What Happened Today - 26 Jan 2026
What Happened Today – 26 January 2026
Govt Shut Down…real possibility
Tom Homan headed to Minnesota tonight
Jonathan Ross’ lawyer QUITS
USS Epstein Distraction…I mean USS Abraham Lincoln (and it’s Strike Group) headed to the Middle East
ICE Detention Updates
Trump’s Truth Social Weekend…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Govt Shut Down…real possibility
We’re basically staring down another stupid, totally avoidable shutdown cliff because MAGA Mike is trying to keep his caucus together, appease the far right, and punt responsibility onto the Senate instead of actually governing.
Where things stand
Right now, the immediate shutdown threat is January 30, and it would be a partial shutdown focused on the agencies still not fully funded—Homeland Security is the big one in the spotlight because of the ICE/Minneapolis disaster, plus pieces of transportation, housing, labor, HHS, Treasury, and State tied into these last funding packages. The House rushed through the last batch of its own spending bills last week, including a hardline DHS bill that beefs up enforcement and strips out the kinds of constraints Democrats want on ICE and Border Patrol. Now everything is in the Senate’s lap, and if they don’t pass something—and get it back to Trump for a signature—by Friday night, parts of the government shut down again.
Why Mike Johnson sent the House home
Johnson didn’t send the House home because the job is “done”; he sent them home because that’s the only way he can claim he kept his promises to the right without owning the consequences. He muscled his conference into passing all 12 appropriations bills, including the DHS one that’s a nonstarter for Senate Democrats, and now he’s like, “Our work is finished, the ball’s in the Senate’s court,” while quietly keeping members out of town. His majority is tiny—218–213, likely 218–214 after the next special election—and every move he makes risks a revolt either from the Freedom Caucus types or the few remaining moderates who do not want another shutdown right after the record 43‑day one we just lived through. Sending them home buys him time, shields them from taking ugly on‑the‑record votes for now, and sets him up to blame the Senate and the White House if the lights go off again.
What’s actually driving the standoff
The real fight is over DHS and ICE, full stop. Senate Democrats are saying they will not just rubber‑stamp a Homeland bill that rewards the exact lawlessness we just saw in Minneapolis; they want actual constraints on ICE and Border Patrol—oversight, limits on certain operations, and restrictions on how money can be used. Republicans, especially the MAGA wing, want the opposite: more money, fewer rules, more latitude to run these “operations” in blue cities and then scream about “open borders” and “domestic terrorists” when anyone pushes back. Johnson gave the hardliners a DHS bill that reflects that agenda, so now if the Senate strips out the worst parts or adds ICE constraints, he either has to (1) cave and put it on the floor with mostly Democratic votes, risking a move to dump him as speaker, or (2) refuse to take it up and own a shutdown.
What’s next procedurally
The Senate is where all the action is this week. They can:
• Try to pass the House package as‑is (unlikely, because of DHS).
• Split off DHS and pass the rest, then negotiate a narrower Homeland bill.
• Jam through a short‑term patch just for DHS or the remaining agencies, pushing the fight into February.
Democrats are currently dug in on stripping the DHS bill out of the package and voting on it separately so they can rework it without holding the rest of the government hostage. If they pass a modified package, Johnson has said he’d call the House back to vote on changes—but that’s where the MAGA math kicks in: every Democratic “yes” he needs makes the Freedom Caucus more likely to threaten his job. So expect a lot of brinkmanship: closed‑door Senate negotiations, public posturing about “not wanting a shutdown,” and then, sometime late this week, either a skinny extension or a last‑minute deal that kicks the can but doesn’t actually fix the underlying DHS fight.
What to expect if they blow it
If they fail and we slide into a partial shutdown after January 30, you’re looking at:
• Disrupted pay and operations at the agencies still unfunded (Homeland, pieces of transportation, housing, parts of health and labor, etc.).
• More chaos for air travel, housing programs, and some health and safety inspections, depending on how agencies classify “essential” staff.
• A political blame game that Johnson is clearly trying to set up in advance: “We passed our bills, the Senate and Biden/Trump broke it.”
