The very banality of evil is its greatest weapon

In an article posted last Tuesday Oliver Willis of Daily Kos gathered together several mainstream news headlines that say the nasty guy has softened his tone in Minneapolis. Willis says to not trust that. The supposed shift in tone came after the murder of Alex Pretti when the nasty guy had a congenial talk with Tim Walz, governor of Minnesota, then pulled out Greg Bovino, the guy running ICE there, replacing him with Tom Homan, the “border czar.” I wrote about all this last Wednesday (before I read Willis’ article), saying the ongoing and huge protests in Minnesota worked. Perhaps I bought into the softened tone as well. Willis wrote:

But the administration’s pullback doesn’t change the main thrust of Trump’s policies and actions: pursuing a mass deportation campaign targeting people because of their race and ethnicity. The mainstream coverage is ignoring or minimizing this reality, even though it is the driving force behind everything that has occurred. ... Characterizing the administration’s spin as a legitimate softening of tone ignores the current situation and Trump’s track record.

Tom Hartmann of the Kos community and an independent pundit also says this is not the dawn of a new era.

Fascist governments don’t rise in one giant arc, nor do they collapse that way. It’s more of what electrical engineers and ham radio operators would call a “sawtooth pattern.” Climb an inch up toward fascism, get pushback from the public so you back down a half-inch until things quiet down, then move up another inch in another step toward the ultimate goal of total tyranny. Learn from your own mistakes, while getting the public used to each step, so Trump and his lickspittles can move onto the next falling domino in the process of ending democracy and replacing it with strongman oligarchic autocracy.

ICE agents still assume complete immunity. They still kick in doors without a legal warrant. They still can kill us without answering for it. And they know it. “We are still on the path to dictatorship.” The steps from democracy to fascism start with steps that people see as reasonable to handle a real problem. It may seem a bit weird, but makes sense. Then the mask drops and we see the true intent. By then the recognition is usually too late. A tyrant learns how far he can go before hitting resistance that can’t be bludgeoned through. Then they work out what messages to get the people to accept the changes.

Fascism doesn’t arrive with jackboots; it arrives with media and voter fatigue. As the political theorist Hannah Arendt warned, the very “banality” and “ordinariness” of such evil is its greatest weapon.

They push. We get used to it. They push some more. We begin to see resistance is pointless. They tell us the situation is so complicated we couldn’t understand, or it is bound by national security (heard that one lately?) and we should defer to their expertise. We assume the good guys will eventually win. If we didn’t resist at Step A, Step C isn’t all that much worse, so why resist Step C? Soon our principles are compromised. We still get a paycheck, socialize with friends. The world around us, the houses, stores, restaurants, cinema, and holidays still look the same. But the look is deceiving because the world is now full of hate and fear, which is so universal it is not recognized or is seen as normal. Stephen Miller mused that habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion. That is to lock up immigrants and protesters without a trial. There was little reaction in the news media. If, a decade ago, Obama said that there would be swift hearings and maybe impeachment. Miller’s comments have become normalized. Democrats have shut down part of the government by demanding guardrails be put up around ICE. They may get their demands. But ICE is now so corrupt and has such a toxic culture those guardrails will have little effect. This ICE needs to be shut down and replaced, along with ICE leadership, and Homeland Security leadership. Why aren’t Democrats talking about the leadership?

The antidote to normalization is outrage and resistance. Not just in voting booths, but in the streets, in courtrooms, in classrooms, in boardrooms, in pulpits, and at dinner tables. ... History won’t forgive us for sleepwalking into tyranny. And our children won’t either. ... If we still believe in this republic, in its ideals, and in the sacred value of a free and fair society, then our answer to Trump’s authoritarianism must be more than words. It must be peaceful action.

I had mentioned this idea before, though Kos of Kos says it well. The change in Minneapolis (what little there is) was because of an increase in protests. The protests didn’t surge because of the kidnapping of five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, the boy in the hat with bunny ears. He’s brown. It didn’t happen when Renee Good was murdered. She’s a lesbian. It happened when Alex Pretti was murdered.

He was white. He was male. He owned a gun. He worked as an ICU nurse helping veterans. He fit comfortably inside the cultural boundaries conservatives instinctively protect. That made him difficult to erase.

He died doing something humane – protesting injustice. Pretti broke the script. He made denial harder. He exposed the lie that propaganda said “this violence was targeted, controlled, and righteous.”

His death made clear that the machinery of state brutality was not staying neatly confined to its intended victims, and that compliance offered no protection from a system built on brutality and subjugation rather than law. ... His loss is immeasurable. It is also the moment that cracked the narrative armor protecting Trump’s immigration campaign, forcing a public reckoning that a year of evidence alone had failed to trigger.

In Friday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted David French of the New York Times, discussing voter reaction to ICE tactics in Minneapolis:

Voters don’t like the sight of masked officers dragging people out of homes and stores and cars. They don’t like the hype videos on social media in which ICE and the Border Patrol cosplay as low-rent versions of SEAL Team 6. They don’t like it when the administration lies and slanders the very people that it hurts and kills, and they get especially angry when cellphone video immediately debunks the administration’s spin. And to the extent that they pay attention to court proceedings, they definitely don’t like it when the administration is caught lying and defies court orders. … At each and every step along the way, the administration is squandering whatever good will it had and increasing the chances of a blue wave in the midterms. The problem, however, is that the administration is playing a different game. It’s not trying to win hearts and minds, but rather impose its will.

Dan Pfeiffer tweeted:

Here's what people don't like about ICE: - The agents are heavily armed, masked, and poorly trained. - They think the agents are unaccountable and see themselves as above the law. - That their actions are unconstitutional. - That ICE is targeting the wrong people.

George F Will of the Washington Post:

Governments around the world are using myriad technologies, some of them sinister, to surveil their populations. U.S. governments — national, state local — are not impervious to the temptation to overdo this. But today, a salutary effect of the ubiquity of smartphones is the surveillance of the government by citizens. Including those exercising their constitutional right to petition government for redress of grievances, and people watching other people do this.

In today’s roundup Dworkin quoted Politico:

“The big muscular show of force — you invite too much confrontation,” said a second person close to the White House, also granted anonymity to speak candidly. “Let’s try to be quieter about it but deport just as many people. Be a little sneakier. Don’t have the flexing and the machismo part of it. There’s a certain element of that that’s cool but as much as we can, why can’t we be stealthy and pop up all over Minnesota?” “We were almost provoking the reaction,” the person added. “I’m all for the smartest tactics as long as the end result is as many deportations as possible.” But the person warned that any perception of backtracking could depress a base already uneasy about the economy. “Our base is generally not wealthy and they’re not doing well,” the person said. “They’re struggling. If you take away immigration — if they don’t believe he means it — holy cow, that’s not good.”

Adam Klasfeld tweeted about how badly the nasty guy’s attempt of accusing his enemies of crime are going.

Let's speak plainly. In legitimate criminal cases, political appointees don't have to first hollow out U.S. Attorney offices of objecting career prosecutors with integrity; federal judges don't kill the cases at the cradle, and the government doesn't fight tooth and nail to revive them. This happened THREE times with Trump's DOJ to date. NONE of the criminal cases against Trump featured those antics.

