Shortly after Renee Good was killed by ICE agent Jonathan Ross, J.D. Vance claimed that Ross had “absolute immunity” because he was performing federal duties, CNN reported. And for this reason, Ross could not be prosecuted by the state of Minnesota. Vance later appeared to backtrack on that, after this remark was slammed by hosts of legal experts who disagreed. But I’m wondering if the Border Patrol agents who killed Alex Pretti had heard the backtrack.
A couple of weeks ago, writer Adam Serwer appeared on Chris Hayes’s Ms NOW show and said, “Their position is, if you disagree with us, we can kill you.” I was so struck by that I wrote it down at the time. I can’t find a video of that, but earlier that same day Serwer published a piece in The Atlantic in which he wrote,
The federal government now speaks with the voice of the right-wing smear machine: partisan, dishonest, and devoted to vilifying Trump’s perceived enemies rather than informing the public. Good’s mother, partner, and children have to cope not only with their unfathomable loss, but with a campaign designed to justify her killing. Their own lives will be subject to invasive scrutiny by the government and its allies, in a search for any derogatory information about Good that might somehow be used to justify her killing. For some, that won’t even be necessary. “I do not feel bad for the woman that was involved,” the Republican lawmaker Randy Fine told the right-wing network Newsmax. …
…The blatant lies about Minneapolis serve several purposes. They perpetuate the false narrative that federal agents are in constant peril and therefore justified in using lethal force at the slightest hint of danger. They assure federal agents that they can harm or even kill American citizens with impunity, and warn those who might be moved to protest Trump’s immigration policies of the same thing. Perhaps most grim, they communicate to the public that if you happen to be killed by a federal agent, your government will bear false witness to the world that you were a terrorist.
I recommend reading the whole thing; it’s not long. Among other things, he says Good’s murder was the ninth shooting by an ICE agent since September. I hadn’t realized there had been that many.
As soon as Alex Pretti’s death hit the news, Administration officials, including The Gnome and Stephen Miller (can we call him The Ghoul?), released statements calling Pretti a terrorist. Gregory Bovino claimed Pretti “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.” The smears had begun. But the blowback against the smears is even bigger now than it was for Renee Good. Paul Krugman is asking was this a murder too far?
Last week House Dems failed to challenge DHS funding in the current budget bill. (Not that they really tried; see Brian Beutler’s commentary on this; it’s brilliant.) Senate Dems appeared to have been prepared to pass the budget bill also, to avoid another shutdown. But now they appear to be putting up real resistance. They want DHS funding to be removed from the budget bill so they can pass the rest of the budget. But they are refusing to give more money to DHS until ICE and the Border Patrol are overhauled. So far, Republicans are refusing to cooperate.
Even so, Politico is reporting that Trump is feeling a “GOP backlash” over the murder of Alex Pretti. “Republican blowback surged this weekend after Pretti’s killing. Republican lawmakers called for probes into the incident, while others warned that the Department of Homeland Security and ICE risked losing credibility with the public.”
Also,
On Monday, President Donald Trump offered the first hint that the political crisis engulfing his administration would lead to changes on the ground. He deployed border czar Tom Homan to Minneapolis, a move viewed by some administration officials and Trump allies as a recognition that the president needed to change course. Homan, Trump said, will report “directly to me.”
“That is intentional,” said an administration official, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “Tom needs to be in charge.”
Trump also spoke to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, on Monday and said they “seemed to be on a similar wavelength,” the latest sign that the president may be looking to deescalate tensions. It was a notable change in tone from late Sunday when he asked the governor to “cooperate with the Trump Administration to enforce our Nation’s Laws, rather than resist and stoke the flames of Division, Chaos, and Violence.”
Walz’ office said the call was “productive,” and said the president agreed to look into reducing the federal government’s presence in the state. The White House did not immediately respond to a request seeking to verify the president’s comments.
See also Republican calls are growing for a deeper investigation into fatal Minneapolis shooting of Alex Pretti. I’m also seeing a lot more stories about gun rights activists slamming the Administration over Pretti’s death, especially any suggestion that his being armed was the reason he had to be killed..
I don’t know if Homan is any less of a sociopath than Trump, The Gnome, Miller, and Bovino seem to be. And I think the whole problem with Trump’s “deportation” campaign from the beginning was that he was always less interested in actual deportation than in the optics of it, especially videos of nonwhite people being brutalized and humiliated. but it appears there’s less of a market for that sort of thing than Trump had assumed.
If nothing else, though the Administration has been put on notice that the smear tactics aren’t always going to work. We’ll see if they adjust.
I posted this on the last article but It's not showing up so I'll try to post it here?