Bottom line: MAGA Mike sent the House home so he can say he did his part while avoiding the hard part—telling his own people they can’t have a fully unleashed DHS terrorizing blue states as a political weapon. The next few days are all about whether the Senate forces him to choose between keeping his speaker’s gavel and keeping the government open.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tom Homan headed to Minnesota tonight
Trump sending Tom Homan to Minnesota and bragging about ICE’s “great success” is straight‑up spitting in the face of Minnesotans and honestly every American who still believes the government is supposed to serve the people, not terrorize them.
You’ve got a U.S. citizen—Alex Pretti—shot and killed in the street, video all over the place showing federal agents escalating, beating him, and firing while he’s got a phone in his hand, and the response out of the White House is not “we screwed up” or “we’re pulling back.” Instead, Trump goes online to announce he’s flying in Tom Homan, the same guy who helped architect family separation and some of the ugliest ICE policies from his first term, to “manage ICE operations on the ground” and “continue arresting the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens.” They’re acting like this deployment—two U.S. citizens dead in less than a month, protests in the streets, a judge now weighing whether the whole thing is even legal—is some kind of mission accomplished moment.
For Minnesotans, it’s a double insult. First, the feds roll in, treat your city like a test lab for mass immigration raids, and kill your neighbors. Then, when people demand accountability, Trump’s answer is not to listen to Walz’s calls to pause and de‑escalate, it’s to bypass the normal chain of command—Kristi Noem and Bovino—and put his border czar in direct control, reporting straight to him, like this is his personal occupation force. He and Karoline are still using that “worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens” language even as their own story about Alex falls apart under video and eyewitnesses, which tells you this isn’t about public safety, it’s about optics and dominance.
And for the rest of the country, the message is loud and clear: if you live in a blue state or a city that doesn’t vote for Trump, he feels entitled to flood your streets with federal agents, call it a “great success” even when Americans are dying, and then send in Tom Homan like a viceroy to keep the pressure on. Senate Democrats are literally talking about forcing a partial shutdown over DHS funding because ICE and Border Patrol have become so toxic after Minnesota, and polls are showing ICE underwater with voters, yet Trump doubles down instead of pulling back. That’s the slap in the face: they see the outrage, they see the fear, they see a nurse shot dead on video—and their response is “we’re proud of this, we’re sending in the guy who helped design it, and we might leave only when we feel like it.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jonathan Ross’ lawyer QUITS
The fact that even the ICE agent’s own lawyer bailed on this case tells you how rotten the government’s story is around Renee Good’s killing and how ugly this is likely to get for that agent.
From what’s out there, the withdrawal happened fast—within about a week of the shooting—right after it became clear that: (1) video and witness accounts were undercutting DHS’s “she tried to run him over” narrative, and (2) DOJ and DHS were pivoting away from any serious look at the agent and instead turning the full weight of the federal government onto Renee and her wife. Local reports and legal write‑ups describe the initial defense attorney stepping back as the case blew up nationally and as it became obvious this wasn’t going to be some quiet, routine “use of force” review—this was going to be a political firestorm with an ICE client at the center and an administration that wanted a clean self‑defense story, no questions asked.
Why step off a case like that? A couple of big reasons jump out from the context. First, the facts: the government is insisting Jonathan Ross fired because Renee tried to run him over, but video and on‑the‑ground accounts say she turned away and was driving past, not into him. That puts any decent lawyer in the box of having to sell a narrative that won’t hold up under a jury that can see the tape—and no serious attorney wants to be the face of that if they don’t control the client’s messaging. Second, the politics: DOJ’s civil rights leadership flatly refused to open a civil‑rights investigation into the shooting and instead pushed prosecutors to dig into Renee’s widow and activist circles, which triggered at least six federal prosecutors in Minnesota and multiple civil‑rights lawyers in D.C. to resign in protest. When even career DOJ people are walking because they’re being told “don’t touch the shooter, go after the victim’s wife,” that’s a huge red flag to any defense lawyer who doesn’t want to be tied to an obviously rigged process.
