ANOTHER Murder In Minneapolis By The Federal Government

There's been another murder on the street, in front of witnesses by immigration agents. This is an update of a previously published blog post.

First, let's dispense with the idea that local police are the angels as opposed to the devils of ICE. Have we collectively forgotten the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020? While we're comparing ICE and CBP unfavorably to the Minneapolis Police Department, has the memory of that cop's knee on George Floyd's neck been completely obliterated along with the memory of him being a Minneapolis Police Officer? While it's appropriate to note that ICE and CBP are not general law enforcement agencies — they're jurisdiction is immigration enforcement — let's not forget all the unarmed people, mostly Black men, killed because some cop "feared for his life". Let's remember that every arrest by regular law enforcement these days seems to require the arrestee being thrown to the ground, face down, accompanied by shouts of "stop resisting". Still, due to overly broad self-defense statutes and juries that will excuse a shooting by police if they followed departmental procedure, few police officers are charged and of those few, hardly any are convicted. The culture of impunity among law enforcement, coupled with police omerta, have set the stage for the abusive rampage of ICE and CBP in our cities. Going forward I will lump ICE and CBP under the umbrella term "ICE". I know they're different, separate, agencies, but at least in Minneapolis they're working together. 

Despite the well-documented abuses by police officers, the difference between a Police Officer or Sheriff's Deputy and an ICE agent is training. While they don't all follow their training, regular cops are trained how to approach suspects, how to ask questions, and very importantly, how to de-escalate. They are drilled in specific scenarios like what to do when confronting someone who is armed, how to conduct a traffic stop, how to make an arrest. In Lincoln, academy training is 23 weeks in length. This is followed by 22 weeks of field training with an experienced officer. Nationwide, training is usually between 6 and 12 months. ICE basic training is 6 ½  weeks (47 days). It has been reported that recruitment standards have been downgraded as well. With ICE's activities spurring protests, their lack of training in crowd control is no longer a tragedy waiting to happen, it has already happened. 

The killing in Minneapolis last week is not the first death by federal immigration agents. There were 32 deaths in ICE custody in 2025. There were two shootings in Portland in mid-January for which I do not have details. But there have been other recent shootings. On October 4^th, Marimar Martinez's vehicle sideswiped, or was sideswiped by an federal immigration enforcement vehicle in Chicago. Border Patrol Agent Charles Exum got out of his vehicle and shot her five times. Border Patrol claimed that Martinez "rammed" the vehicle and that she was trying to run over Exum. She was charged with assault on a federal officer. Charges were later dropped after problematic text messages by Exum surfaced and the Border Patrol vehicle was cleaned and repaired before it could be examined for evidence. On New Year's Eve Keith Porter was firing a gun in the air to celebrate the new year when he was killed by an off-duty ICE agent. The news and social media are full of accounts, including video evidence, of ICE and Border Patrol arresting protesters. In many cases they are preemptively using violence against protesters, including so-called less-than-lethal weapons. 

Now we get to the murder of Renee Good. 

She was on a street where there were multiple ICE vehicles. It was a public street, and there is no indication, and indeed no claim by the government, that the street was blocked off. Reports indicate that she was returning home after dropping off her daughter at school. She was in her own neighborhood. 

She had every right to be where she was — it was a public street. If she was, as some government representatives claim, obstructing a federal operation, what specifically was she supposed to have been doing? She is shown on multiple videos waving ICE vehicles through — her van isn't obstructing traffic at all, and she was first ordered to "get out of here", which she was attempting to do. I have seen reports that attempt to paint her in a negative way by claiming that she was part of anti-ICE protests. Protesting is a First Amendment right. Even though she had no arrest record, she was immediately tarred as a domestic terrorist and a  deranged leftist — apparently you can shoot people for being leftists now. 

So, it's not even arguable that she was doing anything illegal before receiving a conflicting order: "get out of the fucking car" with an agent grabbing her door handle. What was she supposed to have done? Attempting to make an illegal U-turn? Was it simply a matter of them being mad that she and her wife weren't responding with fear? Or that Renee's wife mockingly told the agent to "go get some lunch, big boy"? The agents were clearly attempting to assert authority that they didn't have over an infraction that didn't exist.

One of the things I learned when on grand jury duty in 2024 was that, despite movie and television portrayals of cops running toward danger, bravely confronting gun wielding bad guys, their training tells them to not expose themselves unnecessarily to danger. That includes, according to DOJ use-of-force guidelines stepping in front of a vehicle to prevent it from moving. 