The neurotic need for endless conflict, incompatible with joy

I’ve been thinking about the power of the social hierarchy for several years now and frequently apply my thoughts to current events. One of the questions that came to mind was whether those towards the top of the hierarchy were happy. They seemed to obsess over their position in the hierarchy. So what did it bring them? The American Declaration of Independence famously says we people have the right to the “pursuit of happiness.” It doesn’t list any other emotion. So are they happy? What online research I could find (and could understand) didn’t say much about this question. The Gaslit Nation bonus episode for last week posed the question, “Do fascists feel joy?” Yes, I was intrigued. It’s close enough to my original question and now I have the time to explore it. Because it is a bonus episode it is available only to members (which I am). So my link may not work for you. Also, bonus episodes do not get a transcript. I listened to the audio, pausing frequently to write down ideas. A lot of what follows is a summary of what was said. Only once did I check to make sure the quote was accurate. Beyond a prelude the speaker was Andrea Chalupa, host of Gaslit Nation. From that prelude: How did Communists maintain their power? It wasn’t because people believed their lies, but because too many people were willing to let the lies persist. They wanted to go along to get along, to not threaten the system so it would not threaten them. The example was shopkeepers posting signs that agreed with the lies of the regime. But one one person can break the fantasy. A shopkeeper could stop putting up the sign. On to the main discussion. Do fascists feel joy? That they don’t seems obvious. They don’t have empathy. They are cruel and they push out those not extreme enough, not cruel enough. Trump’s rallies shows people who are laughing and appearing to have a good time. But is it joy? George Orwell wrote a review of Hitler’s Mein Kampf in 1940. He noted that socialism and capitalism offer people a good time. Fascism offers struggle, danger, and death. “The fascist psychological profile is driven by a neurotic need for endless conflict, which is incompatible with the contentment or life affirming nature that we all know as joy.” Note the “endless conflict” – the nasty guy invaded Venezuela, then seemed to drop that to push an invasion of Greenland. That is like ICE using tear gas in Minneapolis after Renee Good was murdered, to maintain the level of conflict. This episode was recorded before Alex Pretti was murdered. So fascism offers a “better” time than what capitalism offers. That better time is being hyper vigilant of enemies within and without, which is endless conflict. Yeah, that doesn’t seem like a better offer. Stick with me a moment. Why do people want endless conflict? That’s how they were raised. They had a domineering father. Hitler then praised those types of fathers. A proto-Nazi movement declared that dominance is the only way to deal with a chaotic world. In this case “chaos” included feminism and LGBTQ rights. In the 1920s and 1930s Germany was the leading center of research into psychology and philosophy. So when Hitler came along these researchers began to study him and his movement. Fascism is a way for the masses to express themselves without giving them any power. The elements of their rallies are designed to create a state of mass intoxication. A researcher saw that the self-alienation was so complete people could feel their own destruction as a form of pleasure. The cruelty is a dopamine hit derived from inflicting pain on someone else. It is glee that comes from the violence of domination. What they were feeling wasn’t and isn’t joy. It was the thrill of dominance, the high of the mob. Fascism is a death cult, and requires an enemy. In contrast, joy is life affirming. That cruelty is funded by corporations that want the destruction of the labor movement, of liberals, and of feminists all wanting to challenge the patriarchy corporations want to maintain. Why discuss their lack of joy? Because it exposes their weakness. The fascist high is not sustainable. It is fast and hot. It needs continuing escalation. It needs new enemies to destroy to maintain the level of stimulation. It is exhausting. But it is also never enough. So the Democrat’s plan to wait it out won’t work. Such a movement is already dead inside. Their laughter is empty. They are brittle. Their movement will eventually collapse. True joy, the kind that sustains resistance, is a renewable energy. That comes from love and community. We must keep going and do so in joy until the fascists collapse. So find and keep joy in your life. It is the best revenge. All that was the first 19 minutes of the recording. The remaining 15 minutes was a discussion of self care with Vatican reporter Colleen Dulle. She wrote the book, “Struck Down, Not Destroyed: Keeping the Faith as a Vatican Reporter.” One thing Dulle reported on was MAGA attempting a siege of the Vatican. It seems the Vatican can’t reform fast enough to withstand the effort. And one needed reform is to let women be priests to fill the desperate need for priests. The self care discussion was about how Dulle cares for herself. I’ve seen Chalupa’s standard list of questions for these things and quickly saw one person’s self care may not apply to another. So I didn’t finish the recording. A thought from me. People who followed Hitler wanted more of what they knew from growing up. The same seems true for many of the people who adore the nasty guy. That means how we raise our children needs an overhaul with a greater emphasis on love and community while limiting dominance. And in the meantime a lot of people need a great deal of therapy and our country isn’t set up to give it. Our culture considers children raised to be highly patriarchal to be raised properly.

They are neighbors, whether born in Minneapolis or Mogadishu

I finished the book American Scholar by Patrick E. Horrigan. The story is about James in 2016 reflecting back on his life when he started his PhD program in 1987, when he was known as Jimmy. That PhD dissertation starts out being about author F. O. Matthiessen and how his writing was affected by falling in love with Russel Cheney in 1924. Also at the time Jimmy is dating Gregory, though Jimmy can seem to annoy Gregory easily. In 2016 James has published a novel, also called American Scholar, a fictionalized telling of the lives and love of Matthiessen and Cheney, who were real people. He gives a public reading from the book, has dinner with friends, then stalls going home to his husband Fran. Yeah, not a lot happens. This is a low-key book. The relationship with Gregory is interesting, but to me it gets bogged down with comparisons to Matthiessen and Cheney. The relationship with Fran, of which little is said until the last chapter, sounds like it would have been much more interesting. Another annoyance is there are characters named Jimmy, Jerry, and Jay. I had to work to keep them separate. In the author notes at the end Horrigan reveals this novel is a fictional version of his own life, same sort of love when working on his PhD, same sort of long-term relationship afterward. In the chapters on life in 1987 he describes Gregory living with friends in a “farmhouse” with a courtyard on Manhattan. From the location and description I think I found it here. Turn the image towards the northeast. A brief addition to my love of the opera The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay discussed yesterday. At the bottom of the Met Opera webpage for this opera are several videos of scenes from the opera. One is for the duet “Imagine” in which Joe and Rosa sing about America being the place where the oppressed of the world can come. It’s a strong contrast to how the administration is treating those not born here. Another video is “Top of the Empire State Building” where Sam realizes he’s in love with Tracy. In the comments of Tuesday’s pundit roundup for Daily Kos is a 13 minute video by Caolan Robertson. He says at the recent Davos meeting Europe changed forever, there is no going back. He explains a bit of what Davos is – countries and big corporations come in and essentially take over the main shops for the week, rebranding them with names such as Russia House or Ukraine House. The big events that week were the official speeches by Canadian PM Mark Carney, the nasty guy (big on complaints and threats but everyone wanted to witness it), then Zelenskyy of Ukraine. In between those the Ukraine House held a breakfast session that was interrupted so that Steve Witkoff, the lead US negotiator on Ukraine, could say a few words, and those words were pro Russia, an insult to the Ukrainians whose microphone he co-opted. Robertson was the only reporter to follow Witkoff out of the room to ask about his investments in Russia. Witkoff did not respond, which is an answer. Yes, the chief US negotiator in Ukraine does better when Russia does better – a direct conflict of interest. Robertson says that too many reporters at Davos want to keep coming back to hobnob with the rich and get the free canapes and champagne, so don’t want to upset the rich with embarrassing questions. This is also a conflict of interest. Robertson was told he won’t be invited back. The way Europe was changed forever was that its leaders had to actually confront its problems. I hadn’t heard about Robertson before. Wikipedia says his name is Irish (pronounced “KAY-lan”), he’s 29, works and a journalist and influencer, and has been based in Ukraine since after the war started. He also recounts that for about 3 years starting about age 20 he was involved in far-right politics. He has said recovering from that is like leaving a cult. He’s also gay and knew that from “a very young age.” On Instagram he announced he has found love. The nasty guy’s Board of Peace was created a week ago, but I haven’t had time to write about it until now. NPR host A Martínez talked to diplomatic correspondent Michele Kelemen. The Board was supposed to be an international body overseeing the rebuilding of Gaza. But the founding document doesn’t mention Gaza at all and sounds like a substitute to the United Nations or at least its Security Council. Back when the Board was explicitly about Gaza the UN endorsed its creation. The nasty guy invited many countries to join (and didn’t invite others). Those invited include the leaders of Turkey, Qatar, Argentina, Hungary, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Belarus, Russia, and Israel. Some have already accepted. Do you see the common element of those countries? All of them have an authoritarian leader. Carney of Canada has reservations about joining. He will write checks directly to Palestinians. When Macron of France declined to join the nasty guy threatened a 200% tariff on French wine. The Board has two levels of membership. A country can join for free for a three-year term. Or they can pay $1 billion for a permanent seat – with the nasty guy as chair for as long as he wants, even after he leaves the Oval Office. That was followed with Leila Fadel talking to Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and a founding member of The Elders, a group of world leaders who advocate for peace and first convened by Nelson Mandela. Robinson said:

I don't call it the Board of Peace. I call it the board of the power of one person. It is totally bizarre. And countries should not support it at all. It is not a peacemaking organization.

Her complaints: The nasty guy controls all. He’s the chairman and chooses his successor. He invites countries and bullies those that refuse. Only rich countries can be permanent members. He is the only one who can create, modify, or dissolve subsidiary bodies. It’s an outrageous way to replace the UM Security Council. It’s only purpose is to empower the nasty guy. Countries should not join. Carney was right when at Davos he described a rupture of the international system. The nasty guy is largely responsible for that. But a rupture isn’t the end of a rules-based order, which now must be reaffirmed and supported by other countries. Yes, there are problems with the UN Security Council. It is based on world power as of 1945 and the world has changed a lot since then. The UN can be reformed and should be. It needs to engage and protect the smaller countries and the multipolar power of today. Maybe the veto should be eliminated.

It's hard to see [the Board of Peace] getting legitimacy when the power is the power of President Trump alone. That is not legitimacy for any global order. And we see that he - you know, he loses interest after a while. I think he's lost interest in Gaza.

In a pundit roundup for Kos for Thursday a week ago Chitown Kev quoted Iker Seisdedos of El País in English who reported invitations went to 60 countries. The world has about 200 countries.

A dozen capitals, in a list that grows by the hour, have already announced their participation. These include countries ranging from Albania to Israel — despite the latter’s discomfort with the participation of Egypt and Qatar — and Morocco, Argentina, and Hungary. Some are long-standing allies of the United States. Others depend too heavily on U.S. support to defy Washington. The rest have leaders close to Trump. While the motivations of its initial partners seem clear, the merits required for an invitation beyond Washington’s discretion, its final composition, and the extent of its mission beyond its primary objective — advancing the peace plan imposed by the United States on Israel and Hamas to end the Gaza war — are less so. Its founding document doesn’t even mention the Gaza Strip. It is also a mystery which of its members will be willing to pay the $1 billion that a permanent seat will cost. Washington maintains that this money will be used for the reconstruction of Gaza, although its plans have not yet been made public.

We’ve seen the nasty guy’s plans for Gaza and the Pandemic Prince recently touted them again to turn Gaza into a resort. So we know what he means by “reconstruction” – he means without Palestinians. And are there any procedures and watchdogs to keep those billions from falling into the nasty guy’s own pockets? In the comments Michael Harriot tweeted:

BlackCheck: Trump says Civil Rights Act led to whites being “very badly treated.” Did the Civil Rights Act oppress the people who are overrepresented in homeownership, legislatures, the judicial branch, wealth, income, school funding, college admission, executive leadership & white tears distribution?