For the agent, a lawyer quitting this early is terrible news dressed up as “routine withdrawal.” It means:
• The case is riskier and messier than the public DOJ line admits.
• The defense strategy is likely being yanked into the political orbit—run by DOJ, DHS, or union lawyers whose top goal is protecting the institution, not necessarily this one guy.
• Anything he does or says from here on out will be framed around saving ICE, not telling the truth about what happened on that street.
Everything around Renee Good’s killing screams cover‑up: prosecutors resigning because they’re barred from investigating the shooter and ordered to dig into the widow; the civil‑rights division refusing to even open a file on the agent when that’s usually automatic in a fatal federal shooting; and now the original lawyer for the shooter stepping away just as the public sees more video and the family brings in the George Floyd legal team. If the government were confident this was a clean shoot, they’d welcome scrutiny, keep stable counsel on the case, and let the facts speak. Instead, they’re cycling people out, shutting doors, and pointing the finger at the dead woman and her wife.
That’s the tell: when good prosecutors and even the shooter’s own lawyer want off the ride, it’s because they see what Washington is doing—twisting the system to protect ICE and a political narrative, even if that means lying to the public about how and why innocent Americans are being killed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
USS Epstein Distraction…I mean USS Abraham Lincoln (and it’s strike group) headed to the Middle East
Trump ordering a Navy carrier strike group into the Middle East right now is him rattling a very big sabre at Iran, trying to look strong and decisive, while also distracting from the chaos he’s created at home and keeping his “I might bomb them, I might not” leverage wide open.
We’re talking about the USS Abraham Lincoln and its strike group—an aircraft carrier, multiple destroyers, and a ton of airpower—now under Central Command in the Indian Ocean/Middle East region, positioned so he can hit targets in Iran if he decides to pull that trigger. Publicly he’s saying it’s “just in case,” “maybe we won’t have to use it,” tying it to Iran’s brutal crackdown on protesters and threats about mass executions, but that kind of language is exactly how presidents set the stage so that if they do launch strikes, they can claim they gave fair warning. It signals a few things: to Iran, that the U.S. can hit deep into the country on short notice; to regional allies, that Washington is still the muscle in the neighborhood; and to his base here, that he’s “tough on Iran” at the exact same time the ICE and Minneapolis mess is making him look reckless and cruel.
Why did he do this? It’s a mix of real escalation and political theater. Iran’s regime has been killing and jailing protesters by the thousands, and they’ve been firing off threats and flexing their own “finger on the trigger” rhetoric, so the Pentagon has been quietly moving assets closer for weeks—extra jets, air‑defense batteries, destroyers in the Gulf and Red Sea. Trump then slaps his own branding on it, calls it an “armada,” and uses it as a backdrop for his warnings: don’t massacre demonstrators, don’t execute prisoners, or there will be consequences. At the same time, he gets to change the subject from ICE shooting citizens in Minnesota, DHS funding fights, and an economy that’s jittery, and instead center himself as commander‑in‑chief staring down Tehran.
What’s next is the part that should worry everyone. A carrier strike group sitting off Iran gives him options: limited airstrikes on IRGC sites, cyber and kinetic hits on command‑and‑control, or even a broader campaign if he decides he needs a “rally round the flag” moment. Allies are already urging caution because once bombs start dropping, Iran has its own levers—attacking U.S. bases, going after shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, pushing proxies to hit Israel or Gulf states—and that spirals fast. For now, the messaging from the Pentagon is “promoting regional security and stability,” but pairing that with Trump’s “massive fleet heading there, just in case” tells you this isn’t some routine patrol; it’s a loaded gun placed on the table in full view of the cameras.
In other words, he’s moved a floating city of American firepower into position in a way that both genuinely raises the risk of war with Iran and conveniently serves his domestic narrative: chaos at home, projection of power abroad, and him in the middle pretending it’s all under control.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ICE Detention Updates
What ICE is doing right now is a full‑blown moral emergency. It’s families snatched in hospital parking lots, kids used as bait, people warehoused in freezing concrete boxes, Americans locked up without lawyers—and a chunk of this country is clapping like it’s a show instead of human lives.