Psycho diaper don is saying he and Gov. Waltz had a good conversation and he is sending Tom (50,000 cash in a bag) Homan to access the situation. A good conversation with Waltz today after just yesterday stump said Waltz was:“inciting Insurrection, with his pompous, dangerous, and arrogant rhetoric.”. It really seems that since Pretti had a gun they are going to take a second look, fucking unbelievable, an unarmed mother of three gets shot in the face and they stick to the story, if only she had a gun in the car? Me thinks cosplay NAZI chief Bovino will be taking fall for this one, I predict he'll be resigning so the CBP can "focus can be on the mission of rounding up the worst of the worst" he'll be out by the end of the week!
I can see your other post, so it’s there. I’ve heard a lot of calls for Trump’s girl Pam to resign or face impeachment, and if Trump starts to feel more heat I predict he’ll throw her under the bus. Of course Bovino could go too. Miller is the one most behind the chaos, but I doubt Trump would sack Miller.
You're right Miller is Stumps brain, he can't function without him. I think bondo is safe, diaper don knows he'll never find another AG that can be confirmed that is so willing to lie and break all the laws, so she's safe. I think Bovino goes down for this one!
What Trump is doing and saying has little to do with substance and everything to do with perception. It is, for Trump, a reality show. The problem for Trump is that the narrative he's selling is contradicted by video of multiple agents pumping ten bullets into an ICU nurse employed by the VA hospital who had been disarmed before he was executed, Gestapo-style.
IMO, Trump knows he's lied to by his staff – it's what he hired them for. They are supposed to present to him as reality the narrative that Trump wants to project. There's a wink-nod unspoken consent that people like Bondi, Miller, and Noem will sanitize the brutal truth they are charged with manifesting to give Trump plausible deniability if/when reality overtakes the fantasy.
I found it interesting that Trump sent Hoffman, with the caveat that Hoffman will report "directly to Trump." Who's out of that loop? Miller. Who's behind rewriting the rules to allow warrantless searches of homes? Miller. (My opinion.) Who approved using kids as bait to trap targets? Miller (IMO.)
The whole boogeyman of illegal aliens raping and killing was a ruse. Trump wanted a ruthless Gestapo loyal to him – ICE was the tool developed for the job. There's way more illegals in TX or FL than in MN, but the Twin Cities are ground zero for a federal invasion. The whole game is about subduing centers of Democratic opposition. Speculation? Read what the Gnome demanded from the Governor of MN in exchange for an offer to (maybe) reduce ICE presence. Voter rolls, repeal of state and local sanctuary laws, and federalizing local police to serve as extensions for ICE.
Trump, MAGA, and Project 2025 have this gamed out. The centers of Democratic opposition are centralized geographically and socially. MAGA intends to militarily dominate population centers and federalize their local governments. It's a domestic version of Venezuela. Take the state and city governments, force the people into submission, neutralize their power in elections…. You are in power forever.
The twin murders in the Twin Cities threaten the whole strategy. IMO, the word was sent by Miller to put heads on pikes. (Public displays of victims executed) as a way to break the back of the resistance. It's not 1930 – everyone has a video camera. The propaganda strategy is discredited almost before Noem can issue the lies. I would bet that Trump is reacting to GOP leadership, which is threatening to break with Trump on the public execution of citizens. (Gee, what stand-up examples of virtue!) The Republican candidate for Governor of MN quit the race because of the stench and said so publicly.)
IMO, Miller is freaking out. Miller has what he wants: control of the President's Secret Police. Trump's move with Hoffman suggests to me that Trump may install someone to curb the public excesses of ICE, and temper the direction from the WH that complete lawlessness is the new normal. (Trump wants it to happen – he doesn't want to be blamed. IMO, Miller sees that we need MORE ruthless barbarism.)
I think Project 2025 knows exactly how many urban Democratic districts have to be neutralized to save the GOP House majority in November. What ICE was supposed to do in MN was a planned centerpiece. The initial gambit was LA but Newsome was using the conflict to build his profile in a run for the Presidency. So MN became the target. That's blowing up nationally. Trump wants to cool things nationally – he will offer to stop murdering people if MN will take orders from Bondi, give up voter rolls and not resist voter suppression/intimidation. (I don't think Walz will go for it.) So it will go on.
In WWII, Germany surrounded St. Petersburg, Russia, for a siege that lasted three years and cost 1.5 million lives. The city never fell. Resistance is not fuitle.
Its Tom Homan, not Hoffman, Trump is sending to replace Bovino, at least in the MN campaign. And when he reports directly to Trump, you better believe that Miller will be right there. Both Miller and Trump are on the same emotional wavelength of evil, but Miller has more of a brain for it than Trump, and trump knows that. He wouldn’t risk talking with Homan without Miller by his side.
Alex Pretti's phone lives with the Epstein files as it appears it too needed to be disappeared.
