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"Trump has turned ICE into a menacing paramilitary that
detains five-year-olds, hauls elderly men from their homes, snatches mothers
from day care centres and executes non-violent protesters. "- Edward Luce, ICE and The Flailing Autocrat, The Financial Times today
“A year ago, I dismissed claims of a potential descent into
fascism in the US as so much overheated nonsense. Now, I am no longer so sure.
With Donnies penchant for unleashing violent storm troopers in his own cities ,
and being surrounded by a Greek Chorus of mindless sycophants , the Capo di
Tutti Capi appears to be inexorably dragging his once great country into an
Orwellian nightmare. One hopes fervently that the American people will wake up
en masse before it is too late.” -
Despite the stream of lies and misinformation emanating from
puppy-killer Kristi Noem's DHS and the ICE maggot Greg Bovino, people can see
with their own eyes the truth in recently released videos, such as shown today on Morning Joe, i.e.
Joe: Alex Pretti was killed for being a Good Samaritan
Bovino can yap and bark all he wants about Mr. Pretti
"coming to massacre federal agents" but the detailed analysis by a
former NY PD Lieutenant belies that insane claim. It shows clearly, Pretti was
already on the ground being pummeled by the fed goons before being pumped in
the back and head by ten rounds (which I counted) fired by the ICE henchmen.
(Who Traitor Trump called "the ICE Patriots" - yeah like he called
the January 6th insurrectionists "patriots" - which is why he
pardoned them. Traitors pardon traitors.)
Hell's bells, even the conservative-leaning Wall Street Journal now agrees the recent videos contradict Noem, Bovino and their other DHS imps and liars, including one maggot GOP MN congress critter (Tom Emmer):
Indeed, separate analyses by The
New York Times, The
Wall Street Journal, The
Associated Press, CBS
News and other organizations all
concluded that the recently released videos contradict the Trump
administration’s description of the killing. Hence, we have seen not only
Am I exaggerating here by referring to a Trump Gestapo? Well, what would you call it if a cadre of ICE agents goes house to house banging on doors in the Rochester, MN area and ends up arresting 64 people. Sounds like what Hitler's Gestapo used to do in the 3rd Reich in late 1930s-early 1940s. What was their crime? Actually simply having properly and lawfully filed for asylum when Biden was president. But with the election of a traitor, Biden's regs were overturned and ignored and now all those lawfully seeking asylum have become criminals to be rousted with door to door menacing.
And what were Alex Pretti's
crimes anyway? From the video analysis, it was: (1) His recording of ICE
activity using his cell, and (2) helping a woman who'd been pushed to the
sidewalk by an ICE goon. As Pretti helped her to his feet, the ICE apes went
ballistic, hurling him to the ground, beating him then firing at least ten
rounds. This was AFTER they'd removed Mr. Pretti's gun (see top frozen
image from video released by WaPo).
Opinion
| The Trump Administration Is Lying to Our Faces. Congress Must Act. - The New
York Times
This is why Sen. Chuck Schumer is correct to call for Senate Dems to
withhold any further funding for the DHS. Dems only need 41 votes to succeed,
though it likely means the 2nd government shutdown in the last two months. But true
patriots and citizens need to suck it up as a price to be paid for preserving
what is left of this nation and its putative democracy.
Despite winter
storms creeping across much of the country, major anti-ICE protests and
strikes arrived yesterday (including here in Colorado Springs) in cities
including Chicago; Los Angeles; Omaha; Madison, Wis.; and Portland, Ore. While
some planned protests are part of regular, continuous anti-ICE demonstrations,
most organizers have mentioned the killing of Alex Jeffrey Pretti as a reason
for their rallies.
We are in a precarious moment for our nation, and it will
require every sane citizen's attention and adhering to the same reality-
refusing to be gaslit by the imps in Trump's hegemon, criminal regime. My
Revolutionary War ancestors, the Brumbaughs, would be foursquare behind the
effort to drive out the autocrats, as they were the British Redcoats in 1776.