2. Firearms may not be discharged solely to disable moving vehicles. Specifically, firearms may not be discharged at a moving vehicle unless: (1) a person in the vehicle is threatening the officer or another person with deadly force by means other than the vehicle; or (2) the vehicle is operated in a manner that threatens to cause death or serious physical injury to the officer or others, and no other objectively reasonable means of defense appear to exist, which includes moving out of the path of the vehicle. Firearms may not be discharged from a moving vehicle except in exigent circumstances. In these situations, an officer must have an articulable reason for this use of deadly force.

The shooter, whatever his state of mind, and whatever Renee was attempting to do, violated training standards by moving himself in front of a vehicle, putting himself in danger. He created the problem. However, once the vehicle started moving, he is shown on video from multiple angles safely moving out of the way, negating, according to the highlighted sections above, the need for deadly force. This video analysis does a good job breaking down, almost frame by frame, what happened. 

I have heard suggestions that it has taken the killing of a White woman to get people riled up about what ICE is doing. I disagree with that take. People have been protesting since Trump took office. Yes, several people have been shot and killed by ICE, but the difference in my opinion is not that Renee was White, but that the murder was so well documented, from start to finish, from different angles, so that objectively there should be no question. There's no ambiguity about what happened. 

A normal administration would wait until all the facts were in, an investigation was completed, before commenting about it. But this isn't a normal administration. Before the day was out top Trump officials were calling Ms. Good a domestic terrorist (a nonexistent federal crime) and a deranged leftist. Trump himself has claimed "...the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE officer, who seems to have shot her in self-defense.” None of this happened. They have their narrative that they want to push. 

Renee Good wasn't breaking any laws, was not putting the ICE agent in jeopardy, yet was murdered in cold blood. 

Two weeks later it happened again. Alex Pretti was directing traffic and recording with his cell phone when he came to the aid of a woman who had been shoved and pepper-sprayed by the CBP agent. (I do not know if it was specifically pepper spray, but it was some kind of orange-colored chemical agent) There are several videos from multiple angles being posted to social media, here is one from a close perspective: It is been referred to as the Lady in Pink video, since the woman recording can be seen in other videos close to the encounter. 

What appear to have happened is:

• There is some kind of ICE/CBP action taking place, there are whistles being blown and multiple people on the sidewalk and in the street recording
• Mr. Pretti is in the street and is waving a car through. He may have been directing traffic, or possibly just waving car past so he could safely cross the street
• Another observer (she is the woman with the backpack) is being approached by CBP — she appears to be in the street recording him. CBP follows her to the curb pepper sprays her and shoves her to the ground
• Mr. Pretti steps in between the woman and the CBP agent and turns to assist the woman with the backpack but is immediately pepper sprayed — he either falls on top of backpack lady or protects her from CBP — it's unclear
• CBP grabs him and begins to drag him away — it is unclear whether he is actively resisting, but when they grab him he is facing away from the agent, not threatening him in the slightest
• However I have always said that struggling against being physically restrained in the heat of the moment, as you're being forced face down with your armed wrenched behind your back, is natural. But they will call any movement "resisting" and an excuse for further violence
• While he is being pinned down there is some motion that may be a CBP agent removing his gun, it is unclear when his gun was removed or even if he had a gun
• While Mr. Pretti is still pinned down the agents begin shooting as many — as many as ten shots 

From the videos recorded while it was happening, there's absolutely no indication that he was threatening agents with a weapon, or even that he had a weapon. Did one of them panic when they saw a gun? Did Alex's gun go off accidently in the struggle? Who knows? It appears that what set them off initially, motivating CBP to attack him, was his intervention in CBP's attack on backpack lady. He dared to step in to protect someone who was assaulted for standing in the street and recording ICE/CBP activities. Which is perfectly legal. 

Just like after the murder of Renee Good, the government wasted no time in lying about what happened and defaming the victim. He was accused of being an assassin who was going to massacre government agents who were doing their jobs. Like Good, he was branded a domestic terrorist. All before any investigation was conducted and in direct contradiction to what the videos clearly show. Department of Homeland Security and FBI officials began claiming that the simple possession of a gun, which Mr. Pretti had a license to carry, was prima facie evidence that he planned to kill ICE agents. Despite years of support for right wing protesters showing up fully armed at protests, even within the walls of state capitols. 

