ICE Agents shoot US Citizen in the street

[just-jim]

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A very GOOD piece by one of the Guardian’s best writers….

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... al-emperor

For a serial liar, Donald Trump can be bracingly honest. We’ve known about the mendacity for years – consider the 30,573 documented falsehoods from the president’s first term, culminating in the big lie, his claim to have won the 2020 election – but the examples of bracing candour are fresher. This week both began and ended with the US president speaking the shocking truth.

At a press conference to celebrate his capture of the Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, Trump announced that from now on the US would “run” that country, before moving in the very next breath to Venezuela’s oil. There was no pious talk of democracy, scant mention even of the drug trafficking that earlier served as a pretext for military action. Instead, Trump said out loud what had once been a slogan on leftist placards in protest at past US interventions, admitting that it really was all about the oil. It was as transparent a revelation of Trump’s true motive as you could have asked for.

As the week closed, there was another disarmingly frank disclosure from the president, a confession that makes sense of both the crazy start to 2026 – and the man who is increasingly shaping our world.

Before we get to that statement, it’s worth registering how hard it can be to square these flashes of Trumpian honesty with the stream of untruths and, more subtly, contradictions and hypocrisies that emanate from him the rest of the time. Note, for example, Trump’s response when asked for his new year resolution: “Peace. Peace on Earth,” he said. Two days later, he was raining lethal fire on Caracas – and a few days after that, he was defending a US federal agent who had shot dead a mother of three in Minneapolis, a woman who posed no conceivable threat to anyone. The self-styled President of Peace is the bringer of war at home and abroad.

These two fronts are more alike than they might seem. The common thread is rule by fear. Trump’s aim in Venezuela has been to remove Maduro and hope that fear will do the rest. No need for a boots-on-the-ground occupation or “second wave” military assault; no need even for regime change. Removal of the man at the top should be enough to intimidate Maduro’s erstwhile henchmen, and especially his chief henchwoman, into doing the US’s bidding, starting with the handover of its oil industry.

What’s more, fear is contagious. Cuba has most reason to be anxious, but Trump also warned Colombia’s leader to “watch his arse”, while signalling that he is considering airstrikes on Mexico, aimed at drug cartels he says are now running that country. The mere threat of a repeat of last weekend’s action on Venezuela may well be enough to bring the rest of the Americas to heel.

That fear reaches across the Atlantic. Trump’s desire for Greenland was once dismissed as a punchline, but after Venezuela no one is laughing. Now we know that Trump’s words are the best guide to his future actions: if he says he wants something, he may well take it. In truth, the US’s European allies have been governed by fear since the day 11 months ago when Trump humiliated Volodymr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office: they worry that if they stand up to the bully in the White House, the bully will turn on them. Specifically, they fear that if they complain about Trump’s designs on Greenland, he will pull the plug on US support for Ukraine.

But, to Trump, fear is not only a commodity for export. It is how he rules at home too. Much has been made of his campaign of intimidation of US institutions, from the media to the universities to the courts. Rather less attention has been paid to his efforts to intimidate the American public, to make ordinary US citizens frightened of their own government.

But that is where we are now. For many months, masked agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, have been snatching people off the streets and meting out brutal punishment to those who get in their way. Witnesses in Minneapolis described an “insane” scene on Thursday, 24 hours after the killing of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good: “Large convoys of heavily armed masked men, blocking off streets at random, grabbing people nearly at random.” It’s always illuminating to report this as we would if it were happening somewhere far away: “Heavily armed government militias are roaming unchecked through US cities and shooting human rights observers dead in the streets,” to quote the New Republic’s Greg Sargent. On Thursday border patrol agents in Portland, Oregon shot two people outside a hospital.

Fuelling the fear are the lies. Trump pretended his beef with Maduro was the supply of narcotics into the US, even though it is hardly Venezuelan drugs that are killing Americans – and even as he, Trump, had just pardoned and released the ex-president of Honduras, who had been convicted and jailed for flooding the US with 400 tonnes of cocaine.

The lies at home are even more egregious. On the killing of Good, Trump and his officials have urged Americans to disbelieve their own eyes, insisting that Good was a “domestic terrorist” bent on using her car as a weapon when video footage of the incident leaves no doubt that she was not trying to kill ICE agents, but to get away from them. The lying never stops, even when that means defaming the dead. JD Vance called the slain woman a “deranged leftist”.