There is a link to Harriot’s Contraband Camp for a full explanation. A tweet from Rep. Thomas Massie discussing oil from seized Venezuelan ships.

Selling stolen oil and putting billions of dollars in a bank in Qatar to be spent without Congressional approval is not Constitutional. Only Congress can appropriate money. The President can’t legally create a second Treasury overseas for his own piggy bank. Wake up Congress.

A tweet from The Atlantic with a link to the full article (behind a paywall). After the tweet is the article heading and subheading.

The Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals aligning with ICE are "prying Christianity further and further away from the ethic and teachings of Jesus," @Peter_Wehner argues. MAGA Jesus is Not the Real Jesus. Trump is causing incalculable damage to the Christian faith, yet most evangelicals will never break with him.

The reason is simple. They’ve redefined Christianity to be about power and not about the love Jesus taught. In today’s pundit roundup Kov quoted Adam Serwer of The Atlantic:

If the Minnesota resistance has an overarching ideology, you could call it “neighborism”—a commitment to protecting the people around you, no matter who they are or where they came from. The contrast with the philosophy guiding the Trump administration couldn’t be more extreme. Vice President Vance has said that “it is totally reasonable and acceptable for American citizens to look at their next-door neighbors and say, ‘I want to live next to people who I have something in common with. I don’t want to live next to four families of strangers.’” Minnesotans are insisting that their neighbors are their neighbors whether they were born in Minneapolis or Mogadishu. That is, arguably, a deeply Christian philosophy, one apparently loathed by some of the most powerful Christians in America.

Paul Krugman, writing for his own Substack:

We’re fortunate that Trump is too impatient, too addicted to violence, to pursue the salami tactics Viktor Orban used in Hungary — slicing the institutions of democracy away gradually and insidiously until there was nothing left. Trump, instead, is trying to speedrun the process, shocking and aweing the nation into submission. The siege of Minneapolis was clearly meant as a show of force that would intimidate not just undocumented immigrants, but blue states as a whole and opponents in general. It was entirely predictable that innocent people would be dragged from their cars, beaten, pepper-sprayed in the eyes, and killed... However, MAGA has clearly been shocked by the way the people of Minnesota responded. Rather than rolling over in submission, ordinary citizens quickly organized highly effective resistance. Although they haven’t stopped ICE’s reign of terror, they have thrown a lot of sand in its gears.

Jennifer Rubin of The Contrarian Substack discussing the ICE murder in Minneapolis:

The notion that only some victims are truly deserving, or can be relatable to many Americans, is the unsettling but undeniable conclusion after years of ignoring Black victims of police abuse or of disregarding the cruel, violent deportation of Hispanics. Enumerable studies have provided evidence that a victim’s race significantly affects the level of coverage and public reaction to the tragedy...Even white killers receive more public sympathy than do non-white killers. Then along comes Alex Pretti: white, a VA ICU nurse, a young man of unassailable character — and a responsible gun owner to boot! His unprovoked death and his baseless smearing jarred a great many people not previously disturbed by violence against Hispanics, Blacks, Asians, or women. For seemingly the first time, many Americans could not look away and say, “Well, that would never happen to me.”

In the comments Fiona Webster posted a cartoon by Dr. MacLeod. It shows a clergyman kneeling and praying while approached by police with handcuffs. The caption says:

My administration will not tolerate anti-Christian weaponization of government or unlawful conduct targeting Christians. -- Donald Trump, Feb 2025

Will Stancil tweeted a photo of a Minnesota protest and the crowd is huge. The photo is from the New York Times. Joni Askola tweeted:

American tech billionaires are making a calculated bet on fascism. They believe they can control a dictator in exchange for deregulation and total market dominance. They don’t care about your right or the constitution. They only care about securing their own power.

They’re also wrong in their bet: They can’t control a dictator. He will do things they don’t like. Their praise of him must be constantly renewed and one misstep and he’ll turn on them.

All that Minnesota protesting worked

I had a wonderful afternoon watching the opera The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay shown in a movie theater. The opera is based on a book of the same name by Michael Chabon, published in 2000. I read the book shortly after it came out (so at least 20 years ago) and enjoyed it. So when I heard there was an opera based on the book I very much wanted to see it. I had originally heard it would be on the radio in early January, a broadcast of a performance at the Metropolitan Opera last October. But in late December I heard I would be able to see it on screen in movie theaters, today being one of the days. Alas, the closer theater showing it sold out, so I had to go almost to Ann Arbor (in a theater definitely not sold out). The story is about Joe Kavalier, who is Jewish and at the start of the opera is escaping from Prague of 1939. He leaves behind parents and a sister. He gets to Brooklyn, where is cousin Sam Clay lives. Sam is enamored with comic books at a time when Superman is becoming a thing. He convinces Joe to join his effort – Sam would do the writing and Joe would do the artwork. Their character, The Escapist, is a hit, soon on the radio, voiced by Tracy, and there is talk of a movie. Along the way Joe falls in love with Rosa and Sam falls in love with Tracy – I had forgotten about this gay part of the story. But real Nazis are still out there and comic book battles aren’t removing the threat. Joe wants to bring his parents and sister to America and it’s not going well. The story is a lot deeper than the super hero angle might suggest. It is relevant to today both in The Escapist battling fascism and in a strong support of America being a place where the oppressed of other countries can come to be free. This was an overall excellent production, as one expects from Met Opera. The singers were in fine voice and did a great job in their acting. The music is by Mason Bates and the program included a clip of him describing his combination of orchestra with electronic sounds. The result was tuneful, dramatic, and beautiful, definitely not the avant garde of other operas written in the last half century. Each of the lead characters had moments to shine (what the opera world calls “arias”). The sets were innovative and appropriate to the story. There was also a lot of images projected on to the scenery or backdrop, a great way to show what Joe is drawing and to show the comics Tracy is portraying for the radio. The success of the fall run prompted Met Opera to show the opera in theaters, originally not on their in-theater schedule. The success also prompted the opera be brought back to the Met stage for a few more performances in February. At the bottom of the Met’s page for the opera are videos of some of those arias. I’m pretty sure this opera will become part of the standard repertoire rather quickly. The murder of Alex Pretti by ICE agents in Minneapolis last Saturday has been in the news quite a bit. But if you still need a news article here is one by the Associated Press posted on Daily Kos. Also on Saturday Kos of Kos wrote about some of the details of the killing to demonstrate that what comes out of the mouths of the nasty guy administration is lies. On Sunday Kos reported that a spending bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security, the parent of ICE, is now before the Senate. Funding for several other departments is in the same bill. Several Democratic senators, including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have declared they will vote no unless the bill is revised to restore the guardrails for ICE. That story is still playing out with a partial government shutdown possibly happening Saturday morning. Since the House is on recess (again) until Monday the chance of a shutdown is quite high. An AP article from Sunday afternoon includes more details of Pretti’s murder. It also includes comments by gun rights groups, that Pretti having a legal gun with permit with him at a protest is legal.

“Every peaceable Minnesotan has the right to keep and bear arms — including while attending protests, acting as observers, or exercising their First Amendment rights,” the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus said in a statement. “These rights do not disappear when someone is lawfully armed.”

A day that I side with a gun rights group is rare. Another AP article posted on Sunday reports that several Republicans are calling for a deeper investigation into the shooting and the tactics of the ICE agents. This is needed because, as before, DHS and ICE say they will investigate and are blocking Minnesota police from doing a separate (and more honest) investigation. I’m pleased to see that this murder is rousing some Republicans say something. That’s while, as Emily Singer of Kos reports, other Republicans are defending the killing. On Monday Walter Einenkel of Kos reported that Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that protesters should not have guns. So Pretti brought this on himself. Also on Monday Kos wrote about the comments various administration officials, especially Noem, have been making. He wrote:

This isn’t spin. It isn’t confusion. It’s the secretary of Homeland Security knowingly lying to justify lethal force by her department, as part of an agencywide collapse so complete that it’s doubtful anyone at DHS is even capable of telling the truth anymore. And the absurdity doesn’t stop there. While Noem repeatedly refers to Pretti as an “attacker,” U.S. Homeland Security adviser Stephen Miller escalated the lie even further, calling Pretti an “assassin.” This press conference alone should be grounds for impeachment. A Cabinet secretary does not get to hide behind “it’s under investigation” to block accountability while simultaneously fabricating a false narrative to excuse a killing carried out by her own agency.

A third Monday article is by Lisa Needham of Kos who reported on conservatives saying the real issue was that Pretti attended a protest with a gun. Let’s ignore that Pretti had been disarmed by the agents before being shot. The NRA talked about those conservative comments – a bit – but then blamed Democrats. Rob Doar of the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus had to explain things to Kash Patel of the FBI.