In the event of an officer involved shooting in a normal police department, there is usually a legal requirement that an investigation take place, often by another agency. Here in Lincoln Nebraska, any death, whether by natural causes or by police action, that takes place in police custody (which includes in the process of an arrest or detention) requires a grand jury investigation. Often the officer involved is put on desk duty and has to turn in his weapon until he is cleared. Do police usually close ranks and cover each others' backs? Are the number of police charged with wrongdoing pretty small? Are the number of conviction extremely rare? Yes and yes. But there is at least a process. But ICE/CBP are not normal police departments. They have a narrow area of responsibility: illegal immigration. But they have been turned into Trump's secret police. In the ICE killings thus far the killers have not been relived of duty pending an investigation, they still have their guns and are out on the street somewhere else. Minneapolis state law enforcement investigators have been shut out of any inquiries. The feds are investigating themselves. How will that go when those at the top have already announced what they think happened?

Trump campaigned on "closing the border" (it wasn't "open" despite the anti-Biden propaganda that you hear) and immediately deporting the worst of the worst, the violent criminal aliens in our midst. You really couldn't argue with that. But that wasn't what's been happening. Rather than doing the hard work of investigating and rooting out the criminals, ICE has been going after the low-hanging fruit. Undocumented individuals at work, or at school. They have even been detaining and deporting those who are here legally — those with temporary protected status, green card holders, and even immigrants who show up for the final step in the citizenship journey. People are being arrested at scheduled annual check-ins. People who have done it "the right way" but are being kicked out anyway. What's even worse is that they have been indiscriminately detaining people who "look like illegals", or speak with an accent, yet are citizens.  

Now they're killing people in broad daylight, in front of witnesses. The government and their enablers are arguing that they deserved it. 

Political Toddlers (Including The Voters)

After ten years of Trump's juvenile name-calling and schoolyard taunts, why would we be surprised that Governor Jim Pillen would resort to an insult that's a portmanteau of "liberal" and "retard", a word that is widely regarded as a slur against the disabled?

"Retard", or "retarded" was once a clinical term applied to those with intellectual disabilities, as was "idiot" and "moron", "imbecile" and "cretin". All of those terms devolved into insults or slurs. "To retard" still has legitimate uses outside of a clinical description of developmental disability. (E.g. "flame retardant")

In some ways we have become inured to this kind of language, this coarseness from our elected officials, but I believe it goes well beyond just the simple offensiveness of the word that Pillen used. 

"Elections have consequences". I don't know if President Obama was the first one to publicly make that statement, but it's true. Those who win elections have the power to make changes, although it used to be that the winners of close contests at least made the attempt to reach out to the other side. There was a recognition that the next election could undo their work; it was those electoral "mandates", i.e. huge wins, where the winners rolled over the the losers. The election(s) of Donald Trump have turned  wins into the electoral equivalent of a conquering and occupying army, complete with "othering" everyone who didn't vote the "right" way, and labeling them as enemies. 

The last several federal elections have been close, within one percentage point, but that hasn't stopped Trump and his supporters from claiming that it was an historic, landslide win, a mandate. Governor Pillen, after his election win with around 60% of the vote (a pretty big margin of victory) claimed that Nebraskans "spoke with one voice". ( ⁶/₁₀ of one voice maybe)

It's no surprise then that Governor Pillen, who has been steadily transforming himself from a typical Nebraska Republican into a full-on MAGA Trumper, used the slur that I referenced in the first paragraph, using it to demean, insult, and "other" fellow Nebraskans who disagree with him and his party politically. It got our attention and made headlines mainly due to the "tard" part of the epithet, yet it's an escalation, not really anything new. And it's not just the politicians, it's our neighbors and coworkers who are more and more comfortable engaging in this kind of behavior. 

It's no surprise that the pseudo-anonymity of social media escalates the disrespect and attack mode conversing of political discourse among non-office holders, echoing the vitriol from the "leaders". This isn't news.  Paired with the tendency to jump immediately to insults is the tendency for many partisans to "support the team", i.e. presume that their party loves America and knows best, and the other guys are communists, Nazis, pedophiles or demons. Yes, some people literally believe that the people they disagree with are demons. 

I don't know if a significant percentage of voters ever were educated regarding the details and nuances of the politicians they voted for, but in the last ten years it feels like it has gotten worse. The comments that I read on social media indicate that many people are completely uninterested in the policy positions of the candidates, but form opinions based on an exaggerated caricature of what they believe that the candidate is like based on...not much. 