You’ve got a family in Oregon that did what any of us would do: rush their 7‑year‑old daughter to the ER because she was very sick. They never even made it inside. Border Patrol agents boxed them in at the hospital parking lot, no warrant, and detained them on the spot before that little girl could see a doctor. The mom is now in a detention center in Texas; they have an active asylum case, a hearing date in 2028, no criminal history, and yet they were treated like fugitives for trying to keep their child alive. That’s not “border security.” That’s the state deciding that the paperwork on your status matters more than whether your kid gets emergency care.
Inside these facilities, the conditions are every bit as cruel as you’d expect from a system built to break people down. We’ve already seen internal audits, lawsuits, and leaked videos showing men crammed shoulder‑to‑shoulder in tiny holding rooms—“la hielera,” the icebox—sleeping on concrete with only foil blankets, some held a week or more without a shower, medication, or a chance to change clothes. One lawsuit out of New York describes detainees packed into cold rooms for up to ten days, no real bedding, restricted water, tiny food portions, and virtually no access to a lawyer. Senators who toured a California ICE facility earlier this month came out talking about frigid temperatures, people wearing socks on their arms as sleeves, and detainees “largely incommunicado” because calls to attorneys are blocked or severely limited. None of this is an accident; misery is the point.
Then there’s Liam—the little boy they literally used as bait. Liam Conejo Ramos is a 5‑year‑old who was taken from his driveway in Minnesota after getting dropped off from preschool. Agents had been staking out his father; when Liam got out of the car, they grabbed the kid too and, according to school officials and the family’s lawyer, had him knock on the door of his own home to see if anyone would open it. They flew him and his dad to a family detention center in Texas even though they did what the government told them to do: they used the CBP One app, presented themselves at a port of entry, and are in the middle of a pending asylum case—no criminal record, no deportation order. MAGA world’s response? Top DHS and ICE officials ran to TV and friendly outlets to accuse the father of “abandoning his child,” pushed out a mug‑shot‑style image, and flooded right‑wing feeds with the lie that dad darted off and left his son behind. They’re rewriting the story in real time so people don’t have to sit with the fact that their government used a preschooler as leverage.
We’ve got independent journalists driving to these Texas family centers, cameras in hand, trying to see what’s happening on the other side of those fences—and being turned away at the gate. One described standing outside a South Texas facility, not allowed in, listening to the sound of people on the inside chanting “Let us go, let us go,” likely children and their parents who’ve been shipped there from Minnesota and around the country. When a system refuses cameras, blocks attorneys, and still can’t drown out the sound of people begging to be released, you know exactly why the administration is fighting so hard to keep it sealed up.
On top of that, children separated from their parents or detained with parents in limbo are stacking up in this system. ICE and CBP don’t hand out clean numbers, but reporting around this crackdown makes it clear: hundreds of kids have already cycled through custody since January—some grabbed at school, some at home, some in cars—with at least four students from one Minnesota district alone, including Liam, taken in a single week. In at least one case, a 2‑year‑old with an active asylum case was detained with her dad, transferred to Texas despite a federal court order for her release, and only later reunited with her mother. Every one of those kids is either in detention or living with the trauma of seeing a parent disappeared into this machine.
And this isn’t just immigrants. U.S. citizens and green‑card holders have been swept up too—detained for hours or days, denied phone calls, blocked from contacting lawyers, left without basic water or bathroom access—because they “look” like who ICE is hunting or were in the wrong place when a raid rolled through. Advocates and attorneys describe clients who sat in frigid hold rooms for up to 12 days, begging for medical care, while officers ignored rising blood pressure and obvious signs of illness; in some cases, people died after that neglect. This is a system that assumes anyone in its grip has no rights until they somehow prove otherwise—if they even get the chance.