See Also:
How Alex Pretti’s Death Became a National Tipping Point - The New York Times
excerpt:
Renee Good was killed on Jan. 7. Alex Pretti on Jan. 24.
Federal agents killed both of them, and the administration labeled both of them
terrorists — labels that quickly fell apart when the public learned more about
each case and saw videos of the shootings.
Yet it was Mr. Pretti’s death that broke the dam,
galvanizing public sentiment against the federal government’s tactics and
forcing a remarkable retreat by the Trump administration.
Gun-rights groups turned on the White House. Republican senators
called for investigations. One poll found that support for abolishing ICE had
nearly doubled among independent voters.
Both deaths provoked outrage. But Mr. Pretti’s reached
further — into conservative circles that had defended the crackdown, and among
independents, who had been willing to look away. Why did his death cross
political lines that Ms. Good’s, for all the anger it generated, didn’t?
Kevin Drakulich, a criminologist at Northeastern University
who studies race, crime and public opinion, put it simply: “Renee Good’s death
was tragic. Alex Pretti’s is a trend.”
The federal crackdown had already produced casualties
elsewhere, including a Mexican immigrant who was
shot and killed by ICE agents in Chicago in September. The death did
not draw sustained national attention. Minneapolis was different — two killings
of American citizens, at close to the same time, in a city that had become
shorthand for protest and police violence...
Sarah Gaither, an associate professor of psychology and
neuroscience at Duke who studies identity and perception, wrote in an email
that Mr. Pretti’s profile “fit widely held cultural cues associated with
respectability and being nonthreatening.”
She added that those cues “lowered resistance to empathy
among people who might otherwise dismiss criticism of ICE.”
It was not that Mr. Pretti generated more sympathy. It was
that his profile removed barriers. For people who had needed permission to
criticize the agency, Mr. Pretti granted it.
And:
by Sonali Kolhatkar | January 27, 2026 - 5:54am | permalink
More Americans now support abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) than keeping it.
A January 13, 2026 Economist/YouGov poll found that 46 percent want to eliminate ICE, compared to 43 percent who support preserving it. It’s a trend that’s been growing since ICE agents have been running rampant in U.S. cities during Donald Trump’s second term.
A majority of Americans in 2024 backed strict immigration enforcement, so this surge in anti-ICE sentiment likely stems from the agency’s draconian crackdown on immigrants, protesters, citizens, and even children. Most recently, federal agents shot and killed an ICU nurse named Alex Pretti in Minneapolis when he came to the defense of other protesters.
And:
"The memes will continue": A fake presidency, but real tyranny - Salon.com
And:
"He Was Executed": Minneapolis Residents Outraged, Defiant After Immigration Agents Kill Alex Pretti
And:
Senate
Democrats will block government funding after Border Patrol shooting - The
Washington Post
Excerpt:
Senate Democrats plan to block a sweeping government funding
package after U.S. Border Patrol agents killed a man in Minneapolis on Saturday
— increasing the likelihood of another shutdown at the end of the week.
Federal law enforcement agents shot and killed a 37-year-old
intensive care nurse, Alex Pretti, in Minneapolis on Saturday morning during an
immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota. Federal officials alleged that
Pretti approached officers with a handgun and resisted attempts to disarm
him. Videos of
the incident show federal agents swarming Pretti, wrestling him to the
ground and shooting him after he attempted to get up.
And:
Timeline:
How the Shooting of Alex Jeffrey Pretti Unfolded - The New York Times
Excerpt:
A video shared with The New York Times by an eyewitness and
her lawyer, as well as other video footage posted on social media, documents
the violent scene, where agents appear to fire at least 10 shots in a span
of only five seconds.
And:
Alex Pretti’s Friends and Family Denounce ‘Sickening Lies’ About His Life - The New York Times
Excerpt:
He was a calm presence amid hospital chaos. A mentor who
taught kindness and patience to younger friends and colleagues. A singer with a
knack for dancing. A bicyclist who treasured the beauty of Minnesota.
