curated news excerpts & citations
Charlie Sykes: What if There Were No Cameras?
“On January 23, 2016, Donald Trump notoriously declared, ‘I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters.’ That statement was understood at the time as a metaphorical expression of the depth of Republican voters’ commitment to him. Ten years and one day later, his administration’s agents shot a disarmed man on the street in full view of the public…. What was once seen as a joke has attained the status of a prophecy. — Jonathan Chait
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What if we did not have those videos? How many Americans would have believed this? Or given the Administration the benefit of the doubt?
This raises another — and rather urgent — question.
What else is happening that we are not seeing on camera? What else is going on at the hands of an organization that thrives on cruelty porn and is willing to execute American citizens in broad daylight? What are they doing when no one is watching?
(Charlie Sykes more…)
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Hans Christensen: EU Ready With Funding For Russia Tribunal
Russia is reacting nervously to the messages from EU that preparations are under way for the tribunal of reckoning with the crime of aggression against Ukraine. Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has declared on Russian state television that he will not speak to EU foreign representative Kaja Kallas, at all. She is steadily working for establishing the tribunal that is dedicated to holding Russian leadership accountable for the unprovoked and illegal military attack on Ukraine.
(Hans Christensen more…)
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TNR: Trump Accidentally Wrecks His Own Case for Tariffs in 3 Crazed Tirades
As Trump’s threats sink deeper into absurdity, MS NOW’s Steve Benen explains how Trump gave away the game on his tariffs’ corrupt rationales—and why it’ll be a disaster for our country if he gets away with them.
…… During his Davos speech, Trump told a really odd story about how he decided last year to impose 30 percent tariffs on imports from Switzerland. At one point he spoke with Switzerland’s Karin Keller-Sutter. She rubbed him the wrong way, and he hiked the tariffs to 39 percent.
… we have a situation here in which the White House has said for about a year now that Donald Trump needs unilateral power. He needs to be able to impose arbitrary tariffs on U.S. trading partners—without congressional approval—in response to “emergency” conditions that necessitate this dramatic action.
And so with that in mind, you would like to think that the White House has an actual emergency in mind, that this emergency exists. And yet here we are seeing Donald Trump repeatedly and publicly explaining that as far as he’s concerned, there really isn’t an emergency. There are just whims, his own personal preferences. He’s giving away the game on purpose in public in ways that we can all recognize.
(TNR more…)
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – January 26, 2026
Yesterday President Donald J. Trump blamed Democratic officials for the killing of VA intensive care nurse Alex Pretti in Minnesota Saturday morning. Since then, administration officials and their supporters seem to be coalescing around the idea that the reason there have been violent clashes in Minneapolis is not the violence of federal agents there, but that city officials aren’t cooperating with federal officials.
As Allison Gill of Mueller, She Wrote notes, this language comes straight from the Insurrection Act, and indeed, MAGA leader and former Trump advisor Steve Bannon told the Wall Street Journal yesterday that he thinks Trump should invoke that act. …
This morning, Republican Chris Madel withdrew from the Minnesota governor’s race, saying “I cannot support the national Republicans’ stated retribution on the citizens of our state, nor can I count myself a member of a party that would do so…. Operation Metro Surge has expanded far beyond its stated focus on true public safety threats.”
“United States citizens, particularly those of color, live in fear. United States citizens are carrying papers to prove their citizenship. That’s wrong,” Madel said.
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)Anne Applebaum: Minnesota Winter
In the past several weeks, masked federal agents dressed as military officers have killed two Americans who were peacefully protesting their violent attacks on immigrants and U.S. citizens. Both times their actions were recorded on video cameras. Both times, government spokesmen made false statements, directly contradicting the video evidence. Both times, the same spokesmen smeared the victims as “domestic terrorists.”
This is a tactic that I recognize: blaming the victims for their own deaths has long been standard practice in dictatorships. The administration’s lack of interest in any kind of investigation is also notable: They are now openly seeking to appeal to a part of the electorate that welcomes and celebrates violence, and to frighten and intimidate everyone else. …
… Immediately after the murder of Alex Pretti, the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, sent Minnesota Governor Tim Walz an extraordinary letter. According to Democracy Docket:
Bondi blamed state and local leaders for the unrest ignited by the Trump administration’s expansive immigration enforcement operations. She claimed that Walz could “restore the rule of law” by complying with a list of demands, including giving the Department of Justice (DOJ) the state’s voter registration records:
“Allow the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice to access voter rolls to confirm that Minnesota’s voter registration practices comply with federal law as authorized by the Civil Rights Act of 1960.”
Noah Berlatsky: The regime’s mind-bending lies are a tactic
Thinking about them in terms of truth or falsity is a category error.
…The regime’s mind-blowing dishonesty is ultimately a way to demean and mark those who resist. They function as fascist solidarity, signaling that partisans can and should do anything and everything to political enemies, no matter how violent, cruel, or unnecessary.
(Noah Berlatsky more…)Bari Weiss: Kristi Noem’s Reckless Lies
WSJ: Tim Walz: The Un-American Assault on Minnesota
Federal officials are lying. My state’s Corrections Department honors all immigration detainers.