Meanwhile, the stats on who’s being targeted blow up the whole “we’re only going after criminals” line. In Minnesota’s Operation Metro Surge alone, ICE has been staking out schools, courthouses, and workplaces, rounding up people as they leave immigration hearings or head to work—many of them with active asylum claims or pending court dates, exactly what they’re supposed to have if they’re following the legal process to seek status. One district saw four of its students detained in a day; across the metro, people with 2027 and 2028 court dates—who checked in, filed the right paperwork, and have no criminal history—are disappearing into detention in Texas and Louisiana. Those numbers aren’t “bad hombres”; they’re people who trusted the system and got punished for it.
Put all of that together, and tell me it doesn’t look like a 21st‑century version of the same ugly playbook we swore we’d never repeat after Nazi Germany: demonize a group of people, strip them of legal protections, normalize rounding them up from homes, schools, hospitals, and courts, pack them into cold overcrowded facilities, and then pump out propaganda so the public thinks they “deserve” it. When you’ve got kids grabbed at preschool and ERs, people chanting “let us go” behind razor wire, and lawyers and journalists being blocked while politicians and media personalities cheer it on, that’s not just “tough policy.” It’s a government testing how far it can go in brutalizing a hated group while 20–30% of the country stands and applauds.
And the most shameful part is how many people see all this—sick kids detained, Liam used as bait, families broken apart, detainees with no showers for ten days—and respond not with horror but with memes, lies about “abandonment,” and “they should have stayed in line.” That’s how regimes get away with it: they convince enough bystanders that suffering is justified, that paperwork matters more than people, and that anyone on the wrong side of the line isn’t fully human. What’s happening right now is a test of whether this country is okay with that. So far, way too many are passing it with flying colors.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Trump’s Truth Social Weekend…
Trump’s weekend was pure chaos energy: all‑caps rants, NATO insults, doubling down on Minnesota—and now suddenly he’s in “who, me?” apology‑adjacent mode, pretending he’s reasonable and misunderstood while the country watches him ping‑pong all over the place.
He spent the last couple of weeks trashing NATO, saying allies “stayed a little back” in Afghanistan and openly doubting they’d be there for us, which pissed off pretty much every partner who lost soldiers after 9/11. After getting dragged by UK leaders and veterans’ families, he posts this half‑walk‑back about British troops being “among the greatest warriors” and their sacrifice being “second to none”—not a real apology, just enough flattering language to get headlines saying he “praised NATO troops” and move the story off his original insult. It’s the same Trump pattern: say something disgusting, watch the blowback, then throw a little sugar on top and act like everyone else is overreacting.
On Minnesota, he’s doing the same spin move. For days it was all “Democrats caused this chaos,” “Walz won’t do his job,” and “we’ve had great success” even as ICE killed Renee Good and then Alex Pretti on camera. Now, after Republicans start breaking with him and the shutdown threat gets tied directly to DHS and Minnesota, suddenly there was a “very good call” with Tim Walz, they’re “on the same page,” and Walz is supposedly “pleased” Homan is coming in. Walz’s office, of course, is out here saying he pressed Trump on independent investigations and reducing the federal footprint, not cheering on more ICE, which tells you the gap between Trump’s reality and actual reality is getting wider by the day.
The mental whiplash here is not subtle. One minute he’s calling Alex an “armed assassin” and blaming “far‑left agitators” for his death via Stephen Miller’s rabid posts; the next he’s smoothing his tone, talking about “working together” with Walz and carefully suggesting ICE might “leave at some point.” That doesn’t look like a stable, grounded leader reassessing facts—it looks like a guy whose brain is fully captured by the last person who spoke to him: Miller and the blood‑and‑soil crowd in one ear, nervous Republicans and foreign leaders in the other. The scary part is that Miller is clearly still scripting a lot of this: he’s the one calling Pretti “an assassin” without evidence, painting Minneapolis as “engineered chaos,” and pushing the line that any criticism of ICE is basically treason. When that’s the worldview feeding the president, every “pivot” is just a tactical rebrand, not a change of heart.