Yesterday I was reading the comments to an article about Lynn Walz's announcement that she was running for Nebraska governor as a Democrat.  Ms. Walz is a former Nebraska State Senator. Very few of the commenters seemed to have any knowledge of how she would govern, but boy, were there opinions. Most of them were based on her surname. She is related by marriage to Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota. The "reasoning" behind the opposition to her was based almost entirely on the fact that she was named Walz. Governor Walz appears to inspire revulsion among Nebraska Republicans...I don't know why. Maybe because he ran for Vice President in 2024, maybe because he is standing up to ICE, maybe because his DHHS missed huge amounts of fraud. It could be anything. What it isn't is a rational, logical objection to any policies. This is not an isolated incident. Nebraska voters in particular, especially rural or small town voters, seem to believe that anyone running as a Democrat is really a Communist out to take their guns, force their children to transition to a different gender, and...well you get the picture. My own comments were met with repeats of Pillen's slur (pus one "silly goose"). 

I have no expectation that internet trolls, whether anonymous or not, interact politely. They aren't being entrusted with the state's budget, or the nation's nuclear codes. But our elected officials, no matter what level in which they serve, should be held to a higher standard. A standard which Governor Pillen and President Trump fail to meet. 

The Cheese Has Slipped Off The Cracker

A while back a MAGA acquaintance opined that Trump was playing 3-D chess regarding one of the multiplicity of crises that Trump had initiated. If I remember correctly it was a few months ago when Attorney General Bondi was claiming that there was no "Epstein Client List" after previously asserting that it was literally on her desk, waiting for review. Trump had made releasing the files one of his oft-repeated campaign promises, which he hoped everyone would forget about after the election. Once it became clear that he was making no effort to release them, Democrats, as well as the segment of his cult for whom releasing the files was the main reason they voted for him, began to lobby for releasing them. 

The supposed 3-D chess maneuver was Trump tricking the Democrats into agitating for the Epstein files to be released, setting themselves up to be revealed as the core of Epstein's clients. This is pretzel twisting of logic worthy of a theological apologist. The simple answer — that he promises things that he has no intention of honoring — which he has a long track record of doing — is abandoned in favor of an implausible explanation that no one with enough brain cells to register on a postal scale will believe. Implausible rationalizations are a Trumper's stock in trade. 

I have written extensively in the last year regarding my conclusion that Trump is a dictator. I have taken to using the term "autocrat", or "authoritarian", since people often believe that only the most extreme of dictators rate the epithet "dictator". Use the search function to find some of my opinions on the matter. But just because we are functionally under one man rule, with dozens of sycophants standing by to put his whims into action, doesn't mean that he's not losing his mind. It's reasonable to think that being a gibbering idiot who is either suffering from dementia or is simply bat shit crazy is incompatible with someone who is operating as a dictator. That there is zero overlap between being an evil mastermind and someone who barely knows where he is at any given moment. But is it? 

Trump has been able to turn the presidency into an autocracy not because he is a brilliant tactician and canny strategist, but because he has filled the government with loyalists who will carry out his orders no matter how illegal they are. And alongside those loyalists are the architects of Project 2025 who are brilliant tacticians and canny strategists, who have wormed their way into positions that have enabled them to use Trump's anti-democratic mindset to get their agenda enacted. 

"Incompetent" is a word I've been assigning to Trump since his first term. That and "ignorant". Of course a president can't know everything. Can't be an expert on everything. They have to be able to delegate, and to listen to experts in many fields, and even listen to different points of view before making a decision. The problem with Trump is that despite all evidence to the contrary, he believes that he is the smartest person in the room, no matter the subject. He rejects the input and advice from people who know more than he does in favor of his own ill-informed opinion. His tariff "policy" is a perfect example of this. He is ignorant of how tariffs work and what a trade deficit is. He is ignorant of the basic fact of who pays for them. He thinks that a trade deficit equates to the United States losing money. Yet, he barrels ahead with his tariffs regardless. Surely he has had the concepts of trade deficits and tariffs explained to him, but he refuses to listen, although I doubt anyone bothers anymore. 

Something the MAGA acquaintance that I mentioned in the first paragraph told me once was that he doesn't pay attention to personalities, just policies. This is a typical excuse that the Trump Cult uses to justify their support for such a horrible human being: they like his policies. Their vote for him in 2024 was based on his campaign promises about the economy. The NY Times recently ran an article about his economic performance. Surprise! It's not good. But despite the MAGA rationalization, personality matters. Character matters. Cognitive health matters. Trump may not be able to be diagnosed as suffering from dementia, or is clinically insane, but his actions are not that of a man who is tethered firmly to reality. 