Of course, what these assaults, domestic and foreign, have in common is the drive for power, free of challenge or restraint. South American countries are to submit, as are Democrat-run cities and states. Whether it’s sending special forces to Caracas or ordering the National Guard into Los Angeles and Washington DC, the goal is control.

Which brings us to that second eruption of honesty. At the end of the week, Trump told the New York Times that he recognises only one constraint on his ability to act: “My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.” All the other official checks or balances are as nothing. His disregard for international law is total, but he sees domestic law much the same way: judges only have the power to restrain him “under certain circumstances”, he told the NYT.

That is an honest account by Trump of how he sees himself: not so much a national president as a global emperor. Now those who oppose him have to be just as honest. Trump may be right that the US arsenal is such that no country can stand up to him, and certainly not alone. But the major European powers, and others, do have leverage, especially if they act in concert. More directly, the US public has a formidable weapon in its hands: it can vote to wrest the House of Representatives, at least, from the Republicans in November, which will act as an instant curb on Trump’s power. At home and abroad, it means overcoming fear, combining together and admitting the menace we now confront – and doing so honestly.”
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[just-jim]

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“The shadow of Maduro hangs over Minneapolis.

On January 3rd, the American military extracted the murderous dictator Nicolás Maduro from Caracas. On January 7th, ICE killed a mother in her car in Minnesota. These are two glimpses of a larger story about death and lies.

The abduction of Maduro was not about naming his crimes, but about ignoring them. The worst thing that Maduro did is just what Trump is beginning to do: killing civilians and blaming them for their own deaths. After Minneapolis, Maduro’s lies are being repeated: in American English, by American authorities……..
………”

https://snyder.substack.com/p/maduro-in-minneapolis?
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[just-jim]

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvPbWcLSLrM

Thanks, Pearl! That is a great example of a Law Enforcement guy - a public servant - who understands what his job is!
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[mister_coffee]

The shooter's own video has been leaked.
https://www.politicususa.com/p/leaked-i ... irect=true

There are some issues with that video. Most importantly the fact that only one shot can be heard on it while all others you can clearly hear three shots. Some are saying parts of the video have been edited.

[Rideback]

The shooter's own video has been leaked.
https://www.politicususa.com/p/leaked-i ... irect=true

[PAL]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvPbWcLSLrM

[mister_coffee]

From a legal standpoint ICE has very limited jurisdiction over US Citizens.

I'd argue that Job One for local law enforcement is to protect the first amendment rights of peaceful and orderly protesters. And at the same time keep them physically safe from harm.

[PAL]

They are spending more time attacking protesters, than going after the criminal immigrants. Shouldn't the local police try to control protesters and not ICE?

[Rideback]

Judge J. Michael Luttig Substack

"“The lesson didn’t end with Good’s killing — the administration had to smear her afterward. As The New York Times reported, bystander footage filmed from several different angles shows that the agent who shot Good wasn’t in the path of her S.U.V. when he fired on her. That did not stop Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem from accusing Good of trying to run agents over in “an act of domestic terrorism.” Vice President JD Vance called her a “deranged leftist.”

In the imagination of some on the right, Good quickly came to stand in for all the grating Resistance moms they’d like to see crushed. Fox News sneered that Good was a “self-proclaimed poet” — she’s the winner of a prestigious poetry award — “with pronouns in her bio.” The conservative radio host Erick Erickson described her as an “AWFUL,” or “Affluent White Female Urban Liberal.”

It’s entirely possible that had Good lived, the Trump administration might have tried to prosecute her. That’s essentially what happened to Marimar Martinez, a U.S. citizen in Chicago, in October. Martinez was in her car trying to warn people about ICE when she collided with a Border Patrol vehicle. Federal officials claimed she “rammed” a car driven by the agent Charles Exum, while her lawyers say he sideswiped her. Exum then got out of his car and shot her five times.

Martinez survived, only for the Justice Department to charge her with assaulting a federal officer. Her lawyers soon discovered that Exum had been boasting about the shooting in text messages. In one, he wrote, “I fired 5 rounds, and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys.” In another, he said, “Sweet. My fifteen mins of fame. Lmao.” The Justice Department ended up dropping the case before even more messages could be revealed.