And while all this is going on—Minnesota in flames politically, NATO allies furious, an aircraft carrier sliding into the Middle East—what does the White House do to “turn the ship” this weekend? They host a glitzy screening of a Melania biopic at the White House so a bunch of rich donors and hangers‑on can sip champagne and pretend the world isn’t on fire. You’ve got federal agents killing citizens in the street, kids being used as bait, a near‑shutdown over DHS, and outside the gates it’s pure crisis mode; inside, it’s a vanity film about the first lady and a room full of people acting like this is normal. That’s the clown show: an unhinged president lurching from insult to faux‑gratitude, a dead‑eyed ghoul like Stephen Miller shaping the ugliest parts of policy and messaging, and a ruling class so detached they think a Melania movie night is what the moment calls for while they pour gasoline on everything else.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I’m mad. Mad like I have never been before. Hurt in a way that sits in your chest and doesn’t move—heartbroken for the families, the kids, the parents, the friends who are just trying to live their lives while this government turns the cruelty dial up day after day. I’m scared, too. There are moments I just want to scream into the void because it feels like the ground keeps shifting under our feet. But here’s the thing: we don’t get to give in to that. We have to fight, we have to use our voices, and we absolutely cannot choose violence, because that is exactly what they want—an excuse to crack down harder and say we’re the problem. We are stronger and we are better than the people cheering this nightmare on, and deep down they know it.
And while all the Minnesota, ICE, and shutdown chaos is burning, there’s a whole pile of other big stories they’re hoping you miss. Mark Kelly is literally in court fighting Pete Hegseth and Trump’s Pentagon over an unprecedented move to strip his retired Navy rank and cut his pension because he dared make a video telling service members they don’t have to follow unlawful orders. Hegseth has labeled that “sedition” and is trying to recall him to active duty just to discipline him, which would blow the door open for any future administration to go after retired officers who speak out. At the same time, Jack Smith sat in front of the House and, under fire from Jim Jordan and the MAGA crew, calmly said he still believes the evidence showed Trump committed crimes around January 6 and classified documents, and that he would have brought the same charges against any president with that evidence. They want you to think all of that is “old news,” but it’s not—it’s the sitting government trying to rewrite the idea that the powerful can be held accountable at all.
Then you’ve got the international mess they’re barely talking about. In Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez—now acting president after Maduro was captured—is publicly saying she’s had “enough orders from Washington,” calling out Trump’s attempt to basically turn Venezuela into a U.S. oil client that cuts off China, Iran, Russia, and Cuba and does business only on his terms. She’s trying to balance not losing U.S. backing entirely with not being seen at home as Trump’s puppet, and that pushback—“enough orders from Washington”—is a warning sign that this White House is overplaying its hand abroad the same way it is here. Layer on top the rolling Epstein fallout—new filings, more names surfacing, questions about who knew what and when—and you see the same pattern: a ruling class desperate to keep its own rot buried while wagging the finger at everybody else.
On the home‑front culture war side, the crazy never stops. The same crowd that’s militarizing ICE and trying to crush dissent is also packaging “MAHA” lifestyle propaganda—telling people what they should and shouldn’t eat, which vaccines or basic medicines to avoid, wrapping it in fake “health freedom” while quietly pushing sketchy supplements and conspiracies. (Give it a week and I fully expect them to be one step away from telling everyone to drink Brawndo and water their plants with it “because it has electrolytes”—we are inches from Idiocracy at this point.) Meanwhile, Trump’s own health is not exactly screaming “fitness for duty”: public appearances where he looks exhausted, slurs and rambles, repeats stories, and has to be propped up by staff who then attack anyone who points it out as “ableist” while they mock everyone else’s illnesses. (Look at how carefully orchestrated his events are now, how short the unscripted bits are—none of that is an accident.)
Even the institutions that used to be the brains behind the right are wobbling. The Heritage Foundation has tied itself so tightly to Project 2025 and Trump’s most extreme policies that its influence is now under real strain—big donors are skittish, some establishment Republicans are backing away, and there’s chatter about whether Mike Pence’s new outfit will try to scoop up the “respectable conservative” mantle if Heritage fully implodes. (Spoiler: Pence world is not fundamentally different; it’s the same agenda with a different tone.) At the same time, Trump is leaning on regulators and allies to go after his media enemies: he’s raging about “late‑night lies,” complaining that the comics who mock his chaos should lose access or be “dealt with,” and his people are pressing the FCC and friendly state regulators to make life harder for outlets that don’t toe the line. It’s not subtle; it’s a guy who can’t stand being made fun of trying to build a state that punishes anyone who tells the truth with a punchline.