Trump spends a lot of time praising himself. He constantly invents stories about people showering him with respect and even adulation — the famous "sir" stories — manly men with tears in their eyes thanking him profusely for saving the country, or bringing back something or other. He has always done this. But since his re-election it has gotten worse. His Truth Social posts are rambling rants, he regularly veers off topic into incomprehensible word salad when asked questions, he often makes absolutely no sense. His best days make President Biden's debate performance last year look supremely articulate and inspiring. But the scary thing is that he has enough awareness to know when his unhinged orders aren't being followed — his people, afraid to incur his wrath, will execute any order that he issues. The "adults in the room" have all been fired. 

In the last few weeks he has ordered the military to kidnap a foreign head of state of a country with which we are not at war. He is threatening to invade Greenland, which, as a part of the Kingdom of Denmark, is a NATO ally. NATO, which was formed as a defense against Russia, is now gearing up to defend against the United States! In a text message to the leader of Norway he stated that his reason for setting his sights on Greenland was that Norway denied him the Nobel Peace Prize (which is awarded by a private entity, not the Norwegian government). He continues to brag about being the "President of Peace", despite the eight supposed wars that he supposedly ended being a fantasy that exists only in his head, and the war mongering he is currently engaged in. Let's not forgot about him regularly falling asleep in meetings!

All of this is over and above the horrendous polices of his administration: the DOGE debacle, the tariffs, the depredations by ICE, his campaign of retribution by lawfare, his failure to "fix" the economy. This about a man who is no longer fully there. Whether it's dementia, some species of mental illness, or just his narcissistic ego, he is freakin' nuts!

Even though in many ways Vice President J.D. Vance (or whatever his name is) would be just as bad, or worse, we cannot continue to have a person with such a tenuous grasp on reality in the White House. 

Murder in Minneapolis

First, let's dispense with the idea that local police are the angels as opposed to the devils of ICE. Have we collectively forgotten the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020? While we're comparing ICE unfavorably to the Minneapolis Police Department, has the memory of that cop's knee on George Floyd's neck been completely obliterated along with the memory of him being a Minneapolis Police Officer? While it's appropriate to note that ICE is not a general law enforcement agency—it's jurisdiction is immigration enforcement—let's not forget all the unarmed people, mostly Black men, killed because some cop "feared for his life". Let's remember that every arrest these days seems to require the arrestee being thrown to the ground, face down, accompanied by shouts of "stop resisting". Still, due to overly broad self-defense statutes and juries that will excuse a shooting by police if they followed departmental procedure, few police officers are charged and of those few, hardly any are convicted. The culture of impunity among law enforcement, coupled with police omerta, have set the stage for the abusive rampage of ICE in our cities. 

Despite the well-documented abuses by police officers, the difference between a Police Officer or Sheriff's Deputy and an ICE agent is training. While they don't all adhere to their training, regular cops are trained how to approach suspects, how to ask questions, how to de-escalate. They are drilled in specific scenarios like what to do when confronting someone who is armed, how to conduct a traffic stop, how to make an arrest. In Lincoln, academy training is 23 weeks in length. This is followed by 22 weeks of field training with an experienced officer. Nationwide, training is usually between 6 and 12 months. ICE basic training is 6 ½  weeks (47 days). It has been reported that recruitment standards have been downgraded as well. With ICE's activities spurring protests, their lack of training in crowd control is no longer a tragedy waiting to happen, it has already happened. 

The killing in Minneapolis last week is not the first death by federal immigration agents. There were 32 deaths in ICE custody last year. There were two shootings in Portland on Thursday for which I do not have details. But there have been other recent shootings. On October 4th, Marimar Martinez's vehicle sideswiped, or was sideswiped by an federal immigration enforcement vehicle in Chicago. Border Patrol Agent Charles Exum got out of his vehicle and shot her five times. Border Patrol claimed that Martinez "rammed" the vehicle and that she was trying to run over Exum. She was charged with assault on a federal officer. Charges were later dropped after problematic text messages by Exum surfaced and the Border Patrol vehicle was cleaned and repaired before it could be examined for evidence. On New Year's Eve Keith Porter was firing a gun in the air to celebrate the new year when he was killed by an off-duty ICE agent. The news and social media are full of accounts, including video evidence, of ICE and Border Patrol arresting protesters. In many cases they are preemptively using violence against protesters, including so-called less-than-lethal weapons. 