There is no prohibition on a permit holder carrying a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines at a protest or rally in Minnesota

Needham then contrasted Pretti with Kyle Rittenhouse who several years ago took a gun to a protest, killed two people, and was praised by conservatives. Conservatives are praised while liberal gun owners get a death sentence. In a Monday evening post Kos discussed the reasons why the nasty guy is “waving a white flag.” He talked to Gov. Tim Walz and described the call as “very good” and Walz as “respectful.” That’s quite a change from the words he’s been using over the last few weeks. The nasty guy doesn’t use “respectful” when describing Democrats without a reason. And the reason is the politics around the Pretti murder have “gone south fast.” There’s the murder itself. There’s also Republicans’ defense of the murder – of a white gun owner. Public support then dropped by quite a bit. And other Republicans support controls on ICE. No policy has changed yet. But sending border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota looks like the beginning of cooperation rather than occupation. On Tuesday morning Kos reported that Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino, one of the administration attack dogs and a prominent face of ICE, had been pulled from Minnesota, been demoted, and his social media operation dismantled. Some of Bovino’s backers in DHS may also be on their way out. Kos also reported that some of the new ICE hires, especially the retirees that were rehired, are looking at what’s going on and leaving. And it isn’t just the Minnesota weather. On Tuesday evening Kos listed several reasons why the nasty guy should be impeached: His mental state and growing dementia. The refusal to release the Epstein files. His terrorizing of American cities. The blowing up of the federal deficit. The botched way he’s dealing with Venezuela. His obsession with the Kennedy Center. His obsession with Greenland for not getting the Peace Prize. His damage to NATO and other foreign alliances, burning the credibility of the US. And Republicans are either silent or muttering quietly. “At this point, silence isn’t loyalty. It’s complicity.” Oliver Willis of Kos, in his series on Explaining the Right, he discussed why conservatives think anti-ICE – well, any – protesters are being paid. Of course, there are a lot of examples when they have said that or something similar. The opposite of a paid protester is one that is out there because they actually oppose what they’re protesting against.

What conservatives don’t want to contend with is the reality that Trump’s policies and the ideas put into place by congressional Republicans are unpopular. Anti-immigration violence and cost-increasing tariffs generate genuine opposition. Republicans would love a world where they can disregard protesters as a paid distraction. But they are very real, no matter how furiously the right tries to spin the reality being witnessed by millions.

In the pundit roundup for Kos for Sunday, the day after Pretti was murdered, Chitown Kev quoted Mike McIntyre of The New York Times discussing “fringe” researchers. I wondered are we doing this still? Or is it again?

A group of fringe researchers thwarted safeguards at the National Institutes of Health and gained access to data from thousands of children. The researchers have used it to produce at least 16 papers purporting to find biological evidence for differences in intelligence between races, ranking ethnicities by I.Q. scores and suggesting Black people earn less because they are not very smart. ... Their papers have provided fodder for racist posts on social media and white nationalist message boards that have been viewed millions of times. Some of the papers are cited by A.I. bots like ChatGPT and Grok in response to queries about race and intelligence. On the social media platform X, Grok has referred users to the research more than two dozen times this month alone.

Symone D Sanders Townsend of MSNOW discussed special counsel Jack Smith’s testimony before Congress. He’s the one who was prosecuting the nasty guy until his regaining the Oval Office put a stop to the efforts.

But while Democrats on the committee focused on the past, Republicans looked to change the subject. Instead of sincerely grappling with the violence or the attempt to overturn the election, Republicans focused on process. They questioned procedures, attacked the special counsel and debated legal technicalities. They did not try to argue, as some have, that Jan. 6 was a hoax or a false flag operation or just a friendly group of tourists. Instead, they did everything they could to make it feel less consequential. That distinction matters. When a violent attack on democracy is treated as just another political disagreement, something dangerous is happening. At times, the hearing felt less like an effort to hold people accountable and more like an attempt to wear the public down until it grew tired of attempting to hold people accountable. [...] Smith made a simple but critical point in his testimony. When serious crimes are not punished, it sends a message. It tells future actors that they can try again. Accountability is not about payback. It is about preventing the next attempt. Right now, the message of accountability has been lost.

In the comments is a tweet by Tim Miller:

The 2nd Amendment protects us from government tyranny crowd changes their tune right quick when their preferred jack booted thugs kill a dude with a gun. The government's stated rationale for this killing is that the victim was carrying a legal firearm. The very people that told us we need to accept mass child slaughter for the right to protect ourselves from scary Obama, now say the govt can kill you if you possess a weapon.

A tweet by Matt McDermott, which includes an image of the letter.

As insane as this sounds, it’s true: Pam Bondi sent Minnesota officials a letter today saying ICE would leave the state if Minnesota turns over its voter files to the Trump Administration. They’re openly using state violence as a bargaining chip to seize election infrastructure.

Sen. Chris Murphy added:

Guess what? This has never been about safety or immigration. It’s a pretext for Trump to take over elections in swing states.

A tweet from Brian Allen:

A German soccer federation executive committee member says it’s time to consider a WORLD CUP BOYCOTT because of Donald Trump. Let that sink in. Trump is turning the United States into such a global embarrassment that our allies are now discussing boycotting the biggest sporting event on Earth.

Bill Kristol tweeted with a link to an article in The Bulwark:

“The federal government is no longer bound by law. If agents of the state may kill people in public without being investigated; if they have—again, per VP Vance—“absolute immunity” from prosecution then we are living in an authoritarian regime.”

The Wolfpack takes a riff on the Brokeback Mountain movie. The GOP says to the nasty guy, “I don’t know how to quit you.” Jack Smith says, “Maybe this will help!” as he hands over handcuffs. Lalo Alcaraz riffs on a line conservatives have been saying to immigrants. A Pilgrim man says, “We are fleeing persecution in our homeland, so we are seeking a new place to live.” A native man says, “Why don’t you people just stay home and fix your own failing country?” In the comments of Tuesday’s roundup paulpro posted a cartoon by Pat Harrington:

Donkey: Wow! You guys are losing the narrative... Elephant: They’re domestic terrorists and paid assassins! Doneky: No, they’re VA nurses and helpless moms. Elephant: But, I still want to own the libtards. Donkey: It’s so bad I can use the NRA against you... Elephant: Oh, No!! What if we lose Jesus next?!!

In today’s roundup Greg Dworkin included a tweet from Sonny Bunch:

The amount of coping and seething I am seeing from conservatives who simply *cannot believe* they couldn’t win the discourse/public opinion fight by mindlessly championing a disarmed dude getting shot in the back ten times is kind of fascinating.

A cartoon by Naked Pastor showing a pastor thinking, “I warned my church that if they weren’t careful, they could start looking like Nazi collaborators, only to discover... that’s what they’ve always wanted.”

What if society was based on spiritual values, not property?