And then there are the more personal rot‑signals, like the ballroom lawsuit—another reminder that everything around this man, from his properties to his politics, turns litigious and toxic the moment people start asking questions about money, safety, or basic honesty. Whether it’s contractors claiming they were stiffed, unions saying workers were put at risk, or neighbors fed up with being steamrolled, the pattern is the same: Trumpworld treats rules as optional and people as disposable, and then screams “witch hunt” when anyone pushes back.
So yeah, I’m mad. Me too—so mad. I’m scared and exhausted and heartbroken for the people living this, not just reading about it. But that’s exactly why we have to keep going. They want us numb, they want us violent, or they want us silent—anything but organized, loud, and clear‑eyed. We don’t give them that. We show up, we pay attention to the stories they hope slide under the radar, we call this shit what it is, and we refuse to let them turn our anger into the excuse they’re craving.
Speak Truth! Keep speaking TRUTH!
Don’t Give up the Ship!
Go Cause Good Trouble, with Your Elbows Up!
These are facts that I researched and verified – AI helped put together some sentence structure, but the words and tone are mine. These are my views based upon facts, research and thoughtful consideration using logic. I own the copyright to any images used. I’m comfortable to stand alone to uphold truth. Feel free to check me, but do not attack me. I am only causing good trouble.
Posted earlier in the day – separate from update as it was very long….
Perriti Update – 26 Jan/0900MT
This Alex Perriti shooting is exactly the nightmare so many people have been warning about: ICE and this Trump crowd running around playing occupation force, and a regular guy ends up dead while they lie through their teeth to justify it.
What we know about Alex and the “violent felon” lie
Alex Perriti was a 37‑year‑old U.S. citizen who was shot and killed during a so‑called ICE/Border Patrol operation in Minneapolis, after he showed up near an immigration enforcement action that had already drawn protests and tension. DHS and Noem’s people immediately pushed a story that agents were chasing a “violent undocumented criminal” and that Alex inserted himself into some big takedown, supposedly armed, supposedly there to “kill law enforcement.” Very quickly, people in Minnesota and local sources started pointing out that the person Alex was being painted as simply does not match reality: no serious record, no evidence of this “violent felon” narrative they’re leaning on to make this execution look like a clean shoot. That “we were after a violent criminal” line is doing one job: make the public shrug at state violence and move on.
Family and co‑workers versus the ICE script
Alex’s people are telling a totally different story than Noem and Bovino. Family statements are describing someone who showed up because he cared about what ICE was doing in his city, not a guy who rolled out of bed thinking, “I’m going to go massacre federal agents today.” Co‑workers and friends are chiming in with the stuff you always see when regular people are suddenly turned into villains by the state: he was dependable, not some extremist, the kind of guy who stepped up for others, including immigrants in the community, and who was loud about hating what ICE was doing but not violent. So you’ve got his family and co‑workers painting a picture of a decent guy who got caught in a federal political stunt gone bad, while DHS is busy turning him into a cartoon terrorist so they don’t have to admit their people panicked and fired.
The memes, the trans hate, and the 20%
The internet did exactly what it does when the right wants to dehumanize someone: the memes started. There are already disgusting posts and memes mocking Alex, calling him a “tranny,” using slurs and transphobic jokes to reduce him from an actual person with a life and a family into a punchline. This is the lane that hardcore MAGA lives in: strip someone of their humanity, pile on with every slur and stereotype, then pretend their death is just “consequences.” You can see the split in the country in the reaction: most normal people are horrified and furious, showing up in the streets in Minneapolis, calling for investigations and accountability; then there’s that loud, rabid 20% cheering it on, saying ICE should have done it sooner, posting the memes, parroting the “terrorist” line as if they watched a different video than everyone else.