Now we get to the murder of Renee Good. 

She was on a street where there were multiple ICE vehicles. It was a public street, and there is no indication, and indeed no claim by the government, that the street was blocked off. Reports indicate that she was returning home after dropping off her daughter at school. Other reports say she was participating in a protest designed to obstruct ICE operations. 

She had every right to be where she was—it was a public street. If she was, as some government representatives claim, obstructing a federal operation, what specifically was she supposed to have been doing? She is shown on multiple videos waving ICE vehicles through—her van isn't obstructing traffic at all, and she was first ordered to "get out of here", which she was attempting to do. I have seen reports that attempt to paint her in a negative way by claiming that she was part of anti-ICE protests. Protesting is a First Amendment right. Even though she had no arrest record, she was immediately tarred as a deranged leftist—apparently you can shoot people for being leftists now. 

So, it's not even arguable that she was doing anything illegal before receiving a conflicting order: "get out of the fucking car" with an agent grabbing her door handle. What was she supposed to have done? Attempting to make an illegal U-turn? Was it simply a matter of them being mad that she and her wife weren't responding with fear? Or that Renee's wife mockingly told the agent to "go get some lunch, big boy"? They were clearly attempting to assert authority that they didn't have over an infraction that didn't exist.

One of the things I learned when on grand jury duty in 2024 was that, despite movie and television portrayals of cops running toward danger, bravely confronting gun wielding bad guys, their training tells them to not expose themselves to danger. That includes, according to DOJ use-of-force guidelines stepping in front of a vehicle to prevent it from moving. 

2. Firearms may not be discharged solely to disable moving vehicles. Specifically, firearms may not be discharged at a moving vehicle unless: (1) a person in the vehicle is threatening the officer or another person with deadly force by means other than the vehicle; or (2) the vehicle is operated in a manner that threatens to cause death or serious physical injury to the officer or others, and no other objectively reasonable means of defense appear to exist, which includes moving out of the path of the vehicle. Firearms may not be discharged from a moving vehicle except in exigent circumstances. In these situations, an officer must have an articulable reason for this use of deadly force.

The shooter, whatever his state of mind, and whatever Renee was attempting to do, violated training standards by moving himself in front of a vehicle, putting himself in danger. He created the problem. However, once the vehicle started moving, he is shown on video from multiple angles safely moving out of the way, negating, according to the highlighted sections above, the need for deadly force. This video analysis does a good job breaking down, almost frame by frame, what happened. 

I have heard suggestions that it has taken the killing of a White woman to get people riled up about what ICE is doing. I disagree with that take. People have been protesting since Trump took office. Yes, several people have been shot and killed by ICE, but the difference in my opinion is not that Renee was White, but that the murder was so well documented, from start to finish, from different angles, so that objectively there should be no question. There's no ambiguity about what happened. 

A normal administration would wait until all the facts were in, an investigation was completed, before commenting about it. But this isn't a normal administration. Before the day was out top Trump officials were calling Ms. Good a domestic terrorist (a nonexistent federal crime) and a deranged leftist. Trump himself has claimed "...the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE officer, who seems to have shot her in self-defense.” None of this happened. They have their narrative that they want to push. 

Renee Good wasn't breaking any laws, was not putting the ICE agent in jeopardy, yet was murdered in cold blood. 

Venezuela

One of the few Trump positions that I agreed with was his campaign promise to keep us out of foreign wars. He often bragged (inaccurately) that he was the first president in decades to not start a war. I'm not a pacifist by any stretch of the imagination, but most of the wars and other uses of our military are completely unnecessary. He flirted with military intervention during his first term. He bombed an Islamic State base in Syria. He had an Iranian General assassinated. But he didn't get us out of Afghanistan during his term, although he negotiated an end to our involvement with the Taliban, freezing out the actual government of Afghanistan. The second term is another story.

There is no shortage of bad guys on the world stage. Maduro is one of them. He accomplished what Trump failed to do: he overturned an election in which he lost and remained in power among other things. But there many other terrible dictators in the world. Why aren't we kidnapping them? Why is it any of our business, especially when the current regime is emphasizing "America First"? In addition to it being none of our business, recent history should have taught us that regime change and attempting to democratize another country seldom works out the way we envisioned. We "ran" Iraq for many years after invading it under false pretenses, and the result was the Islamic State which we had to go back in and subdue because the Iraqi army was too busy collecting paychecks for soldiers who didn't exist. We spent 20 years rebuilding Afghanistan, while corrupt Afghan politicians, warlords, and regional chieftains all tried to compete for the title of most corrupt. Result? The Taliban is back. 