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The pretext for all this is the Trump administration’s insistence that our immigration laws would otherwise go unenforced. This federal occupation of Minnesota is, administration officials insist, about our predilection for releasing “violent criminal illegal aliens” from state custody.I can’t stress this enough: The Trump administration has its facts wrong about Minnesota.
Conversation: Minnesota raises unprecedented constitutional issues in its lawsuit against Trump administration anti-immigrant deployment
Jennifer Rubin: How to Stop the Fascism
Jay Kuo: The Roy Cohn Playbook Is Failing
John Pavlovitz: America, We Are All Minneapolis
NY Times: Timeline: A Moment-by-Moment Look at the Shooting of Alex Pretti
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Liz Dye: The Perp Walk Is The Point
Last week the Justice Department threw a giant hissy fit because it wasn’t allowed to tweet out an image of Don Lemon in handcuffs. Prosecutors demanded that a federal appeals court sign an arrest warrant so they could perp walk a Black journalist and turn him into a meme. And they did it while working overtime to keep all trace of the DOJ’s tantrum off the public docket.
The incident began on January 18, when protesters disrupted worship at Cities Church in Saint Paul, where one of the pastors is a regional director for ICE. …
(Liz Dye more…)
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Raw Story: ‘Changes need to be made’: Conservatives demand heads roll at DHS after Fox News report
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zeteo: 7 Times Conservatives Praised Gun-Toting Protesters
They’re attacking Alex Pretti for having a gun. But here are some famous moments when Trump and the right treated armed protesters like heroes.
Sarah Jones: Conservative 2nd Amendment Arguments in Tatters after Administration Blames Gun for Their Minneapolis Murder
Lawfare: It was never about 2A; it was always about who has the guns. After decades of screaming 2A was necessary for 1A, conservatives justify murdering an American citizen because he owned a gun.
(Sarah Jones more…)
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Steve Vladeck: “Administrative Warrants” and the Percival Op-Ed
ICE is claiming the authority to search private homes without a judicial warrant if it’s looking for non-citizens under a “final order of removal.” DHS’s public defense rests on two incorrect claims.
… ICE prepared (but didn’t publicize or widely circulate) a memorandum concluding that immigration officers can lawfully enter private homes without a judicial warrant so long as they have an “administrative warrant” (a piece of paper signed by an ICE officer) to arrest a non-citizen who is (allegedly) subject to a final order of removal. Just like ICE’s attempt to redesignate millions of non-citizens who have been living in the United States for years as “arriving aliens” for purposes of arrest and detention, one can draw a straight line from that memorandum to some of the more terrifying videos we’re seeing out of the Twin Cities and other jurisdictions in which federal agents are barging into private homes without consent.
Right-wing commentators (including a handful of law professors) have tried to defend the memo by twisting the Supreme Court’s Fourth Amendment jurisprudence into a pretzel. But in a remarkable Wall Street Journal op-ed, the General Counsel of the Department of Homeland Security suggested something else entirely—that the memo reflests “broad judicial recognition that illegal aliens aren’t entitled to the same Fourth Amendment protections as U.S. citizens,” and that non-citizens who have received a “final order of removal” are “fugitives from justice”—which is why they can be arrested based solely upon “administrative” warrants.
As I explain below, both of these claims are false.
(Steve Vladeck more…)
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Your Local Epidemiologist: Community and crisis
Today, you may be expecting the weekly YLE Dose on all the health issues filling the world and what it means to you. The flu, the U.S. pulling out of the WHO, or any of the other things that are important, but they feel minuscule after this weekend.
I will get back on track soon, but I just needed to take a minute. Because I don’t know about you, but my weekend was full of really hard juxtapositions
(Your Local Epidemiologist more…)
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Atlantic: Greg Bovino Loses His Job
Gregory Bovino has been removed from his role as Border Patrol “commander at large” and will return to his former job in El Centro, California, where he is expected to retire soon, according to a DHS official and two people with knowledge of the change.
(Atlantic more…)Ken Klippenstein: ICE Unloads
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USAFacts: What is going on with DOGE?
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was created to make changes to regulations, spending, and government structure. Where does it stand now?
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Timothy Snyder: The Bill of Wrongs
1. Congress shall make no law denying the Cult of all-wise Trump, or limiting the exercise thereof; or abridging His sole Freedom to define Truth, which includes …
(Timothy Snyder more…)
ICE deaths 2026 – They deserve remembrance and justice.
- January 24: Alex Pretti
- January 14: Heber Sanchaz Dominguez
- January 14: Victor Manuel Diaz
- January 9: Parady La
- January 7: Renée Good
- January 6: Luis Beltran Yanez-Cruz
- January 5: Luis Gustavo Nunez Caceres
- January 3: Geraldo Lunas Campos
- December 31, 2025: Keith Porter
Margaret Chase Smith: Declaration of Conscience
NPR: January 6, 2021: A visual archive
Accountability Initiative ICE List
GriftMatrix
Trump Action Tracker
Timeline: Tracking the Trump Justice Department’s Anti-Voting Shift
Tracking the Lawsuits Against Trump’s Agenda
Trump Pardons Database
Project 2025 Tracker
DOGE Tracker
ProPublica: Elon Musk’s Demolition Crew
Wired: 6 Tools for Tracking the Trump Administration’s Attacks on Civil Liberties
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