This weekend, the family, co-workers and friends of Alex
Pretti, who was killed by immigration agents in a confrontation after he was
apparently filming them, remembered his life, even as the circumstances of his
death were debated on the national stage.
They shared photos of the Alex they knew: a smiling, bearded
Mr. Pretti in the powder-blue scrubs he wore at his job as an intensive-care
nurse at the Veterans Affairs hospital, an outdoors lover posing with his
mountain bike on a wooded trail and a student wearing a green cap and gown as
he sang a solo at his high school graduation in Green Bay, Wis.
And they denounced what they saw as smear campaigns in the
aftermath of Mr. Pretti’s death.
Within hours of the killing by federal agents on a Minneapolis street, Trump administration officials labeled Mr. Pretti a “would-be assassin” and asserted, with no evidence, that he had committed an act of “domestic terrorism.”
And:
by Robert Reich | January 25, 2026 - 6:16am | permalink
— from Robert Reich's Substack
Friends,
Trump’s goons have murdered another American in Minneapolis.
This is the third shooting involving federal agents in the city this month, including the murder of Renee Good, 37, on January 7.
This morning, they murdered a 37-year-old man, an American citizen named Alex Pretti. Pretti was a registered nurse who lived in an apartment in Minneapolis a short drive away from where he was murdered. He had no criminal record. He had a firearms permit, required by state law in Minnesota to carry a handgun.
At least 10 shots appear to have been fired within five seconds. The video appears to show a group of masked agents mobbing someone, pushing him to the ground, then shooting him multiple times, even as he lies motionless.
And:
by Robert Becker | January 26, 2026 - 6:10am | permalink
Thuggery against the innocent — with depraved slayings, warrantless invasions and kidnapping of toddlers — cross every civilized notion of justice reliant on rules, due process, trials, even compassion.
The loudmouth bully running the White House has never hidden his knee-jerk appetites for brutal, violent responses to those he can’t abide. That’s especially true if they’re “enemy” minorities, legal protesters, swarming critics or victims seeking judicial regress. Even one “treasonous” ex-military chieftain. Long before channeling today’s vile grievance/vengeance crusade, Trump voiced his “dump-trials, hang ‘em high” vigilante mentality. So far, only E. Jean Carroll won criminal, sexual-harassment/defamation convictions (and massive penalties) for what that judge rightly deemed violent rape.
And:
by Sarah K. Burris | January 26, 2026 - 6:41am | permalink
Russian-American columnist M. Gessen wrote for The New York Times on Sunday that President Donald Trump’s ICE operations in Minneapolis have crossed into state terror—not mere repression, but deliberate, arbitrary violence designed to instill pervasive fear in which no one feels safe.
In the past month, ICE agents have shot and killed two US citizens: Renee Nicole Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti. Neither had a criminal record. Another U.S. citizen was pulled from his home in his underwear by agents who later realized he wasn’t their target.
Gessen argues this is part of a Trump effort “to reduce us all to a state of constant fear — a fear of violence from which some people may at a given moment be spared, but from which no one will ever be truly safe. That is our new national reality. State terror has arrived.”
The randomness is the point, he continues. In Pretti’s case, agents fired 10 rounds into him at point-blank range while he was already subdued. The Department of Homeland Security labeled both Pretti and Good “domestic terrorists” before any investigation.
And:
by Heather Digby Parton | January 26, 2026 - 6:26am | permalink
Last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney gave what is likely to be remembered as an historic speech in which he declared “there has been a rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality, where geopolitics, where the large, main power, geopolitics, is submitted to no limits, no constraints.” He made it clear that America’s allies finally understood that the reelection of Donald Trump had ushered in a new era in which the rule book that had, for better or worse, guided the world for over 80 years has just been thrown out the window. Carney urged what he called the “middle powers” to stand up for their principles and self-interest.
One couldn’t help but think of that call to arms just a couple of days later when former special prosecutor Jack Smith appeared before the House Judiciary Committee to testify for the first time in public. While his opening statement will not have the historic significance of Carney’s speech, the sentiment was very much the same: There has been a rupture and something important is at stake.
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