So now, the "President of Peace", who is pathetically trying to convince everyone that he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize, has invaded Venezuela. He has kidnapped their de facto president, charging him with drug trafficking, and weirdly, weapons possession, announced that he will be seizing their national resources and selling them off as he unilaterally decides where to spend the money (oil rebate checks to all! - I just made that part up). He has declared that we are "running" Venezuela, although his Secretary of State "Liddle' Marco" has said otherwise. This was after weeks of extrajudicial killings of guys in boats who may or may not have been transporting drugs. Let's not ignore that Congress was not informed of this action. Trump's spokesperson says that the requirement in the War Powers Act that Congress be informed was not relevant because this wasn't a military operation, it was a law enforcement action—Green Berets were just there to protect those serving the warrant. Contrast this with the execution of the alleged drug runners they killed: in those cases it was a military operation because Venezuela was waging war on the United States by sending us fentanyl (or cocaine to Europe—whatever). Or maybe it was terrorism. Or narcoterrorism. Apparently labeling something as terrorism justified anything. 

And now we're going to "run" Venezuela.

Let's not forget about Greenland. 

Trump has been gabbling about taking over Greenland since his first term. At first it was viewed as a joke, but it's now clear that he's completely serious. The lack of pushback from Congress has likely emboldened him to take action. As if he cared what the impotent Congress thought. He doesn't care about what the voters think. He doesn't care what our allies think. He claims that we need Greenland for national security purposes. What he doesn't tell us is that in line with the treaty that we have with Denmark (which controls Greenland) allows us to build additional military bases after consultation with their government, and that before all of this, they would have agreed without a second thought. 

What a mess. 

Trump's War-Ending Scorecard

Trump's continuing to claim that he ended eight wars, here's an update. 

The Navy is blowing up boats of alleged drug smugglers near Venezuela, and has invaded the country,  kidnapping its president. He has impounded a several Venezuelan oil tankers, one of which was flying a Russian flag and was escorted by a Russian submarine. He is threatening to take over Greenland by force. 

Trump has claimed that he has ended eight wars, part of his pathetic grasping for a Nobel Peace Prize. But has he?

1. Israel-Gaza:

I wrote about this recently. In this article I showed how the supposed "New Dawn of Peace in the Middle East" was virtually identical to the cease fire that was in place when he took office in January which was over in March. This one has already been violated multiple times. Hamas has not agreed to several of the terms, in fact they were not consulted and had the "agreement" imposed upon them.

Update: ceasefire violations are continuing on a daily basis. None of the other items in the "20 Point Peace Plan" have been started. The Israeli government continues to not only allow Jewish settlers to steal Palestinian territory, but to abuse or kill individual Palestinians with impunity. This side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will surely blow up before long. 

2. Pakistan-India:

It wasn't a war, just another in the many border scuffles that these two countries have engaged in since their existence. India says that Trump has nothing to do with the cessation of hostilities which were negotiated directly between India and Pakistan.

Update: ceasefire has held

3. Rwanda-Democratic Republic of The Congo:

These two countries have had on again-off again periods of border fighting for years. As well as cease fires and "peace agreements" that are regularly violated. Peace talks are ongoing, as are the violations of the cease fire. 

Update: The so-called peace agreement was signed with great fanfare at the "United States Institute Of Peace", recently named "Donald J. Trump Institute Of Peace" on Thursday December 4th, but fighting has not stopped, and has in fact escalated. 

4. Thailand-Cambodia:

After a week of cross-border fighting, Malaysia brokered a ceasefire. The only involvement by Trump was a threat to leave high tariffs in place. 

Update: fighting has broken out again

5. Armenia-Azerbaijan:

These two former Soviet Republics have been fighting over where the border should be since they achieved independence. The biggest disagreement has been over Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan effectively ejected all Armenians from the enclave, making the settlement of the conflict moot. 

Update: No active fighting, but core issues have not been addressed, let alone solved

6. Egypt-Ethiopia:

Not even fighting, let alone a war. They're arguing over water use. 

Update: there never was a war, not even border skirmishes. Still none. 

7. Serbia-Kosovo:

Also no fighting. Trump is claiming that he stopped a war before it started.