Noem and Bovino’s copy‑paste cover story
Kristi Noem’s statement on Saturday and Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino’s line were basically a copy‑paste job: he “intended to kill law enforcement,” he showed up to inflict “maximum damage,” the agents “fired defensive shots” and had no choice. You can hear how rehearsed it is—same language, same framing, same refusal to answer basic questions like “Did he actually point a weapon at agents?” and “What does the video show?” Bovino then goes on TV and leans into the “massacre” talk, painting Alex as if he’s some movie villain, while dodging the obvious contradictions between his script and what’s on camera. When two top officials are literally using the same dramatic buzzwords instead of facts, it doesn’t sound like a briefing; it sounds like a coordinated cover‑up designed to lock in the narrative before the truth fully lands.
Bovino’s CNN interview
That Bovino CNN hit was pure propaganda and honestly disgusting. He sat there and repeated the “maximum damage,” “kill law enforcement,” “defensive shots” phrasing like a robot, but when pressed on basic specifics—who fired, how many rounds, whether Alex actually aimed or fired—he danced around it. He tried to shift the conversation into “Why would anyone bring a gun to a protest?” while conveniently ignoring that this is a country where his own base screams about open carry and “good guys with guns” every time it’s convenient. The smugness, the refusal to acknowledge Alex as anything more than “the suspect,” the total lack of even basic empathy for someone they killed—it was all there, and it tells you they care more about covering their own asses than telling the country what really happened.
“We were chasing a violent felon” and Minnesota calling BS
The federal story is that agents were in the middle of a mission to grab a “violent undocumented immigrant,” and that’s why everyone should just accept whatever force they used as justified. Minnesota leaders and locals are not buying it. They’ve already pointed out there’s no public record backing up this “violent felon” being on the scene the way ICE is describing it, and none of that backstory explains why a U.S. citizen is now dead in the street. It’s the same pattern: slap a “dangerous immigrant” label on some unseen figure, wrap Alex into that story as if he’s part of a cartel raid, and hope people don’t notice the whole thing keeps falling apart under even basic scrutiny.
Noem’s “we’ll leave if…” and the voter suppression play
Noem went further and basically turned this into a hostage situation with the state. She’s out here saying that if Minnesota hands over voting machines and meets “two other demands,” the feds will back off, framing their presence as punishment for how the state runs its elections. That’s not about immigrants at that point—that’s straight voter suppression and election interference dressed up as law‑and‑order talk, using ICE and Border Patrol as a political hammer. She’s tying the occupation of a Democratic‑leaning state and this whole ramped‑up ICE operation to “election integrity,” making it clear this isn’t just about who crosses the border, it’s about who gets to vote and who gets punished for voting the “wrong” way.
Walz, the Guard, and protecting people from ICE
Tim Walz has been one of the only adults in the room, and he’s making it clear he sees ICE and these federal cowboys as the threat. He’s activated and positioned the National Guard with the explicit frame of protecting Minnesotans and protesters and keeping order while the feds stomp around. He’s basically saying, “We don’t need more of your untrained, violent officers here, we need you gone, and until then we’ll protect our people while we investigate what you did.” Coming from a governor, that’s a big line in the sand: the Guard isn’t being used to crush protests, it’s being used to hold the line so ICE doesn’t make this even worse.
America’s reaction versus the hardcore MAGA response
Across the country, the reaction from most people is what you’d expect when a citizen is killed in what looks like an overblown, politicized operation: outrage, grief, protests, calls for independent investigations, demands that the FBI or an outside body—not Noem’s DHS—take this over. You see civil rights groups, immigrant advocates, and just regular folks saying: this is exactly why we didn’t want ICE militarized and turned loose as a campaign arm for Trump. Then you’ve got that 20%—the Trump die‑hards—whose response is honestly sickening: celebrating the shooting, blaming Alex for his own death, pushing the “terrorist” line, sharing those transphobic memes, acting like any American who stands between ICE and a brown person deserves whatever they get. That gap—most people horrified, a loud minority openly cheering—is the clearest picture of where this country is right now: a government using immigration as the excuse, elections as the real target, and a base so radicalized they’ll cheer a killing if it fits the narrative.