There is still this talk in Washington among the less brave among the Democrats that ICE is simply "broken" somehow, and I really do believe that we need to say this unequivocally and for all time that this phrasing is wrong. To me, this is intentional misdirection and a profoundly dangerous whitewashing of the problem, in fact. While I understand that these people do not actually want to say "ICE is broken" or something which would mean the same because they do not want to get jumped in the press or by their cowardly GOP counterparts, I would much rather that they simply told the truth about ICE.

I am just going to do another "around the horn" since there is so much going on right now and, for today, I find it difficult to focus on just one thing. We will start with Trump on home ownership: "People that own their homes -- we're gonna keep them wealthy. We're gonna keep those prices up. We're not gonna destroy the value of their homes so that somebody who didn't work very hard can buy a home."

Kaja Kallas: “Superpowers often overestimate their own power and underestimate their need for others." “You need others, always.” She's absolutely correct, and it is something the United States began to forget long ago and has consciously ditched in the current administration to the detriment of all of us, but Kallas is absolutely correct. One of the reasons I have always had a visceral hatred of isolationism and "America First" claptrap is because I know that our survival as a species depends ultimately on all of us at least being mostly on the same page if not entirely, at least on some very basic things which are essential to that survival.

Senator Patty Murray (D-Washington) outline what she believed to be "the path forward" on ICE and DHS. From her Bluesky post: Quickly pass the other 5 spending bills before the Friday night deadline & keep government open. Separate out the DHS bill & work on common sense steps to rein in ICE and CBP. I disagree, of course. Let's start with the second point.

I think we just need to put this out there - it seems increasingly evident with each passing hour and with each injustice and atrocity committed by ICE and DHS in Minneapolis that the entire idea behind the recruitment of people for a fascist state police force is to give the most beta men on the planet an outlet for the alpha fantasies that they have had nothing but time to concoct on 4chan and in mom's basement or while they were otherwise supposed to be working on something resembling being employable individuals.

Steve Simon, the Secretary of State in Minnesota, had a very succinct reply to the extortion attempts of the Trump administration: "The answer to Attorney General Bondi’s request is no. Her letter is an outrageous attempt to coerce Minnesota into giving the federal government private data on millions of U.S. Citizens in violation of state and federal law. This comes after repeated and failed attempts by the DOJ to pressure my office into providing the same data."

Alex Jeffrey Pretti of Minneapolis was executed in the streets of Minneapolis by the unaccountable goons of America's own Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo). Among the countless tragedies embedded in this is that he is not the first. The city, a family, friends and the sane remnants of the nation are still trying to mourn Renee Good, who was killed in her vehicle by an agent named Jonathan Ross.

In the aftermath of 9/11, as many should remember, NATO invoked Article 5 - on behalf of the United States. As part of that, we received rather a lot of help when the Bush administration, whatever you may think of its collective wisdom, decided to go into Afghanistan. That help became even more important, I suppose, from Washington's perspective, when they decided to concoct a tremendous lie as their pretense for going to Iraq as well.

Seven Democrats voted in favor of the DHS funding bill in the House, so it has now moved on to the Senate. That's bad enough. Without those seven Democrats, the DHS funding bill would have failed. That's infuriating, that they chose the goon squad over the safety of their constituents, or really, over the safety of all of us. While I do again look at Hakeem Jeffries here for failing to whip the vote and get a united front on this one, I can't help but continue to be frustrated with the insistence by some in the Democratic caucus that we can treat this like it is an aberration.

The American presence at Davos, like the American presence everywhere else lately, was darkly self-satirizing and, if it were not so dangerous and acutely demeaning to others, would also rival some of the best sketch comedy shows through the decades for its content. It is, however, a real administration with real aims which are, you guessed it, real evil (I know, that's not quite grammatically correct.

Yesterday had some, well, moments, as Trump gave a presser before he left for Davos to further damage the United States. Let's start with the binder clip: "Whoo. I'm glad my finger wasn't in that sucker. That could've dome some damage but you know what? I wouldn't have shown the pain. I would've gone back. Boy did you hear that? That was nasty.

Obviously, in light of the insane letter sent to the Norwegian Prime Minister in which Trump tied his Greenland threats to his disillusionment over not winning a Nobel Peace Prize, a threat which is now prompting a sizeable buildup of forces by the Danish and others in Greenland, the entire world is beginning to turn not only to the American people themselves, but also to the people who could easily pull the plug if they so chose - our GOP-controlled Congress and the toadies in the Cabinet who could initiate the 25th Amendment.