Update: there never was a war, not even border skirmishes. Still none. 

8. Israel-Iran:

Israel had been conducting preemptive strikes against Iran and it's regional non-state allies like Hezbollah in tandem with its war against Hamas. Israel and Iran traded missile strikes for 12 days, ending after Trump had our military drop a bomb on Iran's nuclear facility. Iran declined to escalate. There is no peace agreement, but their is a cessation of hostilities. 

Update: There's been no resumption of hostilities, but Trump can hardly be called a peacemaker if he had to drop a bomb to get their attention. 

So here's the score:

• Diplomatic disagreements that involved no fighting whatsoever and therefore there was nothing to end: 2
• Fighting that stopped after we dropped a huge bomb on one side: 1
• Peace plan with a cease fire that is currently being violated: 3
• Conflicts that involved decades-long border fighting that will likely continue, but the ceasefire is currently holding: 2
• Actual lasting peace: 0

Meanwhile, the one war that we were involved in, Afghanistan, which he campaigned on ending in his first term, was not ended in his first term. And of course, the Russia-Ukraine war, which claimed he could end "in 24 hours, even before he was inaugurated" is still going on. 

Wannabe Dictator, Autocrat, Authoritarian, King...It's All Semantics - Part XII - Manipulates The Law To Stay in Power

The New York Times recently published an article Are We Losing Our Democracy? where they looked at various signs of dictatorship or autocracy and whether we had crossed that line. (I also provided the text in a Facebook post for those without NY Times access). I am going to look at each segment in turn and provide my own thoughts. 

#12 - Manipulates The Law To Stay In Power

 Authoritarians change election rules to help their party, and they rewrite laws — or violate their spirit — to ignore term limits.

Trump follows two parallel paths in this segment. In the first, he is mostly a passive beneficiary of the Republicans longstanding attempts to place roadblocks in the way of people's ability to easily vote. Gerrymandering, voter I.D., closing polling places, purging voter rolls, shortening early voting and placing restrictions on mail-in voting, all benefitting Republican candidates. Locking in compliant Republican office holders makes it easier for Trump to act unilaterally without oversight by Congress. 

In addition to the traditional Republican chicanery, Trump has also pushed states with Republican legislatures and governors to further gerrymander their Congressional districts. 

Mr. Trump’s biggest attempt to follow this playbook failed, when he was unable to undo his election defeat to Joe Biden in 2020. But that effort showed Mr. Trump’s willingness to break the law to remain in power. He issued an executive order in March that seeks to interfere with how states run their elections. 

The other path Trump has taken is his ongoing "jokes" about running for a third term or cancelling elections. He regularly "jokes" about scenarios where this could happen. Even if he isn't serious, subverting the Constitution isn't something that the president of the United States should be kidding about.  However, if anyone doubts his willingness to ignore the results of an election we have only to look at his actions in 2020 and early 2021 when he literally attempted to ignore the results of an election. 

The NY Times ended their series with this quote:

The clearest sign that a democracy has died is that a leader and his party make it impossible for their opponents to win an election and hold power. Once that stage is reached, however, the change is extremely difficult to reverse. And aspiring authoritarians use other excesses, like a cowed legislature and judiciary, to lock in their power.

The United States is not an autocracy today. It still has a mostly free press and independent judiciary, and millions of Americans recently attended the “No Kings” protests. But it has started down an anti-democratic path, and many Americans — including people in positions of power — remain far too complacent about the threat.

I disagree with the NY Times that we are not yet at the stage where we are in an autocracy. While there still exists a free press, many outlets are self-censoring or settling with Trump when sued. Lower courts are attempting to block some of his maneuvers, but the results are not uniform, and the Supreme Court has not upheld all the blocks. Trump in many ways is incompetent. He is clearly in the early stages of dementia. He is ignorant of how things work. He is not an efficient autocrat or dictator, but he rules as if only his word matters.

What else do you call it?

Part I - Stifling Dissent and Free Speech

Part II - Persecution of Political Opponents

Part III - Bypassing the Legislature

Part IV - Using The Military For Domestic & Political Purposes

Part V - Defies The Courts

Part VI - Declares National Emergencies Under False Pretenses

Part VII - Vilifies Marginalized Groups

Part VIII - Attempt to Control Information & The News Media

Part IX - Attempts To Take Over Universities

Part X - Creates A Cult of Personality

Part XI - Uses Power For Personal Profit