Well that didn't take long! So long bovine nazi
https://archive.ph/2026.01.27-003114/https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/01/greg-bovino-demoted-minneapolis-border-patrol/685770/
This is great news in terms of demoralizing ICE. The guy who had the back of the most brutal thugs is felled with a knife to the back, with Trump holding it. How secure do you feel now about your immunity?
IS there any truth to the rumour that President Trump has assembled all the Washington DC buses in the ex-Rose Garden?
I hope he's been having someone read a good biography of Stalin to him. There was a man who knsew how to do a good purge.
Poor Alex may have thought that he could defend himself with his gun, like we're all supposed to believe that's what guns are for.
Or will they accuse him of weaponizing his phone?
He may have routinely carried a gun.
I hope every United States citizen has a shrine to Thanatos in their home. Thanatos is the Greek God of Death and the Gentle Spirit of the End according to one artist's caption of an image of Thanatos. An ancient statue of what a Greek artist imagined Thanatos to be is shown with wings. Some are hooded, some not. Some even caption the image as a God of War. As with all metaphysical beings, artists depict them as their sprit directs them. Your shrine depends on your spirit's direction.
Your shrine will remind all of our new plight. The plight we all now face in this country anywhere and anytime. Adam Serwer penned it well in the Atlantic.
Your shrine will survive and bear witness to the truth. You knew the true terrorists and that they would lie.
I am watching what's happening in MN. Nothing.
They shuffled the deck chairs on the Titanic, Trump, I mean. One short Napoleon was publicly demoted and they're watching in the Oval Office if one small sacrifice will be enough to turn poll numbers around. I suspect there are verbal instructions from a memo to suspend the execution of protesters in MN until the public adjusts to the necessity.
Hoffman seems to have been authorized to listen to various officials and concede NOTHING. No reduction in ICE, no reduction in activities, no agreement to a joint investigation or sharing of information in the cover-up. He's going to meetings, taking notes and promising he will take it up with the President.
Mayor Frey told Hoffman or whoever to shove it when asked for municipal police to do federal law enforcement for ICE. Trump is claiming it's a violation of law, which it is NOT. Local law enforcement is not a satellite of federal law enforcement. That's been the position of sanctuary cities from the start. After a quasi-offer to stand down from murdering citizens, Frey was supposed to roll over and beg, promising to put city assets at Trump's disposal.
I really wish the city would turn off power to every hotel that's housing ICE with the promise that the shutdown would be extended to any hotel that offers to pick up the business. The city should concede there's grounds for a suit, but they will appeal (slowly) all the way to the USSC, and not be bound by court orders until ICE is in compliance with court orders they are ignoring. (Hotel rooms get very cold very fast in sub-zero temperatures.) Hilton seems to have put themsleves at the disposal of ICE, and I bet they get premium dollars for it. Time to give them the advertising they deserve.)
More good news:
Minneapolis Live Updates: 2 Federal Agents Who Shot Alex Pretti Are Placed on Leave
The move was disclosed by a Trump administration official as more Republican leaders broke with the White House’s handling of the shooting.
The two federal agents who opened fire on a Veterans Affairs nurse in Minneapolis have been placed on leave, an official with the Department of Homeland Security said on Wednesday, as more voices, including some in the Republican Party, broke with the White House over its handling of the fatal shooting.
It was unclear if the department had taken any action regarding the other agents involved in the encounter with the nurse, Alex Pretti, including those who had helped restrain him before the two agents fired about 10 bullets into his back and as he slumped onto the street. The agents have been on leave since the shooting, the official said — something the White House had not previously disclosed.
The good news is they are identified. DHS/DOJ has zero credibility, so the state should be involved in the investigation, and if indicted they should be held over for state trial. If Trump et al cared about more than just owning the libs, they'd turn these two jackals over to the state and let them face the consequences, to serve as a lesson for other MAGA haters they have masquerading as "agents" and show the public they're not just evil. Problem is, they are.
It's significant that they are still moving the deck chairs. The claim that the two shooters were put on administrative leave feels like a tease. They might be investigated. The investigation might be impartial. The results might be that the shooting wasn't justified. We might let them face legal proceedings. You should assume all the above because we admitted we put them on leave.
ICE will fall apart overnight if anyone stands trial for murder. The clowns in military costumes were promised double-oh status and a license to kill. They think they are supposed to whip the darkies and women into submission. They were promised that Miller and Trump would protect them like Trump protected the J6 insurrectionists,
IMO, this arrangement of the deck chairs is for a few members of Congress – the promise of the appearance of legitimacy in a totally illegitimate cover-up. And that's all the GOP wants, a lie they can repeat that justice will be done. Meanwhile, all eyes are on the polls as Trump takes on water faster than the Titanic.
Stand by for the next move of the deck chairs.