From a reporter on Bluesky: "Norwegian PM Støre says Trump repeatedly raises—complains about, pleads for, and demands—the Nobel Peace Prize every time they meet. Støre gives same answer each time: decision is made independently by Norwegian Nobel Committee, with no role for Norwegian gov—a concept Trump appears unable to grasp." One of the lifelong deficiencies of Donald Trump is that he does indeed see himself as the autocrat, the person in charge, the last word, and he has very sadly brought that to a Presidency twice now, this time with people who are equally evil and obsequious who are willing to help him achieve his terrible aims.

Concerning the United States now being in a rather dire standoff with - and I cannot believe that I am saying this - Denmark, who fought with us after 9/11, and by extension, the EU and NATO and still others beyond, so about three dozen countries, Stephen Miller was on the shows the other day playing Risk with his Candyland board, as you might expect.

In the midst of everything that is going on in Minneapolis, Trump's version of a Department Of Justice, which is basically just another arm of the larger goon squad, has begun investigations into both Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota and Jacob Frey, who is the mayor of Minneapolis, and as you might assume, both of them have come out swinging against the brutality and lawlessness of ICE and DHS, as a sane person would.

There was rather a lot of fuss made on Thursday about Maria Machado supposedly giving Trump her Nobel Peace Prize, but I don't know that much of this fuss was warranted because it was rather obvious what some of the potential reasons would have been. We should dispense with one thing first - that wouldn't make the prize his. The Nobel Committee has said repeatedly, and it is right in the published guides, that only they can give these out, that they select who gets them, and that it has been won by that person for all time regardless of what happens to the medal itself.

A major metropolitan area is currently being brutally occupied by Nazi goons sent by other Nazi goons, and Chuck Schumer leads remarks in the Senate this morning with: ""The affordability crisis will be our focus throughout 2026 because that's what the American people are demanding" It isn't just him. Other Democrats are doing this even as all that is happening in Minneapolis and even as it was happening on a somewhat less industrial scale in other places throughout last year.

In an effort to again police an imaginary middle where somehow all premises are legitimized, CNN ran a story about ICE murder victim Renee Good which, well, read their summary for yourself: "The woman killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis last week served on the board of her son’s school, which linked to documents encouraging parents to monitor ICE and directing them to training."

There are still a few people in the United States that seem to believe it is slightly hyperbolic to throw the word "Nazi" around in reference to terror organizations like ICE and DHS, but I would like to point everyone's attention to the quote that was on a podium at a recent Noem presser and then tell me that they came upon this quote by coincidence.

For some reason, Tom Homan was allowed onto the set of Meet The Press, and for some reason, he was allowed to speak, and thus, he was allowed to say at one point: "We gotta stop the hateful rhetoric. Saying this officer is a murderer is dangerous. It's just ridiculous. It's gonna infuriate people more which means there's gonna be more incidents like this."

From Bill Kristol at The Bulwark: "YouGov has ICE at 39% favorable, 52% unfavorable...But this top line really understates the intensity of public backlash to ICE and its tactics." The top line in a graph which sadly I had trouble sharing here, but what it shows is that in February 2025, only 19% of people in a YouGov tracking poll held a "strongly unfavorable" view of ICE.

Tony Dokoupil decided to end a broadcast from Minneapolis with, given the current atmosphere, one of the strangest attempts at conciliatory language even attempted in this era of rampant bothsidesism, when he said, in reference to both people rightly protesting and infuriated by the cold-blooded murder of Renee Good and ICE agents regularly committing human rights atrocities in American streets and the people who cheer it on:

A tearful Phillip Bump on MSNOW said something many of us were thinking during some of the initial coverage of the murder of Renee Good. "This was a family that could've been like mine" All of us actually need to reflect upon that for a moment, because he is absolutely correct. This could have been any of us, and indeed, as this is not the first time and as there has actually been another incident in Portland, Oregon since, there is no reason to believe it could not be any of us.

In Minneapolis yesterday, Renee Good was filming an ICE raid in an effort to document and maybe even prevent another illegal kidnapping or trafficking to begin in the supposed name of "immigration enforcement". She was a US citizen, a legal observer. She was even a poet. She was a mother too. Indeed, she had gifts for her child in the seats of her car.

While Stephen Miller was on CNN failing to assure anyone, and in fact seeming to confirm that Greenland is absolutely on the table for Trump's extraordinarily dangerous territorial designs, both Denmark and then the remainder of Europe's NATO members put out a statement which basically reiterates something which should be obvious to us all - that the future of Greenland, a territory of the Danish crown, is for Greenlanders and the Danes to sort out and determine.