejudices the claim they had no due process.
As for “masked goon squads,” (below) if you were in that job and receiving death threats to you and your family from dozens or even hundreds of loons, you wouldn’t want to be very identifiable. Mull on the rights of those who have to enforce the laws of the United States; should they have less right to life and liberty than a person unlawfully in the US?
Except they’re not enforcing the law, nor are they following the law. They are attacking the rule of law and using “immigration” as their excuse. Stephen Miller is the architect of all this and he’s not about the law, he’s about sturm und drang.
Trump and the ghoul miller might be the sturm und drang of the repubs, but the quiet part has been said out loud, but in a softer, more legalistic voice by the roberts court. Again, I refer to “kavanaugh stops”as an important legal step that the roberts court has taken in building the gallows that is tightening the noose around my, and your, neck.
Trump and the ghoul miller might be the sturm und drang of the repubs, but the quiet part has been said out loud, but in a softer, more legalistic voice by the roberts court. Again, I refer to “kavanaugh stops”as an important legal step that the roberts court has taken in building the gallows that is tightening the noose around my, and your, neck. I think this bears repeating.
And what about the fact that the majority of the people randomly assaulted by these dime store brown shirts aren’t immigrants at all? That kind of prejudices your claim that you claimed to prejudice.
It pains me say this, but what is the source of what you just presented as fact?
If you are talking about the assault of protestors on the streets, where did the assault begin? The videos you see generally start with the ICE reaction to an assault by the protester. Citizen or not, you don’t have a right to assault a law enforcement officer just because you don’t like what he is doing.
It pains me to say this but you haven’t cited sources for what you present as facts.
“Of 100 people initially charged with felony assaults on federal agents, 55 saw their charges reduced to misdemeanors, or dismissed. All five defendants who went to trial so far were acquitted.” (1)
“We compiled cases of about 130 Americans, including a dozen elected officials, accused of assaulting or impeding officers. These cases have often wilted under scrutiny. In nearly 50 instances that we have identified so far, charges have never been filed or the cases were dismissed. Our count found a handful of citizens have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanors.” (2)
“The government doesn’t track how many citizens are held by immigration agents. We found more than 170 cases this year where citizens were detained at raids and protests…Americans have been dragged, tackled, beaten, tased and shot by immigration agents. They’ve had their necks kneeled on. They’ve been held outside in the rain while in their underwear. At least three citizens were pregnant when agents detained them. One of those women had already had the door of her home blown off while Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem watched.”(2)
“Immigration Agents Have Often Grabbed and Mistreated Citizens, Congressional Investigators Find” (3)
(1) 12/18/2025 https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/national-international/doj-charges-protesters-immigration-crackdown-prosecution-fail-court/4031331/
(2) 10/16/2025 https://www.propublica.org/article/immigration-dhs-american-citizens-arrested-detained-against-will
(3) 12/09/2025 https://www.propublica.org/article/immigration-agents-detained-mistreated-citizens-congressional-investigation
Thank you.
I can vouch for the accuracy of the claims with my own eyes and via friend groups.
The ICE vehicles aren’t even obeying traffic signals, having almost been hit by one of the bastards on Sunday. I personally know people who have been sprayed with “fire extinguisher sized” pepper spray dispensers from a passing vehicle while walking their dog on the sidewalk. I have more examples. While I respect your scepticism, i can personally assure you that the accounts of ICE behavior are generally accurate.
If the citizens and denizens are required to obey the letter of the law when dealing with these goons, they should also be required to follow the law in their on- and off- duty conduct.
Come on, man. That’s not the controversial part. It’s having a masked goon squad with zero oversight snatching up US citizens and/or murdering them in cold blood for no cause aside from being brown that’s controversial. Duh.
And yes, you are correct that if they were serious about curbing illegal immigration, creating consequences for the people making it a policy (stated or otherwise) to hire the undocumented would be the place to start. But that really isn’t the point of this exercise, lipservice to stated goals aside.
I have family /friends / roots in two worlds: Seattle and southwestern New York State (the boonies.)
When ICE rounds up ‘illegals’ in the former, people wail, “Oh no! Who will build our new addition and put on our new roof? And, who will staff our favorite restaurant!”
In the latter, ICE rounds up ‘illegals’ and people exclaim: “Yes! They were all taking our jobs!”
Seattle is tech bro paradise (even the ones on H1-B visas) while southwestern NY is the tail end (or the beginning) or the rust belt.
This morning, Adam Tooze posts in his newsletter, a tweet from ‘Mischa:’
“One of Mao’s lessons is highly relevant today – that of arming the lumpen. When ICE offered fancy rewards and a $50k signing bonus to the politically radicalized but economically immobile men (albeit in a reactionary direction), they essentially took the most volatile and violent segments of the state and set it loose on the proletariat at large to commit domestic terrorism and fulfill the function of both hurting/fragmenting the working class while also ensuring that public discontentment primarily gets levied against ICE and similar state enforcement, as opposed to bourgeois control
over state infrastructure. I’ve always argued that our enemies seem to understand our theories just as well as we do, if not better.”
Bannon is a serious student of Lenin (or claims to be) and obviously they’ve studied Trotsky (as every propagandist has whether knowingly or not).