What if society was based on spiritual values, not property? I finished two books today. When I get to the second one I’ll explain how that happened. They also fit well together. The first book is The Peacekeeper by B. L. Blanchard. What attracted me to this book is the setting – North America (actually the whole world) not colonized by Europe. The time is 2020 (thought the first chapter begins with the date in many calendar systems). Many of our modern conveniences exist in this world with smartphones being the most obvious. There are also high speed trains (cars aren’t mentioned), living skyscrapers, and modern forensic science. The skyscrapers are designed with space for trees on balconies (yes, this is a real thing, see here for an example). The story follows Chibenashi, resident of the small tourist town of Baawitigong (near what we know of as Sault Ste. Marie). When he was seventeen his mother was murdered and his father way too quickly confessed to the crime and asked to be sent to prison. That left him to care for his sister Ashwiyaa, twelve at the time. She didn’t handle the loss of her parents and goes frantic or almost catatonic whenever anyone but Chibenashi cares for her. The one exception is Meoquanee, their mother’s best friend whose own husband and son deserted her. Twenty years later Meoquanee is murdered. Chibenashi is now a peacekeeper, the equivalent of a policeman, though their small community doesn’t need much policing. He is assigned to the case, which brings up ties to the previous murder. To help solve the case Chibenashi must go to the big city, Shikaakwa, on the southwest shore of Ininwewi-gichigami (Lake Michigan). That makes me wonder if the huge city at that location in our world derived its name from a native name. This is the place with the living skyscrapers. It has much more sophisticated police force and forensic tools. It is also where his father is in prison. So, yeah, this is a murder mystery. The author is very good at introducing new information that upends what Chibenashi (and the reader) understood up to that time. Alas, Chibenashi is too emotionally involved in the case. It’s a good mystery. It is also a good way to describe what North America might have been like if natives had kept control. I’ve mentioned the living skyscrapers. There are city layouts that incorporate a great deal more nature. There is a description of an alternate justice system, based on restoring (as much as possible) the victim rather than punishing the perpetrator. Instead of lawyers and judges there are advocates and mediators. One of the characters is an economics professor and he is given a chance to expound on how their economic system differs from capitalism and communism. Their system is based more on community and on the idea that a person or community gives of their surplus with the hope their needs are met by other people or communities giving of their surplus. I very much enjoyed this story and towards the end didn’t want to put it down. I usually don’t like mysteries (the story is about a death), but the description of the society the author created was well worth the read. The mystery, plot, and characters were pretty good too. I recommend it. On to the second book. It is Native Wisdom for White Minds, Daily Reflections Inspired by the Native Peoples of the World by Anne Wilson Shaef. In the past I’ve used Christian daily devotion guides that have a page for each day of the year. Each page has a Bible verse, a writer’s commentary on it, and a prayer. This is similar. Each page has a sentence or more of wisdom from a native community, Shaef’s reflection on it, and her prayer. The wisdom comes from American natives, Hawaiian Kupuna, Australian aborigines, the Maori of New Zealand, South American natives, even the Irish. Yeah, I’m writing about it at the end of January, rather than the beginning, because there were many days I forgot to open it. Even with doubling up towards the end of the year I still didn’t finish it until now. I found the book 18 moths ago in the Indigenous shop in Stratford, Ontario. The title intrigued me, so I bought it (and a couple other books on native themes I’ve since read). During the year I wrote down on an index card the dates and topics of thoughts that intrigued me. By the end of the book I had filled the card. I can’t share all of them, but I will share many. For some I quoted the native speaker, for others I quote Shaef’s reflection, and in a few I wrote a summary. You don’t need to ask me permission to quote something I have written or said. We are both doing the work of the Creator. Our responsibility is to get the information out there. Use whatever you like. – Don Coyhis, Mohican American native. Shaef added: Possession is an illusion. Western society (especially American evangelicals) focus on the family of a man, a woman, and children. Native wisdom says that is too narrow. Children benefit from having a community of aunties, uncles, and siblings. Why is it that right now Western governments are increasingly pushing the isolated nuclear family [rather than the extended family and community] as society’s building blocks? – Shaef Also on the nuclear family: Some of us are even beginning to wonder why our societal structures keep pushing for a model that produces damaged individuals. – Shaef “We” overrides “me.” – Hawaiian proverb. Shaef added that many of the laws in Western culture actually work against community. Everything in the universe is perfect. People and anything else only become less than perfect when compared to someone or something else. – Rangimarie Turuki Pere, Maori Too many times we use the word “illiterate” to describe people who are not formally educated in Western science and culture but understand the world and its wisdom much better than Western culture does. Sometimes it’s difficult for “civilized” people of the world to believe that “primitive” people can look at our way of life with all its advantages and not want it. It’s even more difficult to believe that they find our way of life not only undesirable but primitive. – Shaef Earth, water, and sea belong to the gods and people are here to enhance them, not deplete them. – Hawaiian Kupuna When we realize that we are, indeed, one with others, we become less willing to destroy them, because we understand that we are, in essence, destroying ourselves. – Shaef. We work volunteer – you could never get people to work this hard if you paid them for it. – Bruce Stewart, Maori Hawaii works for personal excellence, the West works for money. – Patrick Ka’ano’i, Hawaii One must have a good heart and a good mind and use both. Much of Western culture is built on exclusion. Native culture is built on inclusion. Perhaps only when people can enjoy their differences as a resource of cultural enrichment do they become truly civilized. – Herb Kawainui Kane, Kupuna Only a system that believes it has the right, yea, even the mandate, to dominate and control (and often destroy) would have the arrogance to see a people who live every moment of their lives in deep spirituality as “wicked and unsaved.” – Shaef No one needs help to get into trouble. – Maori proverb. Status is gained by mobilizing and redistributing wealth, not by hoarding capital. – Patricia Kinloch, Health Services researcher in Samoa Many Westerners are too busy trying to impose our culture to let ourselves be happy. How can people say one skin is colored when each has its own coloration? What should it matter that one bowl is dark and the other pale, if each is of good design and serves its purpose well? – Elizabeth Q. White, Hopi, American native Only when we have a religion that is a closed system that cannot tolerate the existence of other systems do we have to legislate controls. Closed systems are by nature controlling and are threatened by open systems. Open systems are not threatened by closed systems because all are allowed existence. – Shaef. It seems [white people] have something in their life called gravy. They know truth but it is buried under thickening and spices of convenience, materialism, insecurity, and fear. – Australian aboriginal On missionaries: We cannot read their book – they tell us different stories about what it contains, and we believe they make the book talk to suit themselves. If we had no money, no land and no country to be cheated out of, these black coats would not trouble themselves about our good hereafter. The Great Spirit will not punish us for what we do not know. – Red Jacket, Seneca, American native A good thing sells itself. A bad thing is advertized. – Swahili proverb In the Western world we have capitalism, communism, and socialism, and all are based upon economics. What would a society look like that is based upon spiritual values instead of property? – Schaef In Western culture, we seem to have set up a dualism: I do what is good for the community/I have to deny myself. Native people do not operate out of that dualism. Their worldview moves them from the individual to the community to the whole. – Shaef Each person is known to have a certain gift and certain ability, and is therefore able to make a contribution to the whole. There will be the expert in bone carving; the expert in weaving, but there is in the extended family a place for all. – Hiwi Tauroa, Maori One important belief is that the Creator has given a unique heritage to each and every culture across the world. No culture is more or less important than another – to suggest that there is, is to criticize the Creator. – Rangimarie Turuki Pere, Maori

The depth of active resistance in Minneapolis

This afternoon I braved the cold (temperature warmed up to 10F!) to go to the Detroit Film Theater to see The Glassworker. Director Usman Riaz set up Mano Animation Studio in Karachi, Pakistan. He learned how to do it from Studio Ghibli and elsewhere. The Ghibli influence is there (many of the images are quite beautiful) but this is a Pakistan story. At the start of the film are a few live action minutes in which Riaz talks about establishing the studio. All the images are to be hand drawn, though they’re drawn onto a computer screen instead of paper. He assembled quite a team and expressed thanks for help from those outside the studio. That story is about Vincent Oliver, trained as a glass artist since he was a boy. The son’s talent soon passes the father’s. While still a schoolboy he meets Alliz. She’s new to town, daughter of Colonel Amano. She’s as gifted on the violin as Vincent is in glass. Amano is in town to prepare for war. Soon many of the older boys are wearing military tunics. But Vincent’s father Tomas is a pacifist. Vincent hears people describe him as the son of the coward. That puts a strain on the growing friendship between Vincent and Alliz. Then Amano threatens Tomas to get him to work for the war effort. The story goes from there. I very much enjoyed the story and recommend it (I see it is available for streaming). However, some of the scenes are intense, so this animation is not for little kids (a young child in the audience wailed at a sad scene). I began to wonder who this film is for. Pakistan? America? The mouths don’t quite match the words, but that is typical in a dubbed movie (and IMDb lists the vocal cast as for the “English Version”), though all the names appear to be Pakistani (and they spoke with American accents). The source of the wondering is because the sign on Tomas’ shop says, “Oliver Glass” in English and a letter Vincent reads appears to be in English (and Vincent’s name doesn’t sound like a Pakistani name). Are those original or did the Studio create alternate scenes for originals in Urdu (I had to look that up)? Or do enough people in Pakistan know English through its colonial history? In today’s pundit roundup for Daily Kos Greg Dworkin included a tweet from Ana Marie Cox on the ICE invasion of Minneapolis. I then looked at the original.

I know people keep saying this but it’s hard to communicate the depth of active resistance here. Like, I’m on random cafes and people are checking in for observation shifts. Signs everywhere. Folks in visibility vests on the corners. It’s wild. Absolutely wild. And that’s just on the surface! I’m also discovering the spread of second and third tier support no one is seeing. I have never ever seen anything like this. I have seen communities organize around natural disasters in a somewhat similar way but obv that wasn’t 80% SECRET.

One of the many comments to Cox, this one by Otto Simm.

These local invasions are meant in part to train Nazi feds for larger offensives, but they’re training the opposition, too. Lessons and tactics are being shared and as a result every fascist invasion seeking to incite violence will fail earlier and with fewer casualties.

Another reply to Cox led me to this thread by Sinister Minnesotan, Quantum Hamologist. Here’s the start and end:

I need to write a long-form piece about how dang *Minnesotan* the resistance to ICE is here. You have a metro population that quietly got itself organized in a completely decentralized way, and everyone just got down to work. And it's clearly sending the feds into a tailspin. So what makes it "Minnesotan"? The "quietly" and "decentralized" bits are a big part of it; everyone who's out there did so because they independently decided something needed doing. Taking responsibility and not sitting around jawing about it is A Thing here. And sure, sometimes it sucks. ... At some point in the past, I pointed out that the number of Minnesotans out in the freezing cold for something that was neither ice fishing nor sports was *remarkable*. I really can't explain how, on one level, what's happening is entirely abnormal; but on another, it's just 100% Minnesota.

Dworkin quoted the New York Times

The action on Friday, which unfolded in subzero temperatures, was the most widespread and organized demonstration since federal agents arrived in Minneapolis more than six weeks ago. It was aimed at pressuring the federal government to pull thousands of its agents from the streets. Businesses, many of them locally owned, closed their doors to halt economic activity, saying that losing a day’s revenue was worth the cost to be part of the effort to end the immigration enforcement. “There’s a time to stand up for things, and this is it,” said Alison Kirwin, the owner of Al’s Breakfast, a Minneapolis restaurant that closed on Friday. “If it takes away from a day of our income, that is worthwhile.”

The Washington Post on the nasty guy and Greenland:

The brazen ultimatum — give up Greenland or face tariffs — elicited a level of unity that largely had eluded the leaders of the 27-nation E.U. in the year since Trump’s second inauguration.

Joyce Vance in her Civil Discourse on Substack:

ICE seems to be arguing that if they think a non-citizen for whom there is a final order of deportation is in a house, they can blow right past the Fourth Amendment, take the doors off the house if they aren’t admitted voluntarily, and go right in. But the Fourth Amendment doesn’t change just because ICE says so. The Supreme Court has made it clear that a search warrant must be signed by a “judicial officer” or a “magistrate.” Their signature on the warrant says that they have reviewed the evidence that the agents believe constitutes probable cause to justify a search, and they agree that it is sufficient to breach the wall otherwise established by the Fourth Amendment and allow law enforcement into a private home (or car, or private areas of a business, etc.). The idea is that a detached, neutral judge—not someone involved in investigating a case or “on the same side” as law enforcement—should evaluate the evidence before a search warrant or an arrest warrant is issued.