Exum’s giddy sadism shouldn’t have been surprising; it reflects the culture the administration is encouraging among its immigration enforcers. In one ICE recruiting ad, an agent mans a mounted gun atop some sort of militarized vehicle, with the words, “Destroy the flood.” It was a reference to the video game Halo, where players must kill a flood of hostile space aliens. Another shows sword-wielding knights with the words, “The enemies are at the gates.”

Homeland Security’s social media feed is an unending stream of demented propaganda and bellicose Christian nationalism. An image posted on New Year’s Eve shows a classic car on an idyllic beach with the slogan, “America after 100 million deportations.” Homeland Security has added the words, “The peace of a nation no longer besieged by the third world.” One hundred million, it’s important to note, is almost twice America’s entire immigrant population. They are telegraphing the creation of a far-reaching police state.

In such a system, the relationship between every citizen and their government is transformed by the constant demand for submission. Since Good’s death, Republicans have been lining up to threaten those who don’t immediately comply with ICE’s orders. “The bottom line is this: When a federal officer gives you instructions, you abide by them and then you get to keep your life,” Representative Wesley Hunt of Texas said on Newsmax.

All of us, citizens and immigrants alike, are being ruled by people who think life is a privilege bestowed by authority, and death is a fair penalty for disobedience.”

[Rideback]

The videos capture the shooter walking away from the vehicle, he wasn't hit. He was harmed in June when he got his arm stuck in a car when it pulled away to flee.

[mister_coffee]

[mister_coffee]

Bullets went into the vehicle from someone shooting from the side of the vehicle (a Honda Pilot going about 6mph) so there can't be a serious argument that anyone was in danger of being run over.

So any argument about an officer's life being in danger from a Honda Pilot going 6mph are just crap.

This whole action went against both federal policy about suspects in fleeing vehicles and what you do about them and officer training.

[Rideback]

"Here are some things happening in Minneapolis which you won't read about in the news:
- churches, schools, and legions of volunteers are funding and organizing drives to purchase and deliver food to immigrant families too fearful to leave their homes.
- volunteers are posting at schools to watch for ICE especially when kids are released.
- because Minneapolis schools are closed today and tomorrow out of fear for the safety of students and staff, neighbors are offering free day care, snacks, games and supplies to assist families.
- immigrant businesses are keeping their doors locked and only admitting people on an individual basis, but people are patronizing these businesses to support them. Businesses closed yesterday out of respect for the killing of Renee Good.
- neighbors are distributing free alert whistles and literature to one another in case of ICE sightings.
- thousands of people are taking "upstander" trainings to better support people attacked by ICE.
- nonprofits are mobilizing to protect communities, and donors are stepping up to invest in these efforts.
- we are checking in on one another.
Minnesotans are not rolling over in fear. We are acting from a place of being caring, protective, and just humans. We are doing what we can to forge on despite this attack on our community. This is what fighting for right looks like." NC

[Rideback]

6-7

[dorankj]

Ashley Babbit DIDN'T have a weapon mor*n! A 4000# vehicle is.

[Rideback]

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/19fQwLxf61/ She was a mother not a terrorist threat

[mister_coffee]

Two additional shootings in Portland, OR this afternoon...

[Rideback]

[mister_coffee]

Please explain to me why killing Ashley Babbit was wrong and killing Renee Nicole Good was okay? I suspect it takes years of indoctrination and brainwashing to come to that conclusion.

[Rideback]

6-7

[dorankj]

Ashley Babbit, oh that's right wrong politics! Despicable hypocrites.

[Rideback]

[mister_coffee]

I kind of hope the do try to declare Martial Law and invoke the Insurrection Act. Largely because it would be a total joke and a sh**show and demonstrate the utter futility of ruling America by force.

There are too many streets and not enough tanks.

The least stupid way to go about it would be to show overwhelming force in a select few locations along with a lot of very effective PR. The problem with that is whereever they were would end up more or less sullenly peaceful while anyplace they weren't would be burnt to the ground. And they quickly would be forced into a 100 percent reactive mode and would cede the initiative to the opposition.

[EDMD]

If Trump goes nuclear and invokes the insurrection act then he loses his leverage. Suppose we had "martial law" Who is going to obey any federal officer? At that point it will be a matter of if and when army officers tell soldiers to disobey "illegal" orders. Are soldiers going to start shooting their civilian neighbors? Or is Trump going to find himself powerless at that point? It looks more and more like that's where we're going.

[mister_coffee]

ICE officers are also instructed that firing at a vehicle will not make it stop moving in the direction of the officer.

My head just exploded.