Down in the comments Pierre Polyester of Canada posted a meme of the nasty guy’s 10 biggest lies during his speech at Davos (which implies there were a lot more than ten lies). I will list only a couple:

Lie: US paid 100% of NATO Truth: US pays ~16% of NATO budget Lie: US gave Greenland back [as part of the 1951 treaty] Truth: Denmark always owned Greenland.

On Thursday Lisa Needham of Kos wrote about a memo from ICE that overrides the Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure. Since ICE officials know busting down doors without a warrant is illegal, the memo has been passed along secretly. It’s based partly on executive orders from the nasty guy (which are not law or part of the Constitution) and some of it is derived from recent rulings from the Supreme Court – the Kavanaugh Stops that allow for racial profiling. In Monday’s pundit roundup, both in the body and a ways down in the comments, are several memes and tweets of the nasty guy chasing after various prizes. I’m sure most of them were AI generated. A tweet by David Frum:

ICE should return to being a police force. No masks. No combat gear. No armored vehicles. They should audit employers suspected of employing illegal labor - and enforce deportation orders - with badges, warrants, and professional manners. "Demilitarize ICE" not "Abolish ICE."

Only after causing chaos and sowing turmoil

The nasty guy has put Greenland back in the news. To distract us because he has no idea what to do with Venezuela after kidnapping its leader? A second distraction (Venezuela being the first) from his Department of Justice which is definitely not releasing the Epstein files, though required to do so by law? A week ago Wednesday an Associated Press article posted on Daily Kos reported that Denmark and Greenland officials met with the vice nasty and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Afterward a Danish official said there was still a “fundamental disagreement.” The nasty guy has given reasons for wanting to take over Greenland. National Security. Keep it out of the hands of Russia and China. Take control of its mineral wealth – the kind of minerals needed in cars, computers, and green energy. The Danish and Greenlandic officials say: We already have treaties for you to put as many military bases there as you want. What Russian and Chinese attempts to take the island? There’s a reason why those minerals aren’t being extracted – the place is cold and covered in ice! Besides, the natives of Greenland don’t want to be a part of the US. So those reasons must be a cover for something else. Does the nasty guy want it own it to feed his vast ego? Denmark and other NATO allies are increasing their military presence on Greenland. On Thursday of last week another AP article noted troops from Denmark and several European countries, including France, Germany, Norway, and Sweden, have started to arrive in Greenland. It is to tell the nasty guy that NATO can protect Greenland from Russia and China Under the nasty guy’s threats is a growing concern of what happens if the US, a member of NATO, invades Greenland, also a member of NATO through its association with Denmark? What happens to NATO and its vow that an attack on one is an attack on all? A week ago Saturday strawbale of the Kos community posted a delightful AI generated video showing those ready to defend Greenland from US invasion. Those stalwart fighters are polar bears and walruses. The song that goes with it is properly heroic. In the comments are two more videos. The first (and lower in the comments) was created back in April when the nasty guy first invoked tariffs, including on two southern islands populated by only penguins. The Democratic Penguins Republic was created to show they’re ready to protect their islands. That’s why the second video (higher in the comments) features the Democratic Penguins Republic in the fight for Greenland along with the polar bears and walruses, though that’s on the opposite end of the world. LEastsound tweeted a cartoon by John Deering. It shows a Greenland child facing the nasty guy surrounded by his Secret Service. The child says, “We’re already great, thanks.” On Wednesday Kos of Kos wrote about the state of the situation. The nasty guy gave a speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Kos described it as “wildly incoherent.” In response the US stock markets dropped in the range of 1.5% to 2.5% (I don’t have numbers in front of me). Between that and Europeans holding firm, the nasty guy announced he and the Secretary General of NATO had a “framework” for a deal and that the tariffs he had imposed on every NATO country that supported Denmark had been called off. When I originally heard the news about having a “framework” I imagined Danish and Greenlandic leaders saying, “We do?” Guys, don’t feel bad about not knowing that a nasty guy’s “framework” is equivalent to his “concept of a plan” that will be delivered “in two weeks” that never seems to actually appear. It seems that NATO holding firm and the stock market reaction (it has since gained back most of its losses) prompted the nasty guy to fold. Or, as the phrase that became popular when he pulled back on the tariffs he had imposed, he did a TACO, Trump Always Chickens Out. Wrote Kos:

In other words, Trump has once again backed down from threats on which he couldn’t follow through—but only after causing chaos, sowing turmoil, and further damaging relationships with our closest allies. He then tried to declare victory for a “deal” that does not exist and—even if it did—would amount to little more than what’s already in place. ... How many more of these self-inflicted wounds can this country take?

So what will be the next Epstein distraction? Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos quoted late night commentary:

"That's right. After all the bullying, the threats, all the anguish we caused, all the alliances we damaged, all the demands, we reached an agreement that is in all probability nearly identical to the agreement we already made back in 1951. And that is the art of the deal, folks. No one solves a problem that he manufactured completely on his own better than Donald J. Trump." —Jimmy Kimmel

In the comments of Wednesday’s pundit roundup for Kos is a tweet from Christopher Hale:

For the first time in U.S. history, the archbishop responsible for Catholic pastoral care of U.S. service members said military officers may be morally obligated to disobey a sitting president’s orders. Archbishop Timothy Broglio said a Trump-ordered invasion of Greenland would violate Catholic teaching and that Catholic troops could refuse to comply.

In the body of the roundup Greg Dworkin quoted Paul Waldman of The Cross Section on Substack discussing the brutal tactics of ICE and the “Don’t Tread On Me” flags:

To the naïve observer, those statements and warnings might have indicated an aversion to excessive state power and state violence. But that was never what the conservatives felt. To the contrary; one could always detect a yearning for violence, not a dread that the day would come when they would have to start gunning down their enemies, but the fervent hope that the day would come sooner rather than later... In other words, many conservatives believe that if a liberal even tries to evade an ICE agent in their car, that’s sufficient justification for the agent to kill them, but using your car to kill someone is perfectly fine if the person under the wheels is a liberal. Many prominent Republican lawmakers support laws that allow people to kill protesters with their cars if those protesters get in their way, since shutting down traffic is a tactic that has more often been employed by leftists. Four Republican states have passed laws removing civil liability for those acts of vehicular death-dealing. And of course, conservatives regularly turn killers like Kyle Rittenhouse (who killed two people and wounded a third) into heroes, provided the people they kill are liberals. So when they saw the video of Renee Good’s murder, they weren’t horrified, they were exultant. It’s just the kind of thing they’ve been thirsting for: some woke lib lesbian who was “very, very disrespectful” (as Trump put it) to a man with a gun, and got just what she deserved. And they want more.

In today’s roundup Chitown Kev quoted a Wall Street Journal opinion piece.

But the reality is also that, despite his over-the-top rhetoric, Mr. Trump can’t get away with whatever he likes. He is constrained by democratic institutions in the U.S., the necessity of maintaining alliances abroad, and public opinion as measured by polls and investors. The Greenland saga is a telling example. On Saturday Mr. Trump issued his demand to own the icy island and he vowed to impose tariffs on Europe to compel a sale. Opposition built over the holiday weekend, and financial markets cast a decidedly negative vote on the tariffs and threats on Tuesday. Members of Congress spoke against the use of military force in Greenland, with even GOP leaders expressing doubts. One Senator told us that, if Mr. Trump had gone ahead, Congress would have voted to cut off funds for an invasion, and with veto-proof majorities. European leaders also made clear that taking Greenland by force, military or otherwise, would break the NATO alliance. And what do you know? On Wednesday in Davos, Mr. Trump issued his familiar criticisms of Europe’s weakness, many of which are accurate. But he disavowed the use of force. And by the end of the day he had canceled the tariffs and claimed victory over what he called a “framework” deal over Greenland that he said will make everyone happy.

Nandita Bose tweeted:

Trump to Canada's @MarkJCarney at Davos: “Canada gets a lot of freebies from us, by the way. They should be grateful also, but they're not. I watched your Prime Minister yesterday. He wasn't so grateful. They should be grateful to us... Canada lives because of the United States. Remember that Mark the next time you make your statements.”

Benjy Sarlin added:

Glad Greenland is behind us so we can get back to threatening Canada.

In the comments is a tweet by Mrs. Betty Bowers with a link to a New York Times article titled, “Volunteers in Minnesota Deliver Groceries So Immigrants Can Hide at Home.” Bowers wrote:

These type of people are America's only shot at ever being great. In other words, they are the opposite of empathy-free Donald Trump and his terrorizing Gestapo goons who are destroying our country.

Comments to that tweet contain warnings that ICE is known to deliver food to get people to open their door. Only open for delivery people you know. I’ll get to the Board of Peace on another day. In this roundup Brian Allen tweeted:

Trump just “ratified” his Board of Peace like he’s founding a new world order. But the Constitution is clear: treaties need 2/3 Senate approval. So unless the Senate voted, this isn’t an international organization. It’s a photo-op with a flag.

Racism also hurts white people

Tonya Mosley of Fresh Air on NPR spoke to Heather McGhee, author of the 2021 book The Sum Of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone And How We Can Prosper Together. Though the book is a few years old recent claims by the nasty guy that white people face a lot of reverse discrimination made a discussion of the book appropriate now. Some people believe the lie that anti-white bias is now more prevalent than anti-black bias. I’m working from a transcript of the hour long show. I haven’t read the book, though it is one I should get. The central idea of the book is that racism hurts more than the targets. It hurts white people too, including the perpetrators. The nasty guy’s administration has been masterful in declaring an underlying core narrative: “an us-versus-them zero-sum story.” That says there can me no mutual progress. If one group – women, people of color, immigrants – gets ahead, it’s at the expense of native-born white men. Therefore white men should fear progress and should fear people of color. This is a lie. Facts make that clear. Civil rights have clearly benefited white women, first-generation college students, and people of disabilities. White men have also benefited. Part of that is there is still a “long-standing deliberate and explicit bias towards them.” Part of it is they benefit when companies and institutions are more successful because of their diversity. The whole society benefits, including white men. Back in 2017-2021 as McGhee wrote the book she investigated where this zero-sum lie came from. It started when the continent began to be settled by Europeans – when Europeans began to codify slavery as based on race. They didn’t want white people at the bottom of the income hierarchy to find solidarity with black slaves. Preaching zero-sum made sure poor whites thought of themselves as above blacks and helping blacks would hurt themselves. Said McGhee:

When economic inequality gets really severe, people who are divided by race or color, language or origin start to realize that they actually have more in common than what sets them apart and that they shouldn't fear their neighbors or blame their neighbors for their economic status but should be looking up the economic ladder at the people who have the power to set the rules. And that's when you begin to hear the zero-sum story louder and louder from millionaires and billionaires, self-interested folks who want to keep the economic status quo just as it is.

Yes, the zero-sum lie also shapes our country’s economics. In the 1920s towns and cities created public swimming pools, a symbol of the common good. Many were drained and filled rather than shared with black neighbors. Social Security excluded the two job categories most black workers were in. The GI Bill excluded blacks. The big investment in mortgage support excluded blacks through redlining and racial covenants. White people saw government had a role in raising the standard of living, and all these programs were created. But white people were taught to disdain and distrust black and brown people, so they had to be excluded. When the book came out in 2021 white people across the country were waking up to understanding we’ve been lied to about our history, that we wanted to understand the country in its fullness. We wanted to know our heroes of all races, those who stood with the oppressed. And the nasty guy wants to erase that. McGhee thinks the erasure will be temporary. Too many people, too many white people, don’t want history whitewashed. White people have told her they were furious they were lied to in school history classes. Young readers, the most diverse generation and with phones to access all the info in the world, don’t want to be lied to. More importantly, the nasty guy hasn’t changed public opinion, our support for history without lies. We’ve seen the nasty guy pursue supposed (accused, not proven) black fraud, as in the Somali immigrants in Minnesota. But no one pursues white fraud, as in Brett Favre redirecting assistance to needy families into college sports facilities, including a million for himself. That doesn’t fit the narrative. The whole purpose of DOGE was to eliminate woke, slashing governmental budgets and causing chaos in their effort. That mostly affected black workers. Whenever we hear “states’ rights” in legal documents, think slavery and segregation. An example is the Roberts court, that Medicaid expansion should be up to the states. And the higher percentage of black people in a state the more likely Medicaid was not expanded. The current fight about the Affordable Care Act is in its core about racism. Dr. King said injustice in health is the most shocking and inhuman system in our society. If health care is not universal someone is left out. Black and brown people are disproportionately uninsured but there are more uninsured white people than black. Yet, a majority of white people are opposed to the Affordable Care Act. McGhee remains optimistic. Pull on and resolve the racism thread and a lot of our big issues – health, housing, education, environment, democracy, the things conservatives declare as too expensive – become easier. We need each other. There are too many things I can’t do on my own. Community can do some of them but government helps us do the rest of them. In a diverse society we need multiracial action. When a community rejects zero-sum thinking and embraces cross-racial solidarity they get higher wages, cleaner air, better schools. The whole community benefits. An example is Lewiston, Maine where African refugees helped revitalize the town. Which is why the nasty guy is targeting it. An important need is organizing. And, in a lot of cities targeted by ICE, that’s what residents are doing. A lot of people are becoming participants in their communities, working towards a common goal. This is King’s Beloved Community, the exact opposite of zero-sum thinking. That’s why the nasty guy is trying to make “activism” a dirty word. He wants us to be afraid, to “think that it is dangerous and socially undesirable to speak out and be active.” And Americans aren’t listening to that idea. For white people who continue to believe in zero-sum: When people are “sidelined due to debt, discrimination, disadvantage” they aren’t contributing to the economy the way they could. Citigroup found racism cost the US GDP $16 trillion over 20 years. A black college graduate has less wealth than a white high school dropout. Instead of spending a decade working through a mountain of debt, what if that black graduate could jump right in to contributing to the economy? Don’t think of reparations as zero-sum, of one group giving to another, or as an admission of white guilt. Instead, think of it is seed capital to a new America, a cushion of wealth for black people that benefits everyone. Before I give McGhee the final word, I’ve been thinking: While the white male benefits from the end or racism, he does lose something. That something is the sense of being higher in the social hierarchy. For many white people that is of primary importance. For those in the nasty guy’s administration that’s what they obsess over and what defines their lives. I can’t wait to be rid of it.

This is a country that is in fact, just as it has always been, warring between a faction that wants to keep wealth and power concentrated in its hands and a diverse, striving, agitating, often activist, multiracial population that is trying to figure out who they are to one another. But I think that the reason why the attacks have been so brutal and overreaching is because we are so close to a place where there is an enduring multiracial governing majority that wants this country to live up to the values that we were taught it was founded on and is ready to do the work to actually make it so.

Live your life without fear of death

My Sunday movie was My Sunshine, a Japanese movie that seems appropriate leading up to the Olympics next month. It’s appropriate to me because about all I watch of the Olympics are the opening and closing ceremonies and the figure skating. The setting is on Hokkaido, the northern island of Japan. The exact city might have been mentioned on a sign or building but was not translated. Takuya is in his young teens and occasionally stutters. He is the goalie of his hockey team and not good at it. The figure skating class takes over the rink when the hockey team is done and Takuya becomes enamored with Sakura, one of the better ones and quite good. Movie descriptions say she is from Tokyo but no reason is given for why she is here and not there. Takuya tries mimicking the spins he sees Sakura do, but doesn’t do well in hockey skates. Her coach watches him and offers his old figure skates (amazingly they fit!) and offers to given him lessons for free – there are a lot of girl figure skaters and not enough boys. As Takuya improves the coach suggests he and Sakura become an ice dancing team. Her mother thinks she’s better than that. I enjoyed it. It’s a good film but I would not say it’s a great film. Now for some spoilers. There are a couple reasons for mentioning them. One is the description of the movie isn’t right. It implies that Takuya and Sakura grow close and experience young love. They become a decent dancing pair, but I didn’t see them become more than friends. The other reason is about the coach. The movie says that he is from Tokyo. The implied question is why is he here in northern Japan and not Tokyo or other big city – he is good enough to coach the impressive Sakura. We eventually see the reason – he’s gay. And attitudes in northern Japan are still quite conservative. So there is no final triumphant showing at the ice dancing competition. That the coach is gay is not in the description and I didn’t know that when choosing this film. Back to the description. It has the phrase, “unspoken feelings begin to surface,” implying a growing love between Takuya and Sakura. But the “unspoken feelings” are between the coach and his lover, as far as I can tell, and they don’t “begin to surface.” With all that I’m not sure how I would have succinctly described this movie. Tovia Smith of NPR reported that Bishop Rob Hirschfeld of the Episcopal Church in New Hampshire told a community of faith leaders about the “cruelty, the injustice and the horror … unleashed in Minneapolis.” Then he warned of “a new era of martyrdom.” When talking to a reporter he said:

I've asked them to get their affairs in order to make sure they have their wills written, because it may be that now is no longer the time for statements, but for us with our bodies to stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable.

Yeah, that went viral. Some faith leaders responded by essentially saying glad he said that. They’ve been thinking something similar and feel relief that someone spoke out. Others wondered if they would be that brave, but know they need to move beyond taking no risk. Others said this didn’t diffuse tension, it seemed more of a war cry. The church should be about peacemaking and to build bridges. I add that ICE isn’t about to diffuse tension or make peace, though building bridges to conservatives is a big help, but outside of ICE protests. Another opinion is that they didn’t sign up to be a martyr, they have a family and congregation who rely on them. I add the family is definitely a concern, but the congregation will survive, get another pastor, and might appreciate the example. Hirschfeld replied to criticism:

What I said to the clergy (was) “I'm just asking you to live your life without fear of death. Be prepared. I'm not asking you to go look for that bullet.” I'm simply saying be ready, have your affairs in order, have your soul ready, in case you find yourself in trouble.

That trouble may not come from ICE agents. New Hampshire is an open carry state and rallies and vigils prompt MAGA people to counterprotest, which could turn violent. Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin said that if Hirschfeld wanted to stand with the vulnerable he should stand with the ICE agents. Yeah, that sort of inverse logic is expected.

If you try to stop us we will use our violence against you

Some of these posts are old, some are recent. Together they tell a developing story. Back on November 19 Lisa Needham of Daily Kos reported that ICE was about to hire bounty hunters to track down immigrants for them. The hunters would get $300 for each person and address they verify and pass to ICE. Yeah, there are professional bounty hunters, though the field doesn’t have oversight and is full of abuse. But a big problem is this offer could be expanded to anyone who wanted to surveil and betray neighbors. There don’t seem to be safeguards on whether the address is for an actual undocumented person. This seems modeled on the Texas law that allowed citizens to sue someone for getting an abortion and collect the fee. But this is a paltry sum for selling your soul. Needham has more details in a report from November 13. Bounty hunters are not government employees and do not have restrictions that ICE agents have. Nevada Department of Insurance has 459 pages of complains about bounty hunters for harassment, stalking, and excessive force – yeah, what ICE agents are already doing – today ICE doesn’t seem to have restrictions. Kos of Kos wrote on November 22 that ICE went into Charlotte, North Carolina and over a week managed only 250 arrests, or 35 a day. The cost of this is large. Charlotte is deliberate in impeding ICE’s operations.

Which gets to the heart of the whole project: Trump isn’t crafting a coherent immigration policy. He’s staging a political stunt—punishing the immigrants his base hates while quietly protecting the ones corporate America finds useful.

On November 25 Needham reported that so many Department of Homeland Security personnel have been reassigned to the immigrant crackdown that investigations of actual crimes aren’t getting much attention. These are such crimes as “drug and weapons smuggling, cyber and financial crime, illegal technology exports and intellectual property crime” as listed on the Homeland Security Investigation website. Feel safer? Also, most of those detained by ICE do not have a criminal background (as has been mentioned before). I didn’t save articles about ICE for a while after that. I think there was one about using facial recognition software to identify people. Yeah, that will only lead to problems. On January 13 Kos wrote that Americans are turning towards the idea of defunding ICE. A few years ago there were calls to “defund the police.” But that caused more problems and didn’t provide much help. What is causing the big change in opinion is Americans used to assume that ICE was going after serious criminals, not ordinary immigrants and not citizens. But we now see ICE as a real, visible, and brutal presence. An important reason for that change is the murder of Renee Good in Minneapolis. Now 40% of Americans have a favorable view of ICE and 51% view it unfavorably, according to a YouGov survey. Also, nearly 70% say agents must wear uniforms and 55% oppose agents hiding their identities behind masks. Support for protests against ICE is at 49% with opposition to protests at 41%. 45% don’t want to abolish ICE while 42% do. But trend lines show support for abolishing ICE may soon reach a majority. This morning A Martínez of NPR spoke to Liza Goitein of the Brennan Center for Justice about what’s involved if the nasty guy invokes the Insurrection Act against Minnesota as he’s been saying he has a right to do. The Posse Comitatus Act prohibits federal armed forces from being used against citizens. The Insurrection Act is the exception. It also means the president can take over the state National Guard without permission of the governor. There are restrictions to when the Act can be used. But this was a law passed in the early 1800s so now the language seems vague and archaic. Other restrictions have been there by tradition, which the nasty guy is very good at ignoring. There is also precedent that invoking the Insurrection Act cannot be reviewed by a court. So, of course, if it is invoked there will be court cases. Also this morning Michel Martin of NPR spoke to reporter Ximena Bustillo about the training ICE agents are getting. I’ll just say there are plenty of reasons to believe agents are not getting all the necessary training. This afternoon Sergio Martinez-Beltrán of NPR reported on how Minneapolis residents are working together to thwart what ICE is trying to do. Alas, at the time of this writing they have not posted a transcript. Thom Hartmann of the Kos community and an independent pundit analyzed the situation in Minneapolis. He first contrasted what ICE is doing compared to how deportations were done under Obama, where the rules were followed:

Nobody showed up to kick in the front door of their home. Nobody from the government was wearing a mask. No swearing, no threats, no guns, no tear gas, no pepper spray, no hitting his car with theirs or beating either of them to the ground. They merely told him he had to leave and served him with the appropriate paperwork, just like they do in most other democratic countries.

Immigration enforcement has been happening since the 1920s and we didn’t need a budget larger than for the Marine Corps to do it. Obama managed 3.1 deportations in 8 years, or an average of 387,500 a year, with 407,000 in 2012. The nasty guy did about 290,000 last year with a previous peak of 269,000 in 2019. Which means the nasty guy’s methods of deporting people are a lot less effective than Obama’s. But the nasty guy’s methods aren’t just about deportations. They aren’t about investigating fraud (Somali immigrants in Minnesota are accused of that). They’re about terrorizing a community. The nasty guy, vice nasty, and Stephen Miller have been clear their goal is not to run the country with “the consent of the governed” but with raw power, “authority without restrictions.” When autocrats want to seize power they begin by telling the people who they need to fear. And for the nasty guy that is brown and black people, particularly those born elsewhere.

Once the populace is sufficiently terrified of the “other,” they’ll accept increasing levels of repression in the name of stemming the danger to themselves and their families. Armed agents of the state begin to show up in public places to “enforce law and order,” but their real goal is to terrify people into submission. This is why Noem and Bondi are refusing to investigate Renee Good’s murder and instead demanding their federal prosecutors go after her grieving wife. They want not only ICE thugs but everybody in America who may think of challenging them to know that smashing windows, dragging people out of their cars, kicking in their doors, beating them to the ground, and even killing them — all without any legal basis, without a single warrant — are what we can all expect to happen to us if we defy their power.

Hartmann quoted the National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 the nasty guy signed two months ago. It defines domestic terrorism.

“[A]nti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, anti-Christianity, … extremism on migration, extremism on race, extremism on gender, hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on religion, and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on morality.”

We can guess his definition of “extremism” and “hostility” which means just about everyone but MAGA fits the description of domestic terrorist. And ICE is reminding us of the awesome power the nasty guy has in enforcing it. Do something against us and we’ll turn the full force of our violence on you. Hartmann quoted Stephen Miller’s instructions to ICE agents, that they have full immunity. Anyone who obstructs their work will face our justice. Yeah, that’s full of lies. But Hartmann says the message is clear: We have the power. We will use the power. There is nothing you can do about it. If you try to stop us we will use our power against you. The threat of the Insurrection Act is a threat to override state and local government, suppress dissent, and put federal violence above the rule of law. This is not a democracy. It is state sponsored terror. That got me thinking. Considering how involved Minneapolis residents are in protecting the vulnerable among them and how much the nasty guy wants to use violence to thwart that protection. I think the next few weeks in the city will be critical to democracy in the US. There will be significant bloodshed. I knew that would be coming sometime somewhere. Then we’ll see how willing the US military is to shooting fellow citizens or whether Congress or state level Republicans will grow a spine. I have no idea so won’t guess on whether democracy or the nasty guy wins. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos quoted late night commentary:

"Right now there are over two-thousand federal immigration agents in Minnesota, and Trump is planning to send around a thousand more. So he's clearly invading Minnesota. Has anyone told him they don’t have oil? Because the best he's gonna get is 50-million barrels of cream of mushroom soup." —Stephen Colbert

In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted the New York Times. Here’s a bit of it:

Rather than encourage agents to de-escalate combustible encounters, as the agency guidelines emphasize, Mr. Trump and his lieutenants have provided tacit approval for more aggressive tactics.

Acyn tweeted a message from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:

My position has always been clear that ICE funding should be cut. We’re seeing what they’re doing with this reckless explosion in funding, and I want everybody to understand that the cuts to your health care are what’s paying for this

David Shor added:

We recently tested ~ a dozen public statements from a diverse set of Democratic elected officials on the murder of Renee Good and this was the top testing one.

A tweet from Jonathan Cohn quoted @EggerDC:

"Minneapolis is overheating right now, not because protesters are running amok, but because federal immigration enforcement and its political leadership ... are comporting themselves with astonishing, outrageous deception and malice."

That came with a link to an article on The Bulwark, presumably written by @EggerDC, with this title and subtitle:

ICE started the fire Rather than trying to calm things down, the government is fanning the flames.

David Schuster of Blue Amp

But the real jewel in this crown of Trump administration insanity belongs to Vice President J. D. Vance. He announced with great solemnity that federal law-enforcement officers enjoy “absolute immunity.” Vance’s declaration is not merely wrong; it is ludicrous. There is no such doctrine in American law. None. It exists only in the fever dreams of fascist wannabes who mistake their own wishes for jurisprudence.

A tweet from the Omaha World-Herald:

Rep. Don Bacon tells The World-Herald that there would be GOP support for an impeachment of Donald Trump if the U.S. invaded Greenland.

Bacon added:

Bottom line: the WH talk of invading Greenland is WRONG & will backfire in worst way. America stands by our Allies. This is not the 1890s… today we lead free nations against totalitarian & imperialistic governments. We are better & won’t cave to outdated old thinking.

In the comments are a more cartoons about Greenland including a couple showing it defended by a Lego fortress. Medusa posted a cartoon by Rob Rogers showing two Iranian clerics wearing ICE vests. One says, “Wait... Why are we wearing these?” The other: “So we can engage in violent, bloody crackdowns with Trump’s full support!” PX Molina posted a meme showing a hand stopping a fist. The words say:

They want your silence. Don't give it to them. They want your fear. Don't give it to them. They want your violence. Don't give it to them. They want your misinformation. Don't give it to them. Deny them everything